8 posts tagged “kerr county”
For the past three weeks, I’ve related portions of some letters my good friend Jane Ragsdale of Camp Heart o’ the Hills in Hunt has shared with me – letters written during the history-laden weeks when Texas chose to secede from the Union. One of her acquaintances, Les Staples, sent her copies of letters written by his grandfather, George Staples. The letters are dated 1861 and addressed from Zanzenburg, Kerr County, Texas. Zanzenburg was an early name for the community we now call Center Point.
The third letter in the series, dated March 3rd, 1861, gives details of his work as a teacher in Zanzenburg:
And while I might be accused of stretching it out, I hope to conclude the series next week with the 4th letter. I admit I got sidetracked last week when our 1861 correspondent mentioned the KGC, an organization I’d never before heard of, though I should remembered something about the KGC since the Sam Lanham Digital Library at Schreiner University has a generous collection of documents pertaining to the strange organization. These are available online at http://digital.library.schreiner.edu.
Young George Staples wrote his father from Zanzenburg, March 3rd 1861 about his plans for the future:
“So fast as I make money I am going to buy Stock Cattle as that is the most paying business one can engage in here…
“Cousin Melanis … attends to the Cattle for Cousin Maurice for ten years, and at the end of that time he receives either a half or a third (I forget which) but either would be very profitable as they have about 2000 head of very fine cattle and at the end of the ten years I have no doubt but what they will number 3000 head.
“I am more and more please with Texas. I don’t think I could content myself now to live in a state where I could not take a wild scamper over a prairie occasionally. The vegetation is beginning to put on very much here now, the trees are budding and the briars and small shrubbery are beginning to have small leaves on them.”
Not content with becoming a mere cattle baron, young Staples also writes “I myself have a strong inclination for the study of law and as soon as I have permanently settled myself in business I will take up a course of law study. I think my talent lies in that way and if I am competent, that is if my talent and intellect is sufficient, no effort of mine shall be wanting or neglected to make myself an accomplished lawyer.”
He also wrote about his other academic efforts, learning to speak Spanish, and “I am also reading my Latin & Greek and am carrying on a course of Mathematics, and besides I read a great deal. My Eyes do not trouble me at all now I can see as well as ever I could and can read by candle without the least pain.”
It’s amazing what you could accomplish back then, before the distraction of television, don’t you think?
Next week I’ll wrap up this series with a letter dated March 14th.
Until then, all the best.
Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native.
For the past two weeks, I’ve reported about some letters my good friend of o’ the Hills in Hunt has shared with me – letters written during the history-laden weeks when chose to secede from the . One of her acquaintances, Les Staples, sent her copies of letters written by his grandfather, George Staples. The letters are dated 1861 and addressed from Zanzenburg, . Zanzenburg was an early name for the community we now call Center Point.
The third letter in the series, dated March 3rd, 1861, gives details of his work as a teacher in Zanzenburg:
“I am still engaged in school teaching with Mrs. Connor and very well pleased so far. I only get $18 for teaching Mrs. Connor’s children and have only one scholar besides – where as Cousin Maurice Simons offers me $250 for the first year.
“I have yet to take my first drink, there is 100 per cent more drinking in Virginia than in Texas, so far as I have seen, her citizens are remarkably moral considering the youth of the state.
“I have not yet heard the returns of the Election on the secession ordinance but I think it passed and I sincerely hope that has also by this time dissolved her connexion [sic] with the North. I hear from occasionally by the newspapers and also from . I am a rigid unconstitutional Secessionist and should civil war take place rest assured I shall not be long in joining the Southern Army.
“I am going to join the K.G.C.’s this Spring, about every second man one meets in is a member of the order. Are there any in ?”
I looked into what KGC could stand for and think it might have been the “Knights of the .” Here’s what Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, says about the organization:
“The association was founded by George W. L. Bickley, a Virginia-born doctor, editor, and "adventurer" who lived in . He organized the first castle, or local branch, in in 1854 and soon took the order to the South, where it was well received. It grew slowly until 1859 and reached its height in 1860.
“Its original object was to provide a force to colonize the northern part of and the West Indies and thus extend pro-slavery interests, and the Knights became especially active in . Bickley's main goal was the annexation of . Hounded by creditors, he left in the late 1850s and traveled through the East and South promoting an expedition to seize and establish a new territory for slavery. He found his greatest support in and managed within a short time to organize thirty-two chapters there.
