Written by Philip Francis
at Knoxville, Tenn., July 7, 1936

Manuscript Assembled and Typed by Louis Smith

Edited by George D. Dominick

Submitted to this Web site and published here with the permission of
Paul Bailey Francis, Jr.

About the Book

My name is Paul Bailey FRANCIS, Jr., born in 1943 in Harlan, KY.  I was raised in LaFollette, Campbell County, TN.  My great-grandfather, Philip FRANCIS, was urged by his children and grandchildren to write a book about his colorful life.  He wrote the manuscript in the 1930's when he was over eighty years of age.  As the book was written for family alone, it was never published for distribution outside the family.  The publisher was instructed to create hard-cover editions for each of his eight children and soft-cover editions for each of his grandchildren.  The following has been transcribed from my father's copy which is now in my possession.

In transcribing the book, I have made very few changes.  I have capitalized surnames for easier genealogical searching.  I have corrected a few spelling errors where they may have misled readers (he misspelled the County of Glamorgan, Wales, as "Glanmorgan" and his name was written as Phillip in the book, although he had always spelled his first name as Philip).  I have left many of his misspellings and grammatical errors intact for historical accuracy.

Excerpts from the book were originally posted on the Schuylkill County rootsweb list Schuylkill, PA, discussion list and on the Cumberland River discussion list.  In addition to sharing this information that may be of genealogical interest to descendants of individuals named in the book, I would be very interested in obtaining additional information about those individuals.  I am especially interested in contacting distant cousins who might exist.  They would be descendants of Thomas JAMES and his son, Arthur C. JAMES, who are half-cousins, and descendants of my second-great grandmother's sister, whose name I do not know. but one of her sons was named James THOMAS, born circa 1850-1855.  His widowed mother had remarried and lived with her new husband and blended family on upper Center Street in Mahanoy City, PA circa 1870.  I hope that you find the book entertaining and useful.

P. Bailey Francis, MD
Atlanta, GA
[Please note:  Dr. Francis' can be reached by e-mail using the Contact link on this Web site.]