Appalachian Community Histories – Barnesburg, Pulaski County: The Barnes Family, Gospel Music, and the History of Rural Water
In eastern Pulaski County, Kentucky, Barnesburg developed as a rural community whose history is preserved through family records, churches, cemeteries, personal recollections, and the public documents of organizations established to serve its residents. Although the community never developed into a large commercial center like nearby Somerset, its surviving records provide an account of everyday life in a part of Kentucky where agriculture, religious gatherings, and relationships among neighboring families remained important across generations.
Barnesburg’s history can be reconstructed through several unusually valuable sources. A 1980 oral history interview with Hepsa Barnes preserves recollections of the community and traditional domestic life, while Barnesburg Cemetery contains inscriptions documenting families whose lives extended across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Records of Barnesburg Baptist Church provide another connection to the community’s development, particularly through its religious activities and traditions of gospel music.
Perhaps the most detailed surviving public records concern the Barnesburg Water Association, which helped bring modern water service to rural households beginning in the latter part of the 1960s. Its subsequent expansion, regulatory difficulties, and eventual merger with South Eastern Water Association illustrate the substantial changes that occurred as rural Pulaski County’s population and infrastructure developed during the late twentieth century.
Barnesburg and the Early Settlement of Eastern Pulaski County
The earliest history of Barnesburg remains difficult to establish because the available published sources do not conclusively identify the community’s founder, the precise origin of its name, or the year in which the settlement became established. The Barnes surname appears in local family and cemetery records, but the existence of these families alone is insufficient to establish which individual, if any, gave Barnesburg its name.
The surrounding region has a considerably longer documented history. Pulaski County was established in 1798, and its early development was closely associated with agriculture, the availability of land, and the roads connecting scattered settlements with Somerset and other communities in south-central Kentucky. County court orders, tax lists, deeds, and census schedules preserve evidence of this development, although identifying Barnesburg’s earliest residents requires tracing individual properties and families through records that often predate the widespread use of the community’s present name.
One important resource is a historical survey of Pulaski County post offices and place names compiled through the Works Progress Administration and preserved in Robert M. Rennick’s research collection at Morehead State University. Dating to 1939, the survey provides a potential route for investigating earlier names and postal arrangements, although the available catalog description does not establish when Barnesburg acquired its present name.
Historical maps provide another means of studying the community’s development. The United States Geological Survey’s 1935 Somerset Quadrangle, preserved in Morehead State University’s Rennick map collection, documents the landscape and transportation network of the surrounding area during the first half of the twentieth century. Comparing this map with later county highway maps and topographic surveys can help reconstruct changes in the roads serving Barnesburg, the distribution of rural residences, and the community’s relationship with Somerset.
The area’s history was not confined to any single settlement. Families maintained connections with neighboring communities through marriage, religious activities, employment, agricultural trade, and shared burial grounds. As a result, the history of Barnesburg is closely connected to the larger story of eastern Pulaski County, even where surviving records do not provide a separate chronology for the community itself.
Farming Families and Everyday Life in Barnesburg
Agriculture remained an important part of eastern Pulaski County’s economy throughout much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Family farms produced crops and livestock, while rural households depended upon a combination of agricultural work, outside employment, and the exchange of goods and services with neighboring families.
One particularly valuable source for understanding this way of life is an interview conducted with Hepsa Barnes on June 11, 1980, as part of the Pulaski County Oral History Project. Sally Whitaker conducted the interview, which is preserved in the Kentucky Oral History Commission’s catalog under identification number 1976OH100.77.
According to the collection’s description, Barnes discussed her life in Barnesburg, the traditional practice of churning butter, and religious church camp meetings. These subjects provide a glimpse into the domestic and social experiences of a rural Kentucky woman whose recollections connected everyday household responsibilities with the religious gatherings that brought members of the community together.
The surviving catalog does not provide a complete transcript of Barnes’s account, and the recording itself would need to be consulted before attributing additional recollections or specific statements to her. Nevertheless, the interview is particularly significant because it identifies Barnesburg directly rather than merely describing Pulaski County as a whole.
Family obituaries offer additional evidence of the agricultural occupations that remained important in the community well into the late twentieth century. John Howard Renner, identified in his 2014 obituary as a resident of Barnesburg, worked as a farmer, truck driver, and livestock trader. His interests included hunting, fishing, and visiting the stockyard on Saturdays, activities that reflected the continuing importance of agriculture and rural commerce in the lives of local families.
