THE FLAVIUS J. ASHBURN STORY
(In his own words) – Part 4
Last week I shared excerpts of an article Dr. Alton Childers published on Flavius Joseph Ashburn’s diary in 1993 Part 3. This week, I am submitting a continuation of Flavius Josephus Ashburn’s diary in Part 4.
Dr. Childers notes that at this point, he decided to leave out some of the entries that only described the weather. He continued to include entries that described his way of life as well as others who lived in the county.
Flavius Ashburn continues to write:
“Sunday evening July 10, 1859: Last Monday I went to the black-smith shop, helped Nancy transplant cabbage and plowed a piece of tobacco ground. On Tuesday I went to mill & to the carding machines. In the evening Nancy & I made tobacco hills. On Wed. I plowed corn & on Thurs. Nancy & I transplanted tobacco. Fri. I plowed corn & worked at making rails to fence my tobacco.
And today Nancy & I have been reading, singing & resting ourselves. I had expected to go to Baptist meeting on Buckeye at the Victory Church today, a distance of about nine miles. But owing to my having laboured about 17 hours each day last week, I found myself so fatigued that I was obliged to stay home & rest.
July 18. Last evening Amaziah extracted a tooth for me which broke the jaw bone and tore the flesh badly. Today Amaziah & his family went a blackberry hunting & I stayed at home & red in the Bible & old newspapers.
July 20. Nancy & I went to Salem & stayed all night at Grandfather Randolphs. William F. Randolph returned with us & the rest of the week he & I worked at dressing stone to finish my chimney.
October 2nd. My regular work for the last four weeks has been dressing stone & building my chimney. I still have two or three rounds to go.
Oct. 19, 20, & 21st A. Ford, I. Williams & I surveyed a 2,000 acre tract of land on Flint Run & Battle for Mrs. M. C. Haymond. In Oct. I hung up my tobacco, finished cutting up corn, threshed our buckwheat & with Amaziah commenced making a sugar mill. After finishing the mill we commenced making molasses. We bolded sugar cane & made in all about fifteen gallons of molasses. (On average 8 gallons of sugar cane juice will produce 1 gallon of molasses, meaning they had to squeeze 120 gallons of sugar cane juice to make the 15 gallons of molasses.)
Nov. 4. Friday morning. Amaziah’s youngest child was choked to death either with a piece of walnut or a sudden attack of the croup. Yesterday it was buried.
Sunday, Nov. 13. I went to Victory for preaching & prayer meeting & the night following during prayer meeting we enjoyed quite a happy season for the Lord was among us.”
“Monday, Dec. 5. I went down on the creek & H. Stout & I divided some saw logs that he hauled for me on the shares. The rest of the week I husked corn, commenced laying my under floor with oak plank, & then finished laying my floor.
Sunday, Nov. 11. I went to Victory Church. We commemorated the death & sufferings of Christ by eating the Lord’s supper. Jonathan Fraw & Marty Powell were baptized.
Nov. 19. John Orr & I finished laying the upper floor, put in a window & door & cased the fire place at my house. On the 22nd T.J. Carter came here a visiting. My corn is not all husked & several other jobs are a laying incompleted.
End of Dec. 1859. My debts have been increasing. I now owe 18 people $276.53 being $8.53 more than I owed a year ago. This is making quite a poor start of fulfilling the resolution I made in 1858 to be out of debt in three years I think most surely if I keep my health & strength & no calamity comes up on me I can live another year with less expense than this year. (1859)
January 15, 1860. Time flies so rapidly & I am so crowded with work that I cannot bestow either time or thought on anything I would wish. All day I have been suffering with headache pains & restlessness & a confused & unsettled mind.
Feb. 27. Monday. I made a coffin for a deceased infant of Lomon Welch & helped carry the corpse to the grave.
March 4. J.M.R. Hovy & his wife were here on a visit. On Monday night Isaac T. Hollam stayed here.
March 10, 1860. Last night I completed my 28th year. Nancy has been suffering excruciatingly with a gathering in her left ear. And during the last two days I have been suffering with rheumatism.
April 7. I went to Victory Church. Jacob Davis preached. Eli J. Davidson followed him with an exhortation.
April 22. At three P.M. I tried preaching at the Ford School house on Flint. I returned home dissatisfied with my performance.
April 30. On Saturday morning Nancy, Amanda & I went down to Brother J. Smith’s to meeting. … At three o’clock by request (Sunday) I tried preaching to a large congregation. I felt fully aware of my great weakness & placed my trust entirely in the strong arm of Jehovah for grace & strength. I was led mentally to praise God for making me the humble instrument in his hands and deeply stirring up the hearts through the powerful influence of his holy word.
Wednesday, July 4, 1860. Last week some people were much troubled because of the drouth. I made answer that I was not troubled for God ruled the weather & He would do just right. The same people are now murmuring because there is more rain than they wish.
