Deliverance Farm Cabin Antiques

Log Cabin Heritage at  Deliverance Farm

 This article originally appeared on our webpage at deliverancefarm.com.  Because of illness and unstable posts this is duplicated from my web page.  I will continue to maintain this blog as long as my health allows.uue to maintain the Eastern Kentucky Genealogy Blog as long as my health will allow.      The  
Restoration on the old farm house at "Deliverance Farm" Boyd County, Kentucky began in 1998.  We utilized PermaChink - a grit based silicon mixture that adjusts to shifts in temperature and log expansion and shrinkage.    We have also treated all the logs for "critters," gone over the stain and sealed the logs.

The front room is traditional square log dating to about 1867.  Originally part of the old Howe farm, the Klaiber's purchased this portion of the farm from the Jordan's in 1944.  [See  annotated title search below]

The room is complete with fireplace and hardwood floors.  Memories of Christmas trees, parlor chats, and candy pulling fill the air.  While the front porch is not original it comes complete with two swings - and we invite our friends to visit and sit a spell.    Renovation discoveries have included an unknown window tucked beside the fireplace and initials H and H  W carved   on the left side of porch.  Additionally the name JEB is carved just to the left of the entrance door.  Chinking varied from the original mud and horse hair packed mixture to the 1930's popular "repair" chinking of  cement.

The house was heated with a coal stove, in the added middle section, from at least 1932 until 1971.  It was covered with redwood siding and trim which helped protect the home from varmits.  In 1971 the house was remodeled and aluminum sided. Typical of most early farm homes, the structure was added on as needed.  The 1932 newspapers used as a barrier between log and newer structure and as "padding" for wall paper give clues to the addition of the middle portion between log structure and kitchen and cellar.  This is a good indication that originally there was a dog trot to the cellar area.

                            A Little Bit of History

On the 3rd day of  September 1866 W. P. Hood  and Matilda   his wife sold, their son-in-law, James W. Howe and Sarah his wife,   in consideration of $1.00, a tract of  land described as laying on Salmons fork of Garner, being a part of the survey of Richard Graham, deceased [Boyd County dbk   3:274]. This is one of several tracts now a part of Deliverance Farm, owned by James and Teresa Martin Klaiber.  William P. Hood was the son of  Thomas and Sarah Hood, early settlers of what was then Greenup County, Kentucky.   He was born 2 March 1805 and died 14 August 1874.  He married 13 December 1831 Matilda Howe born 3 December 1805 died 20 March 1887, buried in Klaiber Cemetery. William P., according to historian Evelyn Jackson also had a son named   Price by one of his slaves.

As the Civil War  came to a close,  James W. Howe and Sarah E. Hood Howe [born about 1839]   sold Phillip H. Howe,  December 18, 1867 this portion of the property [Boyd County dbk 7:123] and  we surmise  it was Phillip and his family that first lived in this cabin.  The 1870 Federal Census shows Phillip age 24, Sarah 56 [his mother], Martha K. 32, Sarah 21, George W. 19, Matilda 17 and a Wesley  Bellding 18 being enumerated on East Fork.  His mother Sarah [nee Fannin married George W. Howe  20 Oct 1836 in Lawrence County] died in 1874 and is also in Klaiber Cemetery.

On  19 December 1879 Allen Prichard purchased the property  with the deed giving the description as between Long Branch and Sammons Fork [Boyd County dbk 9:54].   In 1893 he deeded the property to his daughter Hellen S. Finley.  The property stayed in the Prichard family until August 1909 when S. H. and S.D. Finley sold the land to Jasper Sexton [Boyd County debk 57 page 417].
Jasper Newton Sexton [born 15 January 1869 died 10 November 1967] was the son of Henry Powell Sexton and Julina McCormack Sexton.  He married Miriam Robert Lambert 20 January 1898 in Boyd County.  They with their tiny son Royal Norman born 30 November 1899 moved into the cabin.  Through the years the following children were also born while living there:  Willa B. 10 December 1902, Everet born 8 June 1904, Thomas Edgar born 28 June, Sophia Mae born 9 March 1910, Harold Lee born 18 December, Maymie Lynd born February 1917, Wirt Elam born 18 July 1918 and a stillborn infant in February of 1916.   On January 22, 1920 Jasper sold the property and home to J.A. Hazlett [Boyd County dbk 77:604].

