AN EASTERN KENTUCKY PIONEER FAMILY
THE HENRY VANOVER FAMILY
Presentation by William Edwin Gibson at the March 21, 1998
meeting of the Pound, Virginia Historical Society. Copied from the Letcher
Heritage News,
Sept. 2002, V. 16, No. 2.
Cornelius Vanover was born in the 1760's, in Sussex County, New Jersey. He
came south with his father in the 1780's where he married Abby Easterd, a
full-blooded Cherokee in North Carolina. Cornelius Vanover died about 1835 and
his wife died approximately ten years later.
There were seven children born to this union, two girls and
five boys. The 6th child, a son named Daniel Vanover, was born in about 1799
in North Carolina and married Nancy Collins, a woman 2 years older than
himself.
Daniel Vanover, like most of the people of this period, was a
farmer. Daniel Vanover was the father of Henry Vanover. Daniel Vanover and
Nancy Collins Vanover came to Pike County, Kentucky about 1830 from North
Carolina. They had ten children. As the rule most all pioneer families were
large and usually lived in one large house.
Henry Vanover was the 8th child of Daniel and Nancy Vanover. The exact date of
his birth is unknown, however, it was about 1835. He was born in Pike County,
Kentucky. Henry Vanover served in the Union Army during the Civil War. He was
a private and after the war, the government deeded him nine hundred (900)
acres of land for his service to the Union Army.
The land was approximately two (2) miles down Elkhorn Creek
from the present-day town of Jenkins, Kentucky. This land lay on both sides of
Elkhorn Creek and included the present sites of Burdine, East Jenkins and what
is presently called "Number 3 Hollow".
He purchased additional properties and as long as he lived he
never sold any land. However from time to time he would sell timber such as
large walnut trees from his property and use this income to purchase
additional land.
After the Civil War was over and the government had deeded him land for his
service to the Union Army, he had the vision of becoming a very large land
owner. He owned property in Virginia and Kentucky and while coal had not been
developed at this point in time, Henry Vanover had already acquired some of
the finest mineral and timber land on Elkhorn Creek and in the whole state of
Kentucky. Patrick Hagan, a land lawyer, who had come from Ireland and amassed
large holdings of coal and timber lands in Wise and Scott County, Virginia,
was Henry's model. Henry Vanover named his fifth child after this man from
Ireland - Patrick Hagan Vanover.
However, with the acquisition of more and more land, there
were problems which arose. Ira "Bad Ira" Mullins, a corn whiskey runner, moved
to Elkhorn Creek and settled on some of the land claimed by Henry Vanover.
Henry told Ira he was on his property. That was when Ira Mullins and his wife,
Louranza, started planning to get rid of Henry Vanover.
In the cool of the evening after a hard days work hoeing crops and doing other
farm chores, Henry, like most pioneer men, would lean back in his chair, relax
and enjoy the cool breeze. (They didn't have electric fans and air
conditioning).
A hired assassin came riding down the road, the road being the
creek, shooting at the house where Henry, his wife, and children were
assembled. Henry, like the true pioneer he was, got his gun and returned the
fire. Henry was the better shot this day and the assassin, a man named Roberts
from Ohio, was killed.
Henry Vanover was tried for the killing, but was acquitted. On June 18, 1887,
while hoeing crops in Rocky Hollow with his wife, he was ambushed and killed.
Henry Vanover was buried in the cemetery at Number 3 Hollow near his mother
and father. On October 23, 1986, the remains of Henry Vanover were excavated
by the Polly and Craft Funeral Home of Jenkins, Kentucky, placed in a homemade
oak coffin and reburied in the Vanover Cemetery at East Jenkins, Kentucky. The
oak coffin in which Henry's remains were placed was made by Dixon Calhoun, his
great grandson.
When Henry Vanover was killed on June 18, 1887, his wife was left with a six
and one-half month old baby and eight (8) more children to feed and clothe.
Jane Bentley Vanover could not go down and sign up for food stamps and social
security benefits. She had no formal education and could not write her own
name.
Henry Vanover had acquired a lot of land and everyone was
trying to grab off a little piece. This young widow, the "Widow Vanover"
as she was referred to, at one time had over a hundred (100) lawsuits pending
with people trying to take some of the Henry Vanover property.
