Appalachian Community Histories – Pence, Wolfe County: The Family Settlement at the Mouth of Pence Branch
Pence is easy to overlook on a map of Wolfe County. It was never incorporated, never developed into a large commercial center, and never acquired the kind of courthouse square or railroad depot that usually anchors a community’s written history. Yet the name has survived through Pence Branch, Pence Road, local cemeteries, government maps, and the memory of families who lived along Holly Creek.
The community stood in southern Wolfe County near the mouth of Pence Branch, roughly ten miles southeast of Campton. Robert M. Rennick, Kentucky’s leading scholar of historical place names and post offices, located the old Pence post office about two and one-third miles up Holly Creek from the North Fork of the Kentucky River. The settlement occupied the narrow creek country between Campton and the Breathitt County line, where roads, homes, schools, and farms followed the limited bottomland beside the water.
Pence was not a town in the formal sense. It was a rural Appalachian neighborhood. Its boundaries were understood through branches, ridges, roads, family properties, school districts, and postal routes rather than surveyed municipal lines. The history of Pence is therefore the history of the people who settled along Holly Creek and gave a lasting family name to the landscape.
Andrew Pence and the Early Settlement of Holly Creek
Local and family accounts connect the community’s name to Andrew Pence, who was born in 1798 and died in 1878. A Pence family history published by Monroe Conger Pence in 1961 states that Andrew arrived in the Holly Creek area around 1823. The same account describes the later village of Pence as his namesake.
That date places Andrew Pence in the region nearly four decades before Wolfe County existed. Wolfe County was created in 1860 from portions of Breathitt, Morgan, Owsley, and Powell counties. Any deeds, tax assessments, marriages, court cases, or road orders involving the Pence family before 1860 may therefore be filed in one of those parent counties rather than in Wolfe County. The changing county boundaries are essential to understanding why the earliest records of Pence can be difficult to locate.
The 1961 family history claims that Andrew Pence purchased 640 acres on both sides of Holly Creek from a man identified as Burse Ayres for $125. It further states that the property became known as Pence Branch and that Andrew paid taxes on the land by 1830. These details are important, but they were published more than a century after the reported purchase and should be treated as family history until confirmed through original land grants, deeds, surveys, and tax books.
Andrew married Rebecca Hollon, whose family was already closely associated with the Holly Creek country. Rennick identified John Hollon Sr. and Charity Brewer Hollon as early settlers along Holly Creek, arriving around 1804. This connection between the Pence and Hollon families helps explain why the community’s early history cannot be separated from the larger settlement of the Holly Creek watershed.
The later Pence family history listed eleven children of Andrew and Rebecca and stated that they were believed to have been born on Pence Branch. Whether every detail can be proven or not, the account reflects an important historical pattern. The community did not begin when a post office opened in 1915. By then, generations of the Pence family and their neighbors had already lived, married, farmed, worshiped, and buried their dead in the surrounding hollows.
Life Along Holly Creek
Holly Creek formed the natural spine of the neighborhood. Rennick described it as a stream approximately ten miles long, historically including what became known as Terrell Fork. Four post offices eventually served the main valley and its branches, including Hollonville, Pence, and Bethany.
The physical geography shaped nearly every aspect of community life. Houses and small fields occupied narrow strips of usable ground beside the creek. Families traveled along creek roads and crossed branches to reach schools, churches, stores, mills, and neighbors. Ridges separated communities that might appear close on a modern map, while a road following a branch could connect households that were miles apart.
Federal geographic descriptions still identify Pence Branch as a stream flowing approximately 1.3 miles from its headwaters to its confluence with Holly Creek. The surrounding Holly Creek segment continues south toward its meeting with the North Fork of the Kentucky River. These measurements help define the small landscape in which the historic community developed.
The 1961 family account preserved the recollections of Daniel Boone Pence, a grandson of Andrew Pence who lived into his nineties. He reportedly remembered wild turkeys in the Wolfe County woods, a free school that operated for only three months each year, and a missionary church near Bethany. His memories offer a glimpse of the limited educational calendar and strong religious life that characterized many rural eastern Kentucky communities during the nineteenth century.
