Appalachian Community Histories – Aily, Dickenson County: The Counts Family, a Rural Post Office, and the Aily Coal Bed
In the mountains of Dickenson County, Virginia, along the waters of Lick Creek, lies the small community of Aily. Unlike the larger coal towns that developed throughout Southwest Virginia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Aily grew from the farms, family settlements, and local businesses that had existed in the region long before the arrival of industrial mining. Its history was shaped by the Counts family, the establishment of a rural post office, and the coal-bearing mountains that surrounded the community.
Aily rarely appeared in the major newspapers or industrial histories of Virginia, yet its name survived in federal geographic publications, commercial directories, postal records, and geological surveys. These records provide an unusually detailed glimpse into a small Appalachian settlement whose importance was measured less by its population than by the families and institutions that sustained it.
Among the most intriguing discoveries is the connection between Aily and a woman named Aily Counts, who appeared in a Virginia directory during the 1890s. Her presence in the historical record offers a possible explanation for the community’s distinctive name, while the surrounding farms, gristmills, and coal deposits reveal a broader story of rural life in the mountains of Dickenson County.
The Early Settlement of Lick Creek
The history of Aily begins with the settlement of the Russell Fork watershed, a rugged region of deep valleys, forested mountains, and narrow stretches of farmland in what became Dickenson County. Before the county was established, the surrounding territory belonged to portions of Russell, Wise, and Buchanan counties, and its isolated geography made transportation and communication difficult for the families who settled there.
Early residents established homesteads along the streams and their tributaries, where the valleys provided water, timber, and enough level ground to cultivate crops. Farming remained an important part of daily life, although the steep surrounding mountains limited the amount of land that could be worked. Families often depended upon several sources of livelihood, combining agriculture, livestock raising, timber cutting, hunting, and small commercial enterprises.
Lick Creek became one of the waterways around which these communities developed. Flowing into the Russell Fork, the creek connected scattered family settlements with the broader Sandy Basin region of Southwest Virginia. The lower portions of the watershed had attracted settlers well before the creation of Dickenson County, and family relationships helped connect residents across the mountains.
In 1880, the Virginia General Assembly established Dickenson County from portions of the three surrounding counties, creating the last new county in Virginia. The county was named in honor of William J. Dickenson, a delegate who helped secure its establishment, and the county seat eventually became Clintwood after an early dispute over the location of the courthouse.
For families living around Aily, the creation of a new county brought local government somewhat closer to their homes, although geographic isolation continued to influence everyday life. Roads through the mountains were difficult to maintain, and residents of smaller communities often traveled considerable distances to conduct business, attend court, or obtain goods that could not be produced locally.
The countryside remained overwhelmingly rural, but the establishment of schools, churches, general stores, mills, and post offices gradually connected these settlements to the developing institutions of the county.
Aily Counts and the Origin of the Community’s Name
One of the most interesting questions surrounding Aily is how the community received its unusual name. Unlike settlements named after geographic features, railroads, or mining companies, Aily appears to have a possible connection to an individual who lived in the surrounding community during the nineteenth century.
An especially valuable piece of evidence appears in J. H. Chataigne’s Virginia Gazetteer and Classified Business Directory for 1893–1894. Under the post offices of Dickenson County, the directory identifies Aily and lists Mrs. Aily Counts as the person associated with that postal establishment.
The entry is significant because it places a woman bearing the same distinctive name as the community within the local postal system only a few years after the post office was reportedly established.
Additional information survives in the writings of the Sutherland family, whose members documented much of the early history and genealogy of Southwest Virginia.
In March 1970, J. Hoge T. Sutherland published a biographical sketch entitled “Elihu Jasper Sutherland: A Sandy Basin Character” in Historical Sketches of Southwest Virginia. The account identified Eliza Jane Counts, the mother of historian Elihu Jasper Sutherland, as a daughter of Noah Counts and Aily Amburgey Counts.
