Three Forks of the Kentucky River Historical Association

Hampton Flannery

Hampton Flannery was born in Virginia, October 18, 1833, and died at his home in Owsley County Kentucky, July 31, 1927.

When a young man, Judge Flannery came to this country with others of his family settling near Green Hall in Jackson County, and later on the waters of Sturgeon in Owsley where the most of his life was spent.

On December 14, 1858, he was married to Miss Nancy Brandenburg, a daughter of James Brandenburg and a grand-daughter of Joseph Brandenburg who married Delilah Vesser, in 1796 and was the first settler of the Heidelberg country community — then Clark County but now Lee County, Kentucky.

Twelve children were born to this union, six of whom are not living - among whom is James H. Flannery, his only son. The six living daughters are married and living in comfortable homes throughout the country - one a widow in Texas. (Lucy Ann Flannery)

Surviving him at the time of his death were forty eight grand-children and forty one great-grandchildren, many of whom are grown and filling important positions in the business life.

Judge Flannery was a farmer - a first class farmer all the working years of his life - except a few years spent as a lumberman in Lee. And the working years of his life were all nigh all of them.

Up to this last week, he could mount a horse like a boy in his teens - indeed, many were his trips on horseback visiting friends and relatives, these last years in Beattyville some ten miles from his home, and elsewhere.

During the eight or ten years he spent as a lumberman he lived several of them in Beattyville where he was connected with the firm of Flannery and Congleton, in Proctor, and a lumber company in Beattyville. After these years he returned to his home and farm near Pebworth in Owsley and remained there until his death.

In 1878 Mr. Flannery was elected Judge of the Owsley County Court and entered into active duty in September of that year. His administration measured up in the elements of executive ability with the outstanding terms of judges who preceded him, which could not well be otherwise, considering his life of honesty, probity and good demeanor.

Early in the years of his young manhood he became a Mason and was a strict observer of the tenets of the Craft for some sixty years. At his death members from some half dozen Lodges of the state met and paid the last tribute of respect to a brother who had been a member for more years than the ordinary lifetime of a man.

He was a Lieutenant in the Union Army during the Civil War. He was noted as a good soldier and an efficient officer. The only retreat in which he participated was when with Gen. George Morgan when he left Cumberland Gap - retreating then, not from Southern Bayonet but from a foe they could not fight - STARVATION.

At the age of twenty he became a member of the Methodist Church in Virginia and was consistent member all his life. The funeral was preached by Rev. J. K. Hicks, Booneville, Ky.

- From the Leland Porter collection, shared by Josephine Sizemore.

Graphic from Rhio's Sampler