My Hamricks

 

Many Hamricks have called Webster Springs, West Virginia home since the 1800s, and I want to share my place at the huge Hamrick table that has led me to call Webster Springs my heart’s home.


While my grandmother and many adjacent family members lived in Webster Springs, my great grandmother was the last in my tree to be born a Hamrick. “Great” may seem pretty distant, but not in my family (says the woman who has a favorite 4x-great grandfather). I grew up with her just a short drive from my home and also visited her sisters in Webster Springs often. My great grandmother was a direct descendant of Thomas and Jane Baughman Hamrick, through Henry Lee (known as Lee) and Sarah Bennett Hamrick.
 

And for those looking for a connection, my Hamrick tree stretches on back from Thomas to James and Jane Miller Hamrick, then David and Elizabeth Miller Hamrick, then Benjamin and Nancy McMillian Hamrick, then Benjamin and Mary Sias Hamrick, and then Patrick and Margaret Ingles Hamrick. That’s as far back as my Hamricks’ American roots go: the late 1600s.
 

So while I’ve never carried the Hamrick name, I’m definitely a Hamrick at heart, and take one look at me and then photos of my great-great grandfather and distant Hamrick uncles and you’ll see by their classic wavy red hair and fair skin, even in black and white, that I’d fit right in.
 
__________
• top left: Lee Hamrick, c. 1930
• top right: back row, left to right: Verdon Hamrick, unknown, Adam Hamrick; front row, left to right: Lee Hamrick, Sidney Hamrick, c. 1920
• bottom: one of the Lee Hamrick family homes, along Back Fork of Elk River
 
all pictures property of Kacie Fleming

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