(Submitted by D. Howard Doster to Webmaster and Newspaper at the same time.)

Interview with Susan Doster, co-manager of the Collett-McKay Picnic Facebook page at the 151st Collett-McKay Picnic.

     Unlike the 300 cousins from 20 states who attended the Picnic last year, only 144 persons from nine states signed the Register at the Gurneyville Road Picnic Ground on this hot, muggy, Saturday, August 13, 2016. Although rain was forecast, "It never rains on the Picnic" held true again, at least until after 4:13 pm. But, the three traditional food tables were placed under a huge tent, just in case.
     Trustee Susan Doster called the group together. She thanked the lawn mowers-John Mothersol, Ashley and Allen Inwood, Steve and Doug Pidgeon. Steve and Doug also brought the water, and Doug planted the five new sugar maple trees that were purchased with the money collected for buttons at the 2015 Picnic. She also thanked Steve McKay and Roger Vaughan for standing up our former brick entry posts.
     Susan also announced that she and her brother, Dan, were starting to create a Family Tree to be placed on a Collett McKay website; namely, www.collettmckaypicnic.com. Cousins can email their Family Tree names and related information to Collett.mckay@gmail.com. No names have been added to the Collett "Blueprint" in over 50 years, and Kathryn Luby's McKay lineage boards burned in her house fire.
Please note that Katherine Luby's genealogy records are still intact. She managed to save all of her genealogy work on a flash drive which she grabbed before she ran out of the cabin as it burned to the ground, so "The Twelve Tribes of Moses McKay" records have been preserved. These records have been updated to at least the mid 2000s in most branches. Thanks. ~Webmaster, Michael L. McKay~
     Bob Ramsey, of Auburn, Ala., Wilbur McKay's first cousin, offered the prayer. While trying several foods on others' tables, I chose John Mothersol's grilled pig hind quarter as being the most flavorful. I picked off pieces with my fingers.
     Korbin Billingsley, born on June 15, son of Sam and Danielle, of Miamisburg, was the youngest person at the Picnic. I was pleased to see our first g-grandchild, Quentin Wainright, born four weeks earlier, at his first Picnic.
     Although I saw her driving a lawn mower on the 1832 George McKay house front lawn three weeks ago, Dr. Maxine Hamilton, age 96, didn't attend. Ernie Wengler, age 89, and Caroline, his wife, 88, of Oxford, were the oldest persons I met. Jeanette McKay Musser of Worthington, is also 88.
     Francis and Mary Collett McKay started Mt Pisgah Methodist Church in 1835 on the NE corner of Stingley and Gurneyville Roads, on land he had inherited from his father, Moses McKay. They hosted the first five Picnics there. Just after Francis was buried there in March, 1871, the church closed, and the Picnic site was moved 1/4 mile east to the SE corner of Inwood and Gurneyville Road, on a four-acre sugar maple grove that Daniel McKay Collett (Francis' nephew and Mary's first cousin) inherited from his grandfather, Moses McKay.
     Thus, DM Collett became the Picnic Host. In at least two photos taken in the 1880's, you can find DM standing in the left foreground. His big Collett nose is his distinguishing feature. Someone has written that a marriage might occur after a man brings a woman to the Picnic. Well, DM brought a woman several times, but these cousins never married.
     Someone returned the Signature Books! They include signatures of attendees starting with the "1885 Annual Collett McKay Reunion Held in D.M. Collett's Grove, August 8, 1885". My grandmother, Mary McCune, was the 12th to sign.
     On Tuesday after the 2015 Picnic, Barbara-my wife, and Susan-our daughter, and I found the log cabin birthplace of Mary Haines Collett. She was born in 1753 on the south bank of the south fork of Bull-skin Run, in Frederick County, VA (now, Jefferson County, W. VA) on land her Quaker father and uncle had bought in 1750 with an 18 year-old surveyor, G. Washington. (See Haines Genealogy.)
     Perhaps two miles west upstream at Summit Point, at the headspring of Bull-skin Run, we found the 200 acres that Mary's future father-in-law, Moses Collett, rented, FOR LIFE, from George Washington in 1774. Mary was dismissed from Hopewell Quaker Meeting in 1781 for eloping with her neighbor, Revolutionary War Pvt. Daniel Collett. Two of their sons and two of their grandkids married four of VA Quaker Moses/Abigail McKay's kids. They, their siblings and their kids started the Picnic in 1866.
     When then Sheriff Daniel Collett and his wife, Mary, moved to Ohio in 1814, we learned Mary sold the 236 acres of her father's Bull-skin Run land in Jefferson County, VA, on a three-year mortgage. The same year, Dan/Mary bought 2356 acres in Chester and Adams Townships on Jonah's Run, 1/2 mile east of the Bull-skin Trail, in Clinton County, Ohio, on a three-year mortgage. It appears that she traded one acre for ten.
     First-time attendees included: Korbin Billingsley, Robbi and Lynsey Boswell, Andrew Creech, Francie Doster, Maggie Mc Elhinney, Emily Smith, and Quentin Wainright.
     Cousins attending the Picnic from out of state included: Robert and Luella Ramsey of Opelika, Ala.; Drew and Francie Doster plus Dan, Ashlee and Quentin Wainright of Chicago, Chuck, Karen, and Chad Fabian of Des Plaines, and Fred, Robin, Evan, and Cory Maker of Elk Grove, Ill.; Susan Doster of W. Lafayette, In.; Brenda, Todd, and Brad Stephens of Linthicum, and Greg Stephens of Glen Burnie, Md.; Adam and Cindi Doster, and Sarah Rybicki of Novi, Mich.; Dan Doster of Raleigh, and Lizzie Doster of Charlotte, NC.; Maria and Sierra Brock, and Michael McKay of Winchester, VA.; Guy Fields and Ellen Magee, of Madison, Wisc.