Among the other early settlers in the vicinity of Lowell, was a man by the name of See, who lived on the land afterwards occupied by David Keller, Sr. Like most of his contemporaries, the exact date of his settling there cannot now be know, but tradition points out that he was there at a very early day and should be classed with the very early settlers of that locality. See, like Vanbibber, sold his claim to Conrad Keller and sought a new home farther west. Of his meanderings through the untrodden forest or how often he relocated and then again moved forward, nothing definitely is known save that later in life, about 1818, he found a permanent home on the Big Sandy River in the State of Kentucky, where his descendants are to be found to this day.

To this primeval settlement might also be added the name of Notliff Taylor, who, while [54] he did not live in the immediate bounds of those already mentioned, he was near enough to be called a neighbor, especially in those days when neighbors were few and far between and sought each other for assistance for miles around. He settled at the Milburn place on Greenbrier river. The names of his children were Anne, who married William Johnson, of Cross Roads; Nancy, who married Isaac Milburn; Elizabeth, who married Samuel Guinn, son of Samuel, Sr.; Mary, who married Joseph Guinn, son of James Guinn, Sr., before mentioned, and William who married Florence Graham, daughter of James Graham, Sr.

Early in the settlement of this locality also came William Kincaid who owned and occupied the Jessie Beard farm now owned by A. P. Pence, which property has recently become famous as a summer resort by reason of the medical qualities of the Buffalo Sulphur Springs. Little did Kincaid dream of the medical properties boiling up out of this lick to which he then saw the wild [55] buffalo rushing with madness to slake his thirst. It may be incidentally remarked here that traces of the old Buffalo path leading across Keeney’s Knob, from the Buffalo Springs to Green Sulphur Springs are still to be found. Kincaid moved west about the beginning of the present century, and so far as we know, left no immediate descendants in this county. It is supposed on reasonable authority that William Kincaid belonged to the Kincaid family of Augusta and came here about the same time that the Grahams settled at Lowell.

A few miles east of Lowell lived a Mr. (William?) Hinchman, an Englishman, who settled there possibly during the Revolutionary war, and of whom the present Hinchman family are descendants. The first temporary home of Hinchman was on the river below the mouth of Guinn’s branch about one half mile below Lowell where he settled as a leaser under Samuel Guinn, Sr. His stay there, however, was short, when he moved to a permanent home in what is known [56] as the Hinchman neighborhood east of Lowell. He had a son, John, who served as justice of the Peace for a long term of years. He also had a son, William, who a great many years ago moved to Logan county. It was the pleasure of the writer to visit hi. in the year 1844 and remembers that he told him the year of his birth, which was 1770 and further recalls that he told him on that occasion that he was the father of twenty-four children by two wives. John Hinchman, as before named, had a son. William, who was the father of the late John Hinchman, whose death occurred in 1896. William Hinchman was a Justice of the Peace and was known as “Squire” Hinchman and was a ruling elder in the Presbyterian church.

The reader will pardon the digression in the foregoing pages from the family genealogy for the reason that in so doing, it is hoped that it may be the means of handing down to the present as well as future posterity some account, however meager, of the first settlers of the locality of which we write; furthermore, those whose names [57] we have mentioned as composing the early settlement stood shoulder to shoulder in braving the dangers fighting the battles of and subduing the hardships of pioneer life, side by side with the progenitors of our own family.

David Graham's History of the Graham Family (1899) [ Other Early Settlers ]

David Graham's
History of the Graham Family (1899)
[ Other Early Settlers ]