Appalachian Community Histories – Dema, Knott and Floyd Counties: Caney Fork, Old Roads, and a Place Name That Remained
Dema is the kind of Appalachian community that does not explain itself through a courthouse square, a town charter, or one long written history. It appears instead in maps, creeks, post office leads, cemetery surveys, county records, church notices, obituaries, and the memories held by families along the Floyd and Knott County line.
That makes Dema easy to overlook and important to recover. The record does not show it as a large town. It shows it as a named place in the hills, tied to Right Fork Beaver Creek, KY 7, nearby Raven and Wayland, and the family networks of southeastern Floyd County and northern Knott County. Modern geographic references place Dema as a populated place in the same landscape as Caney Fork, Raven, Topmost, Wayland, Garrett, and the Floyd-Knott County boundary. One geographic listing places Dema at about N37.4204 and W82.8052, near Raven and a few miles from Wayland, which fits the community’s county-line identity.
Dema on the Map
The first way to understand Dema is to place it on the map rather than to look for a town center. The U.S. Geological Survey’s Geographic Names Information System is one of the strongest starting points because GNIS is the federal database for geographic names and records feature location by state, county, topographic map, and coordinates.
That matters for a place like Dema. Many small mountain communities were not incorporated towns, but they were still real communities. They were known by post offices, churches, hollows, family cemeteries, store locations, roads, and creek mouths. Dema survives in that kind of record. It is a place name fixed by maps and repeated by local documents, even when it does not appear as a municipality.
USGS water records also keep Dema on the map. A federal monitoring location is listed as “Right Fork Beaver Creek AB Caney BR at Dema, KY,” tying the name directly to the stream system that shaped settlement in this part of Floyd and Knott Counties.
Between Floyd County and Knott County
Dema’s history belongs to two counties. Floyd County is one of Kentucky’s older mountain counties. The Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives county formation chart lists Floyd County as formed in 1800 from Fleming, Mason, and Montgomery counties. ExploreKYHistory notes that Floyd County was named in December 1799 and formally established the following summer.
Knott County came much later. Kentucky’s official county profile states that Knott County was formed in 1884 and named for James Proctor Knott, governor of Kentucky from 1883 to 1887. Kentucky Atlas describes Knott County as part of the Eastern Coal Field and states that it was formed from Breathitt, Floyd, Letcher, and Perry counties, with Hindman as the county seat.
That late county formation matters for Dema. A family, land tract, church connection, or cemetery on the Knott side may have roots in older Floyd County records. A deed, tax listing, or marriage bond may not appear where a modern researcher expects it. The Floyd County Clerk notes that the first Floyd County courthouse burned on April 8, 1808, destroying the earliest records, which adds another challenge for anyone tracing the older documentary trail.
Roads, Creeks, and the Shape of Settlement
Dema’s landscape is shaped by the same pattern that shaped much of eastern Kentucky. Roads followed creek valleys. Houses gathered where branch roads, family land, churches, cemeteries, and post offices made daily life possible. KY 7 is central to the modern location of Dema, and the Slone Pigman Cemetery survey places that cemetery on a hill near 5302 KY Route 7, close to KY 899 and near the Floyd-Knott County line.
That cemetery description is more than a burial record. It is a small map of community life. It gives the road, the line between counties, the hollow, and the families buried there. The cemetery survey records Slone, Pigman, Banks, Bradley, Crawford, Hall, Jones, Lucas, Mills, Mullins, Rose, Thornsberry, Turner, Tuttle, Watts, and other names. Those names show Dema not as an empty point on a road map, but as a place of kinship, memory, and settlement.
The creek names around Dema carry the same weight. Caney Fork, Right Fork Beaver Creek, Muddy Branch, Mill Branch, Green Branch, Raven, Topmost, Wayland, and other nearby features appear in geographic listings around the community. These names are the real vocabulary of the place. They describe where people lived, where they walked, where they crossed water, where they buried family members, and where they described home.
The Coalfield Ground Beneath Dema
Dema also sits in the Eastern Kentucky coalfield. The U.S. Geological Survey’s geologic work on the Wayland quadrangle is especially important because it covers Knott and Floyd Counties in the exact region where Dema appears. The USGS publication record identifies E. Neal Hinrichs and Russell G. Ping’s geologic map of the Wayland quadrangle as a USGS Geologic Quadrangle publication from 1978, superseding the earlier 1976 open-file report.
