Clark County KyGenWeb

The submitter reports that the Scobee house described below by Laura Cline is now gone. The new owner was afraid it might fall on the cattle. The original Scobee house's fireplace was taken down, after each brick was numbered, and Laura Cline took it to her home in California, back in the 1970's, and reassembled it exactly the same.

In memory of my grandmother Annie Rebecca Scobee Smith upon the centennial year of her birth

"Last summer, George and I visited a beautiful corner of Clark County, Kentucky. With us were our two young sons, Phillip and Michael, and my sister, Becky, and her husband, Gordon.

Thanks to earlier correspondence with such freely sharing people as Julian Wood and Juanita Long, we knew to look in Clark County for the homes of our Scobee and Dooley pioneer relatives.

After reaching Clark County, we were guided to the two old home places by a newly found 4th cousin, Ruth Miller, and by Kathryn Owen, a thoroughly engrossing and engaging Clark County historian.

While we were able to visit the Scobee home inside and out, we saw the Dooley home from the outside only. The Dooley graveyard we simply viewed from outside its wire fence. However, we carefully studied the Scobee graveyard from inside the wall surrounding it.

It is a continuing pleasure to know, learn from, and explore with such warm-hearted and interesting family historians as those who have made me aware of my early American heritage in Kentucky.

Sometime I hope to be able to write more -- to enlarge upon what we saw while visiting the old homes and to fill out the family story as more information comes to light. However, in the meantime, I wanted to write this much to share with those who have so willingly shared their information with me and to give to people in my family who have expressed an interest in our family's history.

LOCALE:
Northeastern Clark County, Kentucky, where our family was among the early settlers, is an area of gently rolling hills, interlaced with numerous creeks. Stoner Creek, being the largest in the area is the most prominent. Fed by many smaller creeks, the Stoner winds its way among the hills to join the Licking River, which eventually merges with the Ohio River at Cincinnati, some 80 miles north of Clark County.

These undulating foothills and creek valleys are the last ripples of the Appalachians about 30 miles to the East. To the West, less than 15 miles away, the terrain levels out into the Kentucky River basin and the heart of the Blue Grass Plains about Lexington.

SCOBEE AND DOOLEY PIONEERS:
These two young fathers, probably unknown to each other when they came to Kentucky, were Robert Scobee and Obadiah Dooley. They were each of Scots background; each came to Kentucky with a wife and one or two young children; and both chose a hill top within two miles of the other on which to build their homes, establish their farms and rear their families.

Thirty-five years later, these two families became our Scobee-Dooley family when a son of Robert Scobee married a daughter of Obadiah Dooley.

FAMILY HOME SITES:
Both the Scobee and Dooley homes remain standing today. They overlook lands that must look now much the same as they did 150 years ago. As far as there is to see in any direction, the landscape is of uninterrupted creek valleys, rolling hills and lush pasture lands.

The Scobee home stands above and close by meandering Stoner Creek. Here a neck of the Scobee lands is bounded on three sides by the tree-shrouded creek as it outlines a low point of land about 60 feet lower than the Scobee home. This low-lying bottom land along the creek probably was the pathway by which the Scobees travelled to reach their home. The low land area was also most likely one of the Scobees most fertile and productive farming areas.

Down the hill, across the creek, and up and down a series of hills on the other side is the Dooley home. Unlike the Scobees, the Dooleys set their house back a considerable distance from Stoner Creek. their house rests atop a gently sloping ridge bounded on either side by two intermittently flowing creeks, which come together to feed a pond in the low lands before joining the creek still further down hill. These bottom lands were probably the nucleus of Obadiah Dooley's farmlands.

THE SCOBEE HOUSE:
Judging from its style, interior design and construction, the old Scobee house was built in the early 1800s. Certainly before 1820. Probably built by Robert Scobee Sr., the old home is a brick, 1 1/2 story house with a single gabled roof.

Often times pioneers with more financial means than others were likely tobuild their homes of brick, as the Scobees' was. The interior of the house also reflects more than a minimal level of housing -- there are two separate chimneys, each with two fireplace openings; there is evidence of built-in cabinetry and early methods of wood working; the downstairs is divided into five separate rooms; and throughout the house the 11 ft. high walls, also of brick, show remains of very old plaster and paint.

