Appalachian Community Histories – Goochtown, Pulaski County: The Gooch Families, Rural Schools, Churches, and Cemeteries
In the countryside northeast of Eubank, Kentucky, the community of Goochtown developed among the farms, wooded hills, and winding waterways of northern Pulaski County. Although the settlement never became a large town, its history survives through nineteenth-century census records, old family cemeteries, historical maps, and the recollections of residents who remembered its roads and churches during the middle of the twentieth century. These sources provide a glimpse into a rural community whose identity was closely connected to the families who occupied the surrounding countryside.
Among the most important surviving records is the United States Geological Survey’s Woodstock quadrangle, surveyed in 1952 and published in 1954. The map identifies Goochtown and nearby Gooch Hollow, preserving the names of a community and a geographical feature associated with the settlement. Other records reveal the presence of several Gooch families in northern Pulaski County during the nineteenth century, while later firsthand accounts preserve information about the Pittman family cemetery and Goochtown Church of Christ. Together, these sources offer the foundation for reconstructing the community’s history, even though its precise founding date and the origin of its name remain uncertain.
The Gooch Families and the Settlement of Northern Pulaski County
The history of Goochtown is closely associated with the Gooch surname, which appears throughout the surviving nineteenth-century records of northern Pulaski County. Although the community’s name suggests a connection to one or more members of the family, the surviving evidence has not established which individual, if any, gave the settlement its name or when Goochtown became its recognized designation.
One of the earliest individuals associated with the area through cemetery records is Pleasant Overton Gooch, whose burial is listed in Goochtown Cemetery. According to the cemetery’s indexed records, Gooch was born in Lincoln County, Kentucky, in 1805 and died in 1868. The same cemetery includes other members of the Gooch family, offering evidence of the surname’s longstanding association with the surrounding countryside. The cemetery record alone, however, does not establish Pleasant Gooch as the community’s founder or namesake.
The 1870 federal census provides additional evidence of Gooch families living in the Glades District of Pulaski County. A published transcription of the census identifies Robert D. Gooch, approximately fifty-four years old, as a farmer whose household included his wife, Sarah, and several children. The transcription records $600 in real estate and another $600 in personal property, suggesting that Robert possessed an established agricultural holding.
Another household belonged to Mathew L. Gooch, approximately thirty-nine years old, who lived with his wife, Amanda, and their children. His census entry records $500 in real estate and $1,500 in personal property. Other Gooch households appeared within the same enumeration area, including families headed by Dabney Gooch and Palestine Gooch. Although these records demonstrate the family’s presence in northern Pulaski County, the Glades District covered a larger area, and the census entries do not establish that every household lived within the boundaries of present-day Goochtown.
These nineteenth-century records provide an important starting point for understanding the settlement’s development. Farming was a principal occupation among the Gooch households, and their recorded property holdings illustrate how landownership and agriculture shaped the lives of families in the surrounding countryside. Original deeds, wills, and tax records could establish how these properties passed between generations and whether particular Gooch family holdings occupied the land that eventually became known as Goochtown.
The Pulaski County Clerk maintains land records extending to approximately 1799, although its online records generally begin in 1990. The county’s earlier documents, together with historical tax lists and census schedules preserved by the Pulaski County Public Library, offer opportunities to trace the settlement’s development further into the nineteenth century.
Goochtown, Goochland, and the Origins of the Community’s Name
An interesting question surrounding Goochtown concerns the relationship between its established name and another name, Goochland, which appeared in local historical correspondence at the end of the twentieth century.
On December 31, 1999, Eric James submitted an inquiry to the Pulaski County KYGenWeb project asking about the Goochland community. James reported that a Somerset newspaper published a column concerning events in Goochland and wondered whether the settlement’s name had any connection to Goochland County, Virginia. His question prompted responses from other researchers who associated the discussion with Goochtown and its family cemetery.
Although the correspondence suggests that Goochland and Goochtown may have been alternative names for the same community, that relationship has not been conclusively established. Nor has a historical document been identified demonstrating that the settlement was named after Goochland County, Virginia.
The presence of several Gooch households in nineteenth-century census records, together with the geographical name Gooch Hollow, makes a family connection a reasonable subject for further investigation. Historical land deeds and contemporary newspaper references could help determine when the name Goochtown first appeared and whether its earliest use was associated with a particular farm, family, or neighborhood.
