“36TH READING OF THE BIBLE…”
Grounded History from the Heart of Kentucky and the Pen of The Yona
-A County Surveyor’s Short Story-
“PART ONE; UNSPOILED EDEN::::::::
It all began ‘tween what is known as the “Jump Lick” and Putnam’s Orchard Knob, in a vast wilderness area, that can found on the map between Penick, KY, Riley, KY, and Bradfordsville, KY. Just before christmas, about a quarter century ago, I first went up through Bradfordsville, and across the mouth of Turkey Pen Hollar, and then turned up the former Springer’s Branch, now called Wheeler’s Branch, crossing through Virgil Whitehouse’s corn in the North Rolling Fork bottom land, just below the mouth of Jonar. I was dispatched thereto by the Office of the Surveyor of Marion County, in order to investigate an alleged trespass and timber theft on behalf of some “out-of-towners” who had bought several tracts up that long straight hollar. After making my way just above the main fork of the hollar, where, there at the fork of the creek, there stood a massive, and hollow Beech tree, I encountered chain sawyers, laboring and sweating, despite the cold. Given the tree laps and deep skidder ruts, I could drive no further and set out on foot with longknife in hand. I walked for several hours, in full camo, inspecting what I could, finally reaching the Penick knob where a Dr. Putnam at one time had grown an orchard, and where an incredible panoramic view fell before my eyes, standing upon that 400 foot tall knob, as all of the land north of there is much lower and just rolling hills, across the former Lebanon branch of the L & N R.R. As I returned by way of Turkey Pen Hollar, taking in views of Pope’s Creek bottoms, I then climbed across the ridge that divides Turkey Pen Creek from Wheeler’s branch, arriving down behind one of the clients cabins, and made my way back to the survey truck, absolutely marveled at God’s beautiful creation, covered over with massive timber stands, and replete with an abundance of wildlife. Nearly an unspoiled Eden. It never would, and never will look the same, as the devil’s hand would go on to gut and lay waste to such a miracle of God’s work. And so the work began, on what would be the single largest and most comprehensive colonial land survey I have ever performed…………………………………………………………….
PART TWO; 36TH READING OF THE BIBLE:::::::
Upon my second trip back up the hollar, I got to stare into the eyes of what I would come to know as the devil himself on Earth.. When I reached the fork of the hollar that second trip, there he was, standing beside that towering Beech tree, and we made our introduction. he would go on to tell me of his undying faith and honesty, and his indescribable love of Jesus. And of course, he said, and I quote directly word for word here, “I’ve read the good book 35 times, and am now on my 36th reading of the Bible!” There at the small piece of flat land, on the right side of the fork of the creek, just beside the tall grey-trunked tree, he’d begun a second yard, to pool his logs, for export to the nearest sawmill for cash. Little did I know, that my first impression would prove to be so wrong, as I truly thought him to be a man of God and not capable of such gross theft and environmental destruction that i would come to observe over the next two to three years that this retracement survey would consume of my life. Nevertheless, I then learned all of the ridges and creeks, and numerous ways of ingress and egress into and out of the area, whether into Followell’s Creek, Pope’s Creek, Turkey Pen Creek, and Rocky Branch. The proverbial forbidden fruit was being picked from Eden right before mine eyes………..
PART THREE; THE JESUS BEECH:::::::
It was when I ventured up the hollar the third time to the fork of the Creek, that the horror story began. The only tree left standing within at least three furlongs in all directions (about a third of a mile) was that hollow Beech, and i exclaimed, Jesus, what has this monster done, and so I painted a cross on the trunk, and spray-painted the letters, J.E.S.U.S. below the fluorescent pink-glo cross on the solid side of the trunk, facing the fork of the Creek, where it was still standing, the last time i saw it, about seven years ago. It is hard to describe such a complete difference in the change of the scenery there. The clear cut, striped with skidder roads, running parallel to each other, and spaced about two furlongs apart (a quarter mile spacing), had reduced the once moss covered slopes, filled with ginseng, map apple, yellow root, and other medicines beneath what was once towering stands of mainly White Oak, Chestnut Oak, and Red Oak, to a desolate wasteland. One would think an airstrip was being built. I can only compare it to parts of Laos where the Ho Chi Minh trail was carpet bombed, or the Plain of Jars in central Laos during the Vietnam War. To this day, i have never ever seen such destruction, other than the Mountain top removal coal pits up here in central Appalachia. Still shaking my head to this day, and all I can say, yet still is, is “Jesus Christ!”……………………….
