This week my second cousin, Logan Smith, called me to alert the Kump side of our family that our Logan Clan will be featured in the noonday parade Saturday for the Scottish Celtic Festival at Randolph County 4-H Camp near Beverly. The Celtic activities will begin at 9:00 with local highland dancers at 10:00 and 1:30.

Many Celtic values are shared by all Americans. In our telephone conversation, Logan and I agreed that James Harvey Logan is our early ancestor that we both admired most because he was a seeker of the truth. He was the first person in Randolph County to complete a four-year college education, and he became a teacher, a surveyor, and mayor of Beverly. One of his students was Lemuel Chenoweth, builder of ten covered bridges for the state of Virginia before the Civil War including one in Beverly.

J.H. Logan’s two-hundred-year old home still stands precariously at the sharp curve of US 219 in Beverly. Like many historic houses in WV, it was two log cabins tied together and covered with white clapboard. Decorative “Gingerbread” was added in the late 1800s to make the house more elegant. It now belongs to the Rich Mountain Battlefield Association, and it needs help to survive.

None of J.H. Logan’s descendants have the last name Logan because he had two daughters and no sons to carry on the Logan name. His first daughter, “Fannie” Frances Ivin Logan married Cyrus Hall Scott, and she had five babies. Fannie, and all of her children died early except Edna Hall Scott who grew up and married Herman Guy Kump. Their children were responsible for many Kump, Roberts, and Wooddell descendants of J.H. Logan. The story of Edna’s branch of the family is available online at Amazon Books under the title, “Fannie’s Crazy Quilt” by Heather R. Biola. This collection of letters and news reports is full of first-hand information on the family.

After Fannie died, C.H. Scott married her sister Emma and moved into the house on Scott Hill. They had a son, Logan Scott, who had no children, and a daughter Mildred who married Hosea Smith. Mildred and Hosea are Logan Smith’s grandparents, and there are several more Logan descendants on that side of the family. The Logan clan and Celtic traditions are still here in WV.

Every ethnic group has contributed to the culture of these United States, but our Celtic heritage is woven into our democracy like the threads in a wool plaid. Most Americans honor these values:

(1.) commitment to the truth and education for both men and women, (2.) respect for the rights of all members of society under the leadership of elected officials (3.) responsible economic planning for the group by elected representatives, and (4.) the strict separation of church and state.

Scottish people did not support the English king, and they voluntarily joined with other freedom-loving Americans in 1776 and each time that American freedom has been threatened in 249 years.