12 Oct 1922 – Randolph Enterprise [Kerns, Raines, Roy]

History of the Early Settlers
Of Dry Fork, Rich Mountain and Shavers Mountain By E.C. Wyatt, Randolph Enterprise, Elkins, WV, 1922-1923

George Kerns lives at Job and farms and works at public works. His sons are William, Robert, Jeremiah, Dixon, Akum, Omar and Cody and perhaps some smaller ones as I haven’t met him for eight or nine years. He went blind in one eye about nine years ago.

James Kerns moved to Middle Mountain about ten or eleven years ago or perhaps twelve years ago. His sons are Eli and Doane.

Eli died about five years ago and Doane died over seas during the World War.

We now take up the Raines family of the early ones we have Tobias, Reuben, William and Gabriel, they all lived on the Allegheny Mountains, and of the later ones we have Amby, Gabriel, James, French, Lake and Cletis.

I do not know what the names of the children of Reuben, William and Gabriel were but I have learned that Tobias had four daughters, but don’t know for sure if he had any sons or not.

The daughters of Tobias married Thomas White of Allegheny and Thomas Soldier White, John Wyatt, first settler of Middle Mountain, and Thomas Summerfield.
I have been informed that these men settled on Allegheny about 1790 and were soldiers in the Revolutionary War.

Amby Raines was a farmer and moved down on Flanagan Hill where he died about twelve years ago.

James Raines lives along Cheat River not far from the C. & I. tunnel and owns two tracts of land, both together contain about 112 acres. After his father died he made his home with Soldier White and worked for him for four dollars a month. He has been a very hard working man and is now 78 years of age and has very poor health and has been bedfast for about a year.

French Raines is his son, he has moved to Harpertown. Lake is also his son.
We also have in mind Howard and Kennie Raines.

The Raines are of Irish descent. They are lumbermen, are very stout men and hard workers and Gabriel Raines is a lumberman too, we know him as “Gabe”.

We now come to the Roy family of which Joseph Roy was the first. He was a soldier of the Revolution and was in several battles. He was in the battle of Yorktown and witnessed the surrender of Cornwallis. Then at the close of the war he and John Wolford, Thomas Summerfield, Edmund Wyatt and the Raines family wanted more elbow room, so they started for the Dry Fork and built a camp on the east side of the Alleghenies and began to explore the land and get the best site for a home in the wilderness, but before they were there many days a band of Indians came to the top of the mountain overlooking their camp and gave the war whoop and these men not being well fortified, nor knowing the number of Indians they fled to the settlements and left everything but their guns and ammunition and the Indians carried away all their possessions. They later returned with the determination to stay and fight it out but were never molested again.

(To be continued) [End of article]

Transcribed by Cathy Thompson