As noted in the Westward Migration section, Joseph Andrew Polley (1757-1840), my fifth-great-grandfather (his last name is variously spelled using all three variations), sold his land in Pittsylvania County to Joseph Hatchitt and Obediah Taylor in 1807 [1] and moved to the Coal River area [2] of Kanawha County in western Virginia around 1807 his wife Levinia and their seven children, along with Joseph Midkiff (Levinia’s brother) and his wife, Rebecca Turley Midkiff. This migration may have included Joseph’s brothers, John and Henry. In 1824, this territory became Logan County, and in 1847, it was incorporated as Boone County from parts of Logan, Kanawha, and Cabell Counties. This initiated the development of the family in this area, which later became part of West Virginia.
Subsequently, four more generations of my direct family lived in Western Virginia/central West Virginia, with many of them farmers or coal miners. This cycle was broken when my grandfather moved to Illinois in the early 1920s to work in the coal mines there. Below is a brief synopsis of each generation living in and around Kanawha County, where I have many distant cousins today.
In 1824, the Olive Branch Baptist Church was formed in the Turtle Creek [3] area of what was then Logan County (now Boone County), Virginia, with 19 members, including Nancy Pauley (possibly the daughter of William and Jemina Kelso Polley/Pauley) and Lavina Pauley (probably the wife of Joseph Polley). Joseph and Levinia’s son Ephriam was received into the church in July 1832. He was the clerk from then until June 1834.
Their oldest son, Samuel (abt. 1792 – 1871), my fourth great-grandfather, married Martha “Patsy” Hill in early 1811. They settled on Pond Fork, about eight miles from Ballardsville, now Madison. Samuel and his family are listed in the 1820 census of Kanawha County. Pond Fork was still in Kanawha County then. Logan County originally included Pond Fork and most of the Little Coal River watershed, now in Boone County. Samuel was a farmer.
Samuel’s eldest son, Squire (1812 – 1893), my third-great-grandfather, was born at Pond Fork. Squire married Catherine Brown in about 1833 in Kanawha County. Squire and his sister Dolly married a brother and sister. Catharine Brown is the sister of Squire’s sister Dolly's husband, William Brown. On 30 October 1837, Squire received a land grant for 25 acres on the west fork of Little Coal River in Logan County, Virginia. Squires was also a farmer. In 1853, Squire purchased 310 acres on the west fork of Little Coal River in Boone County, "up west fork to the upper end of the bottom on which said Pauley's house now stands ... and ... 500 acres below the mouth of the Big Ugly running up Big Ugly one mile…"
During the Civil War, four of Squire and Catherine's sons, Calvery, James, Rufus, and George Washington, served in the Confederate army, and all returned home. Calvery and Washington enlisted on the same day and entered the same unit. Squire Jr., their youngest son at the time, served for several months in the state guards at the war's end.
Catherine died in 1876. On 1 June 1878, Squire married Letha Ann Holstein in Boone County. Squire was her third husband. According to the Boone County Register of Deaths, Squire’s death on 23 November 1893 was reported by his wife, Letha. He died at the age of 81 years, seven months, 19 days, from paralysis.
Squire and Catherine’s third son, George Washington Pauley (1840 – 1927), my second-great-grandfather, also referred to as Washington or G.W., married Mary Jane Poley in Wyoming County, West Virginia, on December 22, 1864. Although her last name is similar to known iterations of Pauley, I am unaware of any connection. In the marriage record book, someone wrote Pawley above her last name.
At the 1870 Federal Census, Washington is a 30-year-old farmer living in the Crook District of Boone County with his 25-year-old wife, Mary Jane, and children William R. and Ellen K. He is listed as Washington Pauley, a 30-year-old farmer. The value of his real estate is $100 (about $2,111.37 in today's dollars). Mary Jane died around 1890. G.W. married his second wife, Julia Ann Webb, on October 12, 1893, "at the residence of the bride's father" in Raleigh County, West Virginia. G.W. was 50, a resident of Kanawha County, and Julia was 22, a resident of Raleigh County. At the 1900 census, they were living in the Cabin Creek Magisterial District of Kanawha County; at the 1910 census, they lived in the Marsh Fork Magisterial District of Raleigh County, on a rented farm. Julia died before the 1920 census was taken, which was enumerated on 3 January and shows G.W. as a widow.