“In the spring of 1860, the group made the first of two attempts to invade from . A small band reached the , but failed.
“The South’s secession and the outbreak of the Civil War prompted a shift in the group's aims from freebooting in to support of the new Confederate government. For example, on February 15, 1861, Texas Ranger Ben McCulloch began marching toward the Federal arsenal at , with a cavalry force of about 550 men, about 150 of whom were Knights of the representing six different castles. While volunteers continued to join McCulloch the following day, U.S. Army Gen. David E. Twiggs decided to surrender the arsenal peacefully to the secessionists.”
I had never heard of the KGC, but evidently it was strong in this area during the early 1860s.
By coincidence, there is another connection to the story above; the H. E. Butt Grocery Company, which was founded in in 1905 by Florence Butt, now has its corporate headquarters in the old Arsenal complex in .
There are more details in this third letter, and I’ll write about them next week.
Until then, all the best.
Joe Herring Jr. is a native who enjoys local history.
Last week I reported that my good friend Jane Ragsdale of Camp Heart o’ the Hills in Hunt had shared some letters with me – letters written during the history-laden weeks when Texas chose to secede from the Union. One of her acquaintances, Les Staples, sent her copies of letters written by his grandfather, George Staples. The letters are dated 1861 and addressed from Zanzenburg, Kerr County, Texas. Zanzenburg was an early name for the community we now call Center Point.
Center Point is a quiet community today, but in 1861 one of the leaders of the secessionist movement, Dr. Charles Ganahl, resided there, making Center Point one of the hot spots in the effort to break Texas away from the US. Dr. Ganahl was a fervent secessionist, having served in the Secession Convention in Austin, and was one of the signers of the “Ordinance of Secession” that, once approved by the voters, officially separated Texas from the Union; that document was passed, 166-8, on February 2, 1861.
These letters, written in the fever of the era, convey what people were thinking in our part of the world during those months.
It’s through source documents like these letters that I learn more about the history of an era than from a shelf of books. The raw, unfiltered, unedited words of eyewitnesses is always preferable (at least to me) than tomes written in an ivory tower and tossed out of the window to readers waiting below.
Last week I shared the highlights of Staples’ first letter home – and now I share some of his second letter, dated January 27, 1861, less than a week before the “Ordinance of Secession” was adopted in Austin.
“I will now give you as good a description of Texas as I possibly can,” young George Staples wrote to his father. After copying a surveyor’s report about the coastal areas of Texas, Staples begins to describe the land around Zanzenburg:
“It would impress you to see the Guadalupe Mountains,” he wrote, describing the hills around here, not the Guadalupe Mountains in deepest West Texas. “They are as large and high as either old Banks Mountain or the Big Piney; just as round as a potatoe [sic] Hill and the most of them entirely destitute of any kind of growth, while all of them are encircled with collateral ridges as if it had formerly been laid off into immense Corn Rows, but the land produces well. Corn yields about the same as Virginia. Also, there is no tobacco at all raised here, but all vegetables produced abundantly, with two crops per year. I have not seen an apple or pear tree, … neither a Walnut or a Hickory nut. All the fruit … are figs, plums, a few peaches, raspberries, water & musk melons, and etc.
“The timber we have is Live Oak, Post Oak…
“The cattle raising business is the most profitable one can engage in, that is when a man has sufficient capital to commence with. Cattle cost from $5 to $9 per head, and increase fast enough to make a nice profit of 30 to 75 per cent per annum. It requires a strong able bodied man to attend to them besides the horses. A herd of 2000 head requires an overseer and about 5 or six extra hands.
“Sheep raising also pays very well. They cost from $1.50 to $2.50 per head and foal twice a year though it requires a shepherd to be with them constantly. We do not have to sow our seed to reap here, but go out in the prairie and cut any where.