Another connection to the community’s agricultural heritage appears in the history of Willard and Ruby Phelps. Ruby June Phelps, who died in 2011, was identified as a resident of Barnesburg and the daughter of John B. Barnes and Hepsa Elizabeth Mayfield Barnes. Her husband, Willard Phelps, was a dairy farmer and retired feed mill owner whose obituary described his continuing connections with the farming communities of eastern Pulaski County.
These individual accounts illustrate the variety of occupations and experiences that shaped Barnesburg. Although agriculture remained important, residents also worked in manufacturing, transportation, retail, and other occupations in Somerset and the surrounding region. Their lives demonstrate that Barnesburg was part of a broader rural economy rather than an isolated agricultural settlement.
Barnesburg Baptist Church and the Community’s Religious Traditions
Religious institutions became another important part of Barnesburg’s identity. Although the exact founding date of Barnesburg Baptist Church has not been established from the available records, an obituary published following the death of the Rev. Amon Lafayette Stephens in March 2012 identifies him as one of the individuals who helped establish the congregation.
Stephens was born in Pine Knot, Kentucky, on March 15, 1921. He served in the United States Army Signal Corps during the Second World War before studying religion at Clear Creek Baptist College and becoming an ordained minister. During his religious career, he served as pastor of Jacksonville Baptist Church and Malvin Hill Baptist Church and helped establish Barnesburg Baptist Church.
Stephens was also known throughout Pulaski County for founding Amon’s Sugar Shack with his wife, Rosemary, in 1951. His involvement in the bakery business and several Baptist congregations illustrates how individuals could maintain connections across the county through a combination of commerce, religious service, and community organizations.
By the early twenty-first century, Barnesburg Baptist Church was an established congregation within the Pulaski Baptist Association. The association’s 2013 annual minutes identify the Rev. Tony Hall as the church’s pastor and John Warren as an executive board representative, while other entries document individuals serving in Sunday school, music, women’s missions, and additional areas of church administration.
The annual report also identifies the congregation’s location at 1200 Barnesburg Road in Somerset. Its extensive organizational listings demonstrate the church’s participation in religious activities extending beyond the immediate Barnesburg community.
Music formed another important part of the congregation’s history. The obituary of Phillip Ralph Taylor, published following his death on December 16, 2024, identifies him as a member of Barnesburg Baptist Church and a founding member of the Barnesburg Trio, a local gospel music group.
Taylor enjoyed singing and playing guitar and used his musical interests to share his religious beliefs. A United States Army veteran who served during the Vietnam era, he also worked for Crane Plumbing for thirty-five years before retiring. His involvement in the Barnesburg Trio preserves evidence of the community’s gospel music tradition, an aspect of local history that might otherwise receive little attention in county government records or published historical accounts.
Barnesburg Baptist Church continues to serve the surrounding area, preserving a connection between the religious institutions established by earlier generations and the community’s present-day residents.
Barnesburg Cemetery and the Families of the Community
Among the most substantial records of Barnesburg’s earlier generations is Barnesburg Cemetery. Its surviving grave markers document numerous families associated with the community and surrounding areas, including the Barnes, Bray, Burdine, Hansford, Harris, Hawk, Taylor, Whitaker, and other families.
A published cemetery transcription preserved by Pulaski County KYGenWeb records birth and death dates, military inscriptions, and occasional family relationships. Although the transcription is not a complete record of every person buried in the cemetery, it offers an important starting point for understanding the families who maintained connections with Barnesburg during the twentieth century.
Some of the recorded burials date to the early twentieth century. Sophia Mae Mink, whose recorded death occurred in November 1917, is among the earlier burials appearing in the published transcription. Other entries include Maggie M. Price, who died in 1928, and numerous residents whose lives extended back into the nineteenth century.
These records should not be interpreted as establishing the cemetery’s founding date. The burial ground may contain older graves that were not included in the published transcription, and further examination of original grave markers, deeds, and burial records would be necessary to establish its earliest use.
The cemetery also preserves evidence of military service among the families buried there. Its inscriptions identify veterans associated with several periods of American military history, including service during the Second World War and the Vietnam War.
Among those recorded is Hubert C. Jackson, who died in July 1970 and whose military inscription identifies his service in the United States Army during the Second World War. Mach Meece, who died in May 1966, is identified through an inscription recording his service in Vietnam. These markers preserve individual histories that connect the rural community with events extending far beyond Pulaski County.
