LeRoy Mobley was born near Buffalo-on-the Poca in 1899. By the time he was 16 he had acquired something of a reputation on the Poca River. While he was a misanthrope and loner, seldom coming into town, he was widely known as a skilled hunter and trapper.

One of the physical characteristics of LeRoy was that he had lost the fingers on his right hand. It seems that in the summer of 1919 he was working his traps along the Poca River. He was using a canoe for transport. One thing or another distracted his attention as he paddled up the river, and he lost his paddle. The instrument of his locomotion floated to some brush hanging over the river. He used his hands to move his craft to the edge of the river to retrieve the paddle. He reached under the brush, and felt a sharp pain in his hand.

LeRoy withdrew his hand and observed what he took for a rattlesnake bite on his middle finger. As he pulled his hand back, the paddle was brought from under the brush. Knowing his life depended on it, he laid his hand on the gunnel of the canoe and strongly smote his fingers with the paddle. He intended only to remove the afflicted finger, but in his haste, as he told it, he whacked off all of the fingers of his right hand.

He survived this misfortune, and was called "Lefty" the rest of his days. He trapped until 1948 when the animal population along the Poca began to decline. He went into retirement in his small cabin about 3 miles up Miller’s Hollow. He died in 1979, but LeRoy Mobley’s name remains to this day, one of the legends on the Poca River.