King Kerley

From: "Biographical Review of Cass, Schuyler and Brown Counties, Illinois 1892", by Biographical Review Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois; pages 410-411, as reprinted by Stevens Publishing Co., Astoria, Ill., 1971, is sold by the Schuyler County Historical Society, Rushville, Illinois.

King Kerley was born in Sumner County, Tennessee, September 25, 1814. His father, William, was born in South Carolina in 1785. When three years of age he was taken to Tennessee by his father, who was also William and who died on his small farm in Tennessee, at the advanced age of ninety-three years. King has heard his grandfather tell how he crawled under the barn in South Carolina to hide their small store of silver coin during the revolution. His son was a soldier for three months in the war of 1812 and received a land warrant of forty acres for this service. He married Jane Carr of Tennessee, whose father, King Carr, was a native of Virginia. They reared to adult age eleven children and buried two in infancy. The mother died at the age of seventy years and the father lived to be an octogenarian. Both are sleeping side by side on the old farm which is still in the family.

Mr. Kerley went to school only until he was ten years of age, learned to read and write, but had no instruction in numbers. He remained on his father's farm until his majority and was a volunteer in the Seminole war with his brother, John. When he returned home he was married, March 9, 1837, to Elizabeth Brown of Summer County, Tennessee. They had grown up together. She was the daughter of John and Elizabeth (Ball) Brown. Mr. and Mrs. Kerley began their married life on his brother's farm, but within a year they bought and settled on a farm of their own.

Mr. Kerley was in the Seminole war, in which he received a gunshot wound in his thigh. In 1846 Mr. Kerley volunteered in the Mexican war as a private, and was made Second Lieutenant which position he held during his twelve months' service. After his return home he was elected to the Legislature in August, 1847, and next he ran for the State Senate against a prominent man, but was defeated although he ran ahead of his ticket. The first railroad charter was passed during his term of office. In 1851 he left there and by teams he moved his family to Brown County on his present farm in section 17. His wife's family had come to Illinois fourteen years earlier. Mr. Kerley bought eighty acres of land for $1,000, and by a tax title another eighty, which cost him $100 for the patent.

He left his family and returned to Tennessee, sold out his farm there and returned to Illinois in February to find his wife dead and buried! She died, as did her father, stepmother and five others of the family, of ship fever, which had been brought by a returned Californian. Mr. Kerley went on his farm with his three children, but in December, 1853, he married Amanda J. Pell, a daughter of Henry Pell, whose wife was a King. They had eight children. There are four sons of this family still living, one son of the first wife. The stepmother was a real mother to his children, a dearly beloved woman who died January 16, 1891, in her sixty-sixth year. Pleasant Hart Kerley, his oldest son, lives at Camp Point, Illinois; Robert is a farmer in Adams county; James N. lives in Oakland, California; Edgar is a farmer near home; and so is the last son, John.

Mr. Kerley was elected to the State Legislature in 1856 and introduced the bill for the railroads running through this county. He was re-elected in 1858 and again in 1864. When he lived in Tennessee he held the office of Sheriff and had to discharge the unpleasant duty of executing a convict. He was Supervisor in 1864 and re-elected some fifteen times and several times was chairman of the board. He was the first Assessor for Lee township and held that office for five years.

He has been a Democrat and is well named King, as he is a king among jokers. He has retired from active farming and lives with his youngest son on his 200 acre farm. He has been very successful and though nearly seventy-eight years of age is in good health, with the exception of some trouble with his eyesight. Nature has done more for this man than for many of those known to fame. He takes a daily walk to Mound Station and is a very interesting companion as his memory is phenomenal. There is probably no one who can relate in a more interesting manner more incidents of an eventful life than can this well preserved old gentleman. It is the wish of his friends that he may long continue with them.

Title: History of Tennessee, Macon County (Goodspeed Publishing Co, 1887) page 4

MACON COUNTY’S FIRST SHERIFF SERVED FROM 1842 THROUGH 1846

Above is the likeness of King Kerley, Macon County’s first Sheriff. He was the relative of Oscar Shrum, Floyd and Carl King and many others who still live in this county. King Kerley became Sheriff of this county in 1842 and served four years, till 1846.

