Appalachian Community Histories – Ulysses, Lawrence County: A Community Rooted Along Georges Creek
Ulysses, Kentucky, is the kind of place that can disappear when history is written only through incorporated towns, county seats, and major industries. It was never a courthouse town or a tightly clustered municipality. Instead, Ulysses developed as an extended rural community of homes, farms, churches, family cemeteries, creek branches, and gathering places along Georges Creek and the old route of U.S. 23 in southern Lawrence County.
A 1911 map of Lawrence County places Ulysses south of Richardson, near the Johnson County line and within the network of roads and waterways connecting the upper reaches of Georges Creek with the rest of the Big Sandy Valley. Kentucky place-name historian Robert M. Rennick later described Ulysses as an extended community centered around its post office. He estimated that approximately 300 people lived in the community in 1970.
That description is important because Ulysses was never defined by a single street or business district. Its boundaries were understood through families, churches, cemeteries, creek bends, and neighborhood names. Walnut Grove, Borders Chapel, Chestnut, Joe Davis Bend, and the forks of Georges Creek were all part of the larger community remembered as Ulysses.
The surviving record reveals a place shaped not by a single famous event, but by generations of ordinary Appalachian life. Its history can be found in post-office registers, newspaper correspondence, obituaries, church gatherings, family burial grounds, road maps, land records, and the movements of residents between eastern Kentucky and the industrial cities of Ohio.
Before the Name Ulysses
The creation of the Ulysses post office did not create the settlement from nothing. Families were living along Georges Creek before the community received an official postal name. They identified their locations through waterways, landowners, churches, and nearby settlements long before Ulysses appeared in federal postal records.
Later obituaries described several residents as having been born at Ulysses before the post office was established. Andrew Jackson Austin, for example, was reportedly born there in 1879. Although the obituary used the later community name retrospectively, it demonstrates that the neighborhood recognized as Ulysses had roots extending beyond its official postal history. Austin would eventually become a farmer, merchant, and postmaster in the community.
The surnames connected with early Ulysses included Borders, Davis, George, Burton, Boyd, Castle, Preston, Thompson, Miller, Stevenson, Puckett, and Sansom. Their homes were located along the creek, on its branches, and near the roads leading toward Richardson, Lowmansville, Louisa, and neighboring Johnson County.
Family cemeteries provide some of the strongest evidence of this older settlement pattern. The Davis-Borders Cemetery at Joe Davis Bend, the Borders-Thompson Cemetery, the Archibald Borders Cemetery on a fork of Georges Creek, and other small burial grounds preserve family geography that predates many modern roads and maps.
The Ulysses Post Office
According to Robert M. Rennick’s research, the Ulysses post office was established on February 13, 1888, with Jedediah F. Davis serving as its first postmaster. Rennick recorded the local tradition that the office was named for Ulysses S. Grant, the former Union general and president who had died in 1885.
The connection to Grant should be described as a naming tradition rather than an established statement from the federal government. The exact postal application, postmaster appointment, and site-location documents would provide the strongest evidence about how the name was chosen and where the first office operated.
The National Archives preserves two federal record groups that are particularly important for this question. The appointment registers identify postmasters, appointment dates, and the establishment or discontinuance of post offices. The Post Office Department’s site-location reports can describe nearby creeks, roads, settlements, postal routes, and proposed changes. Some reports also contain hand-drawn maps showing the placement of post offices within rural communities.
Until the individual Ulysses records are examined and compared with Rennick’s notes, his February 1888 date remains the clearest published account of the post office’s beginning.
In a community spread across several miles, a post office could become one of the few institutions giving the neighborhood an official identity. Residents could write Ulysses on letters, applications, newspaper correspondence, and government documents even when their homes were separated by creek branches and steep hills.
The office also became connected with local commerce. A 1933 account identified Andrew J. Austin as a merchant, farmer, and postmaster at Ulysses. Decades later, an obituary identified William Burton, who was born at Ulysses in 1901, as another retired postmaster. Together, these references suggest that the post office remained closely tied to the families and businesses serving the Georges Creek community.
