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Harry Enoch 

Contributing Writer

I’ve spent a lot of time searching for and examining information about Clark County people. An excellent source available online is the U.S. Census. While trying to generate all the names from the 1850 Clark County census, lo and behold, the names popped up in the order of their age, with the eldest people at the top of the list. I hope no one is offended by talk of “old people,” which I’m arbitrarily defining as those aged 70 or older. (I am one myself.)

The list of names in the 1850 Clark County census did hold one surprise: 187 individuals aged 70 or above (171 whites and 16 free blacks). We tend to think that people back then didn’t live as long as they do today. Obviously, some did.

The eldest people in the county in 1850 were Elizabeth Nichols, 104; Isabella Howard, 100; Margaret McCaffrey, 93; Nancy Tuggle, 93; Dennis Bradley, 92; Henry Clampet, 90; Linney Jones, 90; Daniel Berkley, 89; Mary Gordon, 89; and Charity Hays, 88. Unfortunately, I can only find scattered bits of information about them.

Elizabeth Thomas married Frederick E. Nichols in Virginia in about 1774. The couple resided in Fayette County, where Frederick’s will was probated in 1824. In 1850 Elizabeth was living with her son Frederick B. Nichols, a wealthy farmer on Strodes Road (now US 60) just west of Winchester. Frederick was then one of the richest men in Clark County. Elizabeth Nichols died in 1856 at the age of 110.

Isabella Griffin married Henry Howard in 1777. Henry was a Revolutionary War soldier serving in the Virginia Continental Line. He died in Virginia in 1798. While living in Montgomery County, Kentucky, in 1842, Isabella was allowed a pension for her husband’s service. In 1850 she lived in Clark County with her daughter Sarah and son-in-law John Alexander. Isabella Howard died later that year after surviving 52 years of widowhood.

Margaret McCaffrey was the wife of William McCaffrey. He died in 1793, and she was the administrator of his estate. By 1850 she had been widowed for 57 years. At that time, she was living with William and Susan Stuart. Susan may have been her daughter.

Nancy Harrison married William Tuggle in 1782. The couple came to Clark County, lived on Fourmile Creek and raised eleven children there. He received a pension in 1833 for his Revolutionary War service and died later that year. Nancy Tuggle lived on a widow’s pension. She died before 1860.

Dennis Bradley was born in Virginia. In 1840 he and his wife Susannah resided in Winchester. In 1850 Dennis lived with his daughter Delilah and her husband, Thomas Duckworth, in eastern Clark County.

Henry Clampet was a blue dyer from Delaware and a very early resident of Winchester. He married Betitha Scott in 1806 and lived on West Washington Street for many years. In 1850 he was listed as a blind pauper and a resident of the Poorhouse located at what is now the Clark County Fairgrounds on Ironworks Road (Route 15).

Linney Jones was born in Virginia and resided at the Poorhouse in 1850.

Daniel Berkley was a native of Loudon County, Virginia, and came to Clark County in 1809. He was a large landowner in the western end of the county. One of his farms bordered Boone Creek and Kentucky River and has a picturesque stream called Berkley Spring Branch. The farm was also the site of a noted “shot drop”—a place where molten lead, poured through a sieve, fell into a trough below to form different sizes of buckshot. Berkley died in 1852 and left a will that divided his estate among his four sons and four daughters.

Mary Roundtree married John Gordon in Goochland County, Virginia. He was a Revolutionary War veteran. The couple lived on Fourmile Creek, where they raised ten children. John died in 1839. Mary resided with her son Richardson Roundtree Gordon in 1850 and died the following year. Mary Gordon and her husband are buried in the Gordon family graveyard on Muddy Creek Road.

Charity Hays lived with her son David B. Hays in 1850. Charity was the daughter of Manson Burgher of Albemarle County, Virginia. She married William Hays there. They moved to Clark County in 1796 and resided near the present reservoir. On October 10, 1801, William was killed by “two Wounds or stabbs with a knife” by Robin, an enslaved man belonging to Hubbard Taylor. No other facts were stated in the record. Henry Clay, then the Commonwealth Attorney for Clark County, prosecuted the case. A jury found Robin guilty, and he was sentenced to be hanged the following month. Charity Hays died in 1851, after 50 years a widow, and was buried in the McMillan Graveyard near the reservoir.

There is one more piece that needs to be added to this story, which is sadly incomplete. The 1850 census had a separate form for reporting enslaved persons. They were listed under their owners’ names. However, no slave names were given in the census, only their age, sex and black or mulatto were reported. Forty-six were aged 70 or older; two were age 100, a male and a female; and three were age 90, one male and two females. Only one of them could be identified. A death record exists for Dicy, age about 105, who died in an accident in June 1861. According to Lyndon Comstock’s “Before Abolition,” Dicy’s owner was Branch M. Tanner Jr. Lyndon’s book contains the names of more than 7,000 enslaved persons in Clark County who have essentially been absent from our history. And he’s not done yet. Lyndon is busy on a large expansion of his book. I’ll be sure to report when he has published his updated work.