An enclosed stairway off the kitchen leads to an unadorned upstairs, where the ceiling line follows the slope of the roof gable. The central fireplace chimney divides the entire upstairs into two large rooms. Underneath the length and width of the house is an earthen floored basement, which at some time during the house's history appears to have been a shelter for livestock. Overhead in the basement are round log beams which span the house's fieldstone foundation to form the massive floor joists supporting the house above.

The house, now used for hay storage, has never been either plumbed or wired for electricity. Additionally, none of the rooms appear to have been remodeled or appreciably changed. Therefore, except for its decrepid condition, the house remains much the same today as it was in its early days.

THE SCOBEE GRAVEYARD:
The Scobee family cemetery stands about 200 feet west of the back door to the old Scobee home. Enclosed by a pioneer fieldstone wall, the 25 x 30 foot cemetery is shaded by a small grove of locust trees.

The wall surrounding the graveyard is about three feet high and is intact except along one portion of the south side where the rocks have toppled, leaving a portion of the wall only about two feet high. Since the area surrounding the graveyard is being used as pasture land, the cemetery is vulnerable to roaming cattle.

In all there appear to be a total of eight graves, and with the exception of one against the south wall, all seem to be in a single row through the center of the cemetery.

Buried here are my great-great-great-grandparents, Robert Scobee Sr., (1775-1835), and Elizabeth (Brohard) Scobee.

Robert and Elizabeth had, among others, the following three sons: Robert Jr., William, and George. Two of Robert Jr.'s wives are buried here, along with two sons of William and a daughter of my great-great-grandfather, George. On the following page is a chart showing the relationship of these people to our family.

The headstones were evidently originally standing vertically, to be read from the south side of the cemetery, with the footstones toward the north side. However, through the years, the stones toward the east have fallen and are lying somewhat askew and out of position. Standing in approximately the center of the cemetery is the most prominent and ornate marker, that of Elizabeth (Brohard) Scobee, and it is inscribed as below:

Annie & William had 9 children...Elizabeth, Dudley, Edward, Scobee, Norman, Ralph, Doris, Charles & Don.

Laura married George Cline and had Phillip and Michael Chris married George Hunt and had Karen and Donna Becky married Gordon Snedigar and had no children

"Several small fragments of stones unearthed in another part of the cemetery were probably also markers, for faint imprints of scroll work and smooth rounded edges are evident. However, there is no sign of any inscription. We left these pieces lying on the ground in the cemetery: the four fragments of Robert Scobee's earlier marker we brought home. Below are the inscriptions and description of the gravestones in the cemetery as we recorded them in July 1972. Reading, in general, from west to east are:

William Scobee, who married Nellie Jane Burroughs, was a son of Robert and Elizabeth Scobee.

Stephen is a brother of George, above. The year of death appeared to be either 1830, 1850, or 1860.

Toward the west side of Elizabeth's grave are markers for three of her grandchildren. On the east are an unmarked stone: a marker for Robert Sr., her husband; and markers for two wives of their son, Robert Jr. The marker immediately to the east of Elizabeth's has no inscription, and appears never to have had one. When we were first surveying the cemetery, there appeared to be no grave in this spot. However, after probing and digging, we located a small foundation stone." (here, she has drawn a rectangle inside a rectangle with the word slot in the very center)

"Looking further, we located toward the north side of the cemetery a loose, umarked gravestone which seemed to fit perfectly into the center slot of the foundation. This unmarked stone was consideraly different from the others--shorter, much thicker and without any inscription. Buried in the dirt in the same area as the foundation for the unmarked stone we found aproximately 50 crumbling pieces of sandstone. The edges of several of the pieces seemed to have a rounded sculptured effect. Enough letters and numbers were legible on four of the pieces to indicate that these crumbling stones represented an early marker for Robert Scobee Sr. By arrangeing the pieces as follows, we were able to decipher the following letters and numbers." (Here she has drawn pieces of rocks with a t, Sco, ct 31, 60)

"When these snatches of numbers and letters are compared with the apparently newer, deeply grooved stone for Robert, shown below, all four of us agreed that both markers were for Robert Scobee Sr. The newer marker for Robert reads as follows:

There are also two markers for the first of Robert Scobee Jr.'s wives, Emily. Because of the deeply grooved inscription on one marker for her, it appears to be a more recent stone than the one we found for Emily leaning against the northeast corner wall of the cemetery.

