3641 Teays Valley address has been home to five generations of the Estes family.
By Helen Estes Carter
It was in 1824 when Thomas and Mary Estes migrated from Culpepper, Virginia to the Hurricane Cow Creek area, then part of Kanawha County, West Virginia. It wasn’t until March 11, 1848, that the bill was passed by the General Assembly of Virginia to form Putnam County from portions of Kanawha, Mason, and Cabell.
There were several families that relocated to the Teays Valley area of West Virginia. They brought all their tools and farm animals across the Allegheny and Appalachian Mountains to make a new home in West Virginia.
Thomas Estes and his three sons were active in the growth of Teays Valley and the Hurricane area participating in the building of many of the farm homesteads in the Cow Creek area as well as one room school houses on both Hurricane and Cow Creek Road.
The Estes’ families, always pioneers, brought the first threshing machine run by a steam engine to the area and ran a sawmill which supplied building lumber for many construction jobs in Putnam County through 1950.
The farmhouse was always a prosperous farm and stock raising operation also producing a tobacco allotment through the 1940’s.
Lonnie Erasmus Estes owned and operated an auto repair shop on the family homestead through 1980.
Homer Estes was a well-known and respected Putnam County builder until retirement.
The Estes home place is on a tract of land originally encompassing from the RR tracks across Teays Valley Road past I-64 and ending at what is now named Cow Creek Right Fork, just before the Dwayne Bird farm almost at the end of Cow Creek Road. The east-west borders were approximately Oak Street on the east and Cow Creek Road on the west.
The north side of Teays Valley Road encompassed 72 acres and was sold in 1962. Included in these 72 acres were two Estes’ cemeteries, one located on Dwayne Bird’s farm and the other in the Woodridge Estates subdivision. Both are still accessible. Also in the 72 acres were other Estes’ homesteads and farms during the period 1820 through 1860. None are still in existence.
The homestead built by Erasmus Estes II as his family’s farmhouse is 3641 Teays Valley Road and was built in 1900. The homestead continues to be in good condition and sits on approximately 5 acres with three other Erasmus Estes descendants’ homes.
The second home built was by James (Jim or JM) Estes. The third home was built on the property by Jim’s daughter Helen and husband Richard L. Carter. The fourth home built on the property for Jim’s adopted son.
