Ancestry, Traditions, and Occupationsof Clintwood, VA

By: Emili BlevinsFall 2006 Appalachian History

© 2007 A. Linwood Holton Governor’s School

The first known permanent settlers…• In 1829, John Mullins, a man from North Carolina, found

a home near the present day Main Street of Clintwood, where the former Dickenson County Hospital was located. A cabin, which had been built earlier and abandoned, was discovered by Mullins, so he made it his home. Leaving his three children at the cabin, Mullins went back to North Carolina to get the rest of his family and items, along with his father John Mullins, Sr.

• John Mullins stayed in Clintwood, where he raised a large family. His children got married and settled around the same area. He, along with many of his sons-in-law owned most of the area of Clintwood and its surrounding areas.

• The Mullins family remains one of the largest families of the Clintwood area.

This is a historical marker that stands in Clintwood telling about John Mullins settling here and his

father, John Mullins, Sr.

This is a monument that is mounted on the front of the Dickenson County Court House. It tells about John Mullins settling here and his father being the only

Revolutionary War Soldier buried in Dickenson County.

Clintwood gets its name…

• Dickenson County was established in 1880.

• The county seat was located on McClure River, in a place called Ervinton. People on the other end of the county weren’t pleased with the location of their county seat.

• In 1882, the General Assembly voted to relocate the county seat to Holly Creek, the former name for Clintwood.

• Henry Clinton Wood, a man from Scott County, Virginia, was an acting member on the Virginia Senate. He was often called “Clint Wood”. Since the honorable Wood helped the county seat to be relocated, John P. Chase, the chosen representative of Dickenson County, decided to name the town Clintwood.

This is a historical marker that tells about the county seat being moved from Ervinton (which is spelled Ervington) to Clintwood, which was originally named Holly Creek. This marker can

be seen when first entering Clintwood.

Traditions of Clintwood

• Attending church

• Growing tobacco

• Quilting

• Farming

• Working in hay fields

• Attending school

Attending Church…

• Going to church has always been a tradition of people living in the Clintwood area.

• No other county in Virginia has a deeper religious feeling and belief in God than Dickenson County.

• Baptist was the most common type of religion for many years, but other types of religion started emerging later.

• There were many churches built in the area to hold church sermons for all of the different kinds of religions of people.

• If a church hadn’t been built, preachers went around to homes and preached to the people.

Example of a Freewill Baptist Church-Valley View Freewill Baptist Church-

• I, personally, have attended this church for almost 18 years. My parents have taken me there ever since I was born.

• The church was founded on July 14, 1914 near Yates Gap in Clintwood, Virginia. It is located on the western part of the town.

• The church always has and continues to serve the spiritual needs of the community.

• It was established by Reverend S.M. McFall, Reverend J.G. Kenady, Reverend A.J. Honeycutt, and L.M. Vanover.

• The present day preacher is Lynn Vanover.

This is the present-day Valley View Freewill Baptist Church.

Here is a picture of the former Dickenson County Memorial and Industrial High School located in Clintwood. It serves today as the annex section of Clintwood High School. It

was built in 1921-1922.

Major Occupations of Clintwood

• Banking

• Lumbering

• Coal Mining

• Drilling for Natural Gas

• Owning General Stores

Owning Stores

• Mining and lumbering companies started to come into the Clintwood area. A type of “company store” was the first type of building built to sell merchandise to the employees of these mining and lumbering companies.

• Improvement in transportation helped to bring more merchandise to the stores.

• Groceries and related items are examples of the first few things that were brought into these stores. As transportation started to progress, hardware and furniture were easier to get to the stores for them to sell. Some of the stores had clothing and other notions.

• Drugstores, or pharmacies, handled all of the medicine, but most of the stores around the county carried a stock of patent medicines.

Here is a picture of a store that still looks the same as it did in 1955. It is located on Darwin, about 8 miles from the town of Clintwood. It was one of

the first “company stores” to be built to provide items to the people surrounding the area. Stanley’s General Store is still operating today.

This is the present court house located in Clintwood, VA. It is the third court

house that has been built to represent the

Dickenson County area. It

is the remodeled

version of the second court house. It was remodeled in 1953 and still

serves the county today.

Works Cited

Documenting the American South. 25 November 2006. University Library, The

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 25 November 2006

<http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/wood/illustr6.html>.

Meet Virginia’s Baby, A Pictorial History of Dickenson County, VA. Clintwood:

Diamond Jubilee, 1955.

Valley View Freewill Baptist Church. Currently working 2006. Valley View

Freewill Baptist Church Homepage. 25 November 2006

<http://www.valleyviewfwbchurch.com/>.