According to the family history, Noah and Aily Counts raised a large family on Lick Creek, approximately seven miles upstream from Sandlick on the Russell Fork. Their household belonged to the generation of pioneer families whose descendants would become important participants in the county’s agricultural, religious, and civic life.
The connection is compelling. A woman named Aily Counts lived in the area, the same name appeared in a contemporary postal directory, and the community itself carried that name during the same period. These details suggest that the settlement may have received its name through its association with Aily Counts, perhaps when the post office was established.
Nevertheless, the surviving evidence does not conclusively establish the naming decision. The original Post Office Department establishment papers would provide a stronger foundation for determining whether the community was formally named in her honor.
Even without that final confirmation, the historical record preserves something important about Aily Counts. She was not merely a name in a later family history but a documented figure associated with the community’s early postal identity.
The Establishment of the Aily Post Office
For isolated mountain settlements during the nineteenth century, the establishment of a post office represented an important development. Mail service brought communication with distant relatives, newspapers, commercial correspondence, government notices, and access to the expanding national economy.
Postal-history datasets identify 1890 as the year the Aily post office began operating, placing its establishment only a decade after Dickenson County was formed.
The earliest surviving published directories confirm that Aily had become an established postal community by the beginning of the 1890s. Chataigne’s 1893–1894 directory included the settlement among the county’s recognized post offices, alongside places such as Bee, Birchleaf, Clintwood, Sand Lick, and several smaller communities that served the surrounding countryside.
The existence of a post office meant that residents no longer depended entirely upon traveling to a distant community to send and receive correspondence. In a region where transportation could be slow and weather frequently complicated mountain travel, even a modest postal establishment provided an important connection to the outside world.
Aily’s recognition extended beyond local directories. In 1904, geographer Henry Gannett included the settlement in A Gazetteer of Virginia, published by the United States Geological Survey as Bulletin 232.
On page 13, Gannett identified Aily as a “post village in Dickenson County.”
Although the description was brief, its appearance in a federal publication demonstrates that Aily had become a recognized geographic name within the Commonwealth of Virginia. The term “post village” reflected the settlement’s postal identity rather than the existence of an incorporated municipality, and the community remained a small rural settlement rather than a formally organized town.
The significance of the post office extended beyond the delivery of letters. In rural communities, the postal name often provided a shared identity for families living across several hollows and branches, creating a recognizable place on maps and in government records even when homes were widely scattered.
For Aily, the post office helped turn a collection of farms and family properties into a community whose name could be found in directories throughout Virginia and beyond.
Farming, Gristmills, and the Counts Family
Aily’s economic history during the late nineteenth century was closely connected to agriculture and the small businesses that supported farming households.
The 1893–1894 Chataigne directory provides a particularly useful picture of these activities. Among the principal farmers associated with Aily were E. S. Counts Sr., E. S. Counts Jr., J. W. Counts, J. C. Counts, S. D. Counts, G. B. Counts, and N. K. Counts.
The directory also identified A. Deel, N. C. Edwards, A. D. Silcox, E. Ramsay, A. J. Stanley, A. T. Taylor, and D. B. Sutherland among the farmers of the community.
The repeated appearance of the Counts surname illustrates the family’s substantial presence in the area, although the directory alone does not establish the exact relationships among every individual listed.
These families formed part of the rural agricultural network that sustained the Lick Creek settlements. Corn and other grains were important crops throughout Dickenson County, while cattle and smaller livestock provided additional sources of food and income. Farms generally occupied the more accessible valley bottoms and usable portions of the surrounding hillsides, where residents worked within the limitations imposed by the mountainous terrain.
The same directory recorded J. W. Counts as a gristmill operator and identified both J. W. Counts and A. K. Counts as carpenters and builders.
These occupations reveal that Aily supported more than subsistence agriculture. A gristmill provided the means to process locally grown grain into meal or flour, an important service in a community where transporting crops to distant mills could consume considerable time. Carpenters and builders supplied skills needed for the construction and repair of homes, barns, sheds, and other structures essential to mountain farming.