Ulysses in the Big Sandy News
The richest surviving record of everyday life in Ulysses can be found in the pages of the Big Sandy News. Published in Louisa from 1885 until its 1929 merger with the Lawrence County Recorder, the newspaper carried correspondence from rural communities throughout Lawrence County and the surrounding Big Sandy region.
These community columns were written for readers who already understood the local geography. The correspondents rarely paused to explain where every creek, chapel, or family home was located. Instead, they reported visits, illnesses, deaths, marriages, church services, farming work, travel, employment, and neighborhood news.
A Ulysses column published on November 25, 1904, mentioned Joe Preston and several members of the Borders family in connection with Borders Chapel. It also reported religious conversions and visits among community residents. The column shows that Borders Chapel was not treated as a distant settlement. It belonged within the social and religious world of Ulysses.
The names in these columns are as historically valuable as the events. Formal county histories often concentrate on officeholders, businesses, wars, and institutions. Community correspondence preserved the names of farmers, children, widows, church members, visitors, and laborers who might otherwise have left little written evidence.
The research record for April 2, 1920, provides an especially revealing example. The Ulysses column reported the death of Julia Stevenson, the return of residents who had been working elsewhere, preparations for the farming season, visits among the Borders, Davis, George, Miller, and Puckett families, and plans for a baptism at Walnut Grove. In one small column, the newspaper connected religion, work, agriculture, family, and migration.
The Lawrence County Genealogical and Historical Society has transcribed many of these notices and obituaries. Those transcriptions are valuable finding aids, but the original newspaper images should be consulted before using lengthy direct quotations or resolving unclear names.
Birth, Illness, and Death in the Community Record
Many surviving Ulysses notices concern sickness and death. This was partly because newspapers served as the public record through which rural families announced losses, funeral arrangements, and the condition of sick relatives.
A notice published in May 1905 reported that a daughter had been born to Joe Brown and his wife. The child lived only a short time and was buried near the family home the following day. The same notice stated that Mrs. Brown was seriously ill with lung trouble and was not expected to survive.
The item was brief, but it reveals the severity of family life when childbirth, infant mortality, and respiratory illness could strike the same household almost simultaneously. The child’s burial near the home also reflects the importance of small private and family burial grounds throughout the Ulysses area.
In January 1912, the newspaper reported the death of Geneva Borders, the wife of Anderson Borders. She had reportedly been ill for several months and left a husband and eight children. Her burial place was described as a beautiful point overlooking the family home.
That description provides more than an obituary detail. It shows how burial grounds were placed within the lived landscape. The dead remained physically connected to the farm, creek, ridge, and household they had known.
Martha Sansom, identified with the Chestnut section of Ulysses, died in March 1919 at the age of eighty-two. She was buried in a family cemetery after a life that extended back to the years before Lawrence County’s Civil War experience and long before the Ulysses post office was established.
The following year brought additional losses. Julia Stevenson died in March 1920 after suffering from what the newspaper called quick consumption, a term commonly associated with rapidly progressing tuberculosis. Another notice reported the death of Matilda Webb following influenza. These deaths occurred during a period when communities across Appalachia were still experiencing the consequences of the influenza pandemic and other infectious diseases.
For Ulysses, the obituary pages became a kind of community census. They recorded family connections, churches, occupations, migrations, burial places, and the names of people who might not appear in any published history.
Walnut Grove and Borders Chapel
Churches were among the institutions that held the scattered Ulysses community together. Walnut Grove and Borders Chapel appear repeatedly in newspaper reports, obituaries, funeral notices, cemetery records, and family histories.
The 1904 Ulysses column connected residents of Borders Chapel with the larger neighborhood. The 1920 column announced a baptism at Walnut Grove, demonstrating that the church was an active place of worship and community gathering during the early twentieth century.
Walnut Grove remained important for generations. Later obituaries repeatedly identified residents as members of Walnut Grove Free Will Baptist Church, recorded funerals held there, and directed burials to the Walnut Grove cemetery or nearby family burial grounds.
Mary Bevins, who was born at Ulysses in 1910, was remembered as a member of Walnut Grove Free Will Baptist Church and was buried in the church cemetery after her death in 1977. Liss Bryant, a retired coal miner and farmer born at Ulysses in 1896, was also connected with Walnut Grove.
