From West Virginia (WV) Cyclopedia
Lilly and vicinity, c. 1912
In central
Summers County, six miles south of
Hinton, WV, Lilly (
map (http://www.wvamaps.com/maps/index.php?place=Lilly%20(historical)&state=WV&lon=-80.975&lat=37.5833&pop=0&elev=1600&county=Summers)) is a former rural community located at the junction of the
Bluestone and
Little Bluestone rivers between about 1800 and 1940. The community was best known as the settlement of the Robert and Fannie Moody Lilly, who arrived in 1802. The Lillys are the forbears of the large clan of Lillys who came to live throughout adjacent areas in
Summers,
Raleigh, and
Mercer counties. (More than 400 entries for the surname Lilly were registered in a phone directory for the Greater Beckley region in 2011.) The community was abandoned in the 1930s when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers purchased the land to be seasonally inundated by the waters of
Bluestone Lake. The
Lilly Monument, built to honor the memory of the Lillys, was built soon thereafter along U.S. Route 19 at
Flat Top, WV, to assist descendants who would no longer be able to reach the Lilly burial place. Lilly has since become a popular picnicking site and fishing whole for persons willing to hike to the site.
Cooper's Mill, on the National Register of Historic Places, is located along the road between Ellison Ridge Road (Summers County Route 27) and the former village site.
