David Kerr (1750 - 1826)

Born 14 Jul 1750 in Camden,New Jersey

Ancestors

Husband of Cornelia (Chamberlain) Kerr — married 15 Apr 1785 in Old Homestead,Beaver,Pennsylvania,USA

Descendants

Died 3 May 1826 at age 75 in Hookstown,Beaver,Pennsylvania,USA

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Jesse Haverfield [send private message]

Biography

When David Kerr was born on July 14, 1750, in Camden, New Jersey, his father, James Kerr, was 26.

He married Cornelia Chamberlain on April 15, 1785. They had 11 children in 20 years.
He died on May 3, 1826, in Hookstown, Pennsylvania, having lived a long life of 75 years, and was buried there.
Pages 105-110 of The Kerr Clan of New Jersey Volume I^[1]:

"THE KERRS OF BEAVER COUNTY, PA David Kerr, the First, was born in Camden N.J., July 14, 1750. On April 15, 1785 he married Cornelia Chamberlain, who was born in New Jersey, February 28, 1768, of parents direct from Holland. They were distantly related. Their Uncle Joseph Chamberlain had settled in the extreme western part of Pennsylvania three years before, and he kept writing back and telling his friends in Jersey about the Indians, and of the fine openings near him for newcomers. Two other Chamberlain families of Camden were planning to join their kinsman in the west; so David and Cornelia decided to accompany the party. This colony which appears to have consisted of nine or ten adults and several children, started their journey in the fall of 1785, probably about the middle of September. They seem to have been over four weeks on the road, arriving after the middle of October.
It is not likely that they traveled on Sundays. Each man would have a gun and an ax; and it is very likely that the party had two horses and a wagon.
But David had no wagon; but he did have a horse, a cow, a sack of corn meal and a little cooking kettle. He strapped the greater part of his belongings on the horse; and on top of these rode Cornelia. Every person carried what he could; even the cow was pressed into service and was compelled to carry the kettle around her neck.
Progress was slow at the best; but the cow was the drag; for a milk cow, not built for travel, soon became footsore and lame and lost flesh; if urged beyond her leisurely pace, she soon became exhausted, lies down by the roadsides and refuses to get up; and the whole caravan has to stop.
Their food was cow's milk and a stinted allowance of corn meal. They gathered beechnuts which were unusually abundant that fall, evidently to feed their stock; and they gathered acorns also, which they ate themselves, for tradition says they thought those acorns were the sweetest they ever tasted. Wild game was a part of their food supply; the country side swarmed with native pheasants, wild pigeons and squirrels; it is likely that one of the men kept in advance as a forerunner to bring down any game that might cross their path.
It was an eventful day when they reached the summit of the Alleghany Mountains, the crest of the great barrier separating east and west; they halted and cooked their midday meal and then held a prayer meeting in gratitude to God for their safety thus far on their journey.
At last they reached their destination, and with grateful hearts found themselves among acquaintances and friends, who during that first winter, gave them shelter until cabins could be built.
The place that David chose for his future home was one mile east of where Hookstown now is, three miles from the Ohio River, and thirty-six miles from Pittsburg. It is now in Beaver County, Whenever the weather permitted, everyone who could handle an ax labored from dawn to dark to build cabins and to fell the trees and burn the trunks so as to make open spaces in which to plant crops the coming spring.
Mr. Kaler's History is profusely Illustrated, giving more than seventy full page pictures of the Kerrs and their spouses and children. The frontispiece is a picture of the old cabin which was built in 1786 and abandoned in 1867, from a photograph taken thirty years after that; this picture is especially fascinating. The hand of time has dismantled it just enough to let us see the character of the workmanship.
A person who was inspecting the picture said to me, "Do you call that a log cabin? I would not ; it is a timber cabin. My idea of a log cabin is one where the logs are not smoothed at all, or at most, only on one side; in this building, every log has been scored on four sides; every stick is square; that is certainly a timber cabin."
The beams, when notched at both ends and laid up frontier style, fit together so snugly their whole length as to leave only small intervals here and there to be filled in with mud and plaster.
Assuming the width of the front door to be the standard two feet six, we can estimate closely the size of the building; 15 by 20 feet on the outside. IT faces south and has a door int he center, with a small window to the right of it; it is two full stories high, with a steep roof above that, steep because, if not, the home-made riven shingles would not turn rain and snow. An unusual feature is that there is a full-sized exterior door int he second story, to which an outside stairs must have lead. In the kitchen there was probably a ladder of pegs, by which the boys could climb to the other room above.
The chimney is at the east end; it is exterior, of dressed stones, with a cross section, 4 by 6 feet, and extending above the ridge pole, and has two flues the whole length. There are two fireplaces; of these, one is in the kitchen, and the other is on the outside. One feature of the exterior fireplace is the mantel or cap-stone; it is also long and thick and well dressed; this fireplace is so large that two big kettles could swing on s-hooks from the iron crossbar. A splendid place it must have been for heating water on washdays and butchering days. , for making soap, for trying out fat, for boiling grain and potatoes for the stock, and for making maple sugar. There is no sign of a cellar; but as was the usage of the time, there was probably a shallow pit under the house, reached by lifting two loose boards from the kitchen floor, which pit was for the storage potatoes, cabbage and other vegetables against the winter's freezing.
In such a home a modern family with two children with think itself "Cabined, cribbed, confined!" But this is the pioneer cabin to which David and Cornelia brought their first born child when a few months old; in this cabin they dwelt for forty years (until David's death) ; and in these four small rooms they raised to useful manhood and womanhood seven sons and four daughters.
Near the front door of the cabin stood an oak tree from which David was ordained an elder, an office, the duties he faithfully discharged until his death forty years later, he being a Presbyterian of the "Straightest Sect".
The first church building was of logs, 18 by 20 feet; it had no window, but was lighted through the roof; it had no door; the entrance was an underground passage to protect the worshipers from the Indians; and according to the usage of those times there was doubtless a peephole on each side of the church, through which those within could scan the situation before venturing out.
DAVID AND CORNELIA KERR'S CHILDREN I. John Kerr, born Jan 17, 1786 less than four months after the arrival of his parents in Beaver, County, PA died 1848; married Margaret Lee, born 1784, died 1848; among their children were: (a) Sarah Ann (Mrs. John Douglass; (b) William, who married Lavina Funk and had Araminta E. (Mrs. George H. Bombaugh), Joseph Lee who married Candace E. Robert, and Jennie Matilda (wife of Rev. D. W. Fahs), (c) Joh, born 1820, died 1896, married Mary Jane Curran and had Charles Luther Kerr, who married Gertrude Wilson and has Della (Mrs. F.M. Brown), Retta (Mrs. A A. Longdorf), and Stella (Mrs. Edward H. Smith).
II. Mary Kerr, Born 1787, died 1848, unmarried, "an angel of mercy in her brother's families."
III. Rebecca Kerr, 1789-1872, married in 1812 to John Reynolds who was killd in 1834, by a tree falling on him at a chopping ; among their children: Mary Ann (Mrs. William Feighner); Cornelia (Mrs. David Cassel); James married Chloe Snow; and Thomas, married Helen Harper. "

