Combs &c. Families of Lawrence Co., KY

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Louisa PO
p. 546 HH 471/471
Elizabeth COMBS, 68, F, widow/farmer, $200/100, KY, cannot read or write
Mathew, 21, M, farmer hand, KY, attended school
Daniel, 16, M, farmer hand, KY, attended school
Rachael, 14, F, KY, attended school
Franklin, 12, M, KY, attended school
Henry, 9, M, KY

Voting Prect. 2
137
Combs, John W M 45 Farmer KY KY KY
Catherine W F 28 Keeping House KY KY KY
James W M 15 Work on Farm KY KY KY
Wilson W M 12 Work on Farm KY KY KY
Hugh W M 10 KY KY KY
Angeline W M 10 KY KY KY
Patsie W F 9 KY KY KY
Henderson W M 8 KY KY KY
Delila W F 6 KY KY KY
Lydia W F 5 KY KY KY
Ephraim W M 1 KY KY KY

DK Notes: John and his wife Catherine WALTERS were both born in Breathitt Co., Ky according to the birth record for their daughter Delila Combs b 10 March 1876 Lawrence Co., Ky. Could this be John, son of Mason & Matilda WATTS Combs? (Combs Bible Records and 1850 Breathitt Co., KY Census)

184
BURTON, Andrew W M 32 Farmer KY VA VA
Mary W F 27 Wife Keeping House KY VA VA
Franklin W M 9 Son KY KY KY
Araminda W F 7 Daughter KY KY KY
George T W M 5 Son KY KY KY
Alice W F 4 Daughter KY KY KY
Frances W F 2 Daughter KY KY KY
William D W M 3/12 Son KY KY KY
BURTON, Daniel W M 47 Brother Laborer VA VA VA

Note: Andrew J. BURTON and Rachel Mary COMBS? See birth record of daughter Bellcena Frances BURTON in 1878 above.

Voting Prect. 3
141
Combs, James W M 38 Farmer KY KY KY
Sarah W F 43 KY KY KY
Jackson W M 17 KY KY KY
Shade W M 11 KY KY KY
Samuel T W M 1 KY KY KY

Will of John Jackson COMBS Written 3 May 1903 Probated 19 May 1903

Page 232:

ITEM 1: To my beloved wife Martha COMBS $ 150.00, to be paid out of my estate in a way hereafter explained.

ITEM 2: To my daughter Nancy CAMPBELL, wife of Benjamin CAMPBELL, $ 1.00

ITEM 3: To my daughter Louisa CLARK, wife of Frank CLARK, $ 1.00

ITEM 4: To my daughter Patsy COOKSEY, $1.00

ITEM 5: To my daughter Angelin ARINGTON, $1.00

ITEM 6: To my son Hughey COMBS, $ 1.00

ITEM 7: To my daughter Lidia SIZEMORE, $ 1.00

ITEM 8: To my son Ephraim COMBS, $ 1.00

ITEM 9: To my son Stephen COMBS, $ 1.00

ITEM 10: To my daughter Lylie COMBS, $ 1.00

ITEM 11: To my daughte Melissa CHAFFIN, $ 1.00

ITEM 12: To my son Anderson COMBS, $ 1.00

ITEM 13: To my son Grover COMBS one shotgun.

ITEM 14: To my two small sons Andy and John COMBS one cow named Julia between them.

ITEM 15: To my younger boys Hudy COMBS, John COMBS and Logan COMBS, all my house furniture to be equally divided between them and my son Logan in addition to 1/3 of my house furniture is to have the re heifer that I now own.

ITEM 16: To my son Wilse COMBS all of my real estate and personal property that has not been disposed of in the will to my other children, and he is to pay to my wife Martha COMBS and her youngest Cora and James COMBS, one hundred and fifty dollars to be paid in payments of $25.00 per year from date of my death. Son Wilse is also to be appointed executor of estate and is to pay debts and burial expenses.