In 1920, he was listed in the Leevale Precinct, Clear Fork Magisterial District of Raleigh County, WV, as George W., 79, widowed and not working. His widowed son, George W. Jr., 36, and his single son, Hazen E., 21, are living with him. Both sons are coal miners. The Marsh Fork and Clear Fork Magisterial Districts are in the Northwest part of Raleigh County, near the southern ends of Boone and Kanawha counties.
G.W. died on 23 April 1927 in Miami, Kanawha County, WV. He was buried two days later in the nearby Sharon Cemetery. I visited this cemetery in 2010. It is up a steep hill in the woods. Only a couple of markers were standing. His death certificate lists the cause of death as cerebral hemorrhage (paralysis). The contributing factor is noted as senile decay. He was a widower. The informant was his widowed son, T.B. (Thomas Benton) Pauley, who died less than three months later at age 54, also of a cerebral hemorrhage.
G.W. and Mary Jane’s third son, Charles Edgar Pauley (1875 - 1928), was my great-grandfather. He married Virgie Chapman on Wednesday, 5 July 1899, in Sun, Fayette County, West Virginia. Sun was a coal mining town near Mt. Hope, and Charles was a coal miner. Her father, Charles Edgar Chapman, was also a coal miner. It’s interesting that her father and her husband had the same first and middle names.
The Annual Report of the West Virginia Department of Mines [4] indicates that Charles was involved in a mining accident in Raleigh County on 12 June 1909. Looking at the record, he was working at the Dorothy mine when he received “cuts on head” from a “fall of slate”. He was 25 years old. By the time of the 1910 census, they were living in the Sharon Village community of Kanawha County, where just about every adult male was a coal miner. In 1911, they purchased two lots that had been laid off for the Cabin Creek-Kanawha Coal Company at Miami, which was right next to Sharon.
At the 1920 census on 6 January, Charles, Virgie, and their youngest son, Charles, are still in the Cabin Creek Magisterial District. The form shows "Miami Precinct," but it is crossed out. They own their home free (no mortgage). Charles is 43 and employed as a retail grocery merchant. By this time, their son Ira was in Illinois, and their daughter Crystal was married and temporarily living in Texas, where her husband worked in the oil fields.
Charles later worked alone in a small coal mine for an unknown period. According to the story of this event in the 1984 reunion papers, while the company didn't consider this mine profitable, Charles made a comfortable living working it. He would fill a coal car that the company had left for him on the small tracks. When it was full, they would bring an empty one and take the full one. He usually worked alone. According to the family and his death certificate, he was electrocuted when he stepped on a rail just inside the mine entrance that was "hot" from a wire that had fallen on it. When he did not come home from work, several local men went to the mine and found him dead.
Charles’ and Virgie’s oldest son was my grandfather, Ira Lee Pauley Sr. (1901 - 1969). He was born in Sun, likely while Virgie’s parents were still living there. According to family lore, Ira started working in the coal mines at a young age. When the Child Labor Law was enacted in 1916, he had to stop working until he was 16. The law was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1918. This information about Ira is likely accurate, as he indicated on the 1930 census that he had only an 8th-grade education.
In about 1921, Ira moved to Southern Illinois and worked as a coal miner. This could have resulted from his mother’s sister and her husband living there, or from the West Virginia mining companies that also operated there. A mining report shows that on Friday, 25 January 1924, his leg was injured between cars (age 22, single, of DuQuoin). He missed 52 days of work. There is no indication of which mine he was working at. He was taken to the Marshall Browning Hospital in DuQuoin, where he met his future wife, Thelma Hill, who was a nurse there.
NOTES:[1] Pittsylvania County Deeds 8:16, 19, 479; 14:65, 109, 132, 155, 418 [2] The Coal River is a tributary of the Kanawha River in southern West Virginia. It is formed near the community of Alum Creek by the confluence of the Big and Little Coal Rivers. The Coal River flows generally northward through western Kanawha County, past the community of Tornado, and into the Kanawha River at St. Albans. [3] Turtle Creek is an unincorporated community in Boone County, West Virginia, located along U.S. Route 119, 3.5 miles southwest of Madison.[4] Volume 1907-1925, page 270
Updated March 13, 2025