Jane Vanover was like a she-bear fighting for its cubs. Jane
Vanover's oldest daughter, Catherine, had caught the eye of Henon Fleming and
Henon and his brother, Calvin Fleming, were visitors at the Vanover house.
In addition to the Fleming boys, Doctor Marshal B. Taylor, "The Red Fox", was
a visitor at the Vanover house. Jane Vanover was a friend of Doctor Taylor and
she was afraid that his enemies would ambush and kill him as they had Henry
Vanover.
Approximately five years after the murder of Henry Vanover, there was another
killing which received much more attention than the murder of Henry Vanover.
Clifton Branham was tried for the murder of Henry Vanover,
however, he always denied the killing even though he spent fifteen years on
jail for it. Clifton said, " I got some money for the killing, but I did not
kill Henry Vanover."
There has been a lot written about the killing rock just below the Pound Gap
in Virginia. There is another rock on the Cumberland Mountain that might have
as interesting or even more interesting story. There has been little said
about the "Pickett Rock" or the "Sentry Rock" on top of Cumberland Mountain on
the southeast side of Pound Gap. This rock has been destroyed by the
construction of a four lane highway through Pound Gap.
This old rock could probably have told many more interesting
tales than the Killing Rock could ever dream about. It could tell of hangings,
shootings, and of John W. "Devil John" Wright stopping people from going
through Pound Gap to the trial of Doctor Marshal B. "Red Fox" Taylor.
Perhaps one of the most interesting stories this old rock could have told
would have been of how a young woman waited that Saturday morning on May 14,
1892. This young woman was waiting holding the horses for her lover, the man
she would later marry. This old rock had seen proof of the old saying "What
goes around comes around". Ira Mullins and Louranza Mullins, his wife, were
unable to escape the wrath of the she-bear protecting her young.
John Wesley "Devil John" Wright, the son of Joel Wright and Elizabeth Agnes
Bates Wright, was born April 17, 1844. He was sometimes referred to as the
"Tall Sycamore of the Elkhorn" and he was the nephew of Martin Van Buren
Bates, "The Kentucky Giant". John Wright was a United States Marshal and was
sometimes called "The Law of the Cumberlands".
John Wright was Jane Vanover's nemesis and by hook or by crook
obtained title to a major part of the Henry Vanoer estate. What was done to
Jane Vanover and her children in the name of justice would make Frank and
Jessie James look like saintly preachers.
"Devil John" Wright was there moving in on land claimed by
Jane Vanover and her children. Jane was told by "Devil John" that "It would be
a shame if some of your children were killed or your house caught fire and
burned down." It seems that his living on her property would prevent this from
happening.
When a bosom buddy of "Devil John's", Talton Hall, would get in trouble with
the law, John would get him to catch a train and go out West, which in those
days meant going out to Memphis, Tennessee or St. Louis, Missouri.
When the law got after Jane Vanover's son-in-law, Henon
Fleming, he and his wife, Catherine, went out West. They did not go down to
the airport and catch the next Pan American or Trans World Airline flight out
to St. Louis, Missouri. They went to Washington State, where they could enjoy
the view of the Pacific Ocean in peace, however, there was no escaping the
long arm of
the law, even in Chehalis County, Washington. "Devil John" Wright, the Law of
the Cumberlands, always got what he went after.
The proof of this can be found in the Letcher County
Courthouse at Whitesburg, Kentucky, on page 307, in Deed Book 37. It states as
follows: "S. H. Fleming and Catherine Fleming, his wife, of the County of
Chehallis and State of Washington convey to John W. Wright of the County of
Letcher and State of Kentucky, one (1) undivided heirs interest in all the
lands own by Henry Vanover at the time of his death, our interest being one
tenth of all said lands situated lying and being on Elkhorn Creek a tributary
of Sandy River, in Letcher County, Kentucky."
John W. Wright's name probably appears on over half the deeds
to property once claimed by Henry Vanover. Jane Bentley Vanover died on
February 14, 1930 and was buried in the Vanover
Cemetery at East Jenkins, Kentucky.