Goodlaw COMBS 23 W Kentucky
Eunice C 21, wife Kentucky

Samuel J COMBS 31 W Kentucky
Marry E 32 wife Kentucky
Cecil 11 son Kentucky
Noah 10 son Kentucky
Elwood 05 son Kentucky
Ov?? 02 son Kentucky

Sarrah Combs 93 W Kentucky
Secil 23 grandson Kentucky

Wilson Combs 43 W Kentucky
Ellen 41 wife Kentucky
Rosa 20 daughter Kentucky
Curtis 18 son Kentucky
Laura 16 daughter Kentucky
Wesley 12 son Kentucky
Lizzie 11 daughter Kentucky
Victoria 09 daughter Kentucky
Oscar 07 son Kentucky
Hazel 05 daughter Kentucky
John 04 son Kentucky
William MULLINS 32 W laborer Kentucky

Esta COMBS W 18 Ky servant of E. V. COLE

Mary E. COMBS W 51 Ky
Oscar son 17 Ky
Johney son 13 Ky
Jay son 8 Ky
Vanhorn, Hazel dau 15 Ky

Written by Luke Combs:

In most accounts of the family history of an individual the desired completeness, in conjunction with the desire and necessity for brevity, cannot be attained. This has been true in the preparation of the account of John Combs. The writer regrets the necessity of not recording the full names of all the spouses of John's children as well as not listing alll his descendants to this date(1990). Such further information may be obtained from the writer Luke Combs, M.D., of Charlottesville, Virginia or Lewis S. Combs of Huntington, West Virginia. Thanks are greatly deserved by fourth cousin (second cousin once removed) Josiah H. Combs, PhD. for having written The Combses Genealogy, from which most of the information necessary to diagram the family history was obtained. Gratitude is also expressed to first cousin Lewis S. Combs and his wife Virginia for their timely and laborious genealogy research, especially as relates to personal interviews throughout Lawrence, Breathitt and Perry Counties. Finally deep, and truly justifies, appreciation goes to my parents Stephen Franklin Combs and Zettie Allen Combs for the extraordinary sacrifices and efforts they made toward my attaining the education which has aided in the preparation of this account and hopefully will further aid in future efforts at tying together and preserving the history of the Clan of Combs.

John Combs

I have a "bone to pick" with my grandfather John (Jackson?) Combs, my great-grandparents Stephen and Patsy Combs, and a certain Breathitt County census taker of 1850. If we should meet sometime in another time and place I will, after expressing appropriate joy, "pick the bone."In doing so, they will be apprised of the following unintentional but extremely perplexing genealogy roadblock they caused for myself, and Heaven only knows how many more family history researchers. After completing my lineage up to and including my great-great-grandfather Henry (Harrison) Combs, my grandfather John of Lawrence County could not be linked to him since neither of Henry Harrison's sons (potential great-grandfathers) had a son named John listed on the census or other records. A highly experienced and professionally certified (C.G.R.S.) researcher, recommended by the Kentucky Historical Society, was hired. Her dedicated work was to no avail. At this point that lonely feeling, which all persons without a great-grandfather must surely feel, hung as a heavy cloud of frustration!

At this time, just when I had begun to consider a change in surname or adopt a great-grandfather, "Dame Fortune" came to the rescue. Knowledge of genealogy information collected by Lewis S. Combs, also a grandson of John, was stumbled upon. He had the foresight to travel in the Lawrence County area about five to ten years previously and the good fortune to interview people in their nineties, who had been long time neighbors and acquaintances of John. These very old people were already deceased when my search began. Here, at last was the answer which had so long been pursued. John was Jackson? or Jackson was John? or was he John Jackson? For the moment he will be referred to simply as grandfather.The story is continued with the realization that grandfather may be "up,there" (and hopefully not "down there") chuckling as I do so. My great-grandfather Stephen Combs, son of Henry (Harrison), was his father. The 1850 Breathitt County census lists Stephen and Patsy Combs as having a son named Jackson, born in 1836, but no John was listed. Was Jackson a nickname? Certainly Jack is often a nickname for John. Did they not give the correct or full name to the census taker? Did the latter obtain the name from a neighbor or a sibling when the parents were not available? If they had known the confusion and frustration they would cause their great-grandson would they have done so? When the degree of impediment to my genealogy research is considered they could have aptly added Stonewall in front of Jackson!