John Allen Hazlett was born 24 April 1892 and died 9 December 1959.  He married Eula D. Bolt born 20 November 1895, the daughter of Kent and Bertha Mae Pope Bolt.   J.A. and Eula owned the property for 5 years selling to T.P. Jordan and wife Elizabeth on 29 August 1925.  At the time of the sale the description referred to the ridge between Long Branch and Solomon Fork.  Thus there is a question about the proper name of the fork - Salmon, Sammons, Solomon [Boyd County deed book 106:90].

Thomas P. Jordan born abt. 1870 was the son of Absolom Jordan [s/o Pleasant] who married Julia Ann Coburn .  Julia was the daughter of  Thomas Coburn and wife Julina nee. Brumfield  Julia's grandparents were Micajah Brumfield and Eleanor Clay Brumfield.  Elizabeth Jordan died 18 January 1940 and Thomas remarried.  On November 25, 1944  son E.W. Jordan sold the property to John Henry Powell Sexton Klaiber and wife Elsie Rucker Klaiber [Boyd County dbk 192 page 355], adding the tract to additional lands in the family.  John Henry was the great great grandson of Micajah and Eleanor Clay Brumfield and thus had "family ties" to the Jordan's.   John Henry was the son of  James Matthew Klaiber and wife Julina Sexton Klaiber.  Julina was the sister to Jasper Newton Sexton who previously resided in the cabin.    John and Elsie remained on the farm, having remodeled the home, until their deaths.  Elsie loved antiques and referred to the original cabin which was now the front room as her "parlor"  where she played hostess to guests.  Their only son James grew from infancy to adulthood on the farm and now [2015] retains the deed to the property.

In the Fall of 2013 the Klaiber's opened the cabin doors selling country antiques.  Renamed Deliverance Farm Cabin Antiques the "shop" is open each Saturday May - October from 9am til 4.  You are welcome to come browse, pet our donkeys and sit under the wonderful huge maple trees.

Saving Voices Part 4

transcribed by Teresa Martin Klaiber

June 2011

This is part 4 of a transcription of a cassette tape recorded in 1978 on Big Garner, Boyd County, Kentucky.

John Henry Klaiber:  Went up Sandy one time a huntin. Tryin to buy some cattle … talked to him. He said “well you’ll have to eat supper with me.” He said "you wanna drink before we eat?" I said  "It don’t make any difference if I do or I don’t." “By God,” he said “I’ve got it.”  Well I said "Let’s have it."  I had to go with them. Back up in there then you didn’t contrary them. You’d insult them if you didn’t eat with em.  We took two or three swigs of that moonshine and went in to eat. There was a beef head laying on the table and they hadn’t took the eyes out.  I sliced me off a piece and ate it just like they did.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: Yeah, but John tell about the place you went up the road here and saw …spittin clear across the table and you decided to come home. Where was that?

John Henry Klaiber: Up the holler above Cline Stewart’s.  They was makin molasses up there. I was supposed to eat dinner up there.  I don’t know who it was now. He was a Reverend.  I went out and washed and the table was sittin here by the window. I washed outside and started walking around to go in and she spit across the table and out the window. [laughter]  Boy, that bothered me then but it wouldn’t any more. I just come on around went back in the field and went back to work.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: Mrs. Toppin, we would buy butter from her.  She lived down here. Jimmy was pretty good sized…but anyway she had the best butter. And you know somebody was down there one day and they said “well my goodness,” that she chewed tobacco all the time. She wouldn’t let that husband come and open the fridgerator and get him a drink of water. Afraid he would get a little dirt on the fridgerator … I told John about it and he said “oh boy, she’s got good butter, though.”  …[tape damage]…and it was years before we discovered that she would let her daughters, when they went to the high school, stop and get her some chew.  We wondered why the daughter was kinda embarrassed about going to the store. She knew she had to bring that chewin tobacco back to her mother. She was the sweetist thing.