Because of the deeply grooved inscription, this marker for Emily appears to be the most recent. This marker we found lying flat covered with several inches of dirt. The earlier marker for Emily we found leaning against the wall. It reads as follows;

Emily Scobee
Consort of
Robt. Scobee
Died Aug. 6, 18 --
The last 2 digits of the year of death are illegible.

Lucyann was another wife of Robert Scobee Jr., and was a sister to Emily. A rather narrow stone close by with the initials L.A.S. seems to be the footstone for Lucyann.

The only part of this stone showing above ground level was the portion reading Diann. The stone has evidently been fractured so that the top part of the stone slipped down slightly and has somewhat obliterated the third line of the inscription. It looks like one of the words on that line may be George. George Scobee was a son of Robert Sr. and married Joanna Dooley. My records show George and Joanna had a daughter who died in infancy. The year of death appeared only faintly on the marker and is somewhat a gues on our part. This stone was located in the southwest corner of the cemetery on what looked like it was to have begun a second row of graves; however, we were unable to locate any others along that row.

After spending the day on the old Scobee place, I began to think about the family as reflected in the gravestone inscriptions and in some of the names, dates, and places appearing in my family records. The following thoughts come to mind about the history of the cemetery and the life of the Scobees as it might have been during the time of Robert and Elizabeth.

During the time between 1830 an 1854, several of Robert's and Elizabeth's married sons were probably living either with their mother and father, or else in nearby homes on the home place.

By the 1830s, Robert Sr. would have been approaching old age, so it seems likely that some of his sons would have remained with their mother after the death of their father. This would explain the graves for three of George's and William's children and two of Robert Jr.'s wives. However, by the time that William, George, and Robert Jr. died, they and their offspring had moved elsewhere. William died in nearby Montgomery County, Kentucky; George moved to Missouri sometime between 1844 and 1860; and Robert Jr. is buried in the town of Winchester, Clark County, Kentucky.

Regarding the duplicate stones for Robert Sr. and Emily, I would say that probably through the years a member of the family coming from the line of Robert Jr. arranged to have new stones made as the old ones became worn.

Further, I'd speculate that the second group of buried grave stone fragments we found --

not the original Robert's -- formed the original stone for Lucyann. The newer markers for Robert Sr. and Emily are of similar styles and depth of grooves in the inscriptions. In addition, the deeply grooved stone for Lucyann was inscribed in exactly the same style as the more recent stone for her sister, Emily.

I would guess that the newer stones for Emily, Robert, and Lucyann may never have been placed or erected in their precisely correct locations, since Emilly's and Robert's are lying out of line and at an angle to the other intact markers, and the marker for Lucyann is leaning against a tree.

The original location of Robert Sr.'s grave may have been close to the thick marker with no inscription, since we found the pieces of his stone buried in the dirt close by. The original markers for Emily and Lucyann were most likely along the same single row through the center of the cemetery.

Finally, there is the mysterious stone with no inscription that fits precisely into the stone foundation next to Elizabeth's marker in the center of the cemetery. Could this be yet another marker for Robert Scobee sr.,? Or is it possible that it could be a marker for an even older generation of Scobees?"

The early 1800s Dooley home, built by Obadiah Dooley, is an old log house with typically small windows. Sometime through the years the house has been updated by covering the logs with clapboard.

This large house appears to have grown from an initial long, tall and narrow 1 1/2 story log structure so typical of early Kentucky houses. Now boasting an imposing gabled portico to shelter the front door, the original log house has been enlarged several times. A one-story gable roofed addition gave the house a t-shape. Evidently further expansion was needed, for a lean-to addition now flanks either side of the Ts stem.

A wall stands behind the house; a cistern, to one side. The house, now wired for electricity, is currently occupied, and in its fresh coat of white paint still stands sturdily upon its hill.

On a knoll just beyond is the old family graveyard. Here are buried Obadiah Dooley and his wife, Ann. Slowly their markers are becoming engulfed by encroaching hatberry tree trunks. However, the inscriptions upon their stones are still legible and read as follows:

Other stones with no apparent inscriptions stand within the wire-fenced, tree-filled enclosure. Outside the fence are what appear to be other uninscribed grave markers -- small irregularly shaped pieces of field stone protruding several inches above the ground. These may have been graves of family slaves."

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Scobee and Dooley Families of Clark County, KY