Per: The Big Sandy Valley by William Ely, pages 76-81 written in 1887:
Moses, or "Coby" Preston, the third son of Moses Preston and his wife,n ee Miss Arthur, was one of the remarkable men whom the Sandy Valleyhas d eveloped. He was born near the birth of the present century, andon com ing to manhood married Elizabeth Haney, a woman of worth andgreat ener gy. She bore him a large family of children, who, followingin the foot steps of their honored parents, are the foremost citizensin the Sandy V alley and in the homes they have hewn out in the farSouth-west.
Soon after Mr. Preston's marriage with Miss Haney, being of a restlessd isposition, he, with his young wife, moved to the Scioto Valleycountry ; but, finding chills and fever as abundant as good land, theyshook th e dust, or mud, from the soles of their feet and hastenedback to the G reat Sandy country. While the move down to Scioto wasattended with exp ense, the plain, economical ways of life which Mr.Preston adopted in e arly life, and kept up until the hour of hisdeath, enabled him to retu rn to the Sandy Valley with more materialwealth than he had at startin g. On his return he settled on the placeknown at the time as the Spenc er farm, now the Kise farm, some milesbelow George's Creek. Here he li ved many years, and prosperedgreatly.
Alone, and afterward with his brother-in-law, Archibald Borders, hewas a mong the first to engage in peeling and running tan-bark toCincinnati, f loating it down in barges, constructed, often, out oflumber sawed by h and, called whip-sawing. He and his brother-in-law,Judge Borders, were a s well and favorably known to the old timetanners and other business m en of the Queen City as are the greattimber-dealers of the present tim e known to the mill-men and buildersin Cincinnati. He established a re putation for honesty andfair-dealing unsurpassed by no one in the busi ness; in some instancesthe bark went off without being subject to meas urement, so muchconfidence had the buyers in Mr. Preston's honesty. Wh ile tan-barkwas a specialty with him, he was almost as well known as a l argetimber-dealer. He also sent barge-loads of hoop-poles and staves t othe Cincinnati market. Dealing in bark, cooper-stuff, and saw-logs combined seems to us to be sufficient for one man's busy attention; butt o one with the business foresight of "Coby" Preston this alone wasinsi gnificant, and at the same time he carried on a large generalstore, an d cultivated many farms. By applying business rules to everydepartment o f his extended pursuits, he made money at all, and wasnever accused of o verreaching the hireling that wrought for him.
About the time Johnson County was formed into a separate jurisdiction,w hich was in 1843, Mr. Preston moved up to the mouth of Paint Creek,and e ver after, as long as he lived, made that place the center ofhis busin ess enterprises, although he alternated his residencebetween the mouth o f Paint and Paintsville, one-half of a mile above,having good residenc es at both places. Like all dwellers on thehighway with a good house, h e entertained the wayfaring man in asumptuous style at this home on th e river.
The wife of his youth, after sharing with him his sorrows and joys,and a ssisting her husband by her good counsels and domestic skill,sickened a nd died, leaving behind a number of sons, who, by followingthe good an d wholesome advice given them by their mother, and walkingin the foots teps of their father, have, nearly all of them, come tothe front as bu siness men and upright citizens in the vicinity wherethey were brought u p.
After the death of his first wife, Mr. Preston married Nancy, adaughte r of David Peery, of Tazewell County, Virginia. They lived ingreat pea ce until his sudden death, in 1870. He and his wife being ona visit to h is brother, Arthur, at Graves' Shoal, after dinner hewent to the barn t o saddle the horses, to return with his wife totheir home at Paintsvil le, when one of the animals kicked him soseverely that he died almost i nstantly. His death was not only a sadblow to his family, but was prof oundly regretted by the entire peopleof the valley; for in more respec ts that one a prince among thepeople had fallen when the life went out o f the body of Moses, orCoby, Preston. While his death was sudden and u nexpected to him andothers, he had had the sagacity to make ample prov ision for his wife,and had, as his sons started out in business, aided t hem with aliberal hand; so that no family jar rent the bonds that boun d thefamily together, after he had left the busy haunts of men. Mr. Preston was an honest man, the noblest work of God.
Coby, or Moses, Preston took a deep interest in political affairs,alth ough he was never an office seeker. He ignored, to some extent,Church f ormularies, but squared his life by the Golden Rule. Hisportrait will b e recognized by the old-time Sandians as one ofpeculiar correctness.
The modern built brick mansion, the Paintsville residence of his son,C aptain Frank Preston, bears testimony to the progress ofarchitecture i n the Sandy Valley. He is, in some respects, therepresentative of the f amily. He is a man of wealth, character, andenterprise, and has the co nfidence of the entire community in whichhe lives, as a merchant, a ti mber-dealer, a steamboatman, and generalbusiness man. He married into o ne of the most prominent families ofthe Sandy Valley, a daughter of Ge neral Daniel Hager. He sends hissons and daughters to the best college s and schools, to receive theirmental training. Himself and family are m embers and liberalsupporters of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. H e, like hisfather, is a strong Democrat, but not an office-seeker.
James, another son, died many years ago. Greenville lives in Texas.Mar tin is, and has always been, a prominent business man ofPaintsville, a nd has a son engaged in literary pursuits, besidesbeing a lawyer and p reacher. Moses rose to eminence as a merchant,but died many years ago. H is wife, another daughter of General Hager,after her first husband's d eath, married Dr. Turner, a prominentcitizen of Paintsville. William a nd Montraville are both prosperousfarmers and saving business men, liv ing near Paintsville.
Moses is buried with both of his wives at the Old Preston Cemetery onP reston Street, Paintsville, Johnson Co., KY. The inscription on thetom bstone reads: Moses Preston Sr. born May 2, 1797 and departed thislife N ov. 28, 1868, 71 yrs 6 mos, 26 days; "Kind angels watch hissleeping, t ill Jesus comes to raise the just. Then may he wake withsweet surprise , and in his Saviour's image rise."
