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The log house pictured was likely built by Uncle Solomon Skaggs (1803-1868) around 1830. This house sets near the Old Zion Separate Baptist Church and cemetery which was founded by Solomon at Maple, Taylor Co., Kentucky. He was a farmer, miller and preacher. He is three times my "way back uncle" as I descend directly from three of his siblings, Matilda Skaggs Stillwell, John Dover Skaggs and Elizabeth Skaggs Price. When Solomon died the portion of his farm including this house and his mill, which sat in the creek in front of the house, went to his son, King Solomon Skaggs (1848-1920). King Solomon married my GGGgrandaunt, Mary Jane Allen, d/o Wm. Jefferson Allen and Elizabeth Pickerell. After King Solomon Skaggs died the house and land eventually passed into the hands of Waller "Walter" Shofner and wife, Bessie Skaggs Shofner. In the 1930s the Shofner's used this house as a tenant house and my Great-Grandparents, John Raymond Dotson and Nancy Ellen Price lived there for a while in the early 1930s when they were first married.. My grandmother, Estelene Dotson Stillwell, was born in the house in 1933. There are three other rooms of frame construction added "end-to-end" on the right hand side of the house. The farthest right room had a large stone chimney and fireplace so the frame rooms were built on to the earlier log section very early on, probably before the Civil War. At some point, a stone chimney which heated the log section was removed from the left hand end of the log house.
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