The mail must go through, rain or shine, even it it goes only three times a week...that was the policy of mail carriers in Harlan 75 years ago. If the mail man's horse had to swim with his mail pockets floating on top of the water, they did just that, but always brought the mail through.

Tom Farley was one of the earliest, if not the first, mail carrier to "run the mail" for harlan, then known as Mount Pleasant. He was the greatgrandfather of Billy K.Farley.

His tri-weekly trips were made to Jonesville, Va., across the mountain. The pioneer citizens had plenty of corn which they had ground regularly for meal but the flour situation was bad.

Tom Farley was an accomodating sort of person so he brought flour from Jonesville to the people here as he carried the mail. The lucky ones stored the flour in a chest until Christmas and used it to bake "stack cakes."

Treat Of Dried Apples

Cooked, dried apples places between the layers of cake, was an extra treat. Most of the flour was used to bake "sweet bread" or "sweet cakes."

Farley, the mail man, usually had a little more flour than any one else because he had more opportunities to bring it home. The womenfolk baked more cakes and rightly earned the name of the "cake baking Farley's."

One day a stranger came riding through Harlan named Farley. He stopped on Main street to speak a casual word with some of the bystanders and told them his name.

"Are you a-kin to the cake baking Farleys"? one of them asked.

The stranger threw his head high and stiffened his shoulders as he spoke, "No, I'm from Virginia and live in a big house with glass windows," he replied.

The mail man suffered many trials and tribulations as he carried the mail for several years. An old timer recalled the day when the mail man came trotting his horse to the post office almost out of breath and called for the crowd to gather round.

Brings News Of Killing

He brought the first news of the killing of a peddler and his wife near the Virginia line. Everyone ran to hear the news. Buford Overton was hung for the crime.

The post office, a small frame building stood on Clover Street near the site of the Christian Church. George B. Turner was postmaster. Many old timers remembered the four or five boxed steps they climbed to enter the post office.

In later years the post office burned and another was built on Central Street. It too, was a small frame building. A.B. Cornett was at one time postmaster.

Billy K. Farley was as obliging as his grandfather. He carried the mail daily from Hagan, Va., in later years. Sometimes he tied the bridles of three or four horses together and brought them to Harlan when several gathered on the other side of the mountain.

As he came into town he turned the horses loose and they headed straight for the stable. The mice were pretty bad to get into the corn crib at the livery stable, but Farley had a remedy for that.

He stopped on the mountain as he brought the mail and caught a few black snakes. The corn cribs stayed free of mice as long as there was a black snake around.

picture...AN EARLY POSTMASTER---George Turner was considered the first postmaster of Mount Pleasant (Harlan). Before he began his duties in the little frame building on Clover Street, the mail was carried three times a week to one of the general stores here for distribution. the store owner found a place for the mail in one of the shelves by bundles of calico or some other out-of-the-way place.

Sunday February 7, 1954

Volume 53 Number 31

Pages 1 & 5

Click Here to return to Main Harlan County Page