William M Kerley

I believe that William M. was the son of Major William Kerley of Madison County for several reasons.

        (1)  We know from the Major's will that he had a son named William. (Let's call him "William M.")

        (2)  William M. married Betsy Mathews in Madison County, KY in 1802, making his birth date about 1782.

        (3)  There are no records for William M. in Madison Co., KY after his marriage.    

        (4)  Migration patterns.  According to the Giles County history (see below), William M. came to Giles County in 1809 with Tyree Rodes.  If William M. came from Madison County, KY (where he would have been living with his father) then we should expect to find a person named Tyree Rodes there in Madison County, too.  And, that is exactly what we find.  According to the 1800 tax census for Madison County, KY, both Tyree Rodes and Robert Rodes were living there in 1800.  Since Tyree is not a very common name, the presence of one such named person                     exactly where we expect him to be is fairly persuasive.

        (5)  Moreover, the Rodes family apparently moved to Madison County, KY from Albemarle Co., VA.  If you look at the pamphlet: "A Short History and Genealogy of the English Family Rodes who Reached America in the 17th Century." (available on Ancestry), you can see that various members of the Rodes family moved in the late 1700's and early 1800's from Albemarle County, VA. to Madison County, VA to Giles County TN.  (In fact, a fellow named Robert Rodes (born in 1759 was the leader of a group of settlers who moved from Albemarle County to Madison County.  Could Major William have been in this group?  Maybe.)  This was the same route that Major William took (i.e. he moved from Albemarle County VA to Madison Co., KY in the mid 1780's).

So, I suspect that the Kerley and Rodes families were close.  They knew each other and traveled as a group together.  (Families frequently traveled     in groups in those days -- so this was not an uncommon situation).  It seems reasonable to me that William M. would have joined Tyree when

Tyree moved to Giles County, TN in 1809.

        (6)  One curious point here is that the wife of Major William is stated to be Nancy Rhodebaugh.  There is only one piece of evidence for that assertion.  Could her name have really been Nancy Rodes?  Maybe.

        (7)    William M. was living in Giles County in 1820 (Census record shows 1 male (26-45), 1 male (10-16), 1 female (26-45) and 2 females (under 10).  This listing fits with his expected birth date.  It would also be consistent with a marriage date of 1802.

        (8)   All of the other known William Kerleys in 1820 are documented living either in Smith/Sumner County TN or in Burke County, NC.  So, unless there is another totally separate family of Kerleys floating around at that time, the only unaccounted William is the son of Major William.  I am open to other theories, but I believe that the evidence, sketchy as it is, supports with the theory that William M.is the son of Major William  

Overview.  William M. appears to have been born in Madison Co. KY about 1782.  He got married there in 1802 to Betsy Mathews, and moved a few years later (in 1809) to Giles County, TN.  He went there with close friends of his family, the Rodes.  (Giles County is in south-western TN along the Alabama border).  McCallum's "A Brief Sketch of the Settlement and Early History of Giles County, Tennessee" reports that: "Tyree RODES settled the place his son, Robert RODES now owns in 1809, probably in the early part of the year.  He was appointed by the Legislature in November, 1809, one of the Commissioners to lay off the town of Pulaski.  Wm. KERLEY, known as Captain KERLEY came to the County with him, and lived on his farm several years).  Giles County is over 100 miles south-west from the Kerley settlement at that time in Smith and Sumner counties.  It is also several hundred miles from Burke County, NC where there was another settlement of Kerleys at that time.  

Shortly after arriving in Giles County, William M. served in the War of 1812.  William's brief service in that War generated one of the most fascinating events in the entire history of the Kerley family: a face-to-face stand-off with a future President of the United States, Andrew Jackson. Here is the story.

Military Service.  National Archive records verify that William M. Kerley began his service as a sergeant in Captain Thomas K Gordon's Company in Colonel Thomas McCrory's regiment of the West Tennessee militia on October 4, 1813.  This was the same regiment in which his second cousin, James Kerley, was serving.  James and William were, however, in different companies.  He was elected/promoted to a first lieutenant on December 11, 1813.  (It is interesting to note that many of the records, military and land, pertaining to William M. all use his middle initial.  Not many Kerleys used their middle initials.)