John Henry Klaiber:  Bought some cattle over there at Elkhorn City…and I had to drive them down the road. I started drivin them down and puttin them in the truck and three guys come up the road.  Couldn’t tell, they hadn’t shaved, their beards were long.  This feller walked up and said “Why the hell didn’t you try and buy my cattle?”  I said “Mister I didn’t know.” The guy said “They is as good as them.” I said “No doubt about it Mister.” You had to get along with people. I said “I’ll tell you what I will do I’ll go look at your cattle as quick as I load these. I won’t say I’ll buy em.” He said “You boys go up and get them cattle so we can look at them.” He went back down. Well I guess I walked two miles back there to look at them.  I was by myself.  That was when we lived in Ashland.  I looked at the cattle and he priced them to me. Of course I didn’t have money to pay for em. Oh I gave him so much down on them. Before he would take any money, I had told him “I am goin buy your cattle but it might be a week or longer for I can get back after em.”  He said “Boys, run them cattle in the pasture so the man will know what they look like when he comes back.” I stood there while he moved them cattle around past me … put so much down on them.  Well I got to go back quicker than I thought I would.  It was about one o’clock in the morning when I got up there. I just stopped where I was. It was a long way to the house and I thought I would sleep in the truck til  … someone grabbed me by the arm. So I didn’t know what was going on.  … It was that old man.  He said “Did you think my bed wasn’t good enough to sleep in?”  I said “Hell no, Mister, your bed sounds awfully good, but I didn’t want to disturb you.”  We walked about two miles up that holler and I went to bed in his bed. We had breakfast the next morning. Baked ham and biscuits and stripped gravy.

[Editoral note in background every time John Henry said an off color word Elsie whispered that I needed to erase that. I did not. Tk]

Teresa Martin Klaiber: What is stripped gravy.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: He had to teach me to make stripped gravy [pronounced strip ped gravy].

John Henry Klaiber: Don’t you know what red eyed gravy is?  Ham….grease. Take your ham out and take a little water and milk  and flour. Put that in there and stir it up.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: Lots of grease…  

John Henry Klaiber: Called Red eye or stripped eye either one. …[bad tape]…water just makes red.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: His Aunt Martha [Martha Sexton Reece] could make dumplings and they was so good.

John Henry Klaiber: I would work midnight turns and had a couple of days off. Well I would drive some place and hunt me up a load of cattle.  If you come in around meal time they thought you ought to eat. Just about had too to get along with em.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber:  … to Reeces…right after we  were married and he was surprised they had cars sitting out and no chairs to sit in.  What was it they had?

John Henry Klaiber: They had a big stone. Uh Aunt Martha Reece, her husband’s sister lived up there; was still livin then. I went up there one Sunday. We pulled up and there was two brand new Oldsmobiles sittin in the drive way. And when we went to eat dinner why there was a bench behind the table against the wall and a few kegs to sit on….those big ole automobiles but they didn’t have chairs.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: And he was amazed they didn’t cut the bread.

John Henry Klaiber: They broke it.  … dumped it out on a plate and didn’t even cut it…

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: I guess that was like Biblical times, you break the bread together.

John Henry Klaiber: Said you wasn’t supposed to cut bread you was supposed to break it.  How come you didn’t go along?

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: Clearing throat. We hadn’t announced – we were keeping it a secret. … I was already in the family. I had been in the family for two months before anybody knew it. [John Henry and Elsie Ellis Rucker Klaiber were married 4 August 1939 at London, Laurel County, Kentucky.] 

John Henry Klaiber:  Didn’t tell in case I wanted to get rid of ya. [Chuckles]

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: John said he never had a pair of shoes on til he got married [talking over each other].

John Henry Klaiber: …[garbled]...they just stayed with us see. Have some place to stay. Some of those boys come in from Indiana [Some of the Sexton family migrated to Indiana to work in coal mines.] Nobody wore shoes.  And this old woman went barefooted all the time. When they pulled up down there at the house there was the old woman out in the yard bare foot  …

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: What was that song you used to sing about Aunt Rhody? You used to sing it to Jimmy and all the little boys.

John Henry Klaiber: You sing it then! [Reciting] Go tell Aunt Rhody the old grey goose is dead. The one’s she been savin to make me a feather bed.  [Tape was stopped and conversation picked up later] You see I used to work at Armco and Bill [Prichard] worked at Armco. And they had the old poor house down there and Armco had a club house out of it.  It was gone before you went there…

We used Kerosene lamps here about twice, winter before last [power outage]. It went off along in the night and they quit taking calls they got so many. It was around zero. We fooled around here awhile and cranked up that gas stove in the wash room.  Enough to keep the pipes from freezing. Next morning I got up and called in there.  Had a report on it and they asked where abouts and I said up here on Garner and he said “Which Garner is it?” I said “Big Garner.” Oh he said there would be electric by noon that they were coming thru Louisey [Louisa, KY] with a transformer now. He said don’t open the deep freeze. I said “Freezer, Hell, I want heat!.”

