IIn the tradition of the Big South Fork settlement era, there are a number of names that stand out among settlers from the Station Camp, Parch Corn and No Business communities west of the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River, near Oneida. But there are few who were more influential than Ike King.
Isaac Marion “Ike” King was born in January 1887. By the time of his death in Oneida in 1957, his name was forever etched in the history of what had by then become a mostly abandoned settlement west of the BSF river.
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Today, of course, this part of the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area is referred to as ‘the backcountry’, a section of the 125,000-acre national park located away from developed facilities. such as visitor centers or campgrounds. The closest developed facility is a sanitary block (read: off the beaten path toilet) at the Camp River Access station just across the river on the Oneida side.
But there was a time when Station Camp was a happening place. There was a church, a school, a post office, a general store… and Ike King was involved in almost all of them.
Today, Ike King’s home can be visited by hikers and horse riders. It is located along the Fork Ridge Equestrian Trail, just up the hill from the Laurel Fork Creek Hiking Trail, near the intersection of Laurel Fork Creek and Station Camp, about a mile west of the river. BSF.
All that remains of the farm today is part of the fireplace that once served as a double fireplace, as well as an assortment of old pieces of metal – including what’s left of an old stove – left over from years gone by. .
Donnie Kidd, a resident of Oneida who lives in the Coopertown neighborhood and knows Big South Fork like the back of his hand, has shown the way to the old farmhouse and has confirmed it belonged to King. He said he spent many nights in the King Cabin in his youth.
“It was as solid as a pitcher until someone burned it down around 1973,” he said.
Sadly, this was the fate of many of the farms that remained in the Big South Fork after being abandoned by their owners. Either they have fallen victim to age, or they have been burned – intentionally or accidentally by hikers, hunters and other reckless people seeking refuge in the hinterland. The last to burn was the Armstead Blevins Hut last owned by Noble Smith, located just down the river at Parch Corn Creek. It burned down in 1998.
Today, only those properties that have been carefully preserved by the National Park Service – Lorna Blevins Hut and Farm, Oscar Blevins House and Farm, and John Litton / General Slaven House and Farm, as well as Jonathan Blevins at Charit Creek, which is used as a backcountry hostel – still standing.
But what’s left of most old farms – like the Armstead Blevins Hut – can still be visited by wanderers and adventurers who seek them out. And Ike King Square is one of them. Today, the area around the former hut site has been reforested. And the fields that were once planted in the Laurel Creek Valley are well underway. It is not too difficult to tell where the fields once were; mature wood has not yet grown in their place. But, little by little, nature plays its role, and the traces of human life are erased from this landscape.
Ike King was the son of Kirby Sherman King (1846-1935) and Nancy Ellen Hatfield King (1849-1917). Her paternal grandparents were William “Billy” King and Millie Angel King. Her maternal grandparents were William Riley Hatfield and Elizabeth Burke Hatfield.
Kirby King served in the Union Army during the Civil War. He was one of many Scott Countians who headed to northern Kentucky to enlist after secession. He fell ill with a fever during the war, while stationed at Camp Nelson, Ky. He never fully recovered.
The King family’s migration to Big South Fork Country took place two generations before Ike King. His great-grandfather, William King Sr., was born in North Carolina around 1785. His great-great-grandfather, Kirby King, was also born in North Carolina. Her third great-grandfather, Richard King, was born in Virginia.
After the Civil War, Kirby King married Nancy Ellen Hatfield, daughter of William R. Hatfield (1824-1892) and Eliza Burke. Hatfield moved to the Big South Fork area from West Virginia and was killed after an argument along the river. The story goes that he swung his horse in an attempt to stomp on a man and was shot in the stomach with a .45-70 rifle. He lived on the Jonathan Blevins farm which is now Charit Creek Lodge, along Station Camp Creek about three miles west of the river.
Elizabeth Burke, wife of William Riley Hatfield, was the daughter of Jonathan Burke (1797-1875) and Nancy Cooper Burke (1803-1880). Jonathan Burke moved from Virginia to the Big South Fork area, first settling near Little South Fork before migrating – along with the Hatfields – to the Station Camp area. Elizabeth’s brother – Peter – owned the cabin their father had built just down the river from Parch Corn Creek when it was the sight of a skirmish between Confederate guerrillas and the Home Guard militia in 1863 The guerrillas had attacked several farms in the area and were spending the night in the Burke hut when the guard of the house surrounded it and opened fire. The Confederates were killed and buried in a nearby mass grave, although no one knows exactly where.
This is the story of Ike King’s ancestral legacy. In April 1908, he married Hattie Bell Hatfield (1889-1969). She was the orphan daughter of Richard Hatfield and Artema West Hatfield, and was raised by the King family. Ike and Hattie Bell had 12 children, four of whom died in infancy. The last of their surviving children, Martha Marie King Kanizer, died in 2015 in Indiana.
Ike has held many roles in the Station Camp community over the years, but he was perhaps best known as the community teacher. He had limited educational opportunities in his own youth and sought to change that for the generation that followed. He taught in the one-class school – which doubled as the New Zion Church, as well as the community polling station – for 40 years.
Herb King, of Oneida, who grew up in Parch Corn Creek, told the Independent Herald several years ago that he walked 1.5 miles from Parch Corn to Station Camp school every day to light a fire in the stove, providing heat for the building. He remembers Ike King well and told stories of boys sometimes escaping school in the summer to swim in the river. One day, as he questioned the boys about their wet heads when they got back to school, Ike King realized what was going on. His method of discipline for his students was a leather bracelet which he kept on hand.
“When you had three stars on the board next to your name, you had to stay after school, roll up your pant legs and wrap that leather thong around your legs,” Herb King said.
Ike and Hettie bought a grocery store for Cal and Dora Smith. The store also served as a post office – with Ike as the postmaster, of course. The US Postal Service’s name for Station Camp was Elva.
Later, Ike collected 200 signatures (there were 300 adults served by the post office in Elva) on a petition he filed in Huntsville to establish a justice of the peace position for the Station Camp community. Thus, he was also a justice of the peace. He was also a land agent for the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. and a notary.
Like his parents and wife, Ike King is buried in Coffey Cemetery on Stanley Street in Oneida.
The easiest way for hikers to access the Ike King property is to take the John Muir Trail from the Duncan Hollow area to Big South Fork near Bandy Creek. From the mountain bike connector trail near the end of Duncan Hollow Road, it’s about a 1.5 mile hike to the home. The Mountain Bike Connector connects Duncan Hollow Road to the John Muir Trail. Continuing north from the trail junction, the John Muir Trail follows the ridge to a point before falling into the gorge where Station Camp and Laurel Fork streams meet. Immediately after crossing a wooden footbridge, turn west to take the Laurel Fork Creek Trail to the creek. A few hundred yards further the Fork Ridge Horse Trail turns right and the farm is located along the trail just up the hill.