“I have gotten to be quite a good rider since being here and also a tolerably good hand at roping or lassoing cattle. It is very exciting to work roping and branding cattle. The manner of doing it is this: the hands scatter out and collect all of the cattle in the prairie for miles around in a large strong pen. Frequently there are more than 2000 to gather and in the center of the pen is a post firmly fixed in the ground. The hands go in with ropes of from 30 to 50 feet in length. In one end they have a noose which they swing around their heads two or three times and then throw it at the animal they want to [brand. The noose] settles over its head. It is then thrown down and branded with a hot iron brand. Cousin Milams’ brand is the [Diamond SS]. The cattle frequently show fight and in such cases hands enclosed in a pen it requires all a person’s bravery, skill and coolness to escape being gored. And between the hollering of men and the bellowing of the cattle and the sizzle of burning flesh, [it] provides a most exciting noise.
“I am going to invest all the money I can make in Cattle and Land. I am practicing economy now and to show you that I am I’ll tell you what I bought this winter. Viz – 1 pair of boots, 1 pair of shoes and 2 pair socks. These are all I have bought with the exception of paper, pens and ink, envelopes and stamps. I am now wearing a black vest you bought for me in… Richmond.”
“I will not need any money as I have some now…”
Until next week, all the best.
Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who made it to work in downtown Kerrville each day during the snow and ice, and wondered where the rest of you were hiding.
Ms. Carolyn told me to stop it. “You’ve stretched out this story on Major James Kerr long enough,” she said. “Tell them what you’ve learned about him this week, the one thing few people know about him.”
And so I will.
Major James Kerr, for whom our city and county were named, was quite an interesting fellow. I’ve used the last few columns telling you some of his story. This series of articles began after a chance meeting with Walter Womack, a descendent of Major James Kerr. He intrigued me with one comment: “You know, there is one thing few people know about James Kerr.”
It’s true. One thing few people know about the man whose name we say almost every day.
Some might think the fact that James Kerr spent the last few years of his life practicing medicine would be the one surprising thing I’ve learned. On the frontier medical knowledge was in great demand, and James Kerr, after the tragic loss of his first wife and three of his children, knew firsthand the tragedies that pioneer families faced when disease or misfortune struck. According to an excellent oral history prepared by Ann Bethel, of the Kerr County Historical Commission, on New Year’s Day, 1846, Dr. James B. P. January a physician of Jackson County granted Kerr a license to practice medicine. Kerr charged $2 for a regular call, $5 for a night call, and an extra $5 if he had to sit up all night with a patient.
One particular patient’s account tells a lot about the practice of medicine on the frontier, the account of his visit with the wife of Samuel McCullouch, Locola. “In a 2-day struggle for her life, Kerr bled her three times, administered medicine costing $6 and ran a bill totaling $30 before she died at one-half past 4 pm. Kerr then sold McCulloch ‘forty feet of planks’ for her coffin.”
But Kerr’s medical practice is not the one surprising thing I learned about James Kerr.
Nor would it be Jack Auld’s relating how his forebear, Joshua Brown (who founded Kerrville) served in the Texas Revolutionary War alongside James Kerr. According to Auld, the pair were a part of a group tasked with disrupting Mexican military supply lines. They would find a freight wagon train, wait for an opportune moment, steal up quietly, and remove the ‘lug nuts’ which held the wagon wheel onto the axle, then ride away like the wind, leaving the wagon stranded with its load of vital military supplies. It was an effective way to cripple the advancing Mexican army, but it was a highly dangerous mission. I’m hoping Mr. Auld will tell me more stories about Joshua Brown soon.
No, the one thing I learned about James Kerr – the one thing I’ve been keeping back from these pages for more than a month – has been corroborated by two different members of the James Kerr family. Both Walter Womack and Ruth Simons (Kerr) Ray, who was interviewed by Ann Bethel and Clarabelle Snodgrass for the useful oral history I mentioned above – both members of the family say the same thing. This new piece information solves an old mystery for me: why on Earth did Joshua Brown originally name our community “Kerrsville?”
I can see why the ‘s’ was dropped in the 1860s; while most people would probably pronounce the name ‘Kerrzville,’ a few might pronounce it where it sounded like ‘Curse-ville.’ The ‘s’ had to go.
Both Walter Womack and Ruth Simons Ray say that Major James Kerr pronounced his name as if it were spelled “Karr.” They both say the family pronounces the name as if it rhymes with the word “Car.”
“It’s always been ‘Karr’ and they even call it ‘Karr’ in Gonzales,” Ms. Ray told Bethel and Snodgrass.
