Obey's Creek which heads up in the Copper Ridge of Scott County and empties into Copper Creek, was named for Obediah Terrell, a long hunter who once lived upon it, before his early removal to Middle Tennessee.
     He lived in Southwest Virginia when the area was a part of old Fincastle County and probably until shortly after Washington County was formed in 1776. In 1773 he obtained judgement in Fincastle County against Uriah Stone, another long hunter whom everybody seemed to be suing for debts. The last record pertaining to him in Washington County is dated April 22, 1779, when he was appointed Overseer of the Road from "two big springs" on Copper Creek to the head of Moccasin Creek.
     It was perhaps shortly after this that he moved to middle Tennessee, for it was less than sixteen months later in 1780 that Captain Daniel Smith was spending the night with him at his camp at the mouth of Obey's River, which river was also named for him. It is most probable that Smith knew Terrell before he left the Clinch for Smith was a Captain of Militia, and a Surveyor, who surveyed the first land along the Clinch River in 1774.
     Little is known about the personal life of Obediah Terrell. He spent several years on the Cumberlands as a farmer, hunter and before he made permanent settlement in middle Tennessee, hunted, and camped over the area later to become Cumberland and Pulaski Counties in Tennessee.