Carolus J. Peddicord
Member 1st Kentucky Cavalry
FACING [18]
PART II
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF KELION FRANKLIN PEDDICORD AS WRITTEN IN HIS “JOURNAL” AND IN LETTERS FROM MILITARY PRISONS, AND AS JOTTED DOWN BY HIM DURING A BUSY LIFE AFTER THE WAR
CHAPTER I
YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD
Kelion Franklin Peddicord was the second son of Wilson Lee Peddicord and Keturah Barnes-Peddicord. He was born October 1, 1833, on a farm near Barnesville, Belmont County, Ohio, the home of his Grandfather Peddicord, where his parents lived when they moved from Maryland in 1830. The family moved to Barnesville, while he was yet unable to walk, to the hotel called the Mansion House, later styled the Mills House.
His father was in charge of the Mansion House, and owned at the time four or five large six-horse teams and wagons, which he kept for hauling to and from the Baltimore, Maryland, market, over the National Turnpike. He was an experienced tobacconist, buying, packing, and sending hundreds of hogsheads of tobacco to the Baltimore market. They hauled tobacco east, and brought dry goods and merchandise of every description west in return.
Young Peddicord’s education was begun at the old brick “free” schoolhouse, then the high school of the town. The first schoolmaster was an old-timer by the name of Ashford. Another was Joseph Harris. When the large academy was built he attended it, while under the charge of that excellent professor, Nathaniel R. Smith, of Smith’s Grammar fame. From Professor Smith Kelion received his first lessons in surveying, having field practice, geology, and geometry. He was often a companion of the Professor in his researches, and thus acquired a great fondness for all that was curious in nature. This knowledge in after years aided him much in his profession of civil engineering in the classification of materials.
He was a good assistant in the tobacco house under his father, and had become an expert assorter and packer when but twelve years old.
In 1846 his father moved with his family from the town of Barnesville to a farm on the Ohio River, in Washington County, Ohio, at the foot of what old river men called Long Reach, from its straight course of eighteen miles. While living here the boy saw pass many Mexican war soldiers en route to their homes from Mexico.
In the spring of 1850 the family moved to the Virginia side of the river on a farm five miles above St. Marys, the county-seat of Pleasants County, Virginia. With his eldest sister he attended the seminary school conducted by Mrs. T. E. Curry, at the town of Grandview, Ohio, during the winter of 1850 and 1851.