I was born in Perry County, Kentucky, in 1808. All I know about my age is that I voted for General Jackson. I think it was his second election, for I only voted for him once. My father was Mason Combs. My mother was Jennie Richeson or Richardson. He and seven brothers came. William Combs, my uncle, went to Fayette County. He was at my mother's after my father died and wanted to take me to his home to raise. My father had 11 children, 5 girls and 6 boys. I am the youngest. The girls were born first. Willie, the youngest daughter, was born in Kentucky.Here are seven children, at least, born after the Combses came to Kentucky, and the youngest was born in 1808. The surveyor (?) books are good authorities. John Duff was the first surveyor I knew. I think the Combses are Irish. Stephen Jett told me that he stayed all night at my father's when he moved to Kentucky. My father took up all the land that he could in his own name, and then he took some up in his daughter, Willie's name. He owned six miles up Carr, also up and down the North Fork. He had land in Tennessee. He left his land or the Holston.
He said there were Indians in Kentucky, and if he could not live here, he would have his own land to which to go back. He never sold it. He had plenty here and did not need it. I married Miss Susan Isom. My father-in-law said he used to carry his own gun while plowing, but I do not know that there were Indians here. The Isoms must have come about as early as the Combses. I moved first to Breathitt about fifty years ago and then to Owsley seven years later. General Leslie Combs, of Lexington, was a cousin of my father's. I have always understood it. One of my nephews named his son for him. So did Hardin Combs of the Middle Fork, Breathitt. Old Leslie told Wiley Combs, my son-in-law, "Never deny your name. It is as good a name as there is in this world."  He always claimed kin to us.

Source: John J. Dickey Diary