FLAT ROCK – The hot July sun beat down on a monument to Revolutionary War veteran Abraham Kuykendall in the graveyard of Mud Creek Baptist Church.
“Kuykendall was one of the first people to come in and buy and lay claim to land, and he owned thousands of acres here in Flat Rock,” local historian and author Jennie Jones Giles told the Times-News July 1, her hand resting against the white marble of the obelisk.
Kuykendall set aside some of that land to build Mud Creek Baptist Church, like many of his compatriots who founded some of the area’s other early institutions, including churches and schools after the revolution, which was a major turning point for U.S. expansion into the Appalachian Mountains…