A 1939 historical survey of Pulaski County post offices and place names, preserved by Morehead State University, provides another potential research source, although a specific Goochtown entry has not been established. Until earlier documentary evidence is located, the origin of the community’s name remains an open question.
Gooch Hollow and the Community in the Early 1950s
By the middle of the twentieth century, Goochtown was sufficiently established to appear on federal topographic maps. The Woodstock quadrangle, surveyed in 1952 and published in 1954, identifies the settlement alongside Gooch Hollow, Buck Creek, Estesburg, and numerous other features of northern Pulaski County.
The map documents a landscape divided by creek valleys, branching roads, wooded ridges, and scattered rural communities. Rather than developing around a large commercial center, Goochtown occupied part of a wider agricultural countryside in which neighboring settlements were connected by roads following the area’s hills and waterways. The map also preserves the locations of numerous schools and churches throughout the surrounding region.
One of the most valuable accounts of Goochtown during this period came from Jenny Oldham, who responded to the KYGenWeb correspondence on December 31, 1999. Oldham recalled living in Goochtown during the middle to late 1950s and described the community’s location in relation to Eubank and Kentucky Highway 70.
According to her recollection, a traveler could leave Eubank on Highway 70, turn onto the road leading toward Goochtown, and continue until crossing a small stream that she believed was Buck Creek. She remembered that Mike Pittman lived near the crossing, before the road climbed the hill. Although Oldham acknowledged that approximately forty years had passed since she lived in the community, her description preserves details of the local landscape and one of the families associated with the settlement.
Her account is particularly useful because it connects the geographical information preserved on the historical map with a resident’s memory of the community itself. Roads, creek crossings, and individual family homes often served as important landmarks in rural settlements where formal street addresses and commercial establishments were less prominent than in larger towns.
The Gooch School and Rural Education
Education formed an important part of life in northern Pulaski County, where numerous small rural schools served the families living throughout the countryside. The historical Woodstock map provides evidence of this educational landscape, identifying schoolhouses in several neighboring communities, including Estesburg, Chestnut Ridge, and other settlements.
A commercial inventory of the historical Woodstock quadrangle also identifies Gooch School among the named features appearing on the map. This provides a promising lead concerning an educational institution associated with the Gooch name, although its precise relationship to Goochtown, its founding date, and its years of operation require additional documentation.
Schools throughout rural Kentucky served purposes extending beyond ordinary classroom instruction. In addition to providing children with an education, schoolhouses frequently became gathering places where neighbors attended public programs, community meetings, and social events. Small educational institutions were particularly important in communities where families lived on scattered farms and travel to larger settlements could be difficult.
Additional information about Gooch School may survive in the historical records maintained by Pulaski County Schools. The district provides access procedures for historical student and employee records, including information concerning former one-room and two-room schools that operated before 1964. These records could help identify the school’s teachers, students, operating years, and eventual closure.
Goochtown Church of Christ and the Community’s Religious Life
Religion formed another important part of Goochtown’s community life, and one of the settlement’s documented institutions is Goochtown Church of Christ. Although the congregation’s original founding date has not been established, firsthand testimony provides information about its building during the later twentieth century.
On January 3, 2000, Stephen Burdine contributed to the KYGenWeb discussion concerning Goochtown. Burdine stated that he had attended Goochtown Church of Christ and remembered the church building being constructed during the 1970s or early 1980s. His recollection suggests that the congregation possessed a relatively modern building by the closing decades of the twentieth century, although it does not establish whether an earlier structure or congregation existed at the same location.
The church is also associated with a burial ground identified as Goochtown Church of Christ Cemetery. County cemetery directories distinguish this burial ground from Goochtown Cemetery, indicating that the community possessed more than one recognized place of burial. The surviving cemetery records provide opportunities to investigate the families associated with the congregation and the religious relationships that connected the surrounding households.
For generations of rural Appalachian residents, congregations provided opportunities to gather beyond their immediate neighborhoods. Worship services, funerals, and other church activities helped maintain relationships among families who might otherwise have been separated by considerable distances. Goochtown Church of Christ belongs to that broader history of rural religious institutions whose influence extended beyond their physical buildings.
The Pittman Family Cemetery and the Preservation of Family History
Among the most revealing historical accounts of Goochtown is the description of the Pittman family cemetery preserved in the KYGenWeb correspondence. The cemetery attracted the attention of researchers at the end of 1999, when Loucile Wilson Hall asked about a family burial ground located along Goochtown Road.
