Appalachian Community Histories – Goochland, Rockcastle County: The Post Office, Three Links, and Life Along Crooked Creek
In the northeastern corner of Rockcastle County, Kentucky, near the neighboring communities of Three Links and Johnetta, lies Goochland, a small Appalachian settlement whose history reaches back to the middle of the nineteenth century. Situated along Crooked Creek in a mountainous region near the boundaries of Madison and Jackson counties, Goochland was once home to a rural post office, a general store, and several generations of families who made their living from the surrounding land. Although the community never developed into a large town, its name appeared in federal postal directories, nineteenth-century business publications, and historical maps, establishing its place among the many small settlements that formed the rural landscape of eastern Kentucky.
The history of Goochland is preserved through an unusual combination of government records, historical maps, newspaper accounts, and the personal recollections of local families. Among the most valuable sources are the writings of Mabel Martin-Davidson, who grew up on the former post office property and preserved stories of the buildings, businesses, and people who once occupied the community. Her memories, together with contemporary agricultural reports and postal records, provide a detailed account of a settlement whose history might otherwise have disappeared with its original buildings.
The Establishment of Goochland and Its Early Postal History
The earliest documented history of Goochland begins in neighboring Madison County, where a post office bearing the name was established on April 1, 1856. According to Kentucky place-name historian Robert M. Rennick, Chiswell D. Gooch served as the first postmaster, holding the position until May 18, 1858, when James D. Ballard succeeded him. The establishment remained in operation during the years preceding the American Civil War but was discontinued in 1863, before being reestablished in Rockcastle County on January 5, 1864.
Rennick’s research provides an important distinction between the original Madison County postal establishment and the later Rockcastle County community. Although the two offices shared the same name and were connected through the postal system, their precise physical relationship has not been conclusively established. The association with Chiswell D. Gooch offers a possible explanation for the origin of the name Goochland, although the available records do not definitively establish the circumstances of its selection.
The reopening of the office in 1864 occurred during the final years of the Civil War, when rural Kentucky communities continued to experience the economic and social disruptions of the conflict. Nevertheless, Goochland’s postal establishment survived the war and remained an identifiable part of Rockcastle County’s communication network. The United States Post Office Department’s directory for 1866 listed James D. Ballard as the community’s postmaster, confirming that the office was operating shortly after its reestablishment.
By September 1870, Goochland was included among the operating post offices of Rockcastle County, alongside Brodhead, Gum Sulphur, and Mount Vernon. Its inclusion in the federal directory demonstrated that the small settlement maintained regular connections with the national postal system even though it remained geographically separated from the county’s principal commercial centers.
For rural Appalachian communities, the establishment of a post office represented an important stage of development. Postal service allowed residents to exchange correspondence, receive newspapers, conduct business, and maintain relationships with relatives who had moved elsewhere. Since rural offices were frequently operated from general stores or private residences, they also became familiar gathering places where neighbors exchanged information and discussed events affecting their families and farms.
Goochland in the Nineteenth Century
One of the most revealing contemporary descriptions of Goochland appeared in the Kentucky State Gazetteer and Business Directory for 1881 and 1882. Published by R. L. Polk & Company, the directory described Goochland as a settlement in eastern Rockcastle County, approximately fifteen miles northeast of Mount Vernon and twelve miles northeast of Livingston. Livingston was identified as the community’s nearest railroad shipping point, providing access to the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and the commercial connections available through the region’s expanding transportation network.
The directory recorded a population of only ten people and identified W. D. McGuire as the local postmaster and general store operator. Mail arrived twice each week, offering residents a regular connection with other communities despite their distance from the county seat and the railroad.
The population figure reflected the limited size of the immediate postal settlement rather than necessarily accounting for every family living throughout the surrounding countryside. Goochland’s identity extended into the nearby Three Links neighborhood, where scattered farms and family homes occupied the valleys and hillsides. The general store and post office therefore served a larger rural population than the small number recorded in the directory might suggest.
McGuire’s position as both postmaster and merchant reflected the importance of the country store in nineteenth-century mountain communities. Families who depended heavily on their farms for food and household necessities still required access to manufactured goods, agricultural supplies, postal services, and information from outside the immediate neighborhood. A general store provided these services while also functioning as a meeting place for residents who might otherwise have few opportunities to gather.
Goochland’s location also placed it within the transportation network connecting the northeastern portion of Rockcastle County with Livingston, Mount Vernon, and communities across the Madison and Jackson county lines. Although the settlement never became a railroad town, access to Livingston provided a connection with the broader commercial economy of Kentucky.