For other families, the cemetery records marriages, parent-child relationships, and the loss of children during infancy or early childhood. Together, the inscriptions document experiences shared by generations of Barnesburg residents and provide an enduring record of people whose lives are not otherwise represented in published county histories.
Barnesburg Cemetery remains an active burial ground, continuing to connect families who have lived in eastern Pulaski County across several generations.
The Barnesburg Water Association and Rural Modernization
One of the most thoroughly documented periods of Barnesburg’s history concerns the development of its rural water system during the second half of the twentieth century.
Before centralized water distribution became widely available, rural households throughout eastern Pulaski County depended upon individual sources of water, including wells and other locally maintained supplies. The expansion of modern water infrastructure gradually changed these arrangements, bringing treated water to more residences and creating new requirements for the construction and maintenance of distribution systems.
A preliminary engineering report prepared by Kenvirons in October 2020 provides a historical account of the water associations that originally served eastern Pulaski County. According to the report, four rural providers began operating during the latter part of the 1960s: Nelson Valley, Elihu-Rush Branch, Tateville, and Barnesburg Water Associations.
These organizations developed distribution systems that served households and businesses across the eastern portion of the county. As their customer bases expanded, they required additional lines, pumping facilities, storage tanks, and other infrastructure to maintain reliable service.
By the early 1980s, Barnesburg Water Association was seeking additional improvements to its system. Proceedings before the Kentucky Public Service Commission document an application involving the construction of new water lines, storage tanks, pump stations, and related facilities intended to serve additional customers.
The commission’s records contain numerous orders concerning the association during 1983, including proceedings dated February 24 and June 16. These documents demonstrate that expanding water service was already an important concern for the association during this period.
The development of a rural water association represented a substantial change in the practical organization of community life. Maintaining a distribution system required residents to participate in an organization responsible for financing improvements, collecting payments, maintaining infrastructure, and complying with state regulations.
For Barnesburg, the association’s surviving records preserve a history of rural modernization that is considerably more detailed than the published evidence available for many of the community’s earlier institutions.
Water Pressure Problems and the Merger of 1996
As the population served by eastern Pulaski County’s rural water systems expanded, maintaining adequate service became increasingly important. Additional customers required expanded infrastructure, while differences in terrain and distribution capacity created challenges for the organizations responsible for supplying water.
By 1995, Barnesburg Water Association was facing formal complaints concerning water pressure. Records maintained by the Kentucky Public Service Commission identify several proceedings involving members of the Mize family, including complaints filed by James Howard Mize, Juanita Allene Mize, and Paul and Frances Mize.
The proceedings continued through 1996 as the association and the commission addressed the problems identified by the complainants. The cases provide an unusually detailed record of difficulties experienced by customers of a small rural water utility.
During the same period, the rural water associations serving eastern Pulaski County were undergoing a broader consolidation.
Original documents preserved in a November 2010 regulatory filing establish that Tateville Water Association and Elihu-Rush Branch Water Association had consolidated in July 1991, creating Elihu Tateville Water Association. That organization subsequently consolidated with Nelson Valley Water Association in December 1993, establishing South Eastern Water Association.
Barnesburg Water Association remained a separate organization until its board approved a merger with South Eastern Water Association on October 14, 1996. The resulting legal documentation was recorded in Pulaski County’s Incorporation Book 20, page 91, and the consolidated operation was in place during 1997.
The merger incorporated Barnesburg’s existing water infrastructure into a larger distribution system serving eastern Pulaski County. South Eastern Water Association subsequently assumed responsibility for resolving the outstanding water pressure complaints involving the former Barnesburg organization.
Orders issued by the Kentucky Public Service Commission in June 1997 document the resolution of the Mize complaints. The commission’s records indicate that the customers had notified the agency that their complaints were satisfied following corrective action by the successor association.
Although Barnesburg Water Association ceased to operate as an independent organization, its facilities and customers became part of the larger regional water system. The legal records associated with the merger preserve information about the original association’s property holdings, including references to six deeds recorded in Pulaski County.
These documents provide a particularly valuable source for reconstructing the association’s physical development, including land acquired for water infrastructure during its years of independent operation.
Roads, Development, and the Preservation of Nearby Cemeteries
Transportation improvements also altered the landscape surrounding Barnesburg during the twentieth century. As eastern Pulaski County became increasingly connected to Somerset and the larger regional highway system, older country roads encountered changes that affected access to individual properties and historic sites.
