John Preston Mullins
John Preston Mullins was born on 20 March 1860 in Wise County, Virginia, in the country that became Dickenson County twenty years later. His death certificate names his parents as Dock P. Mullins and Sallie Ann Mullins. In 1870 he was very probably the John P., 11, in a Mullins household in Walker district of Wise County, with a father of 37, a mother Sarah J., 32, and the brothers and sisters William P., Rozetta, Pernetta A., Tryfannah and Orrara. He gave his own daughter that unusual name, Tryphanny, years later. He married Sarah Elizabeth Sanders, a Kentuckian a year younger, born in Pike County.
In June 1900 the census taker found the family in Willis district of Dickenson County as John P. and Sarah E. Mullens, with their children Tivis, Sorapsa A., Triphane, Hannah J., Hampton and the youngest, Rachel, born in October 1898. The children's own death certificates later named their parents as John Mullins and Elizabeth Sanders: Tivis J., Hiram E., Syreptha, Hampton, Hannah Jane Hopson, Tryphanny Hopson and Rachel Virginia.
On 25 October 1916 at Skeetrock his daughter Rachel, seventeen, married Lonnie Mullins, and the clerk entered her parents as J. P. Mullins and Elizabeth Mullins. Elizabeth died at Skeetrock on 20 December 1923. Rachel died at Jenkins, Kentucky, in 1936, and was brought home to the Flemingtown graveyard at Clintwood. John died at Skeetrock on 12 November 1933, aged 73, by the date on his stone; his death certificate gives 13 November and his age as 71. He was buried beside Elizabeth in the family graveyard now called the John P. Mullins Cemetery. His stone, under an open Bible, reads "He died as he lived, a Christian."
He preached as well as farmed: when his daughter Rachel died in 1936, the Clintwood paper called her "a daughter of the Rev. John Mullins of Skeetrock section".
A photograph kept by the family shows him seated, in a dark suit and heavy boots, with a long grey beard.
Sources
If John Preston Mullins is in your family, start your own tree.
Cite: Heirology, "John Preston Mullins (1860-1933)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/john-preston-mullins-1860-1933-4ee399.