The Kentucky Geological Survey’s coal resource materials place this region within the broader coal geography of eastern Kentucky. Its Kentucky Coal Resource Information system contains maps and data for seventeen of Kentucky’s productive coal beds and estimates remaining resources by subtracting mined areas from earlier original-resource estimates. Kentucky’s mine mapping program adds another layer, with mine maps ranging from 1948 to the present and data spanning from 1884 to the present.
That does not mean Dema was a coal camp in the same way as some company-built towns. It means Dema belonged to a coalfield world. The nearby communities of Wayland, Garrett, Raven, Topmost, and other Right Beaver places were shaped by coal, roads, rail connections, labor, school consolidation, stores, churches, and the movement of families between hollows and work sites. Dema’s documentary trail should be read with that world in mind.
The Post Office and the Name
For many small Appalachian communities, the post office was the closest thing to a public identity. A post office could give a hollow or settlement a name that appeared in federal records, newspapers, family letters, and death certificates. Dema belongs in that kind of research.
The National Archives explains that postmaster appointment records from 1832 to September 30, 1971 can show establishment and discontinuance dates, name changes, postmaster names, appointment dates, and, beginning in 1870, the post office to which mail from a discontinued office was sent. The National Archives also describes the Post Office Reports of Site Locations, 1837 to 1950, as surviving forms sent to postmasters so the Topographer’s Office could compile postal route maps.
Those records are exactly the kind of sources that matter for Dema. A small community’s story may be hidden in a post office location form, a postmaster appointment ledger, or a county-by-county postal list. The United States Postal Service’s Postmaster Finder can also help, although USPS warns that many discontinued post offices are not listed and that establishment and discontinuance dates appear only where research has been completed. Robert M. Rennick’s “Knott County: Post Offices,” preserved through Morehead State University’s County Histories of Kentucky collection, is another strong guide because it is a historical survey of Knott County post offices and communities.
Dema in Newspapers and Daily Life
Dema appears in local newspapers in the way many small places do. It shows up not always as the subject of a headline, but as an address, a residence, a church location, a classified notice, a military note, or an obituary. Those small mentions are still historical evidence.
The Floyd County Times is especially useful for this kind of work. One 1957 issue includes a classified reference to Rev. Walter Webb of Dema, Kentucky. Another Floyd County Times item from the 1950s mentions Lasco Blanton of Dema in connection with a family military notice. These are not sweeping histories, but they prove how Dema functioned in daily records. People used the name. Newspapers printed it. Families claimed it as home.
Later obituaries continue that pattern. Funeral home and newspaper notices list people as being from Dema, born in Dema, buried in Dema, or connected to churches and cemeteries in the surrounding area. A 2014 Floyd County Times obituary for Coleman Thornsberry identified him as being of Dema. A 2016 notice for Mazie Mullins stated that she was of Dema and was buried at the Mullins Family Cemetery in Dema. These later sources are not enough by themselves to reconstruct the early community, but they show continuity. Dema remained a living place name across generations.
Cemeteries and Family Memory
The cemeteries around Dema may be the strongest community history sources after maps and postal records. The Slone Pigman Cemetery is especially important because the KYGenWeb survey places it directly at Dema in Floyd County, gives GPS coordinates, and describes its location near KY 7 and KY 899 close to the Floyd-Knott County line.
The burials tell a family story that reaches back into the nineteenth century. The survey includes older markers and family connections among Slone, Pigman, Martin, McKinney, Hall, Turner, Tuttle, and other surnames. Spencer Slone, listed with a birth year of 1840, is identified in the survey as a Confederate veteran of Company F, 13th Kentucky Cavalry. The cemetery also includes multiple twentieth-century veterans and family members whose lives connect Dema to military service, coalfield work, marriage networks, and migration.
Death certificates and obituary indexes add to the picture. KYGenWeb transcriptions should be treated as leads unless the original certificate is checked, but they are valuable for locating names, dates, burial places, informants, and residences. One Knott County death certificate transcription for Johnny Meade lists burial at Dema, Kentucky, in 1948. Another Knott County death certificate transcription for K. F. Slone lists Mallie Pigman of Dema as informant in 1915.
Churches, Schools, and a Wider Community
Dema’s religious and school history is tied to neighboring communities rather than to one isolated institution. Topmost Baptist Church appears in church and obituary sources connected to the Dema area. One church directory entry identifies Topmost Baptist Church with a Dema address, and later funeral notices continue to show Dema-area families connected to Topmost Baptist Church.
