Three Forks of the Kentucky River Historical Association

Newspaper Articles

RAFTING DOWN THE KENTUCKY RIVER
An interview with Green Reynolds

Owsley County Courier, May 9, 1956 by C. M. Treadway

Tales about the old-time river men who once manned the big, rugged rafts down the Kentucky River will never cease to be told as long as Green Reynolds 93, can find someone to listen.

"I started rafting at 17 and rode the river for 31 years." He said, "I remember floating down the big, muddy tides when six or seven other rafts would continually be in sight-- the entire distance from Booneville to Frankfort."

"You can call me "Uncle Green" if you want to and I guess I'll have to do all the talking because I can't hear as good as I once did" he said.

Uncle Green was a river man by profession and directing the oarsman came natural to him. He knew as much about piloting a raft as anyone else.

"I very well remember the first trip I made, of course. I was just a hand on the oars, he said." It was near Christmas in 1879 and on that trip I got knocked flat into the river by a swinging willow and the banks were with frost." I guess I would have froze to death if it hadn't been for the big fire we had burning on a pile of sand in the middle of the raft."

"River traffic was very heavy on each ebbing tide back when I started." Uncle Green continued. "There was the North Fork, Middle Fork and the South Fork, each emptying their endless streams of rafts into the main river below the mouth of South Fork near Beattyville. This caused the river to be alive with harsh-talking loud-cussing humanity and I can still hear the creak of those old wood oars as each command of the pilot was obeyed."

Uncle Green was born in Owsley County, near the old Cow Creek school above Booneville on Oct. 26, 1862. "Due to the fact I was born on South Fork, that is why I did most of my raft running from there," he said.

His many trips down the river made him an expert in this livelihood of the old-timers and he was hired to take the rafts of others to Frankfort, also along the route where the river became larger, he would sometimes fasten other rafts alongside his and command more than one.

The trip back from Frankfort was a problem but Uncle Green said, "I didn't mind it much. Part of the homeward journey would be made by train and the other by the best way we could find, usually this was by foot."

Uncle Green quit running rafts in 1910 after 31 years. He told of old Horse Shoe Bend in Lee County where all river men dreaded to pass. Sometimes a raft would foul up in the sharp curve and other rafts would slam in behind and completely bottle up the river with creaking logs and yelling men. Other raftsmen, seeing what they were heading into would come alive with excited activity, trying to tie up along shore before becoming entangled in the mess. The first fouled raft would have to be torn up to relieve the entanglement and be rebuilt again as it floated down the river.

He said that sometimes they built shanties on board and piled fodder inside on which to rest tired muscles and bone. He recalled one night when the crew was having trouble getting a fellow crewman to help man the big oars. Uncle Green said that the man would just lay in the shanty on the fodder, "until we burned the little house down and then you should have seen him helping. He had to do something to keep from freezing to death."

He said many nights he has tied up along the river and slept under cliffs and trees. "Sometimes we would travel all night and many nights it would sleet and turn our clothes into armors of ice."

Although he holds his rafting career dearest to him, he has some more distinctions that he is proud of. He is a Spanish-American War veteran and is a great uncle of Allie Reynolds, the one time Yankee pitching ace.

Uncle Green just travels around a lot now. He spends time with brothers, nephews and other relatives. Now he is staying with Jess Henderson at Ravenna, his nephew. He spent last winter in Hot Springs, Ark.

His great-nephew, Raymond Henderson of Ravenna tells of Uncle Green's ability to stand on his head at the age of 70. Uncle Green has been married 3 times and "outlived them all" he smiled. He will be 94 in October and said, I greatly enjoy living, eat, sleep, read, and whittle, he said. He is quite active and certainly can take care of himself anywhere.

Ask Uncle Green what his greatest hobby is, and he will point to the Holy Bible and say, "There it is" With the gleam that you see flash in his eye, you will know what he means.