PART FOUR; THE BULLY AND THE BULLSHIT:::::::::::
As I began to piece together the property title histories, in order to determine the junior or senior rights to the “alleged” overlapping claims to the land in question, I had constant and nagging suspicion that the lines and corners relevant to the “zone of desecration” had never been surveyed, except for perhaps the initial patent surveys, and subsequent colonial land grants thereafter, which were over 150 years gone by at that point, And this proved to indeed be the situation at hand. Only twice in my life, would I ever have to confront my Dad, the County Surveyor, with my longknife blade drawn, when I was sure we were going to come to blows, as it is said by the old folks. The first time was at an old store called the Whistlin’ Pig, long ago tore down. But the second and last time, was a result of my constant irritating hunch, that despite missing Marion County land records, due to Morgan’s Raiders torching the first thirty some odd years of land records, during the War of Secession / American Civil War, that they were not in fact lost to time, but could be retrieved. My grand-dad Probus had taught me on the Netherland Survey, across from the Woodland Inn / Cut Rate Liquors on Route 68 – Campbellsville Highway, way back in 1981, that the original surveys were underneath the KY Governor’s Office, in our State Capitol Building, up in Frankfort. SO, I had finally reached the point of desperation, and informed my boss, master, and coincidentally, my Dad, that I’d decided to drive to Franklin County, to act upon my conscience. He responded by saying I’d lost my mind, and that it would be a total waste of time and money, and forbid me to go. After several minutes of yelling, and them him standing in the door of our brown office trailer, we them pushed each other, and I withdrew ole Bessie. To this day my best friend besides Jesus, but you’d probably call it a machete’. Well, he then moved out of my way, and I sped off to the Kentucky River gorge in search of History. All the way up the B.G. (Bluegrass Parkway), Dad’s words echoed, “You can’t seriously believe that bullshit…” referring to the lesson I’d learned from grand-dad twenty years earlier. Nevertheless, I made it there in record time, signed in with State trooper at the capitol steps, and found the land grant records vault, there with the office of the Secretary of State, and was helped tremendously by a true living angel, Kandi Adkinson, who managed the records. She would go on to scan the documents, and later make them available for download online, demonstrating an incredible dedication to the people of our Commonwealth, as these are our public records, and the very pages which begin our “white” history in this Cherokee land. It began with the William Hayes grant, and the John P Reed, 275 and 675, and on and on. I had struck Gold. I found all of the records, and more than I had ever even imagined. C.M. Probus was right, and Sam Anzelmo was wrong in this particular instance……………………
PART FIVE; THREE TROOPERS IN THE DEED ROOM::::::
We then began to methodically retrace and remonument all of the original grant lines across the hollar, as slope after slope was being quickly scalped clean, and with each “gully-worshin” rain, the main creek began to fill up its ten foot high banks with massive topsoil erosions, until at last the entire old channel was filled up, and the creek began to jump across the bottom, cutting new channels with each passing storm. By that point, I believe five different “log yards” had been leveled, utilized, and then emptied, as the unbridled evil coursed down towards Whitehouses’ corn fields at the mouth of the hollar. The ldevil began to bully my crew and I, and I had several chain carriers quit, because we were being shot at regularly, and receiving death threats. One day, when the County Surveyor was in the deed room, the devil himself appeared and assualted “dear old Dad”, requiring three state troopers to subdue the massive hulk, who resembled a modern day Paul Bunyan, and was actually, I believe already in his late sixties at that time. After emptying all of their mace upon, the maniacal monster, he was escorted out, only to be taken to hospital, and never even booked into the jail. Later, after we pressed charges, the Commonwealth Attorney would go on to quietly drop our case, without even consulting us, and I’m sure out of fear for his own life, up there at his home in “Worshintin Coun’y”. Needless to say, he threatened me in my face repeatedly, out in the hollar, with no witnesses, or police to come to my aid, but, Bessie was always at my side, and that ole devil quickly found out that I was just as crazy of a redneck as he, and totally unfazed by his threats, and not the least bit intimidated by the constant gunfire, as I’d already served as a soldier in the United States Army. In order to complete the chainings and G.P.S. observations, I would go on to conduct most of my final work there under cover of night, and by telling the town folks down in Bradfordsville, where we took dinner at Sam’s, total lies. “Oh we’re going up Turkey Pen this afternoon”, only to go up Followell, and cut behind Hargis’. I had to keep them guessing in order to finish what I had started, by that point, over two years ago.
PART SIX; STONES AND REFUGES
Well, the case finally went to court, and despite the local corruption, and the incompetence of the Judge, the survey was ultimately reviewed by the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Chief Joesph Lambert, presiding, where our legal research, survey method, and rules of evidentiary judication were affirmed by the court, affirming the Appellate decision which had overturned the crooked initial ruling in the Lebanon Courthouse, and to this day, it can be read in full and reviewed online. It is the only survey where I set corner stones that I masoned into square pillars, and placed them two thirds deep beside the state required rebar pins and caps, to remonument the original land grant corners. Sadly, after leaving a tape recorded phone message, instructing us to remove all of the survey pins and stones, or else they would remove them, the devil and his minions did in fact remove all of them, in blatant violation of the law, despite even Moses, in that “good book” admonishing the Israelites to “disturbeth not the landmarks, which the ancients placed long ago”, to paraphrase as best as I remember that verse. We then documented and photographed the holes where the stones had been laboriously hand crafted and placed with laser transit and prism pole, as well as the small pinholes where the half inch rebars and caps had been jerked loose. We then reset them all, all over again, and incredibly, the devil himself, would get the county and the state to them pay him for the disastrous hell he left behind, where once had been an Eden, and it now a wildlife preserve. Amazing. Nearly everyone involved with that has now passed on, but still the Jesus Beech stands, and I actually really did like that old hulk of a man, as J.T. Whitlock told me so many stories about him, as he’d known him for over a half century, as the Bully of Riley, when we would have our Legion meetings down at the Cedarwood. One of these days, I just have to go back up that hollar, and see if my old beech is still there, and swing Bessie on Wheeler’s Branch just one more time, there at the fork of the Hollar………………………….-PLS 3753KY, SMC. a/k/a The Yona