J. W. Counts also appeared among Dickenson County’s magistrates, demonstrating that individuals connected with Aily participated in the local judicial system.
Together, these records portray a community in which farming, craftsmanship, milling, and public service overlapped. Rather than depending upon a single large employer, residents participated in several forms of economic activity that supported one another and helped sustain the settlement.
Aily at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century
By the early twentieth century, Dickenson County was entering a period of economic transition. The expansion of railroad construction, commercial timber operations, and coal mining gradually transformed parts of the surrounding region, bringing new jobs and connections to markets beyond Southwest Virginia.
Aily, however, remained a small community whose surviving records emphasized family farming and local commerce.
The Virginia Business Directory and Gazetteer, published by the Hill Directory Company in 1917, recorded Aily as having a population of 31.
This figure should be understood as the directory’s reported population rather than an official federal census count. Nevertheless, it provides a useful indication of the modest size of the named settlement during the period.
The directory placed Aily approximately fifteen miles from both a railroad and the county courthouse, with Clintwood identified as its banking town. Such distances demonstrate the relative isolation that continued to characterize the community even as transportation improved elsewhere in Dickenson County.
Among the businesses associated with Aily were general stores operated by Lloyd Cantrell and J. L. Mullins.
These stores would have occupied an important place in the local economy. For residents living miles from larger commercial centers, general merchants provided access to manufactured goods and household necessities that could not easily be obtained on local farms.
The same directory again identified several farming families associated with the community, including E. S. Counts Jr., G. B. Counts, J. W. Counts, S. D. Counts, C. A. Deel, E. Ramsay, and A. D. Silcox.
The recurrence of many surnames from the 1893–1894 directory suggests continuity within the local farming community across more than two decades. Although individual households and landownership undoubtedly changed over time, the records preserve evidence of families whose association with Aily extended across generations.
C. A. Deel also appeared among the county magistrates, continuing the earlier pattern of residents participating in local government.
Taken together, the directories reveal a settlement that possessed recognizable commercial, agricultural, and civic functions despite its small population.
The Coal Beneath Aily
Although Aily’s early history was rooted primarily in agriculture, the surrounding mountains contained another resource that would shape the history of Dickenson County: coal.
The most detailed early scientific documentation of the area appeared in 1921, when geologist Albert W. Giles published The Geology and Coal Resources of Dickenson County, Virginia, Bulletin XXI of the Virginia Geological Survey.
Prepared in cooperation with the United States Geological Survey, the publication examined the county’s geology, coal-bearing formations, drainage systems, and mineral resources. It also documented numerous coal exposures and prospecting locations across the county.
Of particular importance to Aily was a coal seam that became known as the Aily coal bed.
Giles explained that the name had been taken from the Aily post office on Lick Creek, which flows into the Russell Fork. The use of the community’s name in geological classification demonstrates that its identity had extended beyond postal records and local commerce into the scientific mapping of Southwest Virginia’s coalfields.
The Aily coal bed belonged to the Norton Formation and lay approximately 160 feet above the Raven coal bed and about 500 feet above the Lee Formation, according to the 1921 survey.
Giles described the seam as relatively persistent across portions of the county, although it was generally thin and measured less than two feet in many exposures. The report indicated that the coal could be mined locally in limited areas under the economic conditions prevailing at the time, but it did not describe the Aily seam as one of the county’s major commercial coal deposits.
More detailed observations appeared in the section of the report devoted to the Lick Creek drainage basin.
At Aily itself, a mine opening or drift exposed a coal seam measuring approximately eighteen inches thick, resting upon sandstone. Above the coal lay sandy shale containing fossil plant remains, followed by additional sandstone beds.
At the mouth of Hurricane Branch, another exposure of the Aily coal bed measured approximately nineteen inches thick and displayed similar surrounding geological layers.
