Farther Along

The book traces the progenitors of the Harlan County Kentucky Cobb Pope and Ball families from their known North American origins in colonial Virginia Maryland and North Carolina to their eventual settlement in eastern Tennessee western Virginia and southeastern Kentucky. Substantial national state and local history is included in the narrative for the purpose of setting the people discussed in the context of their times. Issues such as the Methodist Church and the slavery issue and Kentucky and the secession crisis are considered as is Harlan County and the Civil War. Much attention is given to Harlan County's political history from its Democratic-Whig beginnings to the Radical Republicanism of the Reconstruction Era (1865-1877. The narrative ends about 1900. Roughly 100 of the 500 pages of the book are exhibits.