One example concerns James Road, which historically connected Barnesburg Road with Grundy Road. According to a September 2024 report by Steve Cornelius in the Commonwealth Journal, the construction of the Cumberland Parkway during the 1970s interrupted the original road, leaving two disconnected sections on opposite sides of the highway.
The change affected access to James Cemetery, a historic family burial ground located near Barnesburg Road. The cemetery remained surrounded by woodland for many years, becoming less visible as the surrounding transportation network and landscape changed.
By 2024, commercial development near the highway had brought renewed attention to the cemetery. Land clearing associated with the Somerset-Pulaski Economic Development Authority’s Commerce Park made the burial ground visible from the nearby parkway, while local officials undertook maintenance and discussed additional improvements intended to protect the site.
James Cemetery is a separate burial ground from Barnesburg Cemetery, but its history illustrates the importance of studying the broader Barnesburg Road corridor. Older roads, family cemeteries, and surviving property boundaries contain evidence of earlier settlement patterns that can be difficult to reconstruct after decades of highway construction and commercial development.
The preservation of these sites provides an opportunity to document families whose histories extend into the nineteenth century while retaining physical evidence of the region’s earlier rural landscape.
Barnesburg Today and the Preservation of Its History
Barnesburg remains a rural community connected to Somerset and the surrounding areas of eastern Pulaski County. Although modern roads, businesses, and utilities have changed the landscape, its churches, cemeteries, and family records continue to preserve evidence of earlier generations.
Barnesburg Baptist Church remains one of the community’s recognizable institutions, while Barnesburg Cemetery continues to serve families whose relationships with the area extend across several generations. The former Barnesburg Water Association has become part of the larger history of South Eastern Water Association, which continues to distribute treated water throughout much of eastern Pulaski County.
The community’s surviving historical evidence is particularly valuable because it is distributed across several different types of records. Government documents preserve the history of water infrastructure and property ownership, church publications document religious life, cemetery inscriptions record individual families, and oral history interviews preserve memories of experiences that were rarely included in official reports.
Additional research into the Pulaski County Public Library’s digitized newspapers could provide a more complete chronology of Barnesburg’s development. Church announcements, school reports, obituaries, agricultural notices, property advertisements, and county road discussions may preserve information about community institutions and residents who would otherwise remain absent from its written history.
The Hepsa Barnes interview is another important resource deserving further examination. A complete review of the recording could provide additional information about daily life, local customs, religious gatherings, and the community’s changing social relationships during the twentieth century.
The original deeds associated with Barnesburg Water Association and earlier family property transactions also offer opportunities to investigate the settlement’s geography. Tracing the Barnes family and other early landowners through nineteenth-century court records, census schedules, and surviving property documents may eventually help establish when the name Barnesburg first came into use.
Why Barnesburg’s History Matters
Barnesburg’s history illustrates the importance of preserving the experiences of small rural communities whose development rarely appears in traditional county histories. Its story is found not in a single major industry or defining historical event, but in the families, institutions, and public improvements that sustained everyday life across generations.
The memories preserved in Hepsa Barnes’s oral history reveal the value of documenting domestic traditions and religious gatherings, while the community’s churches and cemeteries provide tangible connections to the people who lived there. The establishment of Barnesburg Water Association demonstrates how rural residents organized to obtain essential public services and how those organizations changed as regional infrastructure expanded.
The community’s history also reveals how easily important information can disappear when it is preserved only through personal recollections, scattered legal documents, or deteriorating grave markers. Its early development remains incompletely documented, but the surviving evidence provides a substantial foundation for future research.
By bringing together these records, Barnesburg can be understood as part of the broader history of eastern Pulaski County, a place where farming families, religious institutions, changing transportation networks, and the expansion of modern utilities shaped the experiences of successive generations of rural Kentuckians.