However, as the story unfold, grandfather appears to have been either capricious or not aware of his correct name! At the time of his first marriage in 1859 to Ava Roberts, he gave his name as Jackson and was so listed on the real estate tax records of Perry County in 1865. During this six year period three children were born. In the course of the following year (1865-1866) a separation occurred in the marriage. Within this same one year period he married his second wife, Catherine Walter, and for the first time gave his name as John. From the time until November, 1889 no further records of Jackson were found. At this latter date a death certificate of his first child Nancy, born to he and Ava (July, 1862) on Troublesome Creek in Perry County, was discovered. Nancy was buried on January 30, 1925 in Noble Cemetery at Hardshell, Kentucky on Troublesome Creek, in Breathitt County. Her husband, Benjamin Campbell, to whom she had been married on October 21, 1880, recorded her father's name as Jack Combs on the death certificate. In his will of 1903, grandfather John had mentioned daughters Nancy, wife of Benjamin Campbell, and Louisa, wife of Frank Clark. These daughters' names in the will was strong presumptive evidence that the Jackson Combs whose recorded history ended in 1865, in Perry County, was the same as grandfather John whose recorded history began, in Breathitt County, in 1866.

At the time of his separation from wife Ave in 1865-1866, the daughters Nancy and Louisa remained with their mother. The son James, who was only an infant at that time, was later listed in the 1870 Breathitt County census as being five years of age and in the household of his grandparents, Stephen and Patsy Combs, who were sixty-five years of age. In the Lawrence County census of 1880 he was listed as being fifteen years of age and in the household of John and Catherine Combs. His grandparents were listed as seventy-five years old and living with their daughter, Nancy Combs Fugate, in the 1880 Breathitt County census. Thus we have further strong presumptive evidence that Jackson Combs and John Combs of Lawrence were one of the same.

James as not named in his father's will of 1903 and therefore presumed to have been dead. Lewis S. Combs interviewed a grand-daughter of John and Catherine. She said her mother, Melissa Combs Chafin, told her that James went to prison at an early age. He had lived with his grandparents since infancy and at some date, between ages five and fifteen years, went to live with his father and stepmother Catherine. It is easy to see how he could have developed an unstable personality. However, a search of Kentucky State Prison records show only one James Combs listed and as being born in 1869 and Eva's James was born in 1865. He was described as white and of both parents born in Kentucky and as being literate.

John's first wife, Ava Roberts, was midwife and delivered many infants in the Clayhole and Troublesome Creek area, according to interviews by Lewis S. Combs, conducted in the area with daughter Nancy Combs Campbell's great-grandchildren. Ava was rumored to have later moved to Missouri. Since no Kentucky records concerning her daughter Louisa, wife of Frank Clark, have been found, it is assumed that she also moved, along with her mother, to that state.

The Perry County census of 1910 lists William "Billy" (Major) Haynes as age eight-eight years and wife Avarilla "Ava" as sixty-eight years old. Also listed in the household was a stepson, Charles Shepherd, age thirty-three years, who was born in Missouri. The stepson's surname suggests that Ava was married to a Shepherd while living in Missouri and that she later married Billy Haynes either before or after returning to Kentucky.

After dismissing the possibility of a fear of bigamy prosecution as the cause for the change i recorded given names, the conclusion is drawn that upon more mature reflection, grandfather gave his correct names. Or should it have been Jackson? or John Jackson? Surely not Jackson John! At least grandfather appears to have been happy with the name John since he used it (and never Jackson again!) for the remainder of his life; even, after twenty years, at the time of his third marriage to Martha Cotton in 1895.

The name John having been established, an account of his second wife, Catherine Walters, while living in Breathitt. Catherine was born in Breathitt, in 1848. She was the daughter of Jane Walters and had sisters Letty, Nancy and Fanny.

John took up land in Lawrence County in 1874. It was located on the present day Rural Route No. 3, a few miles north o Fallsburg, between Big Cat and Little Cat Creeks, and about fifteen miles north of Louisa. A son, William H., was born during the first year of residence in Lawrence and Catherine would have eleven more children for a total of seventeen. Their farm consisted of eighty acres of beautiful orchard, crop, and grazing land. According to Fred Thompson, who at the age of ninety-one was interviewed by Lewis S. Combs. John and Catherine did quite well when compared with standards of that period in time.

Fred said that John's sons were big, tough and very "good looking". This brings to mind a remark by father Stephen Franklin, son of John and Catherine, was heard, by myself, to make on more than on occasion. When referring to the physiognomy of Combses he would, with a look of utmost sincerity, arising from a questionable lack of modesty, a trait common amount or set, say, with a tone of finality, "I've never seen an ugly one." Our modesty is exceeded, and I might say happily, by our ability to laugh at ourselves and even our beloved fathers. Fred said he was afraid of the sons even through they were always nice to him. he also told several stories about John Combs. One of these involved a very lively engagement in fisticuffs between John, John's brother James of Cooksey Fork, and Fred's cousin, Tom and Keene Thompson. Numerous bruises but only one fracture resulted. That as the result of a punch, a lucky one no doubt!, to John's wooden denture.