The passage continues on for all the children, I am happy to add more at your request (Mullenberg-4).

American Revolution

Page 105 of The Kerr Clan of New Jersey Volume I^[2]:

David Kerr (the first), was the other son; he was born in Camden County NH, Jul 14, 1750; he married Cornelia Chamberlain; their descendents have been carefuly traced. This David will hereafter be designated as David Kerr The First. He served in the Revolutionary War. This is proved by a references to the Pennsylvania Archives, vol 14, page 775 where it reads "David Kerr, born July 14, 1750, was a private in Cpat James McClure's Company, Col WIlliam Montgomery's Battalion of the Flying Camp, captured at Fort Washington, November 1776, and exchanged January 3, 1777.

Pages 114-115 of The Kerr Clan of New Jersey Volume I^[3]:

"THE CRIPPLED SPIE Here is an anecdote that drifts in from Texas; its original source is not indicated. The time was during the autumn of 1780; the place was the western part of the Carolinas, where Cornwallis was maneuvering against the Americans, which maneuvering ended disasterously to himself in the entrapment of Col. Ferguson and 1200 British soldiers on a mountain peak, and their capture by the backwoodsmen under John Sevier, a loss which greatly weakened Cornalllis. The spy's service is so diret and effective that the story sticks in the memory, although the style of the narrative is rather formal. Here is the story:
"Joseph Kerr, a crippled spie, serving under the Command of the Revolutionary Army, did enter the English army lines, disguised as a ragged begger, and did overhear the British Commander and Staff in council assembled, arranging their plans for the battle of King's Mountain. The said spie, Joseph Kerr, did convey the said information to the Commander of the American forces in time to save the American army from surprise and defeat.
The American Commander utilizing this information was enabled, through strategy and aperfect arrangements of the attack, to frustrate the plans of the British Commander and demoralize his army, leading to total defeat, thereby casting the die leading directly to America's liberty and independence.""

David Kerr is a DAR Patriot Ancestor, A019575.

Sources

1. ↑ Book: The Kerr Clan of New Jersey Volume I Compiled by William C. Armstrong. The Shawver Publishing Co. Morrison, Illinois, 1931.
2. ↑ Book: The Kerr Clan of New Jersey Volume I Compiled by William C. Armstrong. The Shawver Publishing Co. Morrison, Illinois, 1931.
3. ↑ Book: The Kerr Clan of New Jersey Volume I Compiled by William C. Armstrong. The Shawver Publishing Co. Morrison, Illinois, 1931.

See Also:

• "Family Tree," database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org ), entry for (PID https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LZ3N-NFM ); contributed by various users.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Jesse Haverfield for creating WikiTree profile Kerr-2124 through the import of Haverfield Family Tree.ged on Aug 17, 2013. Click to the Changes page for the details of edits by Jesse and others.

• Deposition of his service in the pension for William Matthews of Trumbull County, Ohio.