William Mchargue II was born in Rowan County, N.C., on October 22, 1786. He left North Carolina with his family when he was 17 years old to migrate to Kentucky. The family spent two years on the Clinch River in Tennessee before moving on to Kentucky, and William II would have been 19 by the time the family arrived in Knox County.

In all likelihood William II was a great help to his sixty year-old father as they cleared the land, built their homes and erected probably the first water power grist and sawmills in the Cumberland Valley and all of Southeastern Kentucky.

On March 12, 1812, at age 25, William II married a 16 year-old Kentucky girl, Barbara Storm. At first they located on or near the original McHargue homestead. In 1818, they moved with their three sons, Samuel, John and James, to a new home on the East Bank of Robison Creek where the London to Barbourville State road crossed the stream.

Here, as the years went by, William added one industry after another until he found himself the center of a village of varied industries. There was the water-power grist mill; the grocery store; the horse power grist mill and carding machine; the spinning of thread and weaving of cloth; the blacksmith shop in which farm implements were manufactured and repaired; the work house where carpenters prepared material for furniture and for building houses; the tanyard where hides were dressed and processed into leather for making shoes and harness; and at a distance the sawmill where logs were converted into lumber.

On this homestead, a voting precinct was established, a church built, a schoolhouse erected and a cemetery donated to the public. William McHargue II was a large landholder and a slave owner. His varied industries were carried on by his own family members and the labor of his slaves.

William II was 50 when his father died. He inherited one half of his father's plantation, grist and saw mills. Stella McHargue Hensley of Lily, Kentucky is a great granddaughter of William II, and she wrote, "William Mchargue II did give the land for the McHargue Cemetery that I can see from my home place. He also gave land for the McHargue School. The McHargue Christian Church was built on his land."