RECORD OF BOOMER HUDDLESTON

Daniel Huddleston was born in Bedford County,Virginia, in 1735 I do not know his father's christian name, but think it was John (***correction Henry Jr.***) he had a son John and two nephews who came to Western Virginia with him named John, so they gave them the nicknames of John Paddy, John Boomer and John Valley; the latter settled in Teays Valley, hence the nicknameof his descendants. I have no account John Boomer settled at the branch that bears his name, and the town of Boomer was so named. I learned that all of his children went west except one daughter, who married George P. son of Paddy Huddleston, she and her children are the first to be buried in the Huddleston cemetery above the Craig Baptist Church on the Job Huddleston Hill near Bencar, West Virginia. Then John Boomer sold his farm and followed his children to the west, but the man who bought his farm would not pay for it, so Boomer came back to try to collect but as he was unsuccessful in this, he lived on with strangers near his old home. As the time drew near for him to be gathered to his Fathers, he told his cousin Paddy that as he had to live alone and die among strangers, without a home he wanted to be buried alone in what was then the edge of the woods on his old'home, but Daniel Nihoof always kept sight of his grave and it is now in the corner. of a lot in the town of Boomer. Elizabeth Tamplin can show where it is.

Daniel Nihoof asked me at the last Reunion he attended to urge the Huddleston Union and the town of Boomer to put a marker to his (Boomer's) grave, but Brother Nihoof has gone to his Heavenly Home April 1916, and his place must be filled--"Now on whom did his mantle fall."

This is all I know of John Boomer Huddleston.
"So will this Union look back where growth began
and sing with me for an honest man."

RECORD OF BETSY HUDDLESTON

Betsy Huddleston married John Jenkins in Bedford County, Virginia. To this union was born Isaac Jenkins, Nancy Marrs, Priscilla Nugent, Mrs. Arthur, Mrs. Wilson, Uriah, Williams and some others. John Jenkins came to this part of the State when Indians infested the country. They lived in a fort somewhere between Cabin Creek and Charleston, sometime near 1793 four or five. When Isaac Jenkins was about fourteen years of age he used to guard the fort with the women while the men went out to hunt. About 1800, they, with some otber families, moved up Cabin Creek and built some cabins, from which came the name of Cabin Creek. It being the first creek along Kanawah River to the settled. About that time, Isaac Jenkins, eldest son of Betsy Huddleston and John Jenkins, was to be married. As they were preparing for them a marriage feast, the men all went out hunting for their winter meat and wild turkey for the wedding feast. Betsy Jenkins was preparing to make a bed-tick of fine linen for the bride-to-be, but her flax was damp and as she was in a hurry, she put the flax up over the fire to dry. to make it spin fine. But alas, the flax caught fire and burned the house down. However, Betsy was much braver than some of her granddaughters I have known--she turned the sheep out of the sheep-house put her children in there, built a fire in the lot and took her rifle and guarded the sheep from the wolves (which were bad in those days) until the men came home. Lyle Burdette, of Duffy Street, Charleston, has that rifle now, he being a grandson of Betsy's, six times removed. That was not enough to hinder a wedding in those days, so Isaac Jenkins married Nancy Martin, daughter of John Martin, who was a brother of Daniel Huddleston's wife.

To Nancy Martin and Isaac Jenkins were born three children, one died in infancy, one daughter Rachel, died in 1825. She was the first to be buried in the cemetery on the hill overlooking Deepwater depot. The cemetery is named for ber. Their eldest daughter married Carey Tinsley Boatwright in 1825. To this union was born two daughters, the youngest, Nancy, died in 1889, aged six months, the eldest, minerva Frances, married Francis Asbury Settle, third son of Nancy Pinell and Abner Settle. To this union were born seven children, three sons and four daughters. They were Virginia M., Sarah F, Susan M. and Clarissa B. (there is where I came in). Isaac Jenkins, Charles H. of Florida, Joseph Boatwright (youngest) died October 14, 1898, aged 31 years. John Jenkins and his wife are buried in Wilson cemetery on east side of Cotton Hill near Beckwith, West Virginia, and some of their children are there. Their eldest son, Isaac Jenkins and his wife and their two daughters, Marguerite Boatwright and Rachel Jenkins are buried at Deepwater, WestVirginia.