_Peter John SELLARDS _
| (1661 - ....)
_Peter John SELLARDS Jr._|
| (1706 - ....) |
| |______________________
|
_Hezekiah SELLARDS __|
| (1732 - 1760) |
| | ______________________
| | |
| |_________________________|
| |
| |______________________
|
|
|--John SELLARDS
| (1765 - 1838)
| ______________________
| |
| _John BREVARD ___________|
| | |
| | |______________________
| |
|_Jean BREVARD _______|
(1734 - 1770) |
| ______________________
| |
|_________________________|
|
|______________________
[N10]
John Sellards, son of Hezekiah Sellards, was born ca 1765 probably born on Walkers Creek, a tributary of the New River in Southwest Virginia. The Virginia Papers, as of May 1793, list John Sellards, from Wythe County, Virginia, as an enlisted man in the volunteer company of Captain Hugh Caperton, of the Virginia State Militia. He concluded his service when the unit was disbanded, 31 December 1793.
Our next record of John is from Mason County, Kentucky Court records, as the Floyd County area then was part of Mason County. In July 1794, a tax assessor noted the primitive settlement on Buffalo Creek, exempted John from taxation. Thus we are able to establish that John came to Kentucky between these two dates, and probably in the Spring of the year 1794.
From Henry P. Scalf we have this account of John's migration to Kentucky, as taken from one of Mr. Scalf's speeches.
"Few settlements were in the Big Sandy Valley in the Spring of 1794, when John and his brother Samuel, came to Buffalo Creek. Harmon had located at the mouth of Johns Creek. John Spurlock either at the present Prestonsburg, or on Beaver Creek. Vancover's Station which had been located at the point where the Tug and Levisa Fords join, had fallen three years earlier to Indian attrition. William Robert Leslie had found a successful settlement on Johns Creek at the present Gulnare and there have been other pioneer settlements whose names have been lost to history.
In 1794 there were no roads through the mountains for wagon travel, so the bare essentials had to be brought in by horseback. Cows and pack animals were slowly driven along. There were no children at that time.
Slowly this adventurous party wended its way up Walkers Creek, over its headstreams, turned southwesterly toward Pound Gap. Their rate of travel was about 10 miles per day over this rugged terrain, sleeping under the open sky along the way.
The Spring of 1794 was before the Battle of Fallen Timbers, so as they moved into the Pound Gap area they entered into Indian Country, and id so along one of the favored passageways used by the savages through the mountains.
However they met no one as they laboriously ascended the mountainous gap. At the summit they rested awhile and began the descent to the rugged area of Elkhorn Creek, going through a low gap to Shelby Creek. Down it they slowly drove their cattle and pack animals until they reached the river.
Days and miles back in Virginia they had passed the last human settlement until reaching the valley. Being an Indian fighter, John realized the need to be off the beaten path of the Indian parties and no doubt this played an important part in his selection of the buffalo Creek site to settle. Buffalo Creek, John found later, to have been named by Old Adam Harmon after a hardy chase of that animal in the area.
Initially the party erected a leanto for protection from the elements and then began the task of felling the timber for the cabin and construction of rude furnishing for the abode. Being in the Spring land had to be cleared, brush burned and rough tillage of the new ground with its stumps and underground roots, to plant their first crop in the new land some 150 miles west of the former Walker Station abode.
With their rough struggle that first year to become established on Buffalo Creek, they were not fully prepared for the rough winter that first year. The tradition has been handed down through the years of the hardships encountered that winter.
This hardy frontiersman prospered in the area and as the frontier disappeared his descendants turned to frontiers of education, medicine, military service, anthropology and geology. Several distinguished Americans are the proud descendants of John Sellards, Virginia Frontiersman and Big Sandy Valley Pioneer."
John married first Annie Alford who died in the 1820s. Per Floyd county records John married second on 23 July 1828, Susannah Sullivan, a daughter of Revolutionary War soldier, Peter Sullivan, and his wife Catherine.
John for his original holdings purchased in 1818, a tract of 50 acres from Mark and Nancy McKenzie. In the same year an adjoining patent of 50 acres was received.
After his marriage to Susannah, he left his holdings on Buffalo to the care of his son John W. and his son-in-law Tom Davis, and moved to his farm near Ivel, Kentucky. John died in late December 1838 or early January 1839. He was laid to rest on Sellards Branch, slightly back of where he lived.
From the framed original on the living room wall of Henry P. Scalf's Bedstead Farm residence, we record here the will of John Sellards.
In the name of god this day being low in health but in proper mind do make my last will and testament.
For the love I have for my wife Susanna Sellard, I give the land on which I now live, till my youngest child is of age to act for itself. I then intend the land to be sold and money equally divided among my four children, namely, Levina Sellards, Jarrett J. Sellards, Phebe Sellards, Arelenor Sellards.
I also give to my wife two horsebeast, namely, bay mare and sorrel mare. I also give her two cows the choice of my stock. I also give my wife five sowes and shoats. I also give her stock of gees now on the farm. I also give my choice beds and one trunnelbed, also the balance of the hous and kitchen furniture, the clock excepted. I also give the grain and hous now on the farm to my wife for the use of the family.
I also give Catherine Sullivan one cow. I also wish her to have a childs part of the sheep when she leaves her mother.
I also desire that the ballance of the stock on my farm shall be sold and the money put in interest to school the children.
I also desire that my Buffalow land shall be sold and Thomas Davis and John W. Sellard to be paid out of the proceeds of the land for their improvements.
I also give Cornellius Sellards children one two year old mare.
I also give my wife three hoes, one good ax, two plows, one loom. I also give her five beestands. The ballance of my farming tools and bee stands I wish to be sold and the money put on interest.
I appoint Thomas Witten to be me executor in conformation of the above I sit my hand and seal.
December 18th 1838
Test
Thomas Davis
Inmon Cassel
John Sellards (his X mark)
Susannah refused her husband's will, so in the March term of court 1839, she claimed instead her right of dower. So in this term of court we find this order entered in Floyd County records:
"On motion of Susannah Sellards, widow and relect of John Sellards, deceased, ordered that Wilson Mayo, Harry Stratton, and Greenville Lackey, be appointed commissioners, who first being duly sworn, do lay off and allot to her the dower to which she is entitled to in the county, by meets and bounds, according to quantity and quality of the land of her husband John Sellards, deceased."
After review of the land as laid out for her dower, or for some other reason, she changed her mind and decided to accept the wishes of her husband's will. Susannah was a small vivacious lady. For 15 years or so she fought the lawsuits of the children of John's first marriage, as they attempted to secure possession of the estate.
Susannah died in 1876, at the age of 90, at the residence of her daughter, Arilla Ellender (Sellards) Goble. She is buried in the Goble Cemetery on Buffalo Creek.