Such schools often depended on local trustees, short-term teachers, and whatever public funding a district could obtain. Attendance could be interrupted by planting, harvesting, illness, flooding, poor roads, or the need for children to work at home. The school was nevertheless one of the few public institutions that brought the scattered families of a branch together.
The Pence Post Office
The most clearly documented chapter in the community’s history began on January 14, 1915, when the Pence post office opened. Rennick identified Sam Pence as its first postmaster and concluded that the office was named for the family of his grandfather, Andrew Pence.
The opening of a rural post office was a significant event. It gave a community an official name within the federal postal system and provided residents with a recognized mailing address. Before rural telephone service became common, the mail connected families to newspapers, government notices, businesses, distant relatives, medical information, political campaigns, and the wider nation.
A small Appalachian post office was frequently operated from a general store, residence, or other privately owned building. The postmaster might also have been a merchant, farmer, teacher, or community leader. Residents came not only to collect letters but also to exchange news, learn who was sick, discuss crops and road conditions, and hear about births, marriages, deaths, and court business.
The original federal records for Pence belong to the Records of the Post Office Department. The Record of Appointment of Postmasters, National Archives Microfilm Publication M841, records appointments between 1832 and 1971 and is arranged by state, county, and post office. The Post Office Department Reports of Site Locations, Microfilm Publication M1126, may contain descriptions or maps showing the office’s position relative to roads, streams, neighboring offices, and postal routes.
Rennick placed the post office at the mouth of the roughly two-mile Pence Branch, about ten and one-half miles southeast of Campton. This location made the office accessible to households along both Holly Creek and Pence Branch while anchoring the name to a particular point in the valley.
Pence, Bethany, and a Changing Community
The nearby development of Bethany gradually changed the pattern of institutions along Holly Creek. In 1926, Marjorie Burt of Chicago established an orphanage near the mouth of Bee Branch, approximately 1.7 miles above Pence. Rennick wrote that the institution was named Bethany at the suggestion of Iva Durham Vennard, president of the Chicago Evangelical Institute.
The settlement that grew around the Bethany Children’s Home eventually included a church, school, store, hospital, farm, dairy, gardens, and fire department. The Bethany post office opened on February 4, 1928, with Lina M. Miller serving as postmaster.
For Pence residents, Bethany offered services that a smaller branch community could not easily support. Its growth did not erase Pence, but it provided a nearby institutional center with a larger school, religious facilities, commercial activity, and postal service.
The relationship between the two communities became especially important when the Pence post office closed in 1942. A later Pence family account reported that residents collected their mail at Bethany after the closure. The same account estimated the population of Pence at only forty-three, although the date and method behind that figure are not clearly explained.
The post office’s closure did not necessarily mean that the community disappeared. Small post offices were frequently discontinued when postal routes were consolidated, transportation improved, or a nearby office could serve the same households. The end of the Pence office marked the loss of an institution, not the immediate abandonment of the valley.
The Pence School and the Years After 1942
Education remained part of the community after the post office closed. Historical topographic information for the Landsaw quadrangle identifies both Pence School and Pence Post Office as historical features near the mouth of Pence Branch. The same mapping records Pence Cemetery and the continuing settlement name.
A federal school listing for the 1967 to 1968 academic year records an elementary school identified as “Pence Branch” within the Wolfe County school system. This shows that the name remained attached to a functioning educational district more than twenty-five years after the post office closed.
The survival of the school name is important because rural schools often served as the final public institution in communities that had lost their post offices and stores. A school could keep a place name in official use while generations of children continued to identify themselves with a particular branch or hollow.
Eventually, improvements in roads and the consolidation of county schools brought many one-room and small branch schools to an end. Children who had once walked to a nearby school were transported to larger facilities. The disappearance of the local school removed another gathering place, but it did not erase the family and geographic identity associated with Pence.