That pattern is common in the mountains. A family might live in Dema, attend church at Topmost, have relatives buried in a Dema cemetery, shop or work in Wayland or Garrett, and appear in county records at Hindman or Prestonsburg. Community identity did not stop at the county line. It followed the road, the creek, the church, the school bus route, the coal job, and the family cemetery.
School history works the same way. Dema should be researched through surrounding school records, yearbooks, newspaper honor rolls, basketball schedules, school bus routes, and alumni references from Wayland, Garrett, Topmost, Raven, and nearby Knott County schools. The community may not have produced one long school history under the name Dema, but Dema families almost certainly appear in the records of the larger educational landscape around Right Beaver Creek.
Why Dema Matters
Dema matters because it represents the way many Appalachian places survive in the record. Not every community became a city. Not every place left behind a town history. Some places are preserved through maps, post offices, cemeteries, road intersections, family names, church notices, and the repeated use of a name by the people who lived there.
To write Dema’s history, the researcher has to respect that kind of evidence. GNIS and USGS maps establish the named place. Water records tie it to Right Fork Beaver Creek. Geologic maps place it in the coalfield terrain of Knott and Floyd Counties. Postal records can help explain when the name entered federal use. County clerk records can follow land and families. Newspapers show everyday life. Cemeteries hold the deepest local memory.
Dema is not just a dot south of Wayland or near Raven. It is a county-line community whose history belongs to the creek valleys, roads, churches, cemeteries, and families of eastern Kentucky. Its story is not found in one source. It is found by putting many small sources together until the place becomes visible again.
Sources & Further Reading
U.S. Geological Survey. “Geographic Names Information System: Dema, Kentucky.” The National Map. https://edits.nationalmap.gov/apps/gaz-domestic/public/search/names/502996
U.S. Geological Survey. “Geographic Names Information System.” U.S. Geological Survey. https://www.usgs.gov/tools/geographic-names-information-system-gnis
U.S. Geological Survey. “Download GNIS Data.” U.S. Geological Survey. https://www.usgs.gov/us-board-on-geographic-names/download-gnis-data
U.S. Geological Survey. “Right Fork Beaver Creek AB Caney BR at Dema, KY.” Water Data for the Nation. https://waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-location/372501082475000/
U.S. Geological Survey. “Caney Fork at Mouth near Dema, KY.” Water Data for the Nation. https://waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-location/372500082475200/
Water Quality Portal. “Water Quality Portal Data Sites for USGS-KY.” National Water Quality Monitoring Council, U.S. Geological Survey, and Environmental Protection Agency. https://www.waterqualitydata.us/provider/NWIS/USGS-KY/
Hinrichs, E. Neal, and Russell G. Ping. “Geologic Map of the Wayland Quadrangle, Knott and Floyd Counties, Kentucky.” U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 76-691, 1976. https://www.usgs.gov/publications/geologic-map-wayland-quadrangle-knott-and-floyd-counties-kentucky-0
Hinrichs, E. Neal, and Russell G. Ping. “Geologic Map of the Wayland Quadrangle, Knott and Floyd Counties, Kentucky.” U.S. Geological Survey Geologic Quadrangle Map GQ-1451, 1978. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/gq1451
Danilchik, Walter. “Geologic Map of the Hindman Quadrangle, Knott County, Kentucky.” U.S. Geological Survey Geologic Quadrangle Map GQ-1308, 1976. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/gq1308
Price, W. E., Jr. “Availability of Ground Water in Breathitt, Floyd, Harlan, Knott, Letcher, Martin, Magoffin, Perry, and Pike Counties, Kentucky.” U.S. Geological Survey Hydrologic Atlas 36, 1962. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/ha36
Rice, Charles L., Edward G. Sable, Garland R. Dever Jr., and Thomas M. Kehn. “Revised Correlation Chart of Coal Beds, Coal Zones, and Key Stratigraphic Units in the Pennsylvanian Rocks of Eastern Kentucky.” U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Field Studies Map MF-2275, 1994. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/mf2275
Kentucky Geological Survey. “Kentucky Coal Resource Information.” University of Kentucky. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsmap/kcrim/
Kentucky Geological Survey. “Coal Data.” University of Kentucky. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/DataSearching/Coal/
Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet. “Mine Mapping.” Commonwealth of Kentucky. https://eec.ky.gov/Natural-Resources/Mining/Mine-Safety/safety-inspections-and-licensing/Pages/mine-mapping.aspx
Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet. “Kentucky Mine Mapping Information System.” Commonwealth of Kentucky. https://minemaps.ky.gov/
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. “Kentucky County Formation Chart.” Commonwealth of Kentucky. https://kdla.ky.gov/Archives-and-Reference/Pages/Kentucky-County-Formation-Chart.aspx
Kentucky.gov. “Knott County.” Commonwealth of Kentucky. https://kentucky.gov/government/Pages/AgencyProfile.aspx?Title=Knott+County
Kentucky Atlas and Gazetteer. “Knott County, Kentucky.” University of Kentucky. https://www.kyatlas.com/21119.html
ExploreKYHistory. “Floyd County Historical Tour.” Kentucky Historical Society. https://explorekyhistory.ky.gov/items/show/477
Floyd County Clerk. “Floyd County Clerk.” Floyd County, Kentucky. https://floydcoclerkky.gov/
United States Postal Service. “Postmaster Finder.” USPS. https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/postmaster-finder/
United States Postal Service. “Post Offices by County.” USPS Postmaster Finder. https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/postmaster-finder/post-offices-by-county.htm
United States Postal Service. “Post Offices by ZIP Code.” USPS Postmaster Finder. https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/postmaster-finder/post-offices-by-zip.htm
National Archives. “Post Office Records.” National Archives and Records Administration. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices
National Archives. “Appointment of Postmasters, 1832–September 30, 1971.” National Archives and Records Administration. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/postmasters-1832-1971.html
National Archives. “Post Office Reports of Site Locations, 1837–1950.” National Archives and Records Administration. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/locations-1837-1950.html
National Archives. “Record Group 28: Records of the Post Office Department.” National Archives and Records Administration. https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/record-groups/rg-028-post-office
Rennick, Robert M. “Knott County: Post Offices.” County Histories of Kentucky, Morehead State University, 2000. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/237/
Rennick, Robert M. Kentucky Place Names. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813192500/kentucky-place-names/
KYGenWeb. “Slone Pigman Cemetery, Dema, Floyd County, Kentucky.” KYGenWeb Project. https://kygenweb.net/floyd/records/cemeteries/floyd-co/slonepigmancemetery-dema.html
KYGenWeb. “Slone Pigman Cemetery Name Index.” KYGenWeb Project. https://kygenweb.net/floyd/records/cemeteries/floyd-co/slone-pigman-name-index.html
KYGenWeb. “Floyd County Cemeteries.” KYGenWeb Project. https://kygenweb.net/floyd/records/cemeteries/floyd-co/index.html
KYGenWeb. “Johnny Meade Death Certificate Transcription.” Knott County, Kentucky Death Certificates. https://kygenweb.net/knott/records/death_certificates/m_death_certificates/meade_johnny.htm
KYGenWeb. “K. F. Slone Death Certificate Transcription.” Knott County, Kentucky Death Certificates. https://kygenweb.net/knott/records/death_certificates/s_death_certificates/slone_k_f.htm
Floyd County Library. “The Floyd County Times, February 14, 1957.” Floyd County History Collection. https://fclib.org/Floyd%20County%20Times/The_Floyd_County_Times_1957/02-14-1957.pdf
Floyd County Library. “The Floyd County Times, November 7, 1957.” Floyd County History Collection. https://fclib.org/Floyd%20County%20Times/The_Floyd_County_Times_1957/11-07-1957.pdf
FamilySearch. “Floyd County, Kentucky Genealogy.” FamilySearch Research Wiki. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Floyd_County%2C_Kentucky_Genealogy
FamilySearch. “Knott County, Kentucky Genealogy.” FamilySearch Research Wiki. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Knott_County%2C_Kentucky_Genealogy
Kentucky Secretary of State Land Office. “Kentucky Land Patents.” Commonwealth of Kentucky. https://sos.ky.gov/land/non-military/Pages/default.aspx
Jillson, Willard Rouse. The Kentucky Land Grants. Louisville: Standard Printing Company, 1925. https://archive.org/details/kentuckylandgran00jill
Author Note: Dema is one of those Appalachian places that asks the reader to slow down and follow the records rather than look for one complete town history. I hope this piece helps preserve the memory of a county-line community whose story lives in maps, cemeteries, creeks, roads, and family names.