That would have been in 1975 and as I write this we continue to have electric outages on a regular basis in 2011.  Big Garner was the last in the county to have telephone party lines as well.  After we married in 1968 and called home I spoke to everyone up and down the road.  Once I assured them we were ok they would hang up and let us continue our family conversation. 

I do hope you are enjoying these episodes as much as I am transcribing them.  It is a window for my children and grandchildren about the farm and area they have come to know and love as much as we do.  To be continued!

Saving Voices

Saving Voices

Compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber

May 2011

Cassette tapes became the rage in the 1960’s.  In 1966 music cassettes were introduced to those of us "want to be" flower children, hippies and the world at large. 

By 1969 I was working at the University of Kentucky Language Laboratory  with what seemed to be miles of reel to reel, humidity controlled tapes playing to booths for students in many languages.  Some of the reels were converted to cassettes for student use and one of my jobs was transcribing materials.

It became a habit for me to carry a tape recorder when possible when pursuing genealogical and historical data.  Today it is imperative that those old tapes be transferred to new media just like we have moved our 8mm movies from VHS to DVD. Today I carry a digital recorder no bigger than the palm of my hand in my purse.

Because of tinkering with the “new” technology, this past Christmas I presented my daughter-in-law with a voice recording of her husband when he was 3 months old.  Ok, no, he could not talk but I could listen to those coo’s forever. Converted from cassette tape to a digital .wav file I can listen to my "baby" any time I sit here at the computer.  Another treasure is a very short description by my mother [now with Alzheimers] describing my grandmother’s heartbreak at the loss of her Baby Grand Piano in the 1937 flood in Portsmouth, Ohio.  

One tape is the Klaiber family at the Klaiber farm, Long Branch Road, Big Garner, Boyd County, Kentucky the summer of 1978.  The tape has deteriorated in several places but a large percentage has been salvaged and converted to .wav format for future generations. 

The background sounds are as much a joy to this writer as is the history my in-laws were sharing.  The background is full of giggles and laughs of my then seven, five and three year old sons.  We had traveled from New Jersey back “home.” For Kentucky is home no matter where we are.  The boys were growing up in urban New Jersey and we did not want them to miss the experience and love we have of our family and Kentucky.

Today, I sit writing in a newer house, looking out at the old house where this tape was recorded and feeling the presence of those wonderful people who are laid to rest on this land that they loved.  How wonderful to hear their voices yet again. 

I have taken the liberty of transcribing, extracting and annotating entries for my readers that I think are a window into life in my part of Eastern Kentucky.  My comments are in brackets.

John Henry Powell Sexton Klaiber: …If I was out there plowing and break a plow he [JH’s father James Mathew Klaiber, a blacksmith] never said nothing about it, went to the shop and fixed it. For I’ve seen him break a few of them.  See back then you had stumps in the field. The first thing you know, why, you’d hang your plow on that stump and before you could stop your team you would have it broke. I’d rather go right out there and work a team as a tractor in the field.

Teresa Martin Klaiber: Why? Does it do a better job?

John Henry Klaiber: Well you don’t get as much done but you get the pleasure of following em. You can plow the ground with a team and you can see what you is turning over and walk along behind them there and more work. Course you can’t get nothing done anymore. When you get out there and plow with a tractor all you see is the front of you; you don’t see nothing your turning up.  That’s why they don’t find, people farming, don’t find any arrow heads or things like that anymore. Get up there on a tractor you not going to see them.

Teresa Martin Klaiber: You had a whole collection of arrow heads once didn’t you?

John Henry Klaiber: I guess the last one found around here you [talking to son James David Klaiber] found it over there one day was in pretty good shape.

James David Klaiber: Where is it at now?

John Henry Klaiber: I don’t know. I think you had it last time I seen it.

Teresa Martin Klaiber: I don’t think Ian [John Ian Klaiber, grandson of John Henry Klaiber] has ever seen one. Daddy [John Geer Martin, DVM] used to come home with them when he would make a call once in awhile.