Cemeteries and the Family Landscape
Cemeteries provide some of the strongest surviving evidence of the community. Several burial grounds in the Pence area carry the family or community name, including the Andrew J. Pence Cemetery, Old Pence Cemetery, and Pence Cemetery. Gravestones connect the landscape to generations who remained in the area long after Andrew and Rebecca Pence established their home along Holly Creek.
In eastern Kentucky, small family cemeteries often preserve community history more faithfully than maps. They reveal marriages between neighboring families, periods of disease, infant mortality, military service, migration, and the continued return of former residents for burial. Even when houses, stores, and schools disappear, the cemeteries remain fixed points in the landscape.
The Andrew J. Pence Cemetery is especially important to the settlement’s origin story. Memorial records place Andrew Pence there following his death in 1878 and Rebecca Pence there following her death in 1887. These online records should be compared with gravestone photographs, death records, family Bibles, and cemetery surveys, but the burial ground strengthens the connection between the pioneer family and the community that inherited its name.
Pence on the Modern Map
Pence remains identified on Kentucky Transportation Cabinet maps. State Route 1261 runs through the southern part of Wolfe County toward the Breathitt County line, preserving the community’s connection to the larger road system. District maps continue to label Pence alongside Bethany, Hollonville, Landsaw, and other historic Wolfe County communities.
The continued appearance of Pence on official maps demonstrates that a community does not need municipal government to endure. Its post office has been gone since 1942, and its former school belongs to an earlier era, but the name remains attached to the road, branch, cemeteries, and surrounding settlement.
Modern travelers may see only scattered houses and a road following the creek. The older historical landscape is less obvious. Beneath the present road network lies the story of early landholding, family settlement, short school terms, postal service, church life, and the gradual movement of local institutions toward Bethany and Campton.
Why the History of Pence Matters
Pence represents hundreds of Appalachian communities whose histories cannot be measured by incorporation dates, population totals, or surviving commercial buildings. It existed because people recognized it as a place. The post office formalized the name, but the community had already been shaped by family ties and the geography of Holly Creek for generations.
Its story also shows the importance of combining different kinds of evidence. Family histories preserve names and traditions that may not appear elsewhere, but their claims must be tested against deeds, tax books, census schedules, postal records, maps, court orders, school reports, and gravestones. Federal postal records establish the period when Pence held an official place in the national mail system. Maps locate the school, cemetery, creek, and post office. Family accounts provide memories of the people who lived there.
The history of Pence survives in fragments, but those fragments form a recognizable pattern. Andrew and Rebecca Pence established a family presence along Holly Creek during the early nineteenth century. Their descendants gave the branch and community a lasting identity. Sam Pence became the first postmaster in 1915. The post office served the neighborhood until 1942. A branch school continued afterward, while Bethany became the nearest center for mail and community services.
Pence may never have been a large town, but its story is no less important. It preserves the history of an Appalachian settlement built beside a creek, carried forward by families, and remembered through the names left upon the land.