Historical maps continued to record Goochland during the late nineteenth century, preserving the community’s location among the roads, streams, and surrounding settlements of the region. Its continued appearance in postal directories and cartographic records demonstrates that Goochland maintained a recognizable geographic identity beyond the limited commercial development recorded in contemporary publications.
The Martin Family and the Old Goochland Post Office
Much of what is known about the physical appearance of Goochland’s former post office comes from Mabel Martin-Davidson, whose recollections were published in the Mount Vernon Signal on November 18, 2010. Originally written in February 2006, her account documented the history of the property where she grew up and the surviving memories of a building that had served as both a general store and post office.
Davidson’s parents, Henry C. and Addie Dooley Martin, raised five children named Gene, Mildred, Edith, Mabel, and Jack on the former post office property. The family purchased the farm from Abel Gabbard after the postal operation had already moved to another location. By Davidson’s childhood, the original store and post office building had burned, leaving only its former site in what had become part of the family’s pastureland.
The Martin children frequently searched the remains of the burned building, where they discovered melted glass and old coins. Davidson recalled that her brother Gene found several Indian Head pennies, an 1831 dime, and an 1847 large cent while working the ground with his father’s plow. These discoveries provided tangible reminders of the property’s earlier commercial use, although the coins themselves cannot establish the original building’s construction date or the circumstances of its destruction.
The family’s residence was a large, two-story log structure that had reportedly served as lodging for travelers passing through the area during earlier years. All of the Martin children except Jack were born in the old house, which remained the family residence until Henry and Addie decided to construct a replacement around 1941.
The construction of the new house involved several local men, including Ted Allen, Eugene Rose, Preston Tankersley, and John Cox. Gene Martin remembered that Allen was installing the front living room window on December 7, 1941, when news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor reached the family over their battery-operated radio. The recollection connected a major event in American history with an ordinary day of construction on a rural Rockcastle County farm.
The new residence eventually became the home of Jack Martin and his wife, Darlene Lakes Martin, preserving the family’s connection with the property where Goochland’s former post office had once stood.
The Dooley Family and the Final Goochland Post Office
Following its departure from the original Martin property, the Goochland post office operated from the home of Frank and Florence Phillips Dooley, Mabel Martin-Davidson’s maternal grandparents. Their residence stood near the headwaters of Crooked Creek, in the vicinity of Hickory Valley and Three Links, and the postal operation occupied a small room constructed beneath the staircase.
Gene Martin remembered visiting his grandparents and playing in the room after the post office had ceased operating. His recollections provide an important connection between the final postal establishment and the families who continued occupying the surrounding countryside after the official service ended.
The Dooley family also operated a store, which Davidson remembered through stories told by her mother. One of those memories involved Jim Matt and Martha Jane Cox, who owned an apple orchard in the neighborhood. Knowing that Addie Dooley enjoyed apples, Jim Matt Cox regularly brought some to the store in his coat pockets whenever he visited. Although a small detail, the recollection illustrates the personal relationships that developed around the commercial establishments of rural Appalachian communities.
Davidson recalled that the Goochland post office closed around 1935 or 1936, while historical postal research places its official discontinuation in 1934. The difference may reflect the uncertainty of childhood recollections or the distinction between the formal termination of postal service and the period when residents continued remembering or using the former postal room.
Frank and Florence Dooley continued living in their house until their deaths approximately two weeks apart in June 1952. The building was destroyed by fire during the late 1950s, eliminating another physical reminder of Goochland’s former postal operations.
Although the original post office buildings disappeared, the memories preserved by the Martin and Dooley families offer a rare account of how postal service operated within the private homes and small businesses of rural eastern Kentucky. Their recollections reveal an institution that was both a government service and an important part of community life.
Three Links and the Improvement of Rural Roads
Goochland’s development was closely associated with the neighboring Three Links community, whose residents shared the difficulties of living in a mountainous agricultural region served by limited transportation infrastructure. The improvement of local roads became an important community undertaking during the twentieth century, particularly as farmers sought better access to markets, neighboring settlements, and essential services.
An account written by Rockcastle County agricultural agent Robert F. Spence and published in The Citizen on August 8, 1946, described a remarkable local effort to improve approximately three and a half miles of roadway. The article was later reproduced in the October 28, 2010, edition of the Mount Vernon Signal, preserving a contemporary description of the neighborhood’s accomplishments.
According to Spence, residents of Three Links organized a road committee and raised $2,800 among themselves to finance the grading of the road without assistance from county or state government. The project represented a substantial investment for a relatively small farming community and demonstrated the willingness of residents to address transportation problems through collective action.