Joshua Brown, who had served in the Texas Revolution with James Kerr, who was a great friend of James Kerr, would have pronounced his Kerr’s name as Kerr himself pronounced it. When Joshua Brown named our community, when he said the name himself, I’m almost positive he pronounced it “Karrzville.” As newcomers came to town they changed the pronunciation to reflect how the name is spelled. I’m sure some of the original settlers tried to correct the pronunciation for several decades and then finally gave up.
There. I hope it’s been worth the wait, reading about the life of Major James Kerr for these many weeks, and I hope you agree with me. This one new piece of information does change the way one thinks about the name of our community and county.
Until next week, all the best.
Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who pronounces his last name ‘hair – ing’
Some readers have asked if I’m telling the truth about discovering something new about Major James Kerr, for whom Kerrville and Kerr County were named. It’s true. There is something about Major James Kerr that few people in Kerrville know. I have used the past three columns trying to get to the new information, though limitations of space have prevented me (so far) from reporting what I’ve learned.
(This series of articles began after a chance meeting with Walter Womack, a descendent of Major James Kerr, intrigued me because of one small comment Mr. Womack made: “You know,” he told me, “there is one thing few people know about James Kerr.”)
So please be patient with me. I’m getting to it. There is some background information I need to share first – the story of James Kerr and his family. In last week’s column, the Kerrs have decided to move to Texas. Kerr, after resigning from the Missouri state senate, has agreed to become the surveyor for Green DeWitt at his colony on the lower Guadalupe River.
“It was the year 1825 when the Kerrs started for Texas,” writes James Kerr Crain, a descendant of James Kerr, in a 1957 biographical sketch. “In New Orleans James Kerr met the agent of Stephen F. Austin, the ‘Father of Texas’ and received from him a letter of introduction to that great pioneer and leader.”
Crain continues: “I will digress at this point to say that Mr. Kerr was permitted to retain his slaves in Texas on the rather specious … grounds that the Mexican law forbade the importation of ‘American Slaves’ and since the Kerr slaves had lived in Missouri when it was a French Possession, it was decided they were not ‘American Slaves.’
Our community’s namesake owned slaves and brought them here through a loophole in Mexican law. I am not proud of this fact, but I want to report the whole story.
“The little family finally obtained passage in a coastwise packet and landed in Brazoria in the spring of 1825. The hardships of the long journey from Ste. Genevieve and of life in their now surroundings soon exacted a heavy toll, on the 27th of July 9 1825 the young wife and mother died in their temporary camp on the Bernard about four or five mile from Columbia. Her unfortunate husband was absent at the time on a trip to locate a suitable site for their future home in the Green DeWitt Colony.”
So Angeline Caldwell Kerr born in Kentucky, married in Missouri, died in Texas at the tender age of twenty-three, leaving behind three small children, the youngest of whom was not yet one year old.
“Her burial service was read by one of the noblest of the pioneer woman of Texas, Mrs. Mary E. Bell. Her coffin was hollowed from an oak log by faithful slaves. In 1853 her daughter, my grandmother, had the remains removed to the church cemetery in West Columbia and a marble slab placed over them. The inscription upon this slab is worthy of note:
“In Memory of Angeline Caldwell/ Wife of James Kerr, Born in Kentucky, Feb. 6, 1802, and died on June 7, 1825. By Foreign hands thy dying eyes are closed/ By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed/ By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned /By strangers honored and by strangers mourned.
“Thus James Kerr returned to his camp on the Bernard to find his wife in her grave, and the three little children under the care of Mrs. Bell. He had located a home in Texas that only he of the little family would see for many years, and then one only---his little daughter. He set out for his new home with the three young children and his slaves. His home was to be on the bank of the Guadalupe River where now stands the city of Gonzales. The father carried his infant son in his arms on horseback, and in his arms the little fellow died just a few weeks after his mother's death. And the older boy just turned five died three weeks later. So within a few months after reaching [Texas] only the father and the three year old daughter remained of the happy family of five.”
I’ve run out of space again, Gentle Reader. I hope next week to get to the new information about Major James Kerr.
Until then, all the best.
Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native whose daughter leaves for college today.
It’s true. There is something about Major James Kerr that few people in Kerrville know. I have used the past two columns trying to get to the new information, though limitations of space have prevented me (so far) from reporting what I’ve learned.
And it’s also true, if we followed the historical fact I’ve learned, it would change the way we think about our community’s name.
