Another White Dash: Where I Trace My Bloodline

I wasn't able to upload any content last night, so there will be two entries today. I published yesterdays a few minutes ago.

Today was a great day! But let's go back a bit to last night. I got in to Breaks Interstate Park a bit late due to running all over the back roads of Virginia and Kentucky looking for Abraham Potter and George Washington Potter's grave markers, neither of which could I find. The G.W. Potter one really had me bummed out.

It started raining around 4AM and I had to get up and throw the rain fly over the tent. Just a drizzle really so it wasn't any big deal, all my equipment was in the tent with me so it didn't affect this mornings prep.

Leaving the park I took a moment to head out to the Stateline Overlook and take in the Grand Canyon of the South.

View from the Stateline Overlook at Breaks Interstate Park

The low area behind me is known as Potter's Flats.

So last night, I did a little more internet sleuth work and thought I may have stumbled on a lead for another burial site for G. W. Potter. I would be heading past the location, somewhat, on my way out of Elkhorn City so it seemed worth a shot.

What it would mean though was a two mile hike in to the forest on an old logging trail. So outside of Elkhorn I located a road, it was more like a paved sidewalk called the Right Fork of Beaver Creek Rd. which dead ended at a dirt path. I found three ladies sitting on the front porch of the last house on the road and asked if there was a cemetery up that dirt trail. Their reply, "Yep, the ol' Potter cemetery", Watson, I think we are on to something. They allowed me to park in their driveway and in to the woods I went.

Trail to Potter Cemetery

My first view of Potter Cemetery

It took about 20 minutes to hike the trail, and then a clearing appeared to my left and low and behold, there it was. A perfectly manicured and fenced in little cemetery in the middle of nowhere. I walked up and let myself through the gate and found roughly 30 markers, several that were not Potters and a handful marked unknown. But then one marker stood out, the one with the old Kentucky flag and CSA Cross in front of it. It was the stone for my Great great grandfather...George Washington Potter.

George Washington Potter, 1823-1925

G. W. P. and the Confederate Cross

A 20 minute hike back out of the woods in 90 degree weather and I was on the mount and back off to Elkhorn City and the the old city cemetery. The Elkhorn City Cemetery is on a steep, and I mean steep hill overlooking the town and people have been laid to rest there for what must be centuries.

Elkhorn City Cemetery, all of the near grave markers are Potter's

I located a couple of G. W.'s brothers, Andrew and Henry.

A picture of Andrew

Potter (left)

And while it was great to locate those markers, the reason I was here was to find the resting place of Richard Potter's wife, Mary "Tennie" Ramey Potter.

Mary "Teenie" Ramey Potter

Now, this part is a stretch, but it is fun. Remember that singer, Patty Loveless, whom I used a line from one of her songs to title this trip? Well she was from Elkhorn City and her real name is Ramey!!!

So...whatever, I'm going to say I'm related to Patty Loveless. Oh and, they named the main drag through town after her.

Patty Loveless Drive.

I headed northwest out of Elkhorn City on my way to Geenup, KY. This would put me on Kentucky's Route 23. The road thought by the miners and farmers would take them to a better life up north where there were jobs aplenty and less chance of dying a mile below the surface. I would imagine that's how the rest of my family, from my Great Grandfather, also Richard and my Grandfather Virgil would end up leaving Greenup and finding jobs in the auto plants in Ohio. But on my way to Greenup, I had to make one more stop, in a little out of the way place just outside of Van Lear, where I found the cabin, on the hill in Butcher Holler.