These measurements are significant because they represent direct field observations made during the early period of scientific investigation into Dickenson County’s mineral resources. The survey recorded not only the presence of coal but also the thickness of particular seams and the rocks that surrounded them.
The report also identified the Kennedy, Lower Banner, and Upper Banner coal beds as commercially important within the larger Lick Creek drainage basin. Some of these seams contained considerably thicker coal deposits than the Aily bed, particularly around Beech Branch and neighboring areas.
Nevertheless, the naming of the Aily coal bed gave the small community an enduring place in Virginia’s geological history.
Long after the original surveyors had departed, the name Aily continued to identify a particular layer of coal within the complex geological formations of the Appalachian coalfields.
The Railroad Era and a Changing Dickenson County
The arrival of rail transportation brought profound economic changes to Southwest Virginia during the early twentieth century.
Before railroads reached the interior of Dickenson County, mining was largely confined to small openings that supplied coal for nearby residents and businesses. Commercial development was limited by the difficulty of hauling coal across the mountains, and much of the county’s economy remained dependent upon farming, timber, and local trade.
The expansion of the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railway eventually made it possible to move larger quantities of coal and timber from the mountains to distant markets. Mining companies established new operations, workers arrived from other communities, and settlements developed around industrial facilities and railroad connections.
A historical study published by the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research at Virginia Tech documents how this expansion transformed the county’s economy. Earlier small-scale mining gradually gave way to larger commercial operations as railroad access improved, although the changes occurred unevenly across different valleys and settlements.
By 1921, when Giles published his geological survey, coal mining and lumbering had become major economic activities in Dickenson County. The report noted that the First World War had stimulated mining activity and that lumber camps had also contributed to population growth.
Yet Aily’s own records suggest that the community retained much of its earlier rural character during this period.
The 1917 directory had still identified Aily primarily through its farms, stores, and local officials, while the 1921 geological survey documented nearby coal resources without establishing that the settlement had developed into a major company town.
This distinction is important because the history of Southwest Virginia cannot be understood through industrial coal camps alone. While communities such as Clinchco and other railroad-connected settlements experienced the direct effects of large-scale coal development, smaller places like Aily belonged to an older pattern of settlement that continued alongside the growth of the mining industry.
Families living in these rural communities experienced the economic and social changes of the coal era, but their histories also included the farms, waterways, local businesses, and family networks that had sustained the region before industrial development.
The Discontinuation of the Aily Post Office
Aily’s postal identity continued well into the twentieth century, even as transportation, communication, and the organization of rural communities changed throughout the Appalachian region.
Historical postal datasets, as summarized in modern geographic references, identify 1963 as the year the Aily post office was discontinued.
If confirmed against the original Post Office Department appointment and discontinuance registers, this would indicate that the post office operated for approximately seventy-three years after its reported establishment in 1890.
The closing of a rural post office did not necessarily mean that the surrounding settlement had disappeared. Across the Appalachian Mountains, many small post offices were discontinued as mail delivery systems changed and service was consolidated into larger neighboring communities.
For residents, however, the loss of a local post office often represented more than a change in where letters were collected or delivered. The postal establishment had provided an official name for the surrounding settlement, linking dispersed households to a shared identity recognized by government agencies and mapmakers.
In Aily’s case, the community name had already become firmly established in historical directories and geological records. Its continued appearance in geographic references helped preserve the identity of a settlement whose early history could otherwise have become difficult to reconstruct.
The precise circumstances surrounding the discontinuation of the post office remain an area for additional research. Original federal records may clarify the exact date, the final postmaster, and any changes in delivery arrangements that accompanied the closure.
Preserving the History of Aily
Much of what survives about Aily comes from sources that were never intended to serve as traditional community histories. Business directories recorded farmers and merchants, postal records identified mail service, geological surveys documented coal seams, and family historians preserved the names and relationships of earlier generations.
