For the next couple of weeks, we will look at the Stanley family that settled in the Laurel Fork/Bell Spur area at the Carroll-Patrick County line. The first Stanley to show up in local records was Zachariah Stanley, Sr. (1737-1810) who was originally from Montpelier in Hanover County, Virginia. Zachariah Sr. and his family’s names appear in the Cedar Creek Quaker Monthly Meeting records in the late 1700s. Zachariah Sr. and his wife Sarah settled in the Dugspur area of Carroll County near the Fruit Hill Quaker Meeting House which is now known as the Nester Cemetery. Zachariah Sr. and his wife Sarah are buried there. Zachariah Stanley, Jr. (1782-1835) was the only one of his siblings born in Burks Fork (Floyd County) near Laurel Fork. Zachariah Jr’s name next appears in records in 1805 when he marries Miss Naomi Bohannon Jones (1782-1855) of the Callaway area of Franklin County.
On the 12th of April 1827, Zachariah Jr. and Naomi’s oldest son, John (1805-1896) married Miss Malinda Barnard (1809-1876), the daughter of Isham Barnard and Sarah Burch of Kibler Valley. In 1830, Zachariah Jr. and Naomi and some of their younger children left for Ohio where they lived for five years. In 1835, the family left Ohio with six other Quaker families and went to Tazewell County, Illinois. Zachariah Stanley Jr. was struck by lightning and killed shortly after their arrival in Illinois.
By the time that John’s father, Zachariah Jr. had passed away in Illinois in 1835, John and Malinda Barnard Stanley had four children, Hiram (1828-1883), followed by Lucinda (1830-1889), Thomas (1833-1927), and Isham (1835-1926). Over the next nineteen years, John and Malinda had ten more children; Sarah (1837-1837), Mary (1838-1916), Elijah (1839-1914), John Jr. (1842-1864), twins Mahalia (1844-1924) and Naomi (1844-1860), Fielden (1846-1885), Malinda (1849-1885), Eveline (1851-1857), and Zachariah (1854-1854).
I recently wrote about Patrick County gunsmith, Bart Clifton, but he wasn’t the only local gunsmith. John Stanley of the Laurel Fork area supported his large family by working as a gunsmith too. Stanley’s rifles were a thing of purpose and beauty with beautiful metal designs on the stock.
I recall while growing up hearing a story that there used to be a silver mine in the Squirrel Spur area. The story went that the only entrance to the silver mine was behind a waterfall on the Dan River near the Pinnacles. I wonder if John Stanley could have possibly obtained some of the metal for his rifles from that mine.
For the next couple of weeks, we will focus on John Conner Stanley (1852-1918), who was the oldest son of Hiram (1828-1883), who was the oldest son of John (1805-1896), who was the oldest son of Zachariah Jr. (1782-1835).
A sincere thank you to Hilda Stanley Vivier for providing all the documentation and photographs for the Stanley story. Woody may be reached at rockcastlecreek1@gmail.com or (276) 692-9626.