John Henry Klaiber [as family looks in hutch]. Rattle snake rattlers in there…

John Henry Klaiber: …Get up Bolts Fork… There at Bill Queen’s.  You went in there to Slick Rock School House. Down in the creek and on up the creek bed until you got up to where Elmer Bowling lived. I went along in the truck that way. 

Teresa Martin Klaiber: Up the creek?  …You mean they would follow the creek all the way up from the Mouth of Garner all the way in here before there was a road?

John Henry Klaiber: I guess so. That is what dad said when he came in here. I don’t know if it was from the mouth of Garner or the mouth of Jack or what.

Teresa Martin Klaiber: But there was no road up here?

John Henry Klaiber: Well right up here in front of Mead’s you went down in the creek there and over around that old Beech Tree.  You know where that old Beech Tree is there. Come around the creek and out in front of Cline’s [Stewart] house and up in the creek behind Bill Bradley’s trailer, there, and on up and come out of the creek above Ray Tolliver’s and then around the hill.  

You know where the old house [Sexton] was over here at the Boys Farm, the one that is burnt down. You come around the hill there. Of course when you come off the main road you went down the bank and down into the creek and come around and up the creek a piece and come out in that bottom. You would come up to the old house and went straight down and across the bottom and back in the creek and from there on up the hollow… Earl’s [Sexton] dad [William Vincent Sexton], his old wagon tires in dry weather would get loose from the rim. They’d take and put them in water and soak them up. He put his wagon wheels over there in the creek ... one day, and Carl Ross down here started to take the girls home one night in the buggy and went down there and his horse got tangled up. Carl told me about that about half a dozen times. Imagine a horse stepping in wagon wheels down there in the creek…

Terri, I guess I was in the sixth grade [about 1922] I walked off the hill here and worked for an old man all summer. Hoed corn, pitched hay. Well it wasn’t exactly all summer but off and on. And he gave me fifty cents a day and I had to have a lantern to get over there and I had to have a lantern to get back.  Dark when I went over and dark when I came back.  When school started I told him I wouldn’t be back. Said I’d go up to the house to be paid. Well we started up through the barn yard and he had a pair of yearling calves that he had broke to work. He said I’ll give you them calves and square off with you. I said I’ll have to have a yoke. He said I’ll let you have the yoke to take them home with. And I said no, when the yoke goes over there it’s not coming back. It’s mine when I leave here with it.  He said “I can’t let you have my yoke.” Why I said give me the money. I knew he wouldn’t turn loose of the money.  He gave me the calves and the yoke.

Teresa Martin Klaiber: Is that the yoke that is out in the shed?

John Henry Klaiber: uhah [no]. I don’t know I brought them home.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: His daddy made that one in the shed.

John Henry Klaiber:  Come home from school one day and dad gave me a fifty dollar bill. He had sold my calves.  That is what I got for a summer’s work.

Teresa Martin Klaiber: That’s not bad.

Elsie Rucker Klaiber: Thought he was rich.

John Henry Klaiber: That fifty dollar bill looked like it was bigger than that wall. And then I never seen a fifty dollar bill again til I was working at the store. I delivered a bunch of stuff over here to Millard Prichard. Well he was the one that bought my calves. Millard was. And he came out there and paid me for the order. He gave me a fifty dollar bill.  He said “Here I am going to give you another one.” [JH chuckling.]…I’ve never seen one since that one. See you didn’t see big money then and pretty much of any kind.  But this old man over there he wouldn’t spend a dime. He kept every dime he got ahold of. He had a big ole yarn sock and had it half full of dimes…If anything was ten cents he would give them two nickels or a quarter. He wouldn’t spend a dime. He kept them dimes.

Teresa Martin Klaiber:  Well the yoke out in the barn, your daddy made that Elsie said? Will it rot out there?

John Henry Klaiber: No. It really ought to have been painted.  It’s still over there. Ain’t got no bow.

Teresa Martin Klaiber: What do you mean it ought to be painted? Treated some way so it won’t rot?

John Henry Klaiber: Well keep it some better. But it is sun cracked. It’s made out of small timber.

 With rattle snake rattles tucked in the hutch, yokes safely hung and protected  and voices of long ago children giggling and making their own memories of their grandparents, the warmth of  voices past envelopes me. Please join me again for Part 2 of Saving Voices in my next post.  In future posts you will find out about leather britches, kraut and German lessons.  Until then think about saving the voices in your life.