Parents: Andrew Jackson Honaker
Ranks Of Honaker Clan Being Thinned.
by Shirley Donnelly
On the day we were giving Christian burial to my old friend, William Wesley Honaker (April 12, 1892 - February 9, 1970), it is recalled that he was the son of the last Civil War veteran of Raleigh County.
Bil Honaker, as friends and intimates knew him, was the son of the late Andrew Jackson Honaker, who lived to the ripe old age of 94 years.
It fell to me to conduct the funeral rites of the 94-year old Confederate soldier in Beckley at the First Baptist Church on July 2, 1937. We laid him to rest in the American Legion Cemetery in East Beckley. He was the last Civil War veteran to be interred there.
Rapidly no end is the way the ranks of the Honaker clan of pioneer note is being thinned out in this country. Long ago these men whose names have long since been associated with the gunsmith art, went out with the tide of time.
James A. Honaker and his nephew, J. B. Honaker, makers of the celebrated mountain rifles, years ago called it a day and were gathered unto their fathers.
In their blacksmith shop in the Marsh Fork section of Raleigh County, out Saxon section way, the uncle and nephew turned out rifle guns that have long since become collectors' items.
Each affixed his signiture, or initials, on the butt ends of the rifle barrels because they were not ashamed of the product they produced.
Whether the Honaker rifle is still in the possesion of his family, I do not know, but the last time I visited Bill Honaker, he had one of the old Honaker rifles in his sizeable gun collection.
That day when Bill Honaker showed his guns, he tendered me his assortment of Indian artifacts to be placed in the museum here. Most of the arrow heads and spear points were found by him on the river banks at Hinton and Bellepoint.
In the group of flint articles was one of the most beautiful flint scrapers ever seen. It is a flat, scalloped-edge flint implement that looks like a gorgeous opal.
It was used by the red men to scrape flesh from the hides of the deer they arrowed down as well as to remove the scales from the fish which they hooked out of the Greenbrier and New Rivers at Hinton.
To give you some idea of how time flies and to show you how people forget when an event took place, some were asked, just before Bill Honaker's funeral got underway, when Bill's father had passed away.
One said he thought it must have been "about 15 years ago."
Then another spoke up and said, "No, it's been longer than that. It was at least 20 years."
They could hardly believe it when they were told it was on July 2, 1937 -- almost a third of a century ago -- that Andrew Jackson Honaker's funeral was held in Beckley.
Speaking of burying Confederate veteran Andrew Jackson Honaker in the American Legion Cemetery in East Beckley, the original area of that grave yard must not have been over an acre and a half in extent.
Today the original plot has been completely filled. On February 4, we buried Earl L. Davis (Sept. 3, 1915 - Feb. 2, 1970) in the last grave of the original cemetery.
A small area has been added to the first plot but soon it will be filled because the hero dead are passing out of the picture "like leaves on the current cast!"
Evidence of this is shown by the fact that somewhere a World War I veteran expires every three minutes!
There where Andrew Jackson Honaker -- whose politics can be easily guessed by his name -- and Earl L. Davis are under the sod and the dew, awaiting judgement day, rest the remains of the first soldier to fall in the Korean Conflict.
He was a lad from Skin Poplar Gap, a section not very far removed from Beckley.
Bill Honaker will be remembered as a painter by trade but when it came to framing pictures and other items the man had no peer. For years he was a framer and joiner in the Beckley Hardware Company.
Hanging on the walls around are a number of things he framed for me. He would almost frame an item for you while you waited, so accomodating was he.
-Beckley Post-Herald, February 18, 1970, transcribed by Rhonda Holton, Thanks to KATHRYN MCVAY for this newspaper article.
Ranks Of Honaker Clan Being Thinned.
by Shirley Donnelly
On the day we were giving Christian burial to my old friend, William Wesley Honaker (April 12, 1892 - February 9, 1970), it is recalled that he was the son of the last Civil War veteran of Raleigh County.
Bil Honaker, as friends and intimates knew him, was the son of the late Andrew Jackson Honaker, who lived to the ripe old age of 94 years.
It fell to me to conduct the funeral rites of the 94-year old Confederate soldier in Beckley at the First Baptist Church on July 2, 1937. We laid him to rest in the American Legion Cemetery in East Beckley. He was the last Civil War veteran to be interred there.
Rapidly no end is the way the ranks of the Honaker clan of pioneer note is being thinned out in this country. Long ago these men whose names have long since been associated with the gunsmith art, went out with the tide of time.
James A. Honaker and his nephew, J. B. Honaker, makers of the celebrated mountain rifles, years ago called it a day and were gathered unto their fathers.
In their blacksmith shop in the Marsh Fork section of Raleigh County, out Saxon section way, the uncle and nephew turned out rifle guns that have long since become collectors' items.
Each affixed his signiture, or initials, on the butt ends of the rifle barrels because they were not ashamed of the product they produced.
