Gathering information so one can understand the past in a personal manner is difficult. It is especially difficult for rural areas that do not have a newspaper dedicated exclusively for that specific region or community. The communities of the Williams Creek Basin (abbreviated WCB) had no such surviving newspapers. The Ashland, Grayson, Louisa, and Portsmouth newspapers on occasion would provide personal and newsworthy snippets of information on these WCB communities, but this coverage was lean, infrequent, and are difficult to find.
In addition, in the 1800’s and early 1900 many, possibly most, of those living in these communities were either illiterate or only semi literate. Even if individuals could read and write well life was so hard few had time to engage in writing and preserving information about their lives and community.
This is why finding a surviving diary for Star Furnace from the 1860’s is exciting. Dairies are typically packed with very personal information about the writer, their family and friends, and the surrounding community.
I first learned of the diaries of young J Bertrand Norris for the1860s for Star Furnace from reading excepts from these diaries in a book by George Wolfford (1935 -2016). These excepts are on pages 20 and 21 of George’s book, “Carter County a Pictorial History”. George included only the most interesting diary entries, not the entire diary.
Reading these diary excerpts started me wondering about the entire contents of these diaries. George was a friend of my Mother, Frances Tiller Coleman (1921 – 1999), and I had personally chatted and exchanged emails regarding local history with George many times, but I had never discussed these diaries.
Before George’s death he donated some of his personal papers to the Boyd County Public Library. So with the help of an efficient librarian there, Jim Kettel, I located a letter between George and Kaye Koontz Jones from the early 1980’s. Kaye Koontz Jones was J Bertrand Norris’ great-granddaughter and had transcribed J Bertrand Norris’ diaries. George worked from Kaye’s transcriptions.
With a bit of internet detective work I was able to locate Kaye in Texas. Kaye agreed to provide me with a copy of her 1980 era transcription of the 1861 diary. Kaye is currently working on transcribing the 1863 diary. A previous 1863 transcription was lost due to a computer crash and she does not possess a 1862 diary. Below is an example page of the 1863 diary. Click on the image for a larger view.
I have worked with the transcribed 1861 diary for some time now. I have “retranscribed” the entire 1861 diary of 19 year old J Bertrand Norris into a computer readable format. I have also annotated many of the daily entries to help readers of the diary have a greater understanding of the short daily entries. There are even some annotations by George Wolfford garnered from notes that he had sent Kaye in the 1980’s.
Historically this is a very interesting time as the Civil War begins in 1861.
The Greenup County News published some of J Bertrand Norris’ later diaries covering the period when J Bertrand Norris was living and teaching school in Greenup County, KY.
This transcribed and annotated 1861 diary will be presented on the Williams Creek Basin website in four installments starting with Q1 of 1861 (January, February, and March) .
Click on this link for the 1861 – Q1 Diary of J Bertrand Norris
There is also a short biography of J Bertrand Norris, with photographs, from information provided by Kaye Koontz Jones. This bio may help you understand J Bertrand Norris a bit better.
Click on this sentence to see this J Bertrand Norris biography.
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My GGgrandfather Samuel S. Greer lived at Star Furnace around 1850 when he first came to Carter County from Ashe NC.