Heekin

Cherry Grove-Heekin Road starts west at old Cherry Grove on Kentucky 36, crosses I-75 and U. S. 25 (location of Mason-Corinth Elementary School opened in 1991) and ends at Heekin. Kentucky 1995 (Simpson Ridge Road) angles two miles intersecting Salem Park Road, Chipman Road, intersects Kentucky 22 at Twin Bridges. Heekin is 3.6 miles from Lawrenceville by Kentucky 1995. Heekin is connected to Kentucky 36 (Williamstown-Stewartsville Road) by Heekin-Clark's Creek Road. There are no stores, commercial businesses, or school at the site of Heekin, only some homes nearby and the flourishing Mt. Olivet Church of Christ. Grassy Run Baptist Church has a viable congregation, east of Heekin on Kentucky 1937. There has been no post office since it was discontinued in 1903. Heekin Post Office was established November 1, 1887 by Dan'l M. Hall who continued in 1899. Henry H. Stith was appointed postmaster in 1900. In 1901 Williamstown Courier, Heekin was pictured as a growing village four miles from town on the Williamstown and Owen Turnpike Road, with one store, two blacksmith shops, shoemakers, and a tobacco warehouse.

These biographies of three Heekin men were featured in the 1901 Williamstown Courier:

J. Whitney Hall was the son of J. W. Hall, who was a Baptist preacher. J. Witney attended Georgetown College, taught school, and graduated from the Kentucky School of Medicine in 1890. D. Mood Hall, another son of J. W., was a merchant, farmer, and road contractor.

S. J. Eals moved with his parents to Grant County in 1844 and settled on the farm near the log Harrison-Heekin school house on land owned later by the Scroggin family.

E. K. Loomis' family came to the Heekin area in 1873. Two sons became doctors, including Dr. J. F. Loomis, who attended Georgetown College, taught school, and graduated in 1890 from the Louisville School of Medicine and Surgery. The family owned one of the earliest automobiles to traverse Chipman Ridge.

Perry Jackson Harrison homesteaded in Grant County west of Williamstown, building a mansion of eleven rooms. Thirteen springs and two creeks were on his land. One creek he named Rattlesnake Creek because of killing so many in the area. The other he called "Wicked Run" because it ran a wicked course. During the Civil War, he was suspected by the Federal marshal of Confederate activities but was cleared. There is a legend of a steel-banded trunk left at the home by a visitor. When he did not return, the trunk was found to contain Confederate money, clothes, and papers.

John Estill and Sarah Ellen Wilson Mitts settled in the Heekin area about 1836. An earlier generation included the Jacob and John Mitts families who had come into the Dry Ridge area with their kin, the Simon Nichols family, from Harrison County before 1820.

Adam Mitts Jr.'s son, John Estill Mitts, married Sarah Ellen Wilson, native of Lawrenceville and they lived in a cabin on the banks of Eagle Creek and Grassy Run. Grassy Run was known in those days as Wicked Willow because it overflowed it banks each spring. To avoid this flooding, John Estill Mitts built a new home for his family (eleven sons and two daughters) on higher ground on the Eagle Creek side of the Chipman Ridge Road.

In the 1885 Grant County Superintendents book, the Heekin teachers and trustees were listed, with B. N. Harrison teacher every year from the fall of 1884 through the spring of 1891, and with J. W. Chipman as chairman of trustees every year except for Thomas Sheriff in 1886-1887 and U. M. Northcutt in 1888-89. J. W. Hall was chairman of the trustees in 1894-1895, when the first regular census of school age children showed 63 students in the district, and he was chairman of trustees for 1895-1896 when the second census showed 57 children (ages 6-20). Other trustees were Wm. Reed, Wm. Dunn, and Alfred Brooks.

On July 8, 1898 Heekin school building was condemned and had to be rebuilt. By 1900 the census showed 73 students. In 1902-03 Heekin trustees were C. L. Harrison, Dave Green, and Frank See. For the term starting on February 28, 1902 ending on March 21, 1902, John M. Flege was paid $31.12. C. C. Adams was Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Blain Flege remembers walking, at the age of 9, to Heekin School when his family lived on Old Salem Pike. He forded Rattlesnake Creek and went down Chipman Ridge to Heekin. His family paid $3 for a six week term after Christmas.

Una Conyers was the teacher at Heekin School, No. 41, with 31 average attendance in 1906. In 1908, in Census Book 5, 60 children were listed.

In 1911-12 in Census Book 6, Page 50, thirty-five children were shown, as listed below:

In the following years another chairman of trustees was J. B. Hutchison, and the teacher was Leolia Westover, who also taught in many schools. The old Heekin Schoolhouse on a lot of 1-1/4 acres was sold to W. L. Harrison Sr., March 4, 1938, and the school was consolidated with Mason.

Independence School was located on Chipman Ridge Road. The site of the school is between Reed Kinman Road and the Bennet Road, on the north side of the road. In 1888-1889 Chairman of Trustees was Richard Mann and the teacher was Rebecca Willis. In 1908 N. T. Chipman represented Independence at the Division 3 Board of Education meeting. In January 1909 Miss Allie Mae Simpson was elected to teach at Independence. Miss Susie Dunn was elected for Independence in June 1909. Independence elected Samuel Chipman as Trustee for 1909-1911. In 1910 Miss May Howard was employed at Independence (now called Subdistrict 6), followed by Miss Fleura Blanchett and Agnes Scroggin, who was teacher when the following census was taken in 1912.

Grant County School Census Book 6 1911-1912 for No. 46 (Independence).

Miss Mace Beverly was at Independence in 1913 and 1914. Sallie Flege Odor taught at Independence in 1915; Elizabeth Flege taught in 1920-21; Anna C. Flege in 1922-23. Sallie Flege Odor taught at Independence in the late 1920s. These one and two room schoolhouses often resulted in good education for their students, as many of the school census lists contained the notation "no illiterates".

Family names in the school census, the road workers in the order books, the church histories, and the newspaper accounts indicate that many descndant of early families have chosen to remain in Grant County.

History of Grant County, John B. Conrad, Editor
Published by The Grant County Historical Society
Williamstown, Kentucky
Article by M. L. Mitts Evans

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