When examined together, these records tell a much richer story.
The nineteenth-century directories reveal the importance of the Counts family and the agricultural economy that supported the settlement. The appearance of Mrs. Aily Counts in a contemporary postal listing offers a possible explanation for the community’s name, while the Sutherland family’s historical writings preserve her connection to the pioneer households of Lick Creek.
The 1917 directory provides a glimpse of Aily as a small but functioning rural community, with local merchants, farmers, and a magistrate serving residents who lived considerable distances from the county’s principal commercial and governmental centers.
The 1921 geological survey adds another dimension by documenting the coal resources beneath the surrounding mountains and preserving Aily’s name in the terminology of Virginia geology.
Important questions remain unanswered. The earliest land transactions involving the Counts family, the original establishment papers for the post office, and contemporary census records could provide a clearer account of the community’s founding, its population, and the relationships among its earliest residents. Surviving photographs, family papers, and school records may also preserve details of daily life that cannot be recovered from business directories alone.
Yet the records already available establish that Aily was more than a place name on a map. It was a settlement shaped by generations of families who farmed the mountains, operated mills and stores, maintained a connection to the wider world through the post office, and lived in a landscape that would eventually attract the attention of geologists and coal companies.
Why the History of Aily Matters
The history of Aily reflects an important part of the Appalachian experience that is often overshadowed by the larger stories of coal mining, railroads, and industrial development.
Before the expansion of the coal industry transformed Dickenson County, families had already established communities throughout the mountain valleys, building homes and livelihoods around the natural resources available to them. Their farms, mills, stores, and post offices provided the foundations of a local society that continued to shape the region long after industrialization began.
Aily was one of these communities.
Its small population did not prevent it from becoming a recognized postal settlement, and its relative isolation did not keep its name from appearing in federal publications and geological surveys. Through the lives of families such as the Counts, Deel, Silcox, Ramsay, and Sutherland households, the community became part of the larger history of settlement and economic development in Southwest Virginia.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Aily’s story is that a place associated with a woman named Aily Counts may have carried her name from a small post office on Lick Creek into the geological records of Virginia’s coalfields.
Whether future research conclusively establishes that naming connection or uncovers another explanation, the surviving evidence demonstrates how even the smallest Appalachian communities can leave a lasting historical record.
Today, Aily stands as a reminder that the history of Dickenson County was not written only in its courthouse, railroad towns, and coal mines. It was also written along the smaller creeks and mountain hollows, where families created communities whose names have survived for more than a century.
Sources & Further Reading
Chataigne, J. H. Chataigne’s Virginia Gazetteer and Classified Business Directory, 1893–1894. Richmond, VA, 1893. Dickenson County entries. Reprinted in Virginia Appalachian Notes 24, no. 2 (Spring 2000): 59–63. https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/document/VANv24n2
Chataigne, J. H. Chataigne’s Virginia Gazetteer and Classified Business Directory, 1884–1885. Richmond, VA, 1884. Dickenson County entries. Reprinted in Virginia Appalachian Notes 24, no. 2 (Spring 2000): 53–58. https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/document/VANv24n2
Hill Directory Company. Virginia Business Directory and Gazetteer. Vol. 1. Richmond, VA: Hill Directory Company, 1917. Dickenson County entries, 315–17. https://ldsgenealogy.com/VA/books/Virginia-business-directory-and-gazetteer-1917-v-1-part-41.htm
Gannett, Henry. A Gazetteer of Virginia. United States Geological Survey Bulletin 232. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1904. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/b232