A chance meeting with Walter Womack, a descendent of Major James Kerr, intrigued me because of one small comment Mr. Womack made: “You know,” he told me, “there is one thing few people know about James Kerr.”
James Kerr, you may remember, is the person for whom our county and are named. Joshua D. Brown, the founder of our community, named the small village he’d begun after his friend; the state, in 1856, named our county after him. Yet it’s unlikely Kerr ever visited the community which carries his name, and he never knew of the honor the state had given him when it named the county for him, since he’d died years before the frontier county was named.
Last week I reported that Mr. Womack sent me a link to a sketch written in 1957 by Maj. Gen. James Kerr Crain, a descendent of Major James Kerr.
“After the war [of 1812] ended,” writes Gen. Crain, “James Kerr was elected Sheriff of St. Charles County [], then extending to Boone's Lick. He held the position of sheriff for four years. On July 23, 1818, James married Angeline Caldwell of Ste. Genevieve County. She was the daughter of Major James Caldwell.”
This marriage, and an odd conflict Kerr had with his father-in-law, are the reason Kerr and his family decided to move to . If it weren’t for a state senate election, who knows what our community would be named today.
“In 1819 or 1820 the young couple moved to Ste. Genevieve County to live,” writes Crain. “Kerr’s father in law, Major Caldwell, was one of the most popular men in . He had lived in before removing to and had represented in the lower branch of the Kentucky Legislature in the years 1800, 1807, and 1808. Angeline Caldwell was born in on February 8. 1802.
“James Kerr was very popular with the young man of the community, and in 1822 he was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives. Major Caldwell was at that time a member of the State Senate, and then occurred on of those unfortunate events which change the lives and destinies of men. In 1824, against the wishes of James Kerr, he was elected to the State Senate defeating his father-in-law Major Caldwell. The old gentleman was so indignant at his first political defeat, and this at the hands of his son-in-law, from that time he refused to speak to him.
“Because of this unpleasant situation and because of his wife's health, James Kerr that same year resigned his seat in the State Senate which had been thrust upon him, and made plans to move to . Green DeWitt of Ralls County, Missouri, was interested in organizing a colony to go to , and James Kerr agreed to assist DeWitt and to become surveyor of the colony.”
Well, I’ve done it again. I haven’t made it to the one new thing I’ve learned about Major James Kerr. I hope you’ll bear with me; I’ll try to get it all squeezed in next week.
Until then, all the best.
Joe Herring Jr. is a native who would make a lousy radio announcer.
A chance meeting with Walter Womack, a descendent of Major James Kerr, intrigued me because of one small comment Mr. Womack made: “You know,” he told me, “there is one thing few people know about James Kerr.”
James Kerr, you may remember, is the person for whom our county and are named. Joshua D. Brown, the founder of our community, named the small village he’d begun after his friend; the state, in 1856, named our county after him. Yet it’s unlikely he ever visited the community which carries his name, and he never knew of the honor the state had given him, since he’d died years before the county was named.
Little is known about Major James Kerr – it would be hard to fill up several pages with facts about his life – and the few sources of information we have tend to be repeated in only a few older books – so gaining new information about this man is always helpful (and somewhat rare).
Last week I reported that Mr. Womack had sent me a link to a sketch written in 1957 by Maj. Gen. James Kerr Crain, himself a distinguished Texan from Lavaca and DeWitt counties, a graduate of and an Army veteran of both World Wars. Our Major Kerr was Crain’s great-grandfather.
Major James Kerr was born in , on September 24, 1790, one of ten children born to a circuit-riding Baptist preacher and a woman named Patience.
“Despite the fact their father was a minister of the gospel,” writes James Crain, “or perhaps because of that fact, the Kerr boys were not overly observant of his precepts. On one occasion just as the Reverend James Kerr's small congregation was emerging from a Sunday morning service a group of whooping boys came rushing by with one of their number astride an astonished and cavorting cow, The scandalized preacher recognized the equally horrified rider as his son James. Thus James junior gave early indication of a fondness for the unconventional. Perhaps he had inherited it from that part of his father's character that had led the latter to elope to the wilderness with little more than a charming bride and a single horse.”
Our Major James Kerr served in the War of 1812.