Whether the Honaker rifle is still in the possesion of his family, I do not know, but the last time I visited Bill Honaker, he had one of the old Honaker rifles in his sizeable gun collection.
That day when Bill Honaker showed his guns, he tendered me his assortment of Indian artifacts to be placed in the museum here. Most of the arrow heads and spear points were found by him on the river banks at Hinton and Bellepoint.
In the group of flint articles was one of the most beautiful flint scrapers ever seen. It is a flat, scalloped-edge flint implement that looks like a gorgeous opal.
It was used by the red men to scrape flesh from the hides of the deer they arrowed down as well as to remove the scales from the fish which they hooked out of the Greenbrier and New Rivers at Hinton.
To give you some idea of how time flies and to show you how people forget when an event took place, some were asked, just before Bill Honaker's funeral got underway, when Bill's father had passed away.
One said he thought it must have been "about 15 years ago."
Then another spoke up and said, "No, it's been longer than that. It was at least 20 years."
They could hardly believe it when they were told it was on July 2, 1937 -- almost a third of a century ago -- that Andrew Jackson Honaker's funeral was held in Beckley.
Speaking of burying Confederate veteran Andrew Jackson Honaker in the American Legion Cemetery in East Beckley, the original area of that grave yard must not have been over an acre and a half in extent.
Today the original plot has been completely filled. On February 4, we buried Earl L. Davis (Sept. 3, 1915 - Feb. 2, 1970) in the last grave of the original cemetery.
A small area has been added to the first plot but soon it will be filled because the hero dead are passing out of the picture "like leaves on the current cast!"
Evidence of this is shown by the fact that somewhere a World War I veteran expires every three minutes!
There where Andrew Jackson Honaker -- whose politics can be easily guessed by his name -- and Earl L. Davis are under the sod and the dew, awaiting judgement day, rest the remains of the first soldier to fall in the Korean Conflict.
He was a lad from Skin Poplar Gap, a section not very far removed from Beckley.
Bill Honaker will be remembered as a painter by trade but when it came to framing pictures and other items the man had no peer. For years he was a framer and joiner in the Beckley Hardware Company.
Hanging on the walls around are a number of things he framed for me. He would almost frame an item for you while you waited, so accomodating was he.
-Beckley Post-Herald, February 18, 1970, transcribed by Rhonda Holton, Thanks to KATHRYN MCVAY for this newspaper article.
Parents: Andrew Jackson Honaker
Ranks Of Honaker Clan Being Thinned.
by Shirley Donnelly
On the day we were giving Christian burial to my old friend, William Wesley Honaker (April 12, 1892 - February 9, 1970), it is recalled that he was the son of the last Civil War veteran of Raleigh County.
Bil Honaker, as friends and intimates knew him, was the son of the late Andrew Jackson Honaker, who lived to the ripe old age of 94 years.
It fell to me to conduct the funeral rites of the 94-year old Confederate soldier in Beckley at the First Baptist Church on July 2, 1937. We laid him to rest in the American Legion Cemetery in East Beckley. He was the last Civil War veteran to be interred there.
Rapidly no end is the way the ranks of the Honaker clan of pioneer note is being thinned out in this country. Long ago these men whose names have long since been associated with the gunsmith art, went out with the tide of time.
James A. Honaker and his nephew, J. B. Honaker, makers of the celebrated mountain rifles, years ago called it a day and were gathered unto their fathers.
In their blacksmith shop in the Marsh Fork section of Raleigh County, out Saxon section way, the uncle and nephew turned out rifle guns that have long since become collectors' items.
Each affixed his signiture, or initials, on the butt ends of the rifle barrels because they were not ashamed of the product they produced.
Whether the Honaker rifle is still in the possesion of his family, I do not know, but the last time I visited Bill Honaker, he had one of the old Honaker rifles in his sizeable gun collection.
That day when Bill Honaker showed his guns, he tendered me his assortment of Indian artifacts to be placed in the museum here. Most of the arrow heads and spear points were found by him on the river banks at Hinton and Bellepoint.
In the group of flint articles was one of the most beautiful flint scrapers ever seen. It is a flat, scalloped-edge flint implement that looks like a gorgeous opal.
It was used by the red men to scrape flesh from the hides of the deer they arrowed down as well as to remove the scales from the fish which they hooked out of the Greenbrier and New Rivers at Hinton.
To give you some idea of how time flies and to show you how people forget when an event took place, some were asked, just before Bill Honaker's funeral got underway, when Bill's father had passed away.
One said he thought it must have been "about 15 years ago."
Then another spoke up and said, "No, it's been longer than that. It was at least 20 years."
They could hardly believe it when they were told it was on July 2, 1937 -- almost a third of a century ago -- that Andrew Jackson Honaker's funeral was held in Beckley.
