Through the years, this land had wonderful neighbors--Neal, Prater,
Adams, Kendall, Hazelrigg, Turner, Mays, Wells, Henry, Williams,
Barbour, French, Lewis .... I spent lots of nights at Nettie Neal’s.
My mother took care of grandfather [Ananias Reed] .... I recall only
one time I saw him, sitting by the fire.
The old Reed home...the spring and the graveyard...only memories,
inseparable ....
Among Ef`fie Kilgore’s papers are articles published in the Licking Valley
Courier "by our gifted writers Whitt, Stacy and O’Rear," she notes. Bernard
Whitt, with a historical perspective, on March 6, 1958, relates that P. K. Neal
bought a three-thousand-acre tract there in 1840 and that his name was soon
adopted for the entire area. Whitt wrote in 1958 that the spring had been flowing
through the valley for a hundred years and was still providing plenty of water for
all its residents. He cites "Nias" Reed as among the first settlers. Ananias was
born there in a house his father, Thomas Reed, built in 1825.
Judge Edward C. O’Rear, in an April 10, 1958, letter-to-the-editor response
to Whitt’s article, wrote that he remembered "Nias," and that "Ananias B. Reed
was a type--stalwart, quiet, ingenuous--[that was] most highly respected."
Helen Price Stacy, in May 10, 1962, and April 1, 1974, articles, with the
pen of an artist described Neal Valley as a scene of "pastoral beauty," and added
cameo insets that liven all our senses:
Apple, pear and peach trees...dogwood and redbud...gentle slopes
covered with a brilliant springtime green...squares of green, broken
here and there with white canvas oblongs, signifying that tobacco
beds are seeded and before long the plants will become neat rows in
fields .... The creek threads like a curling vine through the
valley...cattle graze in the lush green grass...peaceful .... The sounds
are those made by birds--and at dusk the croak of frogs.
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