Spence remembered that the former road had been so difficult that a dependable horse was once essential for traveling through the area. By 1946, the improvements had created a more accessible route through the neighborhood, although residents still hoped that further construction would extend the roadway toward Big Hill.
The road project also reflected the continuing modernization of rural Rockcastle County. Better transportation made it easier for families to reach markets, schools, churches, and neighboring communities while allowing farmers to transport their agricultural products more efficiently.
For Goochland and Three Links, the effort represented an important transition from the older transportation routes that had supported nineteenth-century settlement toward the improved roads that would increasingly define community life during the twentieth century.
Farming and Everyday Life Along Crooked Creek
Spence’s 1946 account also provides an unusually detailed description of the farms and families living near Goochland. Among those he recognized were Henry and Addie Martin, who had both participated in 4-H programs and had undertaken significant improvements to their home and agricultural operations.
The Martins constructed a seven-room residence with hardwood floors, proper ventilation, and running water, although they were still waiting for electricity when Spence visited their farm. Their home also featured a hillside storage cellar, where approximately 350 cans of fruits and vegetables had already been preserved for the coming winter. These improvements reflected the importance of agricultural education and household management in the development of rural communities.
Henry Martin cultivated tobacco, red clover, and hybrid corn, using soil-building practices that included cover crops, legumes, grasses, and fertilizer. Spence reported that Martin had increased his tobacco production substantially through these improvements, while also addressing soil erosion on portions of the farm. His agricultural practices demonstrated how local farmers adapted their methods to improve productivity while protecting land that had already experienced the effects of cultivation.
Other residents contributed to the neighborhood’s agricultural economy. Albert Dooley cultivated sorghum cane and potatoes, while C. W. Phillips maintained tobacco and corn crops. Phillips’s wife was also planning the construction of a modern poultry house, illustrating the diversification of farming activities within the community.
Spence recognized older residents, including Joe Martin and J. F. Dooley, whose earlier efforts had helped establish the agricultural neighborhood that later generations continued to improve.
The report offers a picture of an Appalachian community that depended on both agricultural production and cooperation among neighbors. Families invested in their homes, developed improved farming techniques, and worked together on infrastructure projects despite the limited resources available to them.
For communities such as Goochland, these activities represented much of everyday life during the decades following the closure of their post offices. While the disappearance of a postal establishment might signal the end of a particular administrative identity, the surrounding farms and family relationships could continue supporting the community for generations.
Hickory Valley School and Education in the Goochland Area
Education formed another important part of life in the neighborhood surrounding Goochland. The history of Hickory Valley School is preserved through the recollections of Luther J. Phillips, a Rockcastle County native and Second World War veteran whose autobiographical account was reproduced in the December 2, 2010, edition of the Mount Vernon Signal.
Phillips attended the school during an era when the agricultural calendar heavily influenced rural education. Classes generally began after the autumn harvest and ended during March or April, allowing children to assist their families with spring planting and other seasonal responsibilities. The arrangement reflected the close relationship between education and agricultural labor in small farming communities.
The school lacked electricity and indoor plumbing, requiring students to carry drinking water and use outdoor facilities. During the winter, older boys arrived early to prepare the classroom, start the fire in the stove, and sweep the floors, receiving a small payment from their teachers for completing these duties.
Students also carried their lunches from home, frequently using recycled containers instead of manufactured lunch boxes. Homemade biscuits, meat, and milk were common meals, reflecting the foods available to families whose households depended heavily on their agricultural production.
Phillips remembered walking through the woods along narrow paths to reach the school, encountering the wildlife and natural surroundings of the Rockcastle County countryside. During recess, children played games with homemade sporting equipment, including wooden bats and balls fashioned from materials available at home.
A surviving historical photograph of Hickory Valley School identified numerous local children and residents, including Addie Dooley Martin, Albert Dooley, members of the Cox, Gabbard, Johnson, Baker, and York families, and teacher Clay Dooley. The photograph provides an important visual record of the families associated with Goochland and Three Links, preserving the identities of individuals whose experiences might otherwise be known only through family histories.
Goochland Cave and the Natural History of the Community
Beyond its former post office and agricultural neighborhoods, Goochland is associated with one of the significant cave systems of Rockcastle County. Located within the limestone landscape of northeastern Rockcastle County, Goochland Cave became an important site for underground exploration and biological research during the twentieth century.
In 1972, Gary O’Dell and James R. Rebmann published Caves of Rockcastle County, Kentucky, documenting the county’s cave systems following years of exploration and survey work. The following year, members of the Southwestern Ohio Regional Caving Association discovered the Miracle Mile in Goochland Cave, beginning an expanded survey that eventually added approximately five miles of passage to the two miles previously mapped.