Other funeral notices demonstrate that Walnut Grove served families who had left Kentucky. Ella Mae VanHoose, who lived at Ulysses, had services at Walnut Grove Free Will Baptist Church before burial in the VanHoose Cemetery at Chestnut. Louise Shelton Parker, who had moved to Columbus, Ohio, was returned to Ulysses for a funeral at Walnut Grove and burial in the church cemetery.
Borders Chapel performed a similar role. Sarah Alice Cox of Ulysses had funeral services there, while Tishia George, who had lived in Urbana, Ohio, was returned to Borders Chapel and buried in the Borders Cemetery at Ulysses.
These churches were more than Sunday meeting places. They hosted baptisms, funerals, reunions, preaching, and the renewal of family ties. Even after residents moved hundreds of miles away, the churches and cemeteries of Ulysses remained places to which they or their remains returned.
The Families Who Made Ulysses
No single family can represent the history of Ulysses, but several surnames appear repeatedly across newspapers, cemetery records, postal history, and obituaries.
The Davis family was connected with the establishment of the post office through Jedediah F. Davis. The Borders family appears in newspaper correspondence, church reports, migration records, and several cemeteries. The Preston family was associated with Borders Chapel and public service. The Burton and Austin families were connected with the post office, while the Castle, George, Boyd, Thompson, Miller, Stevenson, and Puckett families appear throughout the community record.
Stephen Girard Preston, born at Ulysses in 1885, became a farmer, deputy sheriff, and forest ranger. His life demonstrates that public service in a rural community often extended across several responsibilities rather than a single occupation.
Andrew J. Austin combined farming, merchandising, and postal work. William Burton later served as postmaster. Liss Bryant worked as both a coal miner and farmer. These lives show that Ulysses was connected to the broader regional economy while retaining its agricultural foundation.
Residents could farm along Georges Creek, work in coal-related employment elsewhere in the region, operate a store, serve as a postal official, or leave temporarily for work outside Lawrence County. The community was rural, but it was not isolated.
From Ulysses to Ohio
One of the clearest patterns in the later Ulysses record is migration to Ohio. Families moved to Columbus, Springfield, Urbana, and other industrial communities while continuing to identify themselves with Ulysses.
Ora Borders was born at Ulysses in 1899, the son of Anderson Borders and Geneva Burton Borders. He later lived and worked in Columbus, Ohio. His obituary preserved his Lawrence County birthplace, family relationships, employment, marriage, and fraternal affiliations.
Other obituaries tell similar stories. Residents or their children moved north for employment, marriage, or opportunity, but funerals and burials frequently brought them back to Lawrence County. Tishia George returned from Urbana for services at Borders Chapel. Louise Shelton Parker returned from Columbus for services at Walnut Grove. Members of the Borders, Castle, George, and other Ulysses families developed branches in Ohio while maintaining ties to the creek community.
This movement was part of a larger Appalachian migration that reshaped communities throughout eastern Kentucky during the twentieth century. The history of Ulysses cannot be confined to Lawrence County alone because descendants carried its family networks into Ohio and West Virginia.
The continuing practice of returning the dead for burial is especially revealing. A person might spend decades outside Kentucky and still be brought home to a family cemetery or churchyard near Georges Creek. The final journey restored a physical connection to the community from which the family had come.
Roads, Creeks, and the Historical Landscape
The landscape explains why Ulysses developed as an extended community rather than a compact town. Georges Creek provided the main natural corridor through the area. Roads followed the valley and connected scattered homes, churches, farms, stores, and cemeteries.
The 1911 Lawrence County map shows Ulysses within a network that included Richardson, Lowmansville, Louisa, neighboring settlements, and the Johnson County line. The later Richardson geological quadrangle continued to identify the physical setting shared by portions of Lawrence and Johnson counties.
The old U.S. 23 route, Kentucky Route 581, creek branches, and local bends all became part of the community’s internal geography. Directions were often given through family names and familiar landmarks rather than numbered addresses.