Speaking of burying Confederate veteran Andrew Jackson Honaker in the American Legion Cemetery in East Beckley, the original area of that grave yard must not have been over an acre and a half in extent.
Today the original plot has been completely filled. On February 4, we buried Earl L. Davis (Sept. 3, 1915 - Feb. 2, 1970) in the last grave of the original cemetery.
A small area has been added to the first plot but soon it will be filled because the hero dead are passing out of the picture "like leaves on the current cast!"
Evidence of this is shown by the fact that somewhere a World War I veteran expires every three minutes!
There where Andrew Jackson Honaker -- whose politics can be easily guessed by his name -- and Earl L. Davis are under the sod and the dew, awaiting judgement day, rest the remains of the first soldier to fall in the Korean Conflict.
He was a lad from Skin Poplar Gap, a section not very far removed from Beckley.
Bill Honaker will be remembered as a painter by trade but when it came to framing pictures and other items the man had no peer. For years he was a framer and joiner in the Beckley Hardware Company.
Hanging on the walls around are a number of things he framed for me. He would almost frame an item for you while you waited, so accomodating was he.
-Beckley Post-Herald, February 18, 1970, transcribed by Rhonda Holton, Thanks to KATHRYN MCVAY for this newspaper article.
Ranks Of Honaker Clan Being Thinned.
by Shirley Donnelly
On the day we were giving Christian burial to my old friend, William Wesley Honaker (April 12, 1892 - February 9, 1970), it is recalled that he was the son of the last Civil War veteran of Raleigh County.
Bil Honaker, as friends and intimates knew him, was the son of the late Andrew Jackson Honaker, who lived to the ripe old age of 94 years.
It fell to me to conduct the funeral rites of the 94-year old Confederate soldier in Beckley at the First Baptist Church on July 2, 1937. We laid him to rest in the American Legion Cemetery in East Beckley. He was the last Civil War veteran to be interred there.
Rapidly no end is the way the ranks of the Honaker clan of pioneer note is being thinned out in this country. Long ago these men whose names have long since been associated with the gunsmith art, went out with the tide of time.
James A. Honaker and his nephew, J. B. Honaker, makers of the celebrated mountain rifles, years ago called it a day and were gathered unto their fathers.
In their blacksmith shop in the Marsh Fork section of Raleigh County, out Saxon section way, the uncle and nephew turned out rifle guns that have long since become collectors' items.
Each affixed his signiture, or initials, on the butt ends of the rifle barrels because they were not ashamed of the product they produced.
Whether the Honaker rifle is still in the possesion of his family, I do not know, but the last time I visited Bill Honaker, he had one of the old Honaker rifles in his sizeable gun collection.
That day when Bill Honaker showed his guns, he tendered me his assortment of Indian artifacts to be placed in the museum here. Most of the arrow heads and spear points were found by him on the river banks at Hinton and Bellepoint.
In the group of flint articles was one of the most beautiful flint scrapers ever seen. It is a flat, scalloped-edge flint implement that looks like a gorgeous opal.
It was used by the red men to scrape flesh from the hides of the deer they arrowed down as well as to remove the scales from the fish which they hooked out of the Greenbrier and New Rivers at Hinton.
To give you some idea of how time flies and to show you how people forget when an event took place, some were asked, just before Bill Honaker's funeral got underway, when Bill's father had passed away.
One said he thought it must have been "about 15 years ago."
Then another spoke up and said, "No, it's been longer than that. It was at least 20 years."
They could hardly believe it when they were told it was on July 2, 1937 -- almost a third of a century ago -- that Andrew Jackson Honaker's funeral was held in Beckley.
Speaking of burying Confederate veteran Andrew Jackson Honaker in the American Legion Cemetery in East Beckley, the original area of that grave yard must not have been over an acre and a half in extent.
Today the original plot has been completely filled. On February 4, we buried Earl L. Davis (Sept. 3, 1915 - Feb. 2, 1970) in the last grave of the original cemetery.
A small area has been added to the first plot but soon it will be filled because the hero dead are passing out of the picture "like leaves on the current cast!"
Evidence of this is shown by the fact that somewhere a World War I veteran expires every three minutes!
There where Andrew Jackson Honaker -- whose politics can be easily guessed by his name -- and Earl L. Davis are under the sod and the dew, awaiting judgement day, rest the remains of the first soldier to fall in the Korean Conflict.
He was a lad from Skin Poplar Gap, a section not very far removed from Beckley.
Bill Honaker will be remembered as a painter by trade but when it came to framing pictures and other items the man had no peer. For years he was a framer and joiner in the Beckley Hardware Company.
Hanging on the walls around are a number of things he framed for me. He would almost frame an item for you while you waited, so accomodating was he.
-Beckley Post-Herald, February 18, 1970, transcribed by Rhonda Holton, Thanks to KATHRYN MCVAY for this newspaper article.
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