“The Adjutant General of the Army wrote … that one James Kerr served in the War of l812 as a sergeant in a company designated at various times as Captain Daniel M. Boone's [the son of the famous frontiersman, Daniel Boone] and Captain James Callaway's Company of Mounted Rangers, United States Volunteers. His Federal service began 19 May 1813; was reduced to private 14 January 1814, and his service ended 19 May 1814. The Adjutant General of Missouri sent me a copy of the receipt roll signed by James Kerr for his pay and allowances for the period April 29-May 18th 1813, while in the service of the Territory. The amounts covered by the receipt are interesting because of their size. It is startling to note that for twenty days service his pay was $5.17; and his subsistence allowance was twenty-eight cents! Not quite a cent and a half a day. His travel pay was fifty cents. But his allowance for his horses was $48.00 which was more than his pay plus all other allowances.”
The sketch includes an account of Kerr’s actions as a soldier:
“In 1813 he was second in command to Captain Boone in Boone's defeat on the , and Kerr received great praise for his conduct during the retreat. During that same summer he and two others were ambushed by seventeen Indians at the mouth of the Salt River in . in the ensuing fight his horse was wounded three times and finally killed under him. The party escaped because of his cool daring and a well contrived ruse. My mother told me the ruse consisted in securing a camp kettle to the end of a log to represent a cannon, and the Indians were unwilling to close in on what they thought to be that much feared weapon.”
Clever, indeed.
Well, I’ve done it again: I’ve run out of space before coming to the new information I’ve found about Major James Kerr. I hope I’ll be able to get it all in next week’s column.
Until then, all the best.
Joe Herring Jr. is a native who is thinking about writing a book on the history of our area.
I have discovered something new about Major James Kerr, the man for whom and are named, and this new fact was discovered after a chance encounter with one of his descendants a few weeks ago.
As some may know, I serve on the board of the Kerrville Folk Festival, I think as their token non-Folkie. While visiting the grounds there during the past festival, Stuart Vexler, chairman of the festival board, introduced me to Walter Womack, a descendent of Major James Kerr. “You know,” he told me, “there is one thing few people know about James Kerr.”
I listened closely. If true, it would add an interesting new fact to the slim biography we have of the man for whom our community is named. Mr. Womack promised to send along additional information, and, after a few weeks, I received a link to a website which included family history, complete with a lengthy sketch about James Kerr.
The sketch was written in 1957 by Maj. Gen. James Kerr Crain, himself a distinguished Texan from Lavaca and DeWitt counties, a graduate of and an Army veteran of both World Wars. Our Major Kerr was Crain’s great-grandfather.
“My mother's maternal grandfather was Major James Kerr, for whom I am named,” wrote James Kerr Crain. “The title of Major derived from a commission he held in the army of the . This James Kerr played a prominent part in the early days of and of and like all who stood out in those days he was a hardy character. Major Kerr's grandfather, also named James was born in . He is described in John Henry Brown's Family Register, prepared in Indianola, Texas, in 1853, as "an Irishman fresh from the bog, very fond of his grog, and when groggy very piously inclined." This same Register relates that this James Kerr married the widow Hyde in in about 1746. From this marriage there were three children, two daughters and another James Kerr. The son, James Kerr, was born in October 8, 1749. He became a circuit rider of the Baptist church in what was then . in the course of the circuit riding he became acquainted with the family of Richard Wells. He fell in love with Patience Wells, reputed to have been so named because she was one of twenty-four children. His affection was reciprocated by Patience, but not by her parents, so the young couple eloped with Patience riding double behind the impetuous parson whose worldly goods consisted of one horse.
The newly married pair removed to and settled about two miles from , now (in 1853) . There in 1790 my great-grandfather James was born on September 24th. He was one of ten children. As this number crowded the family nest several of the young brood removed to which was then a part of French Louisiana. The Preacher and Patience visited their children in and there Patience died. Preacher James returned to and later married Phebe Bonham; there were no children of this marriage. By 1808 all of the Kerrs, including the father and his second wife, had removed to . The elder James Kerr is said to have been the first Protestant minister west of the .”
Well, Gentle Reader, I really hate to see that I’ve run out of room in my column this week: I haven’t gotten to the new interesting thing about Major James Kerr yet. Perhaps I can squeeze it in next week.
Until then, all the best.
Joe Herring Jr. is a native who hopes to write a book about the history of our area.
