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Celebrating the families of Joseph Reynolds and Queentina Christina Amburgey. |
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 Runnels Fork is located in the southeast corner of Kentucky in the area that is now known as Mallie, Kentucky. For centuries animals and people followed the path that became known as the Cumberland Gap from Tennessee and Virginia into Kentucky. The path of animals opened the way west for the many travelers who followed in the footsteps of the 'long hunters' led by Elisha Walden (Wallen) in 1763. In 1769 Daniel Boone first crossed the Gap and explored the lands in Kentucky in 1775 for Judge Richard Henderson. The Wilderness Road (if you don't mind using the term 'road' loosely) was built and by the end of the Revolutionary War some 12,000 persons had crossed into the new territory. Although Kentucky was never a 'territory', it was part of Virginia as were the future states of Ohio and Illinois. On June 1, 1792 the population was supposedly over 100,000 and Kentucky became the 15th state to enter the Union.
During the 1790s and 1800s hundreds of thousands of people and livestock used The Wilderness Road to 'go west' most passing on through to other states. In the 1820s and 1830s other routes to the west were opened and the Cumberland Gap's importance declined. Sometime in the early 1830s Joseph Reynolds, son of Joseph Reynolds and Sarah Perkins went west from Patrick County Virginia to Kentucky. We believe that he was in Virginia in 1829 when he was involved in a lawsuit over his father's will with his mother and siblings. However, several of his siblings had moved to Kentucky earlier and were involved in the same lawsuit. They lived closed to one another; but apparently had no further contact with the family left behind in Virginia. Family lore has been repeated in many branches of the family that there was a 'large disagreement' and Joseph went 'into the mountains' and two brothers stayed behind. In 1833 Joseph Reynolds married Queentina Amburgey, daughter of John Amburgey II and Elizabeth Jane Hammonds. Queentina was born in North Carolina and sometime around 1826 the Amburgeys traveled west (probably through Virginia) into Kentucky and settled at Carr's Fork. Joseph and Queentina were married in Perry County, and lived in the same general vicinity even though the area they were in changed from Perry County to Letcher County and then to Knott County as the population grew and new counties were formed. This web site is the "story" of Joseph and Queentina - those who came before them and the large family that came after them. |
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