A person might live near Walnut Grove, at Joe Davis Bend, on the left fork of Georges Creek, near Borders Chapel, or in the Chestnut section while still being described in a newspaper or obituary as a resident of Ulysses.
This flexible geography explains why researchers must search more than the word Ulysses. Georges Creek, Walnut Grove, Borders Chapel, Richardson, Chestnut, Joe Davis Bend, and the major local surnames can uncover records that would otherwise be missed.
The Cemeteries of Ulysses
The cemeteries surrounding Ulysses form one of the most durable maps of its history. They include the Davis-Borders Cemetery, Borders-Thompson Cemetery, Castle Family Cemetery, Walnut Grove Cemetery, Borders Chapel Cemetery, Archibald Borders Cemetery, and numerous smaller family burial grounds.
These cemeteries mark where families lived, worshiped, and expected their descendants to remember them. Newspaper notices repeatedly described burials near family homes, in private burying grounds, or beside the churches that served the community.
Geneva Borders was buried on a point overlooking her home. Martha Sansom was laid to rest in a family cemetery. Later generations were buried at Walnut Grove, Borders Cemetery, and other established burial places even after living outside Kentucky.
For a community without municipal boundaries, these cemeteries provide fixed historical landmarks. Their names preserve the same family networks that appear in postal appointments, newspaper correspondence, deeds, census schedules, and church records.
Reconstructing the History of Ulysses
Much of the history of Ulysses remains waiting in county and federal records. Lawrence County deeds can identify church lots, family farms, cemetery reservations, timber rights, mineral rights, and the boundaries between neighboring properties. Tax books can reveal when families first appeared along Georges Creek and how their farms changed over time.
Probate inventories could document household possessions, farming equipment, livestock, wagons, firearms, books, and debts to local merchants. Marriage bonds and church records could connect the Borders, Davis, George, Burton, Preston, Castle, Boyd, and Thompson families across generations.
Federal census schedules offer another path, although residents may not be indexed under Ulysses as a separate place. They may appear within a Lawrence County magisterial district, along a road, or among neighboring households whose surnames are more useful than the place name itself.
The National Archives postal records could clarify where the first post office stood and whether it moved. Historical aerial photographs could reveal former roads, farmsteads, churches, and buildings. The Big Sandy News can reconstruct the social life of the community one weekly column at a time.
Morehead State University’s Robert M. Rennick Collection remains especially important. Rennick’s Lawrence County research includes surveys of communities, post offices, place names, maps, notes, and source material gathered during his study of Kentucky geography.
Why Ulysses Matters
Ulysses matters because it represents a form of Appalachian community that is easily overlooked. It was not built around a courthouse, railroad depot, large mine, or factory. Its identity came from a creek valley, a post office, churches, family farms, neighborhood correspondents, and burial grounds.
The history of Ulysses is preserved in small details. It is found in a mother’s illness after the death of her newborn child, a burial point overlooking a family home, a baptism at Walnut Grove, a merchant serving as postmaster, a coal miner who also farmed, and an Ohio resident returned to Lawrence County for burial.
Together, those details reveal that Ulysses was never merely a name printed on a map. It was a network of relationships extending along Georges Creek and outward into the wider Appalachian world.
The post office gave the community an official name, but its people gave that name meaning. Their stories remained rooted in Walnut Grove, Borders Chapel, the old road, the family cemeteries, and the bends of Georges Creek.