Among the duties of the office that fell to him was the hanging of the Negress slave, belonging to the Meador family, for killing a small Meador child near the present Meadorville during the period of Sheriff Kerley’s tenure of office. Reports differ on what was used to kill the Meador child, who was an uncle of our own Wilson Meador, a citizen of Lafayette at this time. We believe the child’s name was Wilson. Some reports are to the effect that the child was beaten to death with an old-fashioned "piggin," and others say that a stick used to separate cows from their calves, was used by the slave woman. Anyway, the child was beaten to death not far from the rear of the present Ewing Hoskins property at Meadorville.

The slave woman was given a trial and found guilty. She was sentenced to be hanged, and King Kerley prepared the scaffold that was erected somewhere in Lafayette. Some say it was on Scottsville Road. The Negro woman gave her head to a local physician for all the ginger cakes and cider she wanted. After the hanging was completed, the doctor is said to have used his pocket knife to sever the head from the body, then placed it in a red bandanna handkerchief and bore it to his office.

From Find A Grave (King Kerley)

King Kerley was born 28 Sept 1814 in Sumner County, Tennessee, the son of William and Jane Carr Kerley. In June 1836, he enlisted in the 2nd Tennessee Regiment of mounted men and served six months in the Seminole War in Florida. In the last engagement, Wahoo Swamp, he was shot through the left thigh. He married in Sumner County, Tennessee on 14 March 1837 to Elizabeth Brown born 2 February 1814, the daughter of John and Elizabeth Ball Brown.

He was elected as the first sheriff of the newly formed county of Macon in Tennessee in March 1842 and again in 1844. He served as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 1st Regiment of Tennessee Volunteers in the Mexican War. He enlistd 8 June 1846 at Hartsville, Tennessee and was discharged in New Orleans on 24 May 1847. He was in battles at Monterey, Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo. He then served in the Tennessee State House of Representatives in the 27th General Assembly in 1847-1849.

In 1851, King and his family moved to Brown Co., Illinois, where Elizabeth's father had moved years some earlier. King returned to Tennessee to sell his holdings and upon his return to Illinois he learned that his wife, Elizabeth, his father-in-law, John Brown, step-mother-in-law, Lucinda, and five other members of their family had died of "ships fever." Elizabeth died 3 Feb 1852, John Brown died 21 Jan 1852 and Lucinda died 22 Jan 1852. They are buried in the Mt. Sterling Cem., in Brown Co.

King and Elizabeth were the parents of three children: Calpurna (26 April 1838 - 27 May 1854), Pleasant Hart Kerley (Jan 1840 - 28 Feb 1902) and Matilda (6 July 1844 - 1 Jan 1875)

King married again 14 Dec 1853 in Brown Co., to Amanda Jane Pell born 18 Feb 1826 in Logan Co., Kentucky, the daughter of Henry and Catherine King Pell.

King was elected to the Illinois State Legislature in 1856 and introduced the bill for the railroad running through Brown County. He was re-elected in 1858 and again in 1864, thus serving three terms in the Illinois Legislature. He was the first assessor of Lee Township and held that position for five years. He was supervisor of Lee Township for 10 years and served as chairman of the board. He donated the land for the Friendly Grove School. He lost his eyesight in his later years but he was undaunted as he would walk the 2-1/2 miles daily from his home to Timewell to get his mail, even after reaching 90 years of age. Occasionally he would walk the railroad tracts to Camp Point to visit his son Pleasant in his late 80's.

King and Amanda were the parents of eight children: William H. Kerley (1855 - 1861), Robert Andrew Kerley (23 April 1856 - 28 Dec 1931), James Newton Kerley (Feb. 1858 - 19 Mar.1937), Edgar King Kerley (1 Apr 1860 - 24 July 1946), Adelia Kerley (26 Feb. 1862 - 1 Jan. 1865), John Kerley (12 Sept. 1864 - 11 Dec. 1942) and two others, names unknown.

Amanda Pell Kerley died 16 Jan 1891 and King died 20 March 1905 and are buried in the Lee Cemetery in Brown Co.