[The descendants of Samuel and James Guinn]

[48] The descen­dants of Samuel Guinn are many and are scat­tered over parts of this state and over sev­er­al of the West­ern states. They have always been regard­ed as peo­ple of strict integri­ty, upright and hon­est. Some of those who moved West, it is report­ed, accu­mu­lat­ed large prop­er­ty, while many of those remain­ing can boast of a com­pe­ten­cy and a sur­plus. Two of his grand­sons, Andrew and Samuel, are now liv­ing at Low­ell on almost the iden­ti­cal spot where their grand­fa­ther locat­ed one hun­dred and twen­ty-five years ago. Andrew is one of the largest landown­ers in Sum­mers coun­ty. We will have occa­sion to again refer to this branch of the Guinn fam­i­ly dur­ing the fur­ther progress of these pages.

We will now note briefly some account of the descen­dants of James Guinn, the broth­er of Samuel, and who locat­ed here at the same time. The first cab­in of James Guinn, accord­ing to tra­di­tion, was locat­ed one and a half or two miles up Keller’s Creek from Low­ell at which is now known as the Laban Guinn place. Our Infor­ma­tion is [49] that he had four sons, Robert, James, Joseph and Samuel and pos­si­bly there were daugh­ters also of which we have no account. He died many years before his broth­er, Samuel. The writer remem­bers to have seen the house in which he lived and the door was con­struct­ed with some kind of heavy bolt fas­ten­ings so that it could not be bro­ken into by the Indi­ans. His son, James, was appoint­ed Ensign at the first court held in Mon­roe coun­ty. Joseph set­tled about a mile far­ther up Keller’s Creek, on what was after­wards the Red Sul­phur Turn­pike, and brought up a large fam­i­ly, among whom were John, Sylvester, James, Augus­tus and Joseph.

The daugh­ters were: Nan­cy, who mar­ried John Mead­ows; Balis­sens, who mar­ried Robert S. Huff­man; Pauline, who mar­ried a Mr. Jar­rett; Pat­sy, who mar­ried James Gra­ham, son of Wm. Gra­ham; and Miri­am, who mar­ried J. W. P. Stevens. We might here add that Mr. Stevens was a very not­ed man, being, as was called in the vocab­u­lary of his day, a “school­mas­ter”. He [50] was called upon far and near to exe­cute legal writ­ings, such as wills, deeds, bonds, con­tracts and, per­haps did more of such writ­ing than any oth­er man of his local­i­ty. His hand­writ­ing, much of which is still extant, was per­fect, and looked more like the cut of a type, rather than the work of hand. He it was who was called upon to count out the $12,000 of sil­ver belong­ing to Samuel Guinn, Sr., and to see that each son got his share there­of. Three of his chil­dren, John and Joseph of Green­bri­er coun­ty, and Mrs. George Alder­son of Alder­son, Mon­roe coun­ty, are still liv­ing.

Robert, son of James Guinn, Sr., set­tled near what is now the Riverview Church and had sev­er­al chil­dren, among whom were James, Thomp­son Salathiel, Bet­sy and per­haps oth­ers. Robert was an elder in the Pres­by­ter­ian church.

After his death, his son, James, lived upon the old farm and died there at an advanced age about the year 1884. Sev­er­al of James Guinn’s chil­dren are nox4 liv­ing, among whom are Addi­son R. [51] of Wolf Creek, Mon­roe coun­ty; Oliv­er, William and Edwin S., of the vicin­i­ty of Low­ell. Thomas Guinn moved to Roane coun­ty sev­er­al years ago and Salathiel set­tled on Horse Shoe Creek in Fayette coun­ty about the year 1835, and his descen­dants are still to be found in that local­i­ty.

Samuel, son of James Guinn, Sr., mar­ried Mag­da­lene John­son and to dis­tin­guish him from his uncle and his uncle’s son of the same name, he was known as “Maglen” Sam. He set­tled on what is known as the James Boyd farm on Green­bri­er riv­er about five miles from its mouth. He moved to the west near the year 1830.

Con­rad Keller, one of the ear­ly set­tlers of the Low­ell set­tle­ment and of whom pre­vi­ous men­tion has been made, had four sons and four daugh­ters, name­ly: Philip, John, Hen­ry and David; Eliz­a­beth, who mar­ried James Far­rill, who lived in the Big Bend of Green­bri­er riv­er; Rachel, who mar­ried Ephri­am Guinn, youngest son of Samuel Guinn, Sr., and who died at her [52] home on Lick Creek on the 8th day of May, 1889, in her 86th year. Two oth­er daugh­ters, whose names can­not now be recalled, mar­ried two broth­ers by the name of Hang­er. Of these the writer remem­bers to have seen Philip, David, Eliz­a­beth and Rachel. Philip moved to Indi­ana about the year 1840. Two of his sons, David, Jr., and Madi­son, mar­ried two sis­ters, daugh­ters of Enos Ellis, who lived at the mouth of Griffith’s Creek on the Green­bri­er Riv­er and moved to Indi­ana with their father. David Keller, Sr., lived and died near Low­ell on a part of his father’s farm. His chil­dren were Hen­ry, who now lives on a por­tion of the old home­stead, and Eliza, who mar­ried Andrew Guinn of Low­ell. Eliza died but a few years ago. Hen­ry, the father of George Keller, who now lives at the old Keller home­stead, on a beau­ti­ful ele­va­tion over­look­ing the vil­lage of Low­ell, died about sev­en­ty-two years ago, hav­ing dropped dead in the har­vest field while cradling wheat. Mr. George Keller, who is now near­ing his eight­i­eth year, but re- [53] cent­ly informed the writer that he was so small that he can but dim­ly remem­ber the event of his father’s death.

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