Giles, Albert W. The Geology and Coal Resources of Dickenson County, Virginia. Virginia Geological Survey Bulletin 21. Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1921. https://energy.virginia.gov/commercedocs/BUL_21.pdf
Virginia Geological Survey. Topographic Map of Dickenson County, Virginia. Bulletin 21, Plate I. Charlottesville: Virginia Geological Survey, 1921. University of Alabama Map Library. https://alabamamaps.ua.edu/historicalmaps/us_states/virginia/index2_1921-1925.htm
Virginia Geological Survey. Geologic and Economic Map of Dickenson County, Virginia. Bulletin 21, Plate II. Charlottesville: Virginia Geological Survey, 1921. University of Alabama Map Library. https://alabamamaps.ua.edu/historicalmaps/us_states/virginia/index2_1921-1925.htm
Sutherland, J. Hoge T. “Elihu Jasper Sutherland: A Sandy Basin Character.” Historical Sketches of Southwest Virginia, publication 5 (March 1970). https://usgenwebsites.org/vagenweb/wise/HSpubl36.htm
Sutherland, Elihu Jasper, and J. Hoge T. Sutherland. Dickenson County in War Time: A Community History. 1926. Reproduced in New River Notes, “Virginia Communities in War Time.” https://www.newrivernotes.com/ww1-virginia-communities-inwartime/
Sutherland, Elihu Jasper. Meet Virginia’s Baby: A Brief Pictorial History of Dickenson County, Virginia, from Its Formation in 1880 to 1955, with Stress on Pioneer Background. Clintwood, VA: E. J. Sutherland, 1955. https://books.google.com/books/about/Meet_Virginia_s_Baby.html?id=mCwTAAAAYAAJ
Reedy, Dennis, ed. School and Community History of Dickenson County, Virginia. Johnson City, TN: Overmountain Press, 1994. https://books.google.com/books/about/School_and_Community_History_of_Dickenso.html?id=89EPY9U6uyYC
Hibbard, Walter R., Jr. Virginia Coal: An Abridged History and Complete Data Manual of Virginia Coal Production/Consumption from 1748 to 1988. Edited by Theodore J. Clutter. Blacksburg: Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1990. https://energy.vt.edu/content/dam/energy_vt_edu/vccer-publications/Virginia_Coal_an_Abbridged_History.pdf
United States Post Office Department. Record of Appointment of Postmasters, 1832–September 30, 1971. Record Group 28, National Archives Microfilm Publication M841, roll 131. National Archives and Records Administration. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/postmasters-1832-1971.html
United States Post Office Department. Post Office Department Reports of Site Locations, 1837–1950. Record Group 28, National Archives Microfilm Publication M1126. National Archives and Records Administration. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/locations-1837-1950.html
Library of Virginia. “Dickenson County Microfilm.” County and City Records on Microfilm. Richmond: Library of Virginia. https://www.lva.virginia.gov/collections/ccmf/VA/VA071
The Dickenson County Herald (Clintwood, VA). February 10, 1927–January 30, 1930. Digitized newspaper collection, Chronicling America, Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn95079120/
Dickenson County Herald (Clintwood, VA). 1939–1951 digitized issues. Chronicling America, Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn95079130/
Blevins, Cameron, and Richard W. Helbock. US Post Offices: Historical and Spatial Data. Digital historical dataset covering American post offices, 1639–2000. https://cblevins.github.io/us-post-offices/
RoadsideThoughts. “Aily (Dickenson County, VA).” A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada. https://roadsidethoughts.com/va/aily-xx-dickenson-profile.htm
United States Geological Survey. “The Geology and Coal Resources of Dickenson County, Virginia.” National Geologic Map Database. 1921. https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/Prodesc/proddesc_102246.htm
Southwestern Virginia Genealogical Society. Virginia Appalachian Notes 24, no. 2 (Spring 2000). Roanoke Public Libraries, Virginia Room Digital Collection. https://www.virginiaroom.org/digital/exhibits/show/virginia-appalachian-notes/item/4977
Author Note: The history of Aily reminds us that even the smallest mountain communities have stories worth preserving, especially those shaped by generations of families who lived and worked along the creeks of Appalachia. I hope this article encourages readers with family connections to Aily and Lick Creek to share their photographs, records, and memories so that more of this community’s history can be documented for future generations.