HIRAM SPAULDING - SEVENTH GENERATION

HIRAM SPAULDING - SEVENTH GENERATION

A pioneering people named Spaulding settled in northern Kentucky around a salt spring called Grant's Lick. The old salt well can still be viewed at Cooper Funeral Home in the small town south of Alexandria, Ky.[1] Hiram Spaulding lived in Grant's Lick on Pleasant Ridge Road which wound over a rutted, gravel road to his son Samuel Benjamin Spaulding's farm. Grandpa Hiram and his wife, Malinda Kees, raised seven sons and four daughters.[2] He sleeps beside his beloved wife on a hilltop at Oakland Cemetery. When Great-grandfather Hiram was a boy, the United States was expanding westerly across the Mississippi into Indian territory. What changes "manifest destiny" would bring to the rural life of northern Kentuckians! Hiram participated on the side of the Confederacy in the Civil War which almost destroyed the Union, so dearly won by his ancestors: Aaron, Bennett, and Clarke Spalding, brothers of St. Mary's Co, Maryland.

Hiram Spaulding picked a peach when he proposed to Malinda Kees, daughter of Taylor & Malinda Harris Kees. Malinda Harris' father, George Harris, had married into the Maddox family of southern Maryland, both families of old colonial stock. George and Martha "Patsy" Maddox Harris lived at Harrisburg Hill, overlooking the Licking River, in a handsome two-story log house. George Harris and Notley Maddox had come into northern Kentucky around 1790: Harris from Somerset & Wicomico Cos Md. & Maddox from Charles Co Md. [3 & 4]

Malinda Kees was named for her mother, Malinda Harris. Malinda Harris' mother, Martha "Patsy" Maddox, was the daughter of Notley Maddox of Mason Co Ky. who left her a bequest in his will. The Notley Maddox family lived at Port Tobacco, Md. near the town of La Plata. Boys were named Notley in Maryland in honor of the colonial governor.[5]

Hiram Spaulding went off to war as a Confederate soldier sometime around 1863. The war was winding down; Kentucky, a border state, had sons from the same family fighting on opposing sides. Hiram Spaulding marched off with the Kentucky Volunteers who fought at Fort McCook near Cumberland Gap.[6] Many men did not return; those who did told stories of fighting around the Gap trying to keep the Yankees out of Kentucky! For the South, it was a disaster which resulted in the Union forces taking over the Blue Grass and many farmers losing animals and crops to marauders. Campbell & Bracken Counties were to be no exception![7]

Children of Hiram & Malinda Kees Spaulding Sr.:

1. Addie Spaulding b. July 2, 1865, Grant's Lick, Ky.; d. June 13, 1882.

2. Samuel Benjamin Spaulding b.March 25, 1867, Grant's Lick, Ky.; mar. Minnie J. Dawson Oct 20, 1889; d. Oct 24, 1940.

3. Ada Spaulding b. 1869 Grant's Lick, Ky.; mar. Edward Duckworth; d. Aug. 17, 1941.

4. Lee Theodore Spaulding b. Feb. 11, 1871; m. Alma May Taylor July 3, 1904; d. 1939.

5. John Spaulding b. Jan, 1875; mar. Emma Luck Nov 28, 1900; d. ?

6. Emma Spaulding b. Nov. 5, 1876; mar. Theodore Haney Nov. 2, 1898; d. Apr. 5, 1918.

7. Hiram Spaulding Jr. b. Jan. 2, 1879; mar. Josephine Fisher; d. Feb 8, 1913, Hamilton, Butler Co, Ohio.

8. Margaret Spaulding b. July 1881; mar. Hubbard Maddox Sept. 24, 1905; d. June 11, 1945.

9. Allie Spaulding b. Dec. 21, 1883; mar.(1) Harriet Anna Hawkins Mar. 18, 1908, m. (2) Hazel Cox Case; d. July 27, 1973.

10. Frederick Spaulding b. Dec. 26, 1885; mar. Ora Kiser Nov. 3, 1911; d. July 21, 1955.

11. Frank Spaulding b. July 3, 1889; mar. Lena Marie Miller May 7, 1911; d. June 1949.

SAMUEL BENJAMIN SPAULDING - EIGHTH GENERATION

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Harrisburg Hill: Stand on top of Harrisburg Hill to watch the wildflowers blowing in the wind at the venerable log house of the Harris family, now unoccupied & forlorn. Off in the distance is the blue glint of the Licking River, once a highway to Ohio River Valley markets. If these old walls could talk, what tales might they tell? Grandmother Grace Spaulding Dells remembers she was born in a log house near Uncle Charlie Dawson's farm. Her forebears sleep atop another hill in Grant's Lick's Oak Land Cemetery. Next door is a pioneer museum dedicated to the Campbell County families who reared their progeny on the soil of old Kentucky.

Bibliography & Footnotes:

1. "Grant & the Salt Works" in "Campbell Co Ky. History & Genealogy," from The Falmouth Outlook, Dec 15, 1978, p. 21.

2. "The Hiram Spaulding Family," PAF Family Group Sheets by Pat Doster & John L. Dawson of NJ, 1997.

3. "Snow Hill Remembered: History of the Harris Family of MD, OH, & KY," Richard E. Stevens, Bowie, MD: Heritage Bks, 1994. (a) "Harris Lineage," pp. 157 - 192. (b) "Maddox Lineage," pp. 207-214. (c) "Charles Harris, George Harris, & Harrisburg Hill," pp. 37-45.

4. "Maddox: a Southern MD Family," W.N. Hurley, Jr., Bowie, MD: Heritage Books Inc, 1994.

(a) "Samuel Maddox: Progenitor," pp. 26-32.

(b) "Green Spring Farm," pp. 24-25.

(d) "Coat of Arms of Maddox of Wales," pp. 14-16.

5. Ibid., p. 26.

6. Civil War Web site

7. "History of Bracken Co Ky.," Jacqueline Heaverin, Bracken Co Extension Homemakers, 1996, pp. 20-21. Picture of Bracken's "Civil War Monument."