Appalachian Community Histories – Farler, Perry County: The Farler Family, Mason’s Creek, and a Small Mountain Community
Farler does not leave behind the sort of record that bigger county seats, railroad centers, or major coal camps do. Its history is scattered across maps, deeds, marriage books, tax lists, probate records, census schedules, death certificates, and local newspapers. That scattered trail still tells a clear story. Farler was and remains a real Perry County community rooted in the Mason’s Creek country, and its history is best understood as a family centered settlement that stayed visible through everyday local records rather than through incorporation or industrial expansion on a large scale.
That is also why Farler matters. Many Appalachian communities were held together not by city charters or formal town plats, but by kin networks, creek geography, post offices, churches, cemeteries, and courthouse records. Farler fits that pattern closely. Perry County’s own current community list still includes Farler, and the county road index still preserves Farler as a living place name in the Maces Creek area, which shows how a nineteenth and early twentieth century settlement could remain part of the local landscape long after its heaviest documentary moment had passed.
The Farler Family on Mason’s Creek
The deepest roots of the community lie with the Farler family itself. In the 1850 Perry County annotated census, John Farler, Alexander Farler, and Farris Farler appear together in a section associated with the Right Fork of Mason’s Creek. That matters because it places the family in the exact part of Perry County later associated with the community name. Rather than appearing out of nowhere in the twentieth century, Farler seems to have grown from an older family settlement that already had a foothold on that creek landscape in the antebellum period.
The same pattern continues forward. Transcribed 1900, 1910, and 1920 census material for Mason’s Creek shows repeated Farler households in that precinct, including multiple heads of household carrying the Farler surname. Those schedules show continuity more than sudden growth. Farler was not simply a name put on a map. It was a lived neighborhood of related households, farms, and homeplaces that stayed anchored to Mason’s Creek across generations.
How the Place Name Took Hold
Postal and place name research ties the community name directly to the family. Robert Rennick’s Perry County postal research, as reflected in La Posta search results, connects the Farler settlement on Mason’s Creek to the later Farler post office and traces the local family back to the earlier Farler line in Perry County. Other Rennick based place name summaries identify Farler as a Perry County post office and connect the name to local Farler family settlement. Even when the record is brief, the larger meaning is plain. The community name came from the people who lived there, and the post office helped turn a family settlement into a recognized place.
Farler was also in practical use as a postal landmark in the broader Mason’s Creek region. A local historical account discussing pension mail routes in 1891 refers to “Farler on Mason’s Creek” as one of the nearest post office points for residents in that part of Perry County. Even if later summaries sometimes compress Farler’s postal chronology into a single shorthand date, the larger point is that Farler had already become a recognized mailing and place reference in local life. In eastern Kentucky, that kind of recognition often mattered as much as formal incorporation.
Courthouse Records and the Making of a Community
Because Farler was not a large incorporated town, courthouse records are especially important for reconstructing its history. The Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives shows substantial Perry County coverage in deed books, county order books, will books, marriages, and early births and deaths. FamilySearch catalog entries likewise preserve Perry County land records, marriage records, tax books, and probate materials filmed from county originals. Together, those surviving record sets explain why Farler can still be studied in detail. Land transactions, marriage ties, tax presence, estates, and court actions preserved the history of the people who gave the place its name.
Those sources also tell us what kind of community Farler was. It was a creek settlement shaped by property lines, inheritance, marriages, and neighborhood relations. Even scattered legal notices point in the same direction. A newspaper snippet tied to Perry County land described property on the right hand fork of Mason’s Creek with boundaries involving John Farler, which shows how the surname remained attached to the land itself. In places like Farler, community history often survives first as land history.
Farler in the Twentieth Century
By the twentieth century, Farler was firmly established as a named community in the Mason’s Creek orbit. The Farler surname still appears heavily in Mason’s Creek census schedules, and Farler turns up in official death record transcriptions as a place of death and in certificate related entries as a place of residence or informant address. That kind of evidence is routine, but that is exactly why it matters. It shows Farler functioning as an ordinary lived place, not just a remembered old name.
Maps reinforce that continuity. Search results for the USGS Hazard South quadrangles show Farler on mid twentieth century mapping, and Perry County’s current official materials still name Farler among the county’s communities. Local newspaper evidence also places Farler in everyday reporting. A 1926 Hazard Herald result carries Farler in the OCR text, and later twentieth century Herald material still used Farler as a community address. Farler may have been small, but it stayed on the map and in print.
Farler’s Place in Perry County History
Farler is the kind of Appalachian community that can be missed if a historian looks only for incorporated towns, major mines, or dramatic headline events. Its history is quieter than that. It lives in the persistence of one family name, in Mason’s Creek census pages, in deed and probate books, in postal references, in map labels, and in the habit local people kept of using Farler as a real place name across generations. That is not a weak history. It is the typical history of many mountain communities, and it is exactly the kind of local continuity that makes Perry County’s landscape legible.
Farler’s story, then, is not one of sudden boom and collapse. It is a story of settlement, naming, and endurance. The evidence suggests a community built out of family ground on Mason’s Creek, carried into wider recognition through postal and courthouse records, and remembered strongly enough that both maps and county government still preserve the name. For a place with no large standalone town history, that is a substantial historical footprint.