Sources & Further Reading
Appalachian Regional Commission. “Kentucky.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.arc.gov/appalachian-states/kentucky/
FamilySearch. “Deeds, 1860 to 1963.” Wolfe County Clerk of the County Court. FamilySearch Catalog. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/389880
Federal Register. “Notices Concerning Public School Systems, Including Pence Branch Elementary School, Wolfe County, Kentucky.” Federal Register 33, no. 105. May 30, 1968. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1968-05-30/pdf/FR-1968-05-30.pdf
Hansen, Wallace R., and J. E. Johnston. “Geology of the Landsaw Quadrangle, Kentucky.” Geologic Quadrangle 201. Washington, DC: U.S. Geological Survey, 1963. https://doi.org/10.3133/gq201
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. “County Courthouse Disasters in Kentucky.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://kdla.ky.gov/Archives-and-Reference/Pages/Courthouse-Disasters.aspx
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. “County Records Inventory.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://kdla.ky.gov/Archives-and-Reference/Documents/County%20Records.pdf
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. “Inventory of Land Records.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://kdla.ky.gov/Archives-and-Reference/Documents/Inventory_Land_Records.pdf
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. “Kentucky County Formation Chart.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://kdla.ky.gov/Archives-and-Reference/Pages/Kentucky-County-Formation-Chart.aspx
Kentucky Geological Survey. “Groundwater Resources of Wolfe County, Kentucky.” University of Kentucky. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.uky.edu/KGS/water/library/gwatlas/Wolfe/Wateruse.htm
Kentucky Secretary of State. “Kentucky County Formation Table.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.sos.ky.gov/land/resources/Documents/County%20Formation%20Table.pdf
Kentucky Secretary of State. “Kentucky Land Office.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.sos.ky.gov/land/Pages/default.aspx
Kentucky Secretary of State. “Land Office Services Index.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://web.sos.ky.gov/land/
Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. “State Primary Road System List: Wolfe County.” Frankfort: Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://transportation.ky.gov/Planning/State%20Primary%20Road%20System%20Lists/Wolfe.pdf
Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. “State Primary Road System Map: Wolfe County.” Frankfort: Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://transportation.ky.gov/Planning/SPRS%20Maps/Wolfe.pdf
Library of Congress. “The Hazel Green Herald, Hazel Green, Wolfe County, Kentucky, 1885 to 19??.” Chronicling America. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica/lccn/sn86063242/
Morehead State University. “Place Names of Kentucky Oral Histories.” Robert M. Rennick Kentucky Place Name Collection. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/rennick_oh_collection/
Morehead State University. “Robert M. Rennick Kentucky Place Name Collection.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/robert_rennick_collection/
National Archives and Records Administration. “Census Records.” Record Group 29, Records of the Bureau of the Census. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.archives.gov/research/census
National Archives and Records Administration. “Post Office Department Reports of Site Locations, 1837 to 1950.” Microfilm Publication M1126. Record Group 28, Records of the Post Office Department. Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 1986. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/locations-1837-1950.html
National Archives and Records Administration. “Record of Appointment of Postmasters, 1832 to September 30, 1971.” Microfilm Publication M841. Record Group 28, Records of the Post Office Department. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices
Pence, Monroe Conger. A History of Pence Place Names and Early Pences in America, with Genealogies. Mountain View, CA: Privately published, 1961. https://archive.org/details/historyofpencepl00penc
Rennick, Robert M. Kentucky Place Names. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984. https://books.google.com/books?id=ivUTAAAAYAAJ
Rennick, Robert M. “The Post Offices of Wolfe County, Kentucky.” La Posta 36, no. 2, April and May 2005. https://www.lapostapub.com/Backissues/LP36-2.pdf
Rennick, Robert M. “Wolfe County: Post Offices.” County Histories of Kentucky. Morehead State University, 2000. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/304/
United States Geological Survey. “Domestic Names.” Geographic Names Information System. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.usgs.gov/us-board-on-geographic-names/domestic-names
United States Geological Survey. EarthExplorer. Accessed July 18, 2026. https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/
United States Geological Survey. Landsaw, Kentucky. 7.5-Minute Topographic Quadrangle, 1:24,000. Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey, 1951. https://store.usgs.gov/product/864218
United States Geological Survey. Landsaw, Kentucky. 7.5-Minute Topographic Quadrangle, 1:24,000. Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey, 1971. https://store.usgs.gov/product/60397
United States Geological Survey. “Historical Topographic Map Collection.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.usgs.gov/programs/national-geospatial-program/historical-topographic-maps-preserving-past
University of Kentucky Libraries. “National Digital Newspaper Program: The Kentucky Edition, Digitized Newspapers.” Accessed July 18, 2026. https://www.uky.edu/Projects/NDNP/listfamily.html
Wolfe County Woman’s Club. Early and Modern History of Wolfe County. Edited by Mrs. Roy M. Cecil. Campton, KY: Wolfe County Woman’s Club, 1958. https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/viewer/398410/
Author Note: This article reconstructs the history of Pence through postal records, government maps, county sources, and family accounts connected to Holly Creek. Readers with photographs, deeds, school records, or family memories from Pence Branch are encouraged to help preserve the community’s fuller story.