The surrounding landscape received additional scientific attention during the early 1990s, when the United States Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy, and Kentucky conservation agencies conducted a cooperative inventory of endangered, threatened, sensitive, and rare species within the Berea Ranger District of the Daniel Boone National Forest.
The investigation included approximately 1,250 acres surrounding Smokehole Cave and Goochland Cave along a section of Crooked Creek extending between Johnetta and Goochland. Researchers described a moderately rugged valley containing forested hillsides, limestone cliffs, extensive cave systems, and narrow strips of agricultural land.
At the time of the survey, most of the land remained privately owned, while approximately four houses occupied the valley bottom. Small strip-mining areas were also documented on ridges west of the creek, demonstrating the effects of industrial activity on portions of the surrounding landscape.
The investigators identified Goochland Cave and Smokehole Cave as important winter habitats for Indiana bats. During the 1990–1991 survey period, researchers documented 226 Indiana bats overwintering in Goochland Cave, while Smokehole Cave supported a substantially larger population.
These findings provide a late twentieth-century record of the natural environment surrounding Goochland, illustrating the relationship between the region’s farms, forests, waterways, and underground cave systems. Although the scientific reports were primarily concerned with conservation rather than settlement history, they also documented a landscape that had supported generations of Rockcastle County families.
The Disappearance of the Post Office and the Legacy of Goochland
By the middle of the twentieth century, Goochland had lost the postal establishment that once provided its principal institutional identity. The original store and post office building had burned, the later Dooley family residence was eventually destroyed by fire, and the remaining farms and houses became increasingly associated with the broader Three Links and Crooked Creek neighborhoods.
Nevertheless, Goochland continued to appear on historical maps, including the United States Geological Survey’s 1953 Johnetta quadrangle, which preserved its geographic relationship with Three Links, Johnetta, Climax, and other nearby settlements. The continued appearance of the community’s name demonstrates how rural place names could survive long after the businesses and institutions that had originally defined them were gone.
The historical records associated with Goochland reveal the importance of preserving the history of small Appalachian settlements. Federal postal directories document the establishment and operation of the community’s post office, nineteenth-century business publications identify its commercial activities, and historical maps establish its geographic location. Yet these sources reveal comparatively little about the experiences of the families who occupied the surrounding farms and traveled the local roads.
Those experiences survive most clearly through the recollections of Mabel Martin-Davidson, Luther J. Phillips, and the contemporary agricultural observations of Robert F. Spence. Their accounts preserve the history of children searching the remains of a burned general store for old coins, families working together to improve their roads, and students walking through the woods to attend a rural school.
Goochland’s history demonstrates how even the smallest Appalachian communities could maintain recognizable identities through their postal establishments, family relationships, agricultural traditions, and shared institutions. Although the post office disappeared during the 1930s, the surviving records preserve the story of a settlement whose families contributed to the development of northeastern Rockcastle County and whose history remains part of the broader Appalachian experience.
Sources & Further Reading
United States Post Office Department. Post-Office Directory for 1866: Alphabetical List of Post-Offices in the United States, with the Names of Post-Masters. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1866. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Post-office_directory_for_1866._Alphabetical_list_of_post-offices_in_the_United_States%2C_with_the_names_of_post-masters_.._%28IA_cu31924030137404%29.pdf
United States Post Office Department. List of Post Offices in the United States, Revised and Corrected to September 1, 1870. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1870. https://kygenweb.net/allky/counties/post-offices-1870.html
Kentucky State Gazetteer and Business Directory, 1881–1882. Vol. 3, pt. 1. Louisville, KY, 1881. https://ldsgenealogy.com/KY/books/Kentucky-state-gazetteer-and-business-directory-1881-1882-Vol-III-pt-1-part-23.htm
Davidson, Mabel Martin. “Goochland, KY, Post Office.” February 2006. Reprinted in the Mount Vernon Signal, November 18, 2010, A2 and A4. https://apps.madisonlibrary.org/newspapers/mountvernonsignal/Mount_Vernon_Signal.2010.11.November_2010.pdf
