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Note: The Charleston Daily Mail Charleston, West Virginia
Friday, July 8, 1932
WOMAN, 105, DIES AT HINTON HOME
Mrs. Buckland, Thought to Be Summers' Oldest Resident, Taken
HINTON, July 8 - Mrs. Sarah Buckland, 105 years old, believed to be the oldest resident of Summers county died at the home of her son, Richard P. Buckland, on Powley's creek, Talcott district, Wednesday. Funeral services were to be held today.
Mrs. Buckland was a native of Rockbridge county, Virginia, and was before her marriage Miss Sarah Wheeler, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. S. P. Wheeler. Her husband, R. W. Buckland, died following the Civil war.
Mrs. Buckland is survived by a daughter, Mrs. J. T. Meadows, of Hinton; two sons, R. P. Buckland, of Powley's creek, and J. Shannon Buckland, of Wiggins.
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From "The BUCKLAND FAMILY of West Virginia, Virginia and Maryland" by Timothy L. Buckland, 1988:
During the 1910 Summers County census, Sarah Wheeler Buckland stated she had given birth to 8 children, 4 of whom were still living.
The late Ralph L. Meadows related the following in a letter to the author dated 29 Aug 1978:
"As you know my great-grandmother Sarah Buckland lived to the age of 107, and lived with my parents off and on during my formative years. She was a midwife and delivered children all around Upland, Elk Knob, Big Creek, Powleys Creek, and Hungarts Creek where her parents, whose names were Wheelers settled upon migrating from Bedford County, Virginia. Sarah told me that they left Virginia with a one horse wagon with all their belongings, including a cow tied behind. The children walked behind the wagon and they camped out at night. They camped on Hungarts Creek where they had found a good spring and the next day went on to the big rock on what is known as Wiggins Eddy. That night they surveyed the situation and decided that they could not go any further, so they returned to Hungarts Creek to settle.
....Sarah was a midwife for many years, as her husband Richard died soon after the Civil War. It has been said that the soldiers came through this section recruiting men and they got Richard to go and they took him to Dublin, Virginia. He then decided that he was on the wrong side and that he would be fighting his kinfolks. This area was in doubt as to which side they wanted to go with. He deserted and left camp barefooted in heavy frost, carrying his shoes.
He made his way back home and sometime thereafter two soldiers appeared to take him back. One of them had damaged his musket and had the parts in his hat. Richard asked that they have supper as it was about that time. He then asked if he could get his horse and the one with the gun with him. Soon after he came back in a run and said that Richard had gotten the gun away from him. Needless to say they departed forthwith and immediately.
Richard knew that this would not be the last of them, so he went deep into the woods and built a shelter of some kind under a cliff. He spent sometime there including one winter. Great grandmother Sarah told me this story and said that she would meet him in the woods, and in her very own words, take victuals to him. Her daughter Leanna, my grandmother, told me the same thing and further stated that her father hunted game, tanned the hides and made the children shoes and this is how she got her first pair of shoes.
The war ended and he came out of hiding, but in broken health on account of exposure. He was lying on the dirt floor asleep in the cabin when he somehow burned his feet in the fireplace. He developed gangrene and died, leaving 5 children, none of which were grown."
Confederate Civil War records reinforce what Mr. Meadows wrote: "Richard Buckland first enlisted 23 Aug 1861, Red Sulphur Springs, Monroe County, in R. G. Lively's Virginia Militia as a Private. Richard Buckland again enlisted 28 Mar 1863, Monroe County, by Conscription, with Company A, 26 Battalion, Virginia Infantry (also called Edgar's Battalion) as a Private. Height: 5 feet, 7 inches, age 37. Deserted 5 Apr 1863. He took the amnesty oath on 20 Jan 1865, in Charleston, West Virginia. Height: 5 feet 8 inches. Age: 39. Complexion: dark. Eyes: brown. Hair: black. Occupation: farmer."
Richard W. Buckland received a Land Grant on 19 Aug 1837 for 150 acres on the middle fork of Turkey Foot of the Greenbrier River (Monroe Survey Book 5, Page 32). It was deeded to his brother James Buckland on 9 Aug 1861 (Monroe Deed Book T, Page 764).
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