William M. served until January 4, 1814.  He traveled 174 miles from Pulaski (in Giles County) to Fayetteville, where he was mustered in, and from Fort Strother where he was discharged.  He received a total of $48.67 for his service.  (Note that his purported monthly rate $11.50 (3 x $11.50 = $34.50) does not comport with his final total pay.  He also received $10 for subsistence rations for a servant/slave he utilized during the time he served as a lieutenant.  It was the termination of his service in the militia that led to his encounter with Andrew Jackson.  The story is best told by this account in McCallum's  "A Brief Sketch of the Settlement and Early History of Giles County, Tennessee."

Lieutenant Kerley and General “Hickory” Jackson.  William M. Kerley came to the County in the early part of 1809 with Tyree Rodes and lived a year or two on his farm.  He went out with the first troops under the call of the State in the fall of 1813, for service in the Creek Nation; and was Lieutenant in one of the companies from Giles County.  He became somewhat conspicuous by resisting the authority of General Jackson at Fort Deposit, at a time when a portion of the troops were about leaving the army, believing their term of service had expired.  I have read no account of the transaction, that is entirely correct according to my information, and none which does justice to Kerley and his comrades.

To fully understand the controversy between General Jackson and his soldiers, it is necessary briefly to recur to the terms of their enlistment.  The massacre of Fort Mimms, the 30th of August, 1813, startled the whole country and caused a stampede of all the white settlers between Mobile and Huntsville.  The legislature of Tennessee, being in session and fearing an immediate advance by the Indians, on her southern borders, without waiting to consult the general Government, authorized the Governor to call out 3,500 of the militia, in addition to the volunteers who had been discharged in the Spring, after their return from Natchez without limiting their term of service. and pledged the State to pay them if the United States Government refused.

The Governor ordered General Jackson to raise 2,000 of the number in his division; the balance to be raised in East Tennessee.  Under the orders of General Jackson the militia rendezvoused at Huntsville, October 4, 1813, and were mustered into service without specifying the time they were to serve.  Near the close of the year General Jackson, learning that the militia expected to be discharged, the 4th of January at the expiration of the three months, insisted that, having been raised under an Act that did not limit their term, and mustered into service without specifying the time they were to serve, by implication they were bound for the shortest time allowed by Act of Congress, which was 6 months.

The officers and soldiers insisted that they were enlisted with the express understanding and belief that it was for a three months campaign; that the militia raised in East Tennessee under the same Act was mustered into service for three months, and were received as such and claimed their discharge the fourth day of January,

General Jackson having received a letter from Governor Blount, indicating his acquiescence in the opinion of the militia, perceived it would be useless to try and hold them; but believing they were bound under the law to serve six months if required, he determined to hold them until reinforcements arrived. Accordingly he issued an order prohibiting them to leave without his permission. 

“At half past ten on the morning of the fourth of January, (quoting from Kendall's Life of Jackson) neither the officer of the guard nor any of the sentinels were found at their posts.  On the report of this fact general Jackson ordered the arrest of Lieutenant Kerley, the officer in question.  He refused to surrender his sword, asserting that he was no longer subject to the orders of General Jackson.  The General directed Colonel Sitler, the Adjutant-General, to parade the guards, and Captain Gordon's Company of Spies, and arrest Kerley at all hazards.  The order was instantly obeyed.

Kerley was found at the head of his Company, which with the rest of the militia was formed and ready to march.  Colonel Sitler ordered him to halt but he refused.  The Colonel then order the guards to stop him, which was done; still he refused to deliver his sword.  Sitler then ordered the guards to fire on him if he persisted in his refusal, and both parties simultaneously cocked their guns.  At this critical moment General Jackson himself rode up and in person demanded of Kerley the surrender of his sword.  Again Kerley refused imperatively.

The General drew a pistol from his holster and was leveling it at Kerley’s breast when Colonel Sitler placed himself between them, urging him to submit.  A friend of Kerley’s drew his sword from the scabbard and presented it to Colonel Sitler who refused to accept it.  Having been returned to Kerley he finally surrendered it to Colonel Sitler and was put under guard.”

