THEY PREACH FOR 114 YEARS

     Fighting the Devil and his ways for a total of 114 years, Uncle Dave Maggard and Uncle Ira Combs, whose combined ages total 164 years, in their old age to preach steadily and with as much fervor and result as in their youth days.  Uncle Dave is a native of Letcher County but is a well known far and near. Uncle Ira, who was born and raised at Jeff, just a few miles   south of Hazard.  These two old warriors of the cross are familiar to every community in the mountains of eastern Kentucky.                       
     In Tennessee, Virginia and even in Missouri. I n their day long before the railroad they have covered thousands of miles on horseback and in   oxen carts. They have baptized so many people in their time that the count has been lost. While preaching all their life they have never received one penny of money for their work.                           
     During their spare time they worked out their own living. Uncle Ira ran a store at Jeff and was as good a business man as he is preacher, with the   result that he is well to-do today, and is the oldest merchant in Perry Co. Uncle Dave loved the out doors and all his spare time was spent in trapping and hunting, from which he derived not only pleasure but a lucrative living. To have offered these gentlemen pay for preaching would have been hurt    them.  They preached for the love of it and because they were fired with a zeal which thru a half century has been unquenchable. Today Uncle Dave at the age of 88 and Uncle Ira 84 years old are hale and hearty with a twinkle in their eyes.                                                               
     And when they preach, the crowds come for miles around. It is nothing on a Sunday afternoon for these two patriarchs to tell their message to a crowd of four or five hundred people all the churches in Hazard on a Sunday.
     They are of the Old Regular Baptist Church. Their preachments are simple and straight from the shoulder; they preach the same gospel they did fifty    years and it is as effective. Their knowledge of the scripture is perfect their philosophy is clear; their language of the purest English .  On Carr Creek an the Fork, there is not a hole in which they have not baptized someone. The same may be said of the Forks of Ky. And the Cumberland and all their tributaries.
     Uncle Dave after 62 years of preaching is still the active pastor of four churches; Big Cowan in Letcher, Indian Bottom at Blackey, Clover Fork in Harlan, and Oven Fork on Cumberland. He is also moderator of the Indian Bottom Association of the Old Regular Baptist Church. He was born in    Letcher County near Partridge on the Cumberland.                         
     Uncle Ira was born at Jeff in 1843. He also is still active pastor of Big  Leatherwood church, Old Carr Church, Little Dave Church, in Knott     County and Little Zion Church in this County. Uncle Ira is the father of sixteen children and many grand and great grandchildren.                 

Written by  Mr. Calvin Burke