Friday, August 10. At one o’clock & five minutes A.M. Nancy gave birth to a son whom we have named William Elmore.
Sun. Aug. 26. Isaiah Welch a near neighbor of our’s departed this life on Wednesday night (the 22nd) between nine & ten o’clock. He had been afflicted for a number of years with a cancer in his right cheek which continued its ravages consuming both flesh & bone till all the right side of his face from the corner of his mouth back to his ear, round with the edge of his hair to the middle of his forehead & down through his nose to his mouth was destroyed. When I seen him last I thought that just about one fourth of his entire head was gone.
And to augment his sufferings & increase the loathsomeness, the flies landed on him & blowed his head which bred maggots. Their ravages were worse than the eating of the cancer.
I visited him from time to time & helped him what I could. And on the night of his death I, with a few others, stood by his bed & seen him breathe his last.
We washed, laid him out, & dressed him, which was quite a task owing to the powerful, nauseating & almost overpowering smell. The next day he was buried in the graveyard near West Union.”
Monday, Sept. 23, 1860. On Saturday (21st) Nancy & I & the two children went to John Cumberledges to meeting (church services). While we were there, we heard Eli D. Seckman preach two services. On Sunday (Sept. 22nd) John Cumberledge & his wife & my wife were joined with Christ in baptism.
‘The prayer that God inspires He will answer.’ And I have prayed earnestly & importunately to the Lord for the conversion of ‘the friend of my bosom’ & words cannot adequately describe the emotions of my mind when she came forward to designate her return to God.”
Next week, Flavius Ashburn states that he plans to create a school “on the hill between the head of Rock Run & Nutter’s Fork, a distance of about three-fourths of a mile from his house.” He states that he plans to begin teaching the local youths on Monday, Dec. 10, 1860.
Keep in mind that this article is written as Flavius Ashburn wrote it in his diary unchanged, with the exception of the bold and underlined font of dates of his entries that I created to make it easier to distinguish the different entries.
God Bless.
Patricia Richards Harris
Doddridge County Historical Society
Donald Jones speaks at the D.C.
Historical Society meeting.
Buffington Island Battlefield Preservation Foundation Speaks at Historical Society Meeting
Buffington Island Battlefield Preservation Foundation (BIBPF) Chairman, Donny Jones was the guest speaker at Doddridge County Historical Society’s October meeting.
After more than 20 years as a Civil War re-enactor in Ravenswood, WV, Donny Jones was the perfect match to become the foundation’s current chairman. He represented both the foundation and the site of the Civil War with fantastic knowledge of the battle there and his passion and knowledge for all that was the BIBPF were admirable.
Mr. Jones explained why preserving our nation’s Civil War Historical Sites is vital and how the Buffington Island Battlefield site is at risk of being lost.
In brief, he explained that the battlefield is located at Portland, Meigs County, in southeastern Ohio. The battle, fought on July 19, 1863, marked the apex of Confederate General John H. Morgan’s Great Raid (July 2-26, 1863), also known as the Indiana-Ohio Raid or simply the Ohio Raid. Buffington Island was the largest Civil War engagement fought north of the Ohio River; nearly 2,800 Federals and 1,930 Confederates were engaged in the two-hour battle. Four arms of the military – cavalry, infantry, artillery, and navy – participated in the battle, either in an active or reserve capacity. Very few battles fought in the American interior hold this distinction. Based on the most trusted primary sources available, the total casualties from the battle were 57 killed, 63 wounded, 71 captured
on the Confederate side, and 6 killed and 20 wounded on the Federal side. An additional 550 Confederates were captured off the battlefield in either eastern Meigs County or along the West Virginia shore of the Ohio River.
Contrary to its name, none of the battle was fought on the island in the Ohio River. The battle’s name was derived from the well-known river ford at the island’s head.
All the fighting occurred on the Ohio side of the river in the bottomland surrounding the community of Portland. The battle covered about 1,236 acres, which the American Battlefield Protection Program (National Park Service) classified as a “Core Area.” The Civil War Sites Advisory Commission has listed Buffington Island as one of the 384 battlefields that should be preserved from among the 10,500 Civil War armed conflict sites. Today less than one-tenth of the battlefield is protected.
In cooperation with the Am. Battlefield Protection Prog. Of the Nat. Park Service, as well as other organizations such as the Am. Battlefield Trust, the Buffington Island Battlefield Preservation Foundation has helped develop a preservation plan to make this plan become a reality.
The Doddridge County Historical Society raised $500 in donations to their project, which was multiplied by other organizations at a rate of $13 to $1, amounting to in excess of $6,000.
If you’d like to donate to this worthy cause, tax-deductible donations can be submitted on their website: buffingtonbattlefieldfoundation.org