Charles C. Abernathy of Giles County witnessed the transaction.  He says the account given in Kendall's Life of Jackson is substantially correct, except as to Kerley’s giving up his sword.  He says he had gone to the camp of Dr. Gilbert D. Taylor, then of Pulaski, who was a surgeon in the army; that Colonel Sitler stopped Kerley about twenty or thirty yards from Taylor’s camp, where he and Dr. Taylor were sitting; that when Kerley refused to surrender his sword “General Jackson, coming up with a pistol in his hand, declared to Kerley that if he did not give up his sword he would blow him through.”

At this crisis Dr. Taylor said to me: “this will never do,” and immediately left his seat and running to Kerley jerked his sword from his hand, and offered it to Colonel Sitler which Sitler refused to receive from him.  Dr. Taylor then placed the sword back in Kerley’s hand and taking Kerley’s arm with the sword in his hand, extended it to Colonel Sitler, whereupon Colonel Sitler received it, and Kerley submitted to arrest.”

He says: “it is very doubtful whether Kerley would have voluntarily surrendered his sword.”  That General Jackson certainly would not have parlayed long with him, and that but for the timely interposition of Dr. Taylor, there was no telling what would have been the result; that the opposing forces were nearly equal.  He says “During the progress of the affair, I calculated on witnessing the bloodiest time I had ever seen, the result of which would have been the breaking up of the Creek War at least for a season.”

After Kerley’s arrest he asked pardon of General Jackson, and in explanation of his conduct stated that having promised his company to lead them home, he feared it would be considered a compromise of his courage and his honor to surrender his sword.  He was soon released and his sword restored.  (It is said that Kerley ordered his men not to fire on the soldiers in case the word was given, but to fire upon Jackson.)  He was after afterwards at the friend of General Jackson. The tradition is that General Jackson said Kerley was too brave a man to punish.  While the controversy was going on with Kerley, the rest of the Brigade with the exception of Captain Willis and about thirty of his men, marched off and no further effort was made to arrest them.

Note that William M's confrontation with General Jackson occurred on the very same day that James Kerley was discharged at Fayetteville.

Movement to Alabama.  William apparently did not stay in Giles County, TN for very long.  He shows up there on the tax list in 1812 and in the 1820 census.  His presence is also documented by his involvement as a defendant in a lawsuit in November, 1813 (which was postponed because he was away serving in the War when the suit began).  Six months later,  in June of 1814, he was involved in another lawsuit, this time as a plaintiff where he sued the executors of a man named Frank Allison.  One year later, in June of 1815, the local court there in Giles County ordered that an orphan boy named Samuel Scott be bound as an apprentice to William M. until he reached age 21.  The court also ordered that William M. be paid $11.875 for keeping this orphan as an apprentice.

But, life in Giles County did not work out as William M had hoped because he moved to Lauderdale County, Alabama in the mid-1820's.  (Lauderdale County is just over the state line from Giles Co. TN).  Bureau of Land Management records show a William M. Kerley receiving a federal land patent for 80.26 acres in Lauderdale County on August 15, 1826.  He then received another such patent for an additional 79.37 acres in Limestone County, Alabama on June 8, 1833.  (Limestone County abuts Lauderdale County). Interestingly, the 1833 transaction refers to William as William Moreton Kerley.  That might give us some idea of his actual middle name. 

There are census records showing a Will M. Kerly living in Limestone County, Alabama in 1830 and then a W. M. Kirly living in Lauderdale Co. Alabama in 1840.  Both listings are consistent with a 1782 birth date for William M.  There are no death records that I can find for William, so I have no idea when and where he died or whether he had any children.

John J. Kerley

Very interesting character.  He marries into the Boone family (Lucy Boone Green).

Strong evidence of him serving in the War of 1812.  Served in the 11th Regiment of mounted Kentucky volunteers in Captain Richard C. Holder's company.  He was a private, and was mustered in on August 30, 1813 (when he would have been about 20 years old).  This Regiment was led by William Williams.  Per "Kentucky in the War of 1812": "The 11th Regiment was attached to the Second Division, unbrigaded.  It was commanded by Col. William Williams of Madison County and was composed of the companies of Captains Sylvanus Masie, Richard C. Holder and John C. McWilliams of Madison County.