On March 14, 2000, Charles W. Pitman Sr. responded with a description of the cemetery and its relationship to his ancestors. Pitman explained that the burial ground occupied land formerly belonging to the Pitman family and that numerous earlier generations had been buried there. According to his recollection, the graves were marked primarily by fieldstones rather than conventional inscribed headstones, making the identification of individual burial locations particularly difficult.
Pitman identified several family members whom Mike Pitman had reportedly told him were buried in the cemetery. These included Micajah, Lydia, Moses, Margaret, another Micajah known as Cage, and Elizabeth. He also recalled that the burial ground had become overgrown and that he was uncertain whether a record identifying the individual graves had survived.
The account illustrates an important difficulty facing historians researching rural Appalachian communities. Family cemeteries were frequently established on privately owned land, and the identities of those buried there were sometimes preserved through family recollections rather than formal burial registers. Where graves were marked with uninscribed stones, the disappearance of oral knowledge could make later identification exceptionally difficult.
Pitman’s testimony is therefore valuable evidence of the cemetery’s existence and its importance to his family. The reported identities of those buried there, however, remain dependent upon family recollection and would benefit from comparison with original probate records, nineteenth-century census schedules, and surviving land deeds.
The cemetery also provides evidence of the community’s connections beyond the Gooch family. While the settlement’s name suggests the historical importance of one surname, the memories preserved by the Pitman family demonstrate that Goochtown’s history involved several families whose relationships developed across generations.
Goochtown Cemetery and the Families Who Remained
The community’s historical record is also preserved in Goochtown Cemetery, a burial ground whose indexed records extend from the nineteenth century into the twenty-first century. A modern cemetery database identifies twenty-eight burial records, including several members of the Gooch family alongside individuals bearing other surnames.
Among the recorded burials are Pleasant Overton Gooch, who died in 1868; Myrtle B. Gooch, who lived from 1877 to 1879; and S. A. Gooch, who lived from 1874 to 1881. Later indexed burials include members of the Rains and Blevins families, illustrating the cemetery’s continued association with the surrounding community. These modern listings are useful genealogical references, although their information should be checked against surviving original grave markers and death records whenever possible.
The community’s burial grounds extend beyond Goochtown Cemetery and the church cemetery. A separate cemetery directory identifies Francis Cemetery as another burial ground associated with Goochtown, providing an additional opportunity to investigate families who occupied the area during earlier generations.
Taken together, these cemeteries represent an important historical record of the settlement. Their surviving markers, burial registers, and family recollections preserve names that might otherwise be difficult to recover from county histories or newspaper accounts, particularly for children and individuals whose lives received little attention in contemporary publications.
Historical Records and the Preservation of Goochtown
Much of Goochtown’s earliest history remains to be reconstructed from original documents. Although cemetery records, census transcriptions, historical maps, and personal recollections identify several families and institutions associated with the settlement, significant questions remain about its establishment and development.
The Pulaski County Public Library’s digital archives contain historical newspapers, census material, court records, tax lists, wills, and marriage bonds extending into the nineteenth century. The collection also includes substantial runs of the Commonwealth, Commonwealth Journal, Somerset Journal, and The Kentuckian. These publications offer opportunities to locate contemporary references to Goochtown, investigate the newspaper’s reported Goochland community column, and identify residents who participated in the community’s religious, educational, and agricultural activities.
Original property records are particularly important for determining the community’s earliest history. By comparing Gooch family deeds with historical maps and census records, researchers may be able to establish which households occupied the area before Goochtown appeared on twentieth-century maps. Similar research into the Pittman family could clarify the history of the family cemetery and identify relationships among the individuals whose names survive through oral testimony.
These investigations are necessary because the surviving sources do not yet establish Goochtown’s founding date, the individual responsible for its name, or the precise relationship between Goochtown and the historical references to Goochland. Preserving that uncertainty is important to distinguishing the community’s documented history from plausible but unconfirmed interpretations.
The Lasting History of Goochtown
Goochtown’s history survives not through a single prominent event but through the records of the families who lived in its countryside. Nineteenth-century census schedules document Gooch households and their agricultural holdings, while family cemeteries preserve evidence of successive generations associated with the settlement. The federal government’s historical map establishes the community’s geographical identity during the early 1950s, and later firsthand accounts provide a personal view of its roads, religious institutions, and burial grounds.