Catherine died in childbirth with her seventeenth child, Fannie, in 1894. She is buried on the Webb Farm on Big Cat Creek. Unfortunately, Fannie lived only about a week.

John's third marriage was to Martha Cotton. She was the daughter of John and Martha Eldredge Cotton of Lawrence County. They were married in Lawrence County in 1895. John was fifty-nine and Martha was forty years of age. Martha had previously been married to a Perkins and had a daughter, Nancy Perkins, who was seven years old when she was brought into her mother's new household. John and Martha had two children.

John Combs, father of twenty-two children, died in 1903 and was buried on the old Combs farm. Fred Thompson, at the age of ninety-two stated that when his father was sick John Combs came to their home and prayed with him. This was in 1902, and not long afterwards John Combs also died. Fred related that Andy Webb made John's casket and the first one was too short and another had to be made.

Grandfather's will decreed that the farm was to belong to the oldest son, Wilson, upon his payment of a specified sum to the widow Martha. At this time (1990) the major portion is owned and resided on by Wilson's son Jay along with his wife Rose Diamond Combs. Three other children spent their lives in Kentucky. Patsie Combs Cooksey and Angeline Combs Arrington lived on Cooksey Fork, in Lawrence County, and the latter is buried there in the Mart Large Cemetery. Logan, the fourth child to remain in Kentucky was killed while working in the railroad yard at Russell, near Ashland in 1920.

My father, Stephen Franklin Combs was one of ten children who migrated to West Virginia. He along with Grover, John Jr. and Melissa Combs Chafin lived in Logan County. Andrew and Anderson were killed in the coal mines at Kayford in Kanawha County. The second oldest son, Hugh, lived in Matewan, West Virginia. Also his sisters Lydia Combs Sizemore and Delilah Combs Boggs lived there. All three are buried in the cemetery in Buskirk, Kentucky, across the Tug River from Matewan.

Ephraim (nicknamed "Bum") migrated the greatest distance from Lawrence County. He settled in Oregon, reared a family, and died at age eighty-six.

Henderson, who never married, was in the U.S. Army in the Spanish American War and died from Yellow Fever. He was buried in Veterans Cemetery in Tennessee.

Thus far no information has been found concerning William H. who was born in 1874 but not listed in the 1880 or 1890 Lawrence County Census. He apparently died in infancy or early childhood. The two children born to Martha Cotton Combs, John's third wife, also migrated from Kentucky. Cora Combs Lucas, John's youngest daughter and the tenth child to migrated to West Virginia, lived near Charleston. Lewis H., John's youngest son, and the father of Lewis S. Combs, whose genealogy interviews have been cited, migrated to Columbus, Ohio. His mother, martha, was brought there to live with he and his wife. Lewis H. and three male companions were killed near Columbus in an auto-train collision at a rail-crossing very early on a foggy morning. They had just begun a hunting trip for wild game. He was twenty four years old.

In addition to the ability to "poke" fun at themselves, (and the trait of a questionable lack of modesty!), John's immediate progeny was, with rare exception, blessed with and characterized by longevity. Their hardiness was most likely due to their English ancestry and the great amount of work necessary to extract a living from the farm while in their youth.

Hazel W. Combs, 91, formerly of Verona, died Monday, Feb. 8, at Maria Joseph Care Center in Dayton.

Born Jan. 1, 1908, in Louisa, Ky., she was the daughter of Thomas Lee and Nancy Elizabeth (Vance) Wright. She moved to Ohio in 1974. Mrs. Combs was a member of the First Baptist Church in Lewisburg.

She was preceded in death by her husband, John Combs, in 1969; sons, John, Charles and Paul Combs; and a daughter, Ruth Hoffa.

Survivors include a son, Kenneth E. Combs of Verona; two brothers, Reese Wright of Ashland, Ky., and Emmerson Wright of Jacksonville, Fla.; seven grandchildren; 11 great-grandchildren; and two great-great-grandchildren.