Sources & Further Reading
Barnes, Hepsa. Interview by Sally Whitaker, June 11, 1980. Pulaski County Oral History Project, interview 1976OH100.77. Kentucky Oral History Commission, 2024 Public Oral History Catalog. https://pass-the-word.s3.amazonaws.com/static_files/Public_Catalogs/2024_OH_Public_Catalog.pdf
Pulaski County KYGenWeb. “Barnesburg Cemetery.” Cemetery transcription. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/cemetery/barnesburgcem.html
Pulaski County KYGenWeb. “Pulaski County Cemeteries.” https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/cemetery/cemeteries.html
Pulaski Baptist Association. 2013 Annual Minutes. Somerset, KY: Pulaski Baptist Association, 2013. https://paperzz.com/doc/9085640/pulaski-baptist-association
Pulaski Funeral Home. “Amon Lafayette Stephens.” Obituary, March 8, 2012. https://www.pulaskifuneralhome.com/obituaries/1418540
Pulaski Funeral Home. “Phillip Ralph Taylor.” Obituary, December 16, 2024. https://www.pulaskifuneralhome.com/obituaries/phillip-taylor
Pulaski Funeral Home. “Betty Jean Barnes Hargis.” Obituary, May 6, 2017. https://www.pulaskifuneralhome.com/obituaries/betty-hargis
Pulaski Funeral Home. “Louise Combs.” Obituary, July 2013. https://www.pulaskifuneralhome.com/obituaries/2150568
Kentucky Public Service Commission. Barnesburg Water Association, Case No. 19008745. Regulatory proceedings, 1983–1985. https://psc.ky.gov/Case/ViewCaseFilings/19008745
Kentucky Public Service Commission. Juanita Allene Mize v. Barnesburg Water Association, Inc. Case No. 95-469. Proceedings, 1995–1997. https://psc.ky.gov/Case/ViewCaseFilings/1995-00469
Kentucky Public Service Commission. Paul and Frances Mize v. Barnesburg Water Association, Inc. Case No. 95-471. Proceedings, 1995–1997. https://psc.ky.gov/Case/ViewCaseFilings/1995-00471
South Eastern Water Association. Application to the Kentucky Public Service Commission. Case No. 2010-00431, November 5, 2010. https://psc.ky.gov/pscscf/2010%20cases/2010-00431/20101105_South_Eastern_Application.pdf
Kenvirons, Inc. Preliminary Engineering Report for South Eastern Water Association. October 2020. Filed with the Kentucky Public Service Commission. https://psc.ky.gov/pscecf/2023-00353/wrjones%40rubinhays.com/10312023113023/Preliminary_Engineering_Report.pdf
United States Geological Survey. Somerset Quadrangle, Kentucky. 1:62,500. 1935. Robert M. Rennick Topographical Maps Collection, Morehead State University. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/rennick_maps_all/934/
United States Geological Survey. Somerset Quadrangle, Kentucky. 7.5-Minute Series. 1961. Robert M. Rennick Topographical Maps Collection, Morehead State University. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/rennick_maps_all/719/
Works Progress Administration and Robert M. Rennick. Pulaski County: Post Offices and Place Names. 1939. County Histories of Kentucky, Morehead State University. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/284/
Pulaski County Clerk. “Land Records.” Pulaski County, Kentucky. https://pulaski.kycountyclerk.us/land-records/
Pulaski County Public Library. Digital Archives of the Pulaski County Public Library. Historical newspapers, census schedules, court records, tax lists, wills, and deeds. https://pulaskilibrary.advantage-preservation.com/
Kentucky Historical Society. Kentucky Newspapers on Microfilm: Pulaski County. Frankfort: Kentucky Historical Society. https://www.kyhistory.com/digital/api/collection/LIB/id/1469/download
Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. “Historical Maps.” Frankfort: Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. https://transportation.ky.gov/Planning/pages/historical-maps.aspx
Somerset Community College. Pulaski County Historical Fact Book II. Reproduced by Pulaski County KYGenWeb. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/fact_book/
Cornelius, Steve. “Outlaws & Entrepreneurs: The Once Forgotten James Cemetery and Its Unique History Is Now in Full Display off Ky. 80 and SPEDA’s New Commerce Park.” Commonwealth Journal, September 23, 2024. https://www.yahoo.com/news/outlaws-entrepreneurs-once-forgotten-james-035900626.html
National Archives and Records Administration. 1950 Census. Washington, DC: National Archives. https://1950census.archives.gov/
University of Kentucky. Kentucky Digital Newspaper Program. Lexington: University of Kentucky Libraries. https://kdnp.uky.edu/splash/kdnpcsv.html
Author Note: If your family has ties to Barnesburg, I welcome photographs, church records, cemetery information, and personal memories that can help document the community’s history. By preserving these materials together, we can better understand the families and institutions that shaped this corner of Pulaski County.