Keenan S. Ferrell, the adoptive father of George W., had been born in March of 1854 to George and Nancy (Farley) Ferrell in Boone County. He appeared in the 1860 and 1870 censuses for that county in the home of his parents. On April 6, 1877, in Logan County, he married Arena Sanders, a daughter of Martin and Elizabeth (Mitchell) Sanders. Arena, or Rena as she was called, had been born in March of 1861 in Russell County, Virginia. In 1880, the Ferrells lived in the Logan District of Logan County.

In the late 1890s, Keenan and Arena Ferrell moved to the Harts area of southern Lincoln County. In 1895, Rena bought 75 acres of land at Fry, on the east side of the Guyandotte River, from Admiral S. Fry, an early landowner and postmaster at Green Shoal. The following year, she bought 70 more acres on the west side of the river from John Q. Adams. In 1897 she bought a portion of the old Elias Adkins estate, situated on the river between Harts and Green Shoal. Upon this latter piece of property she erected a store building and, in short time, the surrounding area became known as Ferrellsburg. By 1900, the Ferrells had acquired George W., whom they reportedly adopted. Census records for that year show him as an “adopted son.”

Also in the home in 1900 was Lula Vance, the seven-year-old orphaned daughter of John and Columbia (Kirk) Vance. Lula would have practically grown up in the Ferrell home at the time that George W. lived there. Strangely, she never spoke about him to her children. “I don’t remember Mommy ever mentioning anything about George Ferrell,” said daughter Irene Mitchell, of Harts, in a 2003 interview. “That’s kind of strange since Mommy would’ve been raised with him. But she never really talked much about staying with the Ferrells.”

George Ferrell spent his twenties as a bachelor working around the store and making music. He was postmaster at Green Shoal from December 22, 1902 until December 26, 1904, when the office was discontinued to Ferrellsburg. He is credited with the authorship of “The Lincoln County Crew” and “The Murder of John Brumfield,” as well as a song about someone named Harve Adkins. In composing “The Lincoln County Crew,” Ferrell borrowed heavily from “The Rowan County Crew,” assuming this latter tune — documenting events of the Martin-Tolliver Feud in Kentucky — was written first. Ferrell’s version of the song, which primarily draws on local events that happened in Harts between 1889 and 1891, is a warning for men to stop drinking or risk a young, violent death.

“The Murder of John Brumfield” details Brumfield’s murder by Charlie Conley at a Chapmanville Fourth of July celebration in 1900. There is a story that Ferrell was playing this latter song for a crowd of people near the Ferrellsburg train depot when one of Conley’s brothers passed through. According to the story, Ferrell ceased his playing and singing because he feared his tune might cause trouble. But one of the attendants, Charley Brumfield, a brother to the slain John Brumfield, told him to keep the song going — no one would bother him. As Ferrell continued his music, Conley made his way by and on across the river toward his home on the Smokehouse Fork of Big Harts Creek.

George W. Ferrell died on August 6, 1905 at the age of 30 years, reportedly of tuberculosis. His tombstone offers this Biblical quote: “In my father’s house are many mansions.” Also on the stone is the following epitaph:

His last words were Mamma come to me. God bless you. Cease your mourning. Cease to languish o’er the graves of those you love. Pain and death and night anguish, enter not the world above. Sight and peace at once deriving from the hand of God most high. In his glorious presence living, they shall never, never die.

Years later, Fred B. Lambert, noted genealogist and regional historian, published “The Lincoln County Crew” and “The Murder of John Brumfield” in his 1926 edition of The Llorrac. His private notes, now in the hands of the Special Collections Department at Marshall University’s Morrow Library, contain slightly different versions of “The Lincoln County Crew,” as well as a reference to the tune Ferrell wrote about Harve Adkins.