Abraham Tabor (born: 1818; died: abt. 1886) and Nancy Belcher Tabor (born: abt: 1818; died: 1883) were both born in Tazewell County, Virginia, mar­ried about 1838 and were listed in the l840 Mercer County Census. Although unproven, it is likely that Abraham's par­ents were Stephen Harrison Tabor and Anna Beckelheimer and Nancy's were Obediah Belcher and Martha Prince.

Abraham and Nancy subsequently bought property on Coaldale Mountain from Obediah and Martha Belcher and raised their family there. Their children were Cloah (born: 1841), who married Robert Angle; Stephen (born: 1842); George W. (born: 1844) who married Frances Belcher; Betsy (born: 1846); Charles T. (born: 1849) who married Cynthia Belcher; William B. (born: 1851) who married Nancy Jane Rollins; Cyrus (born: 1853) who married Victoria Sadler; Mary Ellen (born: 1856) who married Hiram Prince; Joseph (born: 1860) who married Lydia Terry and Andrew Jackson (born: 1864) who married Isabelle Ellen Perdue (1870-1923).

 

Andrew Jackson Tabor, the young­est child of Abraham and Nancy Tabor, was born at Falls Mills, Virginia and died at Giatto, West Virginia in 1938. He helped build the railroads into the West Virginia coalfields, then spent 49 years as an employee of the Mill Creek Coal and Coke Company at Coaldale.

 

Isabelle, Andrew Jackson's wife, was the daughter of Daniel Perdue (1842­-1928) and Elizabeth Ellen Odell (1847­1880). Andrew and Isabelle married in 1886 and had nine children: Cora (1886­1954) who married John Little; Mae (1888-1972) who married Thomas Little; Walker Clay (1890-1972); Elbert (1892­1968) and married Pearl Hill; Daniel (1894-1977) and married Minnie Clement, then Hazel Fulcher; Millard (1896-­1967) and married Evelyn Boone, then Ruth Ellen Reed Witt; Ora (1900-1957) who married Jack Huffman; Lolas (1905-­2000) who married Robert Neal and Ruby (1907 -1998) who married Ellis Bailey.

 

Walter Tabor was born and grew up on Coaldale Mountain. In 1910, he married Nora Mick (1889-1972) who had migrated from Wood County, West Vir­ginia to teach school in Mercer County. Their children were Dorothy (born: 1912), married Artemius Byrd; Arnold (1914-1987), married Frances Cunningham (born: 1914); James (1916­-1995), married Margaret Hill, then Ruth Morris; Douglas (1920-1978), married Clara Elizabeth Hill and Edsel (born: 1922), married Thelma Martin. Nora came to Mercer County when her parents, John Tyler Mick (1858-1931) and Sarah McAttee Mick (1959-1932), moved their family from the Parkersburg area to Sinton, Texas. Nora taught several years in a one-room grade school on Coaldale Mountain and Walter was a lifetime em­ployee of The Mill Creek Coal and Coke Company.

 

Arnold Monroe Tabor was born February 27, 1914 in Maybeury and Frances Estelle Cunningham was born September 6, 1914 in Jenkinjones, the daughter of Oscar Cunningham (1887-1945) and Mattie Willis Cunningham (1893-1983). Arnold and Frances graduated from Elkhorn High School and were married in Welch in 1935. They lived in Barlow Hollow in Maybeury where their only child Terry Ray Tabor was born July 17, 1941. Arnold worked for the Mill Creek Coal and Coke Company on Coaldale Mountain. In January 1942, they moved to McComas where Arnold became a mine foreman with the Pocahontas Fuel Company at their Sagamore mine. In January 1954, they moved to Princeton and remained there until Arnold retired in 1978. From 1954 until1978, Arnold worked at several other mines, including Tralee, Turkey Gap and Itmann. They resided at Claytor Lake in Dublin, Virginia when Arnold died in November 1987. Frances worked at Maiden Form, then Ched's in Princeton. She lived with her son, Terry, in Orange Park, Florida from 1987 until her death in 2003.

 

Terry Ray Tabor attended Sagamore Grade School,1947–1952, and McComas High School for 1½ years when the family moved to Princeton, WV.  Terry graduated from Princeton High School in 1958 and Concord College in 1963. He taught in the public schools of Wythe County, VA and Knox County, TN.  In 1965 he earned a Master’s in Education degree and in 1972 a Doctorate in Exercise Physiology degree, both from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. In 1963, he married Joyce Vinson from Man, WV, who also graduated from Concord. They have two daughters, Teri Rae Stevens and Leigh Ann Bronson, one granddaughter, Ashley Leighann Stevens (born: 1998), and two grandsons, Max Tabor Bronson (born 2005) and Jake Cooper Bronson (born 2007).

 

Terry was a founding faculty of the University of North Florida in Jacksonville and completed his thirty-fifth and final year there in 2007. Joyce is a retired school teacher and is currently a tennis teaching professional. The Tabors, Stevens and Bronson's live in Orange Park, Florida.

Terry Ray Tabor