The Yorks had come to Fentress county from North Carolina and settled on Indian Creek. Uriah York was the son of John York, and they came from Buncombe county in that "Old North State," the county which had a reputation like Nazareth so far as turning out any good thing was concerned, and the path of the cant, derisive phrase, "All bunkum," leads directly back to the affairs of that good old county. On Indian Creek the Yorks were farmers, but at his home Uriah started one of the few schools then in Fentress county. His school began after crops were laid by and ran for three months. He used but two text books--the "blue-backed speller" and the Bible. There are men living to-day on Indian Creek who went to school under Uriah York, and they recall the uniqueness of his discipline as well as his school curriculum. The hickory rod was the enforcer of school rules, but full opportunity to contemplate the delicate distinction between right and wrong was given to all. A three-inch circle was drawn upon the schoolroom wall and the offending pupil was compelled to hold his nose within the penal mark until penitent. Young and active he took part in all the school sports in the long recess periods, for his school lasted all day. Learning at the end of one school term that the pupils had planned as part of the simple commencement exercises to duck him in Indian Creek, he exposed their plot, playfully defied them, left the schoolroom with a bound through an open window and led them on a chase through the mountains. He circled in his course so he could lead the run back to the schoolhouse. As evidence of goodfellowship and as an example of the spirit of generosity in the celebration of victory, he gave to each of the boys as they came in, a drink of whisky, from a clay demijohn he had concealed in the schoolroom. But in those days whisky and apple brandy were considered a necessary part of household supplies, and there was but little drunkenness. Whisky and brandy were medicine, used as first aid, regardless of the ailment, while awaiting the arrival of the doctor with his saddlebags of pills and powders. Their social value, too, was recognized, and the gourd and demijohn appeared almost simultaneously with the arrival of any guest. But it was bad form--evidence of a weak will--for anyone, save the old men, to show the influence of what they drank. This was, however, a perquisite and one of the tolerated pleasures of old age. In the records of a lawsuit tried in Fentress county in 1841 the price-list of some necessaries and luxuries are shown: "To two gallons of liquor, $1; one quart of whisky and six pounds of pork, 80 cents; one deer-skin, 75 cents; two kegs of tar, $2; two ounces of indigo, 40 cents; one gallon of whisky, 50 cents; five and one-half pints of apply brandy, 31-1/4 cents."