The recollections preserved by Jenny Oldham, Charles W. Pitman Sr., and Stephen Burdine are particularly important because they record details that might otherwise have disappeared from the historical record. Their accounts connect Goochtown’s surviving geographical features with the people who lived there, demonstrating how local knowledge can complement government documents and other written sources.
Although important questions remain about the community’s beginnings, the surviving evidence places Goochtown within the broader history of northern Pulaski County’s rural settlements. Its farms, schools, churches, and cemeteries reflect the institutions and family relationships that shaped everyday life throughout much of Appalachia. Preserving these records ensures that Goochtown remains more than a name on an old map and that the families who built and sustained the community retain their place in the region’s history.
Sources & Further Reading
Oldham, Jenny. “Goochtown.” Message posted December 31, 1999. Pulaski County KYGenWeb, “Queries January 2000.” https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/queries/2000/jan2000.html
Pitman, Charles W., Sr. “Re: Goochtown.” Message posted March 14, 2000. Pulaski County KYGenWeb, “Queries January 2000.” https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/queries/2000/jan2000.html
Burdine, Stephen. “Re: Goochtown.” Message posted January 3, 2000. Pulaski County KYGenWeb, “Queries January 2000.” https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/queries/2000/jan2000.html
James, Eric. “Goochland Community.” Message posted December 31, 1999. Pulaski County KYGenWeb, “Queries January 2000.” https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/queries/2000/jan2000.html
United States Geological Survey. Woodstock, Kentucky. Surveyed 1952, published 1954. Historical topographic map, 1:24,000. Reproduced by Pastmaps. https://pastmaps.com/map/woodstock-pulaski-county-ky-usgs-topo-1952-p1954?div=215116
United States Geological Survey. “topoView: Historical Topographic Map Collection.” https://www.usgs.gov/tools/topoview
Works Progress Administration and Robert M. Rennick. “Pulaski County: Post Offices & Place Names.” 1939. County Histories of Kentucky, no. 284. Morehead State University, ScholarWorks. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/284/
United States Census Office. Ninth Census of the United States, 1870. Glades District, Pulaski County, Kentucky. Census schedules available through the Pulaski County Public Library Digital Archives. https://pulaskilibrary.advantage-preservation.com/
Gwin, John M. “Descendants of Robert Magill.” Updated February 2019. Gwin Genealogy. Includes transcriptions of the 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880 Pulaski County census records concerning Gooch families. https://www.gwingenealogy.net/GENEALOGY/SURNAMES/magill.htm
Pulaski County Public Library. “Digital Archives of the Pulaski County Public Library.” Historical newspapers, census schedules, court records, tax lists, wills, marriage bonds, and other historical documents. https://pulaskilibrary.advantage-preservation.com/
Pulaski County Clerk. “Land Records.” Somerset, Kentucky. Historical deeds, mortgages, wills, and other county records extending to approximately 1799. https://pulaski.kycountyclerk.us/land-records/
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. “Kentucky State Archives Microfilm Guide.” Frankfort, Kentucky. https://microfilm.ky.gov/
Pulaski County Schools. “Records Request Procedures.” Information about historical school archives and records from former one-room and two-room schools. https://www.pulaski.net/community/records-request-procedures-2-392-1
PeopleLegacy. “Goochtown Cemetery, Pulaski County, Kentucky.” Indexed burial records and cemetery information. https://peoplelegacy.com/cemetery/goochtown_cemetery-3h2p01/
Genealogy Trails. “Cemeteries of Pulaski County, Kentucky.” Includes Goochtown Cemetery, Goochtown Church of Christ Cemetery, and Francis Cemetery. https://www.genealogytrails.com/ken/pulaski/cemeteries.html
Pulaski County KYGenWeb. “Pulaski County, Kentucky Cemeteries.” Cemetery listings and genealogical research resources. https://kygenweb.net/pulaski/cem/cem.html
LDSGenealogy. “Pulaski County, Kentucky, Cemetery Records.” Directory of cemetery records and genealogical collections, including resources for Goochtown. https://ldsgenealogy.com/KY/Pulaski-County-Cemetery-Records.htm
Rennick, Robert M. Kentucky Place Names. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13x1s3p
National Archives and Records Administration. “Post Office Reports of Site Locations, 1837–1950.” Washington, DC. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/locations-1837-1950.html
Author Note: Goochtown’s history survives through the families, churches, cemeteries, and personal memories that connect its past to the present. I hope readers with family photographs, historical documents, or memories of the community will help preserve the stories that have yet to be documented.