Sources & Further Reading
U.S. Geological Survey. Hazard South, KY. 1:24,000 topographic quadrangle. 1954. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/KY_Hazard_South_708851_1954_24000_geo.pdf
U.S. Geological Survey. Hazard South, KY. 1:24,000 topographic quadrangle. 1972. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/KY_Hazard_South_708849_1972_24000_geo.pdf
U.S. Geological Survey. US Topo: Hazard South, KY. 2016. https://prd-tnm.s3.amazonaws.com/StagedProducts/Maps/USTopo/PDF/KY/KY_Hazard_South_20160425_TM_geo.pdf
Rennick, Robert M. “Perry County – Place Names.” Robert M. Rennick Manuscript Collection 121 (2016). https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/rennick_ms_collection/121
Rennick, Robert M. “Perry County – Post Offices.” County Histories of Kentucky 273 (2000). https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/273
Rennick, Robert M. “The Post Offices of Perry County, Kentucky. Part II.” La Posta: A Journal of American Postal History 34, no. 3 (July 2003). https://www.lapostapub.com/Backissues/LP34-3.pdf
Works Progress Administration and Historical Records Survey. “Perry County – General History.” County Histories of Kentucky 59 (1936). https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=kentucky_county_histories
DeHart, Taylor, and Dora Farler DeHart. A History and Genealogy of Right Hand Fork, Mason’s Creek, Perry County, Kentucky. FamilySearch Catalog entry. Accessed April 6, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/379992
FamilySearch. “Land Records, 1821-1964.” Perry County, Kentucky. Accessed April 6, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/190103
FamilySearch. “Marriage Records, 1821-1963.” Perry County, Kentucky. Accessed April 6, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/189956
FamilySearch. “Tax Books, 1821-1875.” Perry County, Kentucky. Accessed April 6, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/156835
FamilySearch. “Order Books, 1800-1925; Indexes, 1855-1980.” Perry County, Kentucky. Accessed April 6, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/745258
FamilySearch. “Will Books, v. 1-2, 1901-1964.” Perry County, Kentucky. Accessed April 6, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/190009
FamilySearch. “Kentucky Probate Records, 1727-1990.” Accessed April 6, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/1875188
FamilySearch. “Perry County, Kentucky Genealogy.” Updated February 1, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Perry_County%2C_Kentucky_Genealogy
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. Inventory of County Records. Accessed April 6, 2026. https://kdla.ky.gov/Archives-and-Reference/Documents/Inventory_County_Records.pdf
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. Vital Statistics: Births and Deaths Microfilm Rolls by County. Updated July 21, 2025. https://kdla.ky.gov/Archives-and-Reference/Documents/Vital%20Stats%20Births%20and%20Deaths%20Microfilm.pdf
Perry County Clerk. “Online Land Records.” Accessed April 6, 2026. https://perry.countyclerk.us/records-center/online-land-records/
Perry County, Kentucky. “Perry County Communities.” Accessed April 6, 2026. https://perrycounty.ky.gov/things-to-do/Pages/Communities.aspx
KYGenWeb. “1850 Perry County Annotated Census.” Accessed April 6, 2026. https://kygenweb.net/floyd/records/census/perry-co/1850-perry-county-annotated-cens.html
Inman, Gloria Kay Vandiver. 1860 Perry County, Kentucky Federal Census, with Every-Name Index. FamilySearch Library. Accessed April 6, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/records/item/1049197-1860-perry-county-kentucky-federal-census-with-every-name-index?offset=6
USGenNet. “1880 Perry County Kentucky Census, District 2 – Part 2.” Accessed April 6, 2026. https://usgennet.org/usa/ky/county/perry/census/1880/district2b.html
RootsWeb. “1900 Perry Co. Census – Mason’s Creek, HH’s.” Accessed April 6, 2026. https://sites.rootsweb.com/~kyperry3/1900masonscreekhhs.html
Genealogy Trails. “1910 Census Masons Creek Perry County KY.” Accessed April 6, 2026. https://genealogytrails.com/ken/perry/1910masonscreekpct5hhs.html
USGenNet. “Masons Creek Pct 5 – 1920 Perry County Ky Census.” Accessed April 6, 2026. https://usgennet.org/usa/ky/county/perry/census/1920/masons.html
USGenNet. “Perry Co. Ky Death Certificates.” Accessed April 6, 2026. https://usgennet.org/usa/ky/county/perry/deaths/dc/dc.html
KYGenWeb. “Perry County Marriage Index 1821-1846.” Accessed April 6, 2026. https://kygenweb.net/perry/marriage/1821_1846.htm
The Hazard Herald (Hazard, Ky.), January 31, 1918. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn85052003/1918-01-31/ed-1/
The Hazard Herald (Hazard, Ky.), February 26, 1926. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn85052003/1926-02-26/ed-1/
The Hazard Herald archive. Newspapers.com. Accessed April 6, 2026. https://www.newspapers.com/paper/the-hazard-herald/39867/?locale=en-US
Author Note: Places like Farler matter to me because they show how Appalachian history often survives in deeds, census pages, marriage books, and old maps rather than in big headline events. Rebuilding that kind of community story takes patience, but it helps preserve the local worlds that shaped Perry County families for generations.