Appalachian Figures From Kona on the North Fork to the wider world Martin Van Buren Bates was born on 9 November 1837 in Letcher County, Kentucky, probably in the crossroads settlement of Kona near Whitesburg on the North Fork of the Kentucky River. He was the youngest of a large farm family headed by John Wallis Bates and Sarah Walthrop (Wallis) Bates, early settlers whose land lay at the foot of Pine Mountain.