Sources & Further Reading
The Big Sandy News. Louisa, Kentucky, November 25, 1904. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83004226/1904-11-25/ed-1/
The Big Sandy News. Louisa, Kentucky, May 12, 1905. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83004226/1905-05-12/ed-1/
The Big Sandy News. Louisa, Kentucky, March 14, 1919. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83004226/1919-03-14/ed-1/
The Big Sandy News. Louisa, Kentucky, April 2, 1920. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83004226/1920-04-02/ed-1/
The Big Sandy News. Louisa, Kentucky, 1885–1929. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83004226/
Lawrence County Genealogical and Historical Society. “Lawrence County Cemeteries.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://lckghs.com/index.php/en/cemeteries/lawrence-county
Lawrence County Genealogical and Historical Society. “Borders Cemetery, Ulysses Walnut Grove Cemetery.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://lckghs.com/index.php/en/cemeteries/lawrence-county?id=52
Lawrence County Genealogical and Historical Society. “Borders United Methodist Church.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://lckghs.com/index.php/en/churches?id=318
Lawrence County Genealogical and Historical Society. “Obituaries, 1953.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://lckghs.com/index.php/en/obituaries/2-uncategorised/425-obit-1953
Lawrence County Genealogical and Historical Society. “Obituaries, 1956.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://www.lckghs.com/index.php/en/obituaries/2-uncategorised/428-obit-1956
Lawrence County Genealogical and Historical Society. “Obituaries, 1959.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://lckghs.com/index.php/obituaries?id=432&layout=edit
Lawrence County Genealogical and Historical Society. “Obituaries, 1972.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://lckghs.com/index.php/obituaries?id=463&layout=edit
Lawrence County Genealogical and Historical Society. “Obituaries, 1974.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://lckghs.com/index.php/obituaries?id=447&layout=edit
Lawrence County Genealogical and Historical Society. “Obituaries, 1978.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://lckghs.com/index.php/en/obituaries/2-uncategorised/451-obit-1978
Lawrence County Genealogical and Historical Society. “Obituaries, 1984.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://lckghs.com/index.php/en/obituaries/2-uncategorised/385-obit-1984
Lawrence County Genealogical and Historical Society. “Obituaries, 1990.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://lckghs.com/index.php/obituaries?id=472&layout=edit
Lawrence County Public Library. “Genealogy.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://lcplky.org/genealogy/
National Archives and Records Administration. “Appointment of Postmasters, 1832–September 30, 1971.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/postmasters-1832-1971.html
National Archives and Records Administration. “Post Office Reports of Site Locations, 1837–1950.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices/locations-1837-1950.html
Rennick, Robert M. “Lawrence County: Post Offices and Place Names.” County Histories of Kentucky. Morehead State University, 2000. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/kentucky_county_histories/244/
Rennick, Robert M. “Northeastern Kentucky Post Offices.” Robert M. Rennick Manuscript Collection, Morehead State University, 1998. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/rennick_ms_collection/160/
Rennick, Robert M. “Place Names Beginning with the Letter U.” Robert M. Rennick Manuscript Collection, Morehead State University, 2016. https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/rennick_ms_collection/28/
Sanchez, J. D., Donald Clayton Alvord, and Philip Thayer Hayes. Geologic Map of the Richardson Quadrangle, Lawrence and Johnson Counties, Kentucky. Geologic Quadrangle Map GQ-1460. Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey, 1978. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/gq1460
Kentucky Geological Survey. Generalized Geologic Map for Land-Use Planning: Lawrence County, Kentucky. Lexington: University of Kentucky, n.d. https://kgs.uky.edu/kgsweb/olops/pub/kgs/mc177_12.pdf
Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. “Research Guides.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://kdla.ky.gov/Archives-and-Reference/Pages/Research-Guides.aspx
Kentucky Secretary of State. “Kentucky Land Office.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://www.sos.ky.gov/land/Pages/default.aspx
Kentucky Secretary of State. “Virginia and Old Kentucky Patent Series.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://www.sos.ky.gov/land/non-military/patents/vaky/Pages/default.aspx
FamilySearch. “Deeds, 1822–1863, 1865–1902; Indexes, 1822–1970, Lawrence County, Kentucky.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/results?count=20&query=%2Bauthor_id%3A1078118738
FamilySearch. “Tax Books, 1822–1875, Lawrence County, Kentucky.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/156053
FamilySearch. “Marriage Register of Lawrence County, Kentucky, 1822–1880.” Accessed July 19, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/681367
FamilySearch. Lawrence County, Kentucky Wills, 1822–1890. Accessed July 19, 2026. https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/idurl/1/514227
Author Note: Ulysses has never needed municipal boundaries to possess a meaningful and enduring history. This article preserves the families, churches, cemeteries, roads, and community connections that gave the Georges Creek settlement its identity.