Traditional family stores can give us fascinating insights into the lives and histories of our ancestors. Passed down through the generations, these stores can often get distorted or exaggerated but usually contain at least a grain of truth. One such story about a Noe family appeared in Mabel Green Condon's History of Harlan. The incident, as written down by Mrs. Condon, occurred in the vicinity of present day Pansy on Catrons Creek. A group of Indians watched as the father of the family left the home, packed for a trip into the woods. After he left, they killed Mrs. Noe, tomahawked all the children and set fire to the house.

As Mrs. Condon tells it,

"One little girl four years old crawled out of the burning mass and crept to a spot in a cornfield close by. There she remained for two or three days subsisting on fresh corn and hiding all the time. White settlers who came to the scene found tracks around the house and knew that there were survivors and they would call out but no answer. The little girl thought it was the Indians again and was afraid. At last the settlers found her and took care of her. She lived to marry and raise a family of her own but is said she carried the horrible scar to her grave. Some folks said her scalp never entirely healed."

Mrs. Condon identifies the little girl as the Fanny Noe who married William D. Irvin. In the 1850 census of Harlan County, there is a Frances J. Noe, age 16, living in the household of Buford and Nancy Forrester Noe. There is not doubt that this is the Fanny Noe who married William Irvin and in fact, they named one of their sons Buford. Some family researchers have assumed that Fanny was Buford's daughter by a previous wife and it is possible that it was Buford's family that was massacred by the Indians, but according to the story, Fanny was raised by other than her father.

By Fanny's age in 1850, the massacre occurred about 1836. Now, in the 1830 census of Harlan, there is a Robertson Noe with a wife and two children, a son and daughter. From the Harlan marriage records, his wife was Mary Forrester, sister to Buford's wife, Nancy. Robertson has disappeared from Harlan by 1840 and turns up in Clay County in 1850 with his wife, Emily, whom he had married in 1844 and several of their children.

There is no sign of the two older children listed in the 1830 census. They only way all the known facts and the details of the story fit together is if Fanny Noe Irvin was the daughter of Robertson and Mary Forrester Noe. Her brothers, sisters and mother killed by the Indians, her father went elsewhere and started over with another wife and left Fanny to be raised by his brother and his dead wife's sister.

It must be noted that there is no hard evidence to prove that the story or the family relationships stated above are correct, but circumstantial evidence is strong enough to suggest that it may be true. Assuming it is so, Fanny's family works out as follows: Robertson Noe was the son of John and Charlotte Noe and Buford was his brother. He and Buford married sisters, daughters of John and Ann Fisher Forrester. Thus Fanny was raised with her double cousins, Buford and Nancy's children.

About 1851, Fanny married William Irvin, son of Benjamin and Elizabeth Irvin. They are believed to have had 12 children; Araminta, Martha, John (died at the age of three), Emily, Easter, Nancy, Grant, Mary, Buford, Jerusha, Louisa and Letitia.

22 July 2000 - Editorial Note: The subject of whether or not there actually was an Indian massacre of the family is not particularly discussed in this column but it is highly unlikely as it had been close to 40 years since there was any Indian violence of this sort any where in Kentucky. The massacre of a family by Indians in 1836 would undoubtedly have made the history books.