Spence, Robert F. “Three Links Neighborhood.” The Citizen, August 8, 1946. Reprinted in the Mount Vernon Signal, October 28, 2010, A6. https://apps.madisonlibrary.org/newspapers/mountvernonsignal/Mount_Vernon_Signal.2010.10.October_2010.pdf
Cook, Tonya J. “Three Links: One of Rockcastle’s Oldest Communities.” Mount Vernon Signal, October 14, 2010. https://apps.madisonlibrary.org/newspapers/mountvernonsignal/Mount_Vernon_Signal.2010.10.October_2010.pdf
Cook, Tonya J. “Three Links: One of Rockcastle’s Oldest Communities.” Mount Vernon Signal, November 11, 2010, A7. https://apps.madisonlibrary.org/newspapers/mountvernonsignal/Mount_Vernon_Signal.2010.11.November_2010.pdf
Cook, Tonya J. “Three Links: One of Rockcastle’s Oldest Communities.” Mount Vernon Signal, November 25, 2010. https://apps.madisonlibrary.org/newspapers/mountvernonsignal/Mount_Vernon_Signal.2010.11.November_2010.pdf
Phillips, Luther J. One Red Bull’s Life Journey: A Personal Narrative. 2009. Excerpt reprinted in the Mount Vernon Signal, December 2, 2010. https://apps.madisonlibrary.org/newspapers/mountvernonsignal/Mount_Vernon_Signal.2010.12.December_2010.pdf
Rennick, Robert M. “Rockcastle County: Post Offices.” County Histories of Kentucky, no. 387. Morehead State University, 2000. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/387/
Rennick, Robert M. Madison County: Place Names. Robert M. Rennick Manuscript Collection. Morehead State University, n.d. https://kygenweb.net/madison/docs/Madison%20County%20-%20Place%20Names.pdf
United States Geological Survey. London Quadrangle, Kentucky. Topographic map. Surveyed 1891; published 1897. https://pubs.usgs.gov/gf/047/quad-topography.pdf
Campbell, Marius Robinson. London Folio, Kentucky. Geologic Atlas of the United States, Folio 47. Washington, DC: United States Geological Survey, 1898. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/gf47
United States Geological Survey. Johnetta Quadrangle, Kentucky. 1:24,000. Washington, DC: United States Geological Survey, 1953. https://prd-tnm.s3.amazonaws.com/StagedProducts/Maps/HistoricalTopo/PDF/KY/24000/KY_Johnetta_708992_1953_24000_geo.pdf
Works Progress Administration and Robert M. Rennick. “Rockcastle County: General History.” County Histories of Kentucky, no. 291. 1939. Morehead State University. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/291/
Works Progress Administration. “Rockcastle County: Folklore.” County Histories of Kentucky, no. 372. 1939. Morehead State University. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/372/
Bussell, Opp, and Charley Carter. “Opp Bussell and Charley Carter Interview, Part 1 (Rockcastle County).” Interview by Robert M. Rennick, April 29, 1978. Robert M. Rennick Oral History Collection, no. 18. Morehead State University. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/rennick_oh_collection/18/
Rebmann, James R., and Gary O’Dell. Caves of Rockcastle County, Kentucky. Privately printed, 1972. Excerpt reproduced by Rockcastle Karst Conservancy. https://rkci.org/library/cavesofrockcastle.shtml
Rockcastle Karst Conservancy. “History of Eastern Kentucky Karst.” https://rkci.org/library/history_easternky_karst.shtml
United States Forest Service, The Nature Conservancy, Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission, and Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. Cooperative Inventory of Endangered, Threatened, Sensitive and Rare Species, Daniel Boone National Forest, Berea Ranger District. March 1991. https://bluegrasswoodland.com/uploads/Berea_District_Inventory_Report_1992.pdf
Brown, Samuel. “A Description of a Cave on Crooked Creek, with Remarks and Observations on Nitre and Gun-Powder.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 6 (1809): 235–47. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1004797
Ross, James C., A. S. Johnson, and P. E. Avers. Soil Survey of Laurel and Rockcastle Counties, Kentucky. Washington, DC: United States Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service, 1981. https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=2dXf3ItmgAQC
National Archives and Records Administration. “Post Office Records.” Includes records of postmaster appointments, 1832–1971. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices
National Archives and Records Administration. “Post Office Reports of Site Locations, 1837–1950.” Record Group 28, Microfilm Publication M1126. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/locations-1837-1950.html
Rockcastle County Clerk. “Land Records.” Rockcastle County, Kentucky. https://rockcastlecountyclerk.com/wp/land-records/
Kentucky Secretary of State. “Kentucky Land Office.” https://www.sos.ky.gov/land/Pages/default.aspx
Rockcastle County Public Library. “Genealogy & Local History.” https://www.rockcastlelibrary.org/genealogy-local-history
Blevins, Cameron, and Richard W. Helbock. US Post Offices. Historical postal dataset. https://cblevins.github.io/us-post-offices/
Author Note: Goochland’s history survives through nineteenth-century postal records, historic maps, and the memories of families who lived in the surrounding Three Links community. This article brings those scattered records together to preserve the story of a small Rockcastle County settlement whose former post office and everyday community life might otherwise be forgotten.