in search of robert kerlin

Hi C.,

Jeepers, you ask tough questions !

As far as I know, there are no Smiths in my family. Lots of (Quaker) Browns, but no Smiths

I cannot send the names of Hannah and Robert’s siblings, as everything simply seems to stop there ( both born about the mid to late 1770′s). I canceled my subscription to Ancestry.com last year, as there was nothing new and I don’t quite feel good about how they do things, maybe they do it right, but, I just don’t know.There is a man named JIm Getz who wrote a book about Baltzer Getz. I found the book once on line at the Mormons, but my link has obviously changed, but he mentioned a Robert Kerlin, right time, right place.

I have heard from a man named Matthew Getz, but he as well can tell me nothing.

My info on this is here : http://robertkerlin.com/wp/?p=43 but I may have put up photo blocks as the whole site was trashed a few years ago and now I am getting spammers from China.

But I find your tailor info very interesting, for that strikes me as a trade that one really has to learn from someone else, apprenticeship . Proximity and all. Same street- sortof.

I am not really hung up on one profession, simply trying to eliminate certain things, because I am so very interested in why Robert Kerlin died so very deeply in debt only a few years after he left VA. It seems to me that he had a lot of land in VA.

I read once, somewhere, that Winchester was on the major route for folks heading to the west from the north. II seemed to be quite profitable at the time.

Robert and Hannah Kerlin’s children:

William B. Kerlin ( Brooks), born 1802  died about 1884 ( yes. He made the 1880 census ). An obit says that he was born in Winchester,  a family bible says Cedar Creek. ( More about that 1880 census later)

Wesley B. Kerlin, born around 1805, in Va, died  1876. The only reason that I doubt that he is actually not a son- perhaps a cousin- is that this family named all of their children after relatives. There are a passel of Roberts, Williams and Henrys, but not one Wesley. But he is buried in a family plot and his wife ( from the Giltner family : read fugitive slave act ) lived right next door to H.T.Kerlin, the youngest son of Hannah and Robert Kerlin. With her sister,who married a man with a rather odd name, like Hogg.

1808 Eliza B. Kerlin is born. She is buried in Mount Pleasant, Ohio. She died in 1823.

1812, Robert A. Kerlin is born, in VA. That’s my tailor. I think that he dies in  1877, and was buried  in H.T.’s plot.

1816 Sara Matilda Kerlin is born ( VA). She died March 15th, 1831, a little over 15 years old, in Mount Pleasant , Ohio.

Henry T. Kerlin  born in VA, ca 1816- 1817, died 1888. He and Sara could have been twins, who knows, but old H.T was obviously the brightest penny in the purse. His mother made her youngest child the executor of her will and he did very well in Louisville, going by the maps that I have seen of his property and the utterly lovely plot that he bought when Wesley died ( Cave Hill Cemetery), and the very large and sad monument he placed there when his first wife died.

William B. Kerlin  ( B for Brooks) died in 1884. He made that census and is buried in Steubenville, Ohio ( home of Dean Martin). He lists his father ( whom I believe to be Robert Kerlin) as having been born in PA and his mother ( Hannah X Kerlin) having been born in VA. We simply did not have time to stomp through Steubenville : for , after the chat with the grounds keeper of that old cemetery at Mount Pleasant, ( he was really interesting..) all that I wanted to do was stand at the edge of the river, outside of Martin’s Ferry and see West Virginia. Imagine that, the difference between being free and slave.

But all of my info does confirm that William B. Kerlin, Robert A. Kerlin, H.T. Kerlin and the two girls were siblings. Cemeteries, Wills, Obits,News clippings, Family Bibles – it just all fits together, perfectly.

Mount Pleasant, Ohio isn’t even a two horse town. It is a one donkey town and very difficult to access. I find it hard to believe that it was a major point of the Underground Railroad. It is so very far from the river, if one would have to walk. But it is beautiful and tragically sad, a town lost by time. The homes are lovely, but  many crumbling, historically important homes. We did not go to the Quaker Meeting House,  but to two cemeteries. Yup, if I ever win the lottery, I’ll get that one daughter’s tombstone straightened out and the tombstone of Samuel Carothers ( Robert A. my tailor , married his daughter) has totally lost it’s surface. Fell off, I suppose. Thank goodness for ladies who once cared about these things and transcribed them.

Robert Kerlin died in something 1823. If he had not died so deeply in debt, if it had not been published in the local papers, I do not think that I ever would have found him.

( http://robertkerlin.com/wp/?p=42 ) The Samuel Crothers listed here is the father of my tailor’s wife. It is a really small place, and after a while, one knows who lived there.

I suppose that I can find stamps somewhere, or ask Utah if they accept PayPal!

Your Grandparents sound fascinating.

Next , more attention to the maps-

once more, thank you-

sue

This entry was posted on Monday, August 16th, 2010 at 7:19 pm and is filed under EMail, Robert Kerlin, Robert Kerlin, Virginia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.