The Karr Family

Historic Environment Scotland says Cessford’s great tower was probably built after Andrew Ker of Altonburn received a charter of Cessford in 1446. In the 1523 English siege it was regarded as the third strongest place in Scotland, and it was burned again in 1543 and 1544.

That does not prove our American line descended from Cessford, but it strongly validates the historic setting Brad and Tim were researching.

Historic Environment Scotland’s history of Floors says the land had belonged to Kelso Abbey, was granted to the Kers of Cessford after the Reformation, and that the family left the battered Cessford stronghold for Floors around 1650.

This makes Brad’s photographs at Floors useful clan-history material even though they do not establish direct descent.

The newsletter’s colorful account of left-handed Kerr warriors is also part of Ferniehirst’s own official history. The castle history describes Andrew “Dand” Kerr as a formidable left-handed swordsman and preserves the tradition that Ferniehirst’s defensive stair was built to favor left-handed defenders.

We present this as a long-standing Kerr tradition rooted at the historic castle, not as a biological claim that all Kerr descendants were left-handed.

The newsletter calls an image in the Vestiarium Scoticum of 1842 the earliest known illustration of the “Kerr Tartan.” That is useful for the history of the modern tartan.

But the Vestiarium is one of the most controversial works in tartan history and is generally not accepted as the medieval manuscript its publishers claimed it reproduced. So it can document a 19th-century Kerr tartan tradition, not a medieval family uniform.

The Pennsylvania muster rolls list a Matthew Kear of Philadelphia as a private in the Fifth Pennsylvania Battalion and record him as taken prisoner on November 16, 1776. Older Karr research identifies this man as Matthew Kerr Sr.

The military entry is real; the final identity match to our Matthew should still be stated as strong rather than absolute until an original service record ties the soldier to the later Ohio family.

Soldier Joseph Buell recorded that Hamilton Kerr, the fort’s hunter, began building a house on the island in January 1787 and that soldiers were ordered out to help. The federal island history says a stockade and small cultivated field followed.

The scene is unusually vivid for family history: a frontier cabin beside a military fort, vegetables and livestock on the island, and the Kerr family arriving later that year.

Hamilton Kerr was a friend of frontier fighter Lewis Wetzel. This is a morally complicated part of the family setting: after Wetzel killed Delaware peace envoy Que-Sha-Shey, Hamilton sheltered him while Wetzel was wanted by the authorities.

The Fish & Wildlife history recounts soldiers silently crossing by canoe after midnight, surrounding the Kerr cabin and arresting Wetzel. The story should be understood in the violence of the Northwest Indian War rather than romanticized as a simple pioneer adventure.

A separate federal island history preserves an 1784 episode involving Hamilton Kerr, Lewis and George Wetzel, John Greene and another man on a trapping expedition before Fort Harmar was built. They camped on what later became Kerr’s Island and were ambushed near the Muskingum.

George Wetzel and Kerr’s dog were killed and Hamilton was wounded. It places Hamilton in this landscape several years before the rest of the family settled there.

After the 1790 Big Bottom attack, the Kerr and Niswonger families slept inside Fort Harmar and crossed to the island by day to care for animals and crops. A later local story says Matthew tried to protect the farm by buying forty mastiffs in Pittsburgh and bringing them downriver on a flatboat.

The federal history repeats the tale but introduces it with “it is said.” It is exactly the kind of colorful story worth preserving — as long as it stays labeled as tradition rather than fact.

The burial trail is clearer now. An early Marietta account says Matthew was buried in the community’s original Third Street / sand-hill burial ground. A 1906 history of Mound Cemetery says Matthew Kerr and Capt. Josiah Rogers were said to have been reinterred at Mound Cemetery in 1839, but that their individual graves were not marked.

A separate transcription of an 1871 Marietta Register article says most of the burials from the old Third Street ground were exhumed and moved to Mound Cemetery about 1839. The Washington County Historical Society later included Matthew on its list of Revolutionary soldiers buried at Mound Cemetery.

There is still a conflict: an old newspaper-derived list calls Matthew’s grave unknown, while a 2025 Ohio History Connection compilation says “Grave at Mound Cemetery” and records an SAR marker. The safest conclusion is that Mound Cemetery is the likely final burial place, but the exact plot and history of any marker remain unresolved.

An older Karr research letter — now available online — says its writer ordered Kentucky land grants and surveys for Matthew Kerr/Karr Jr. It describes him moving down the Ohio River in 1796 and names sons Alexander, George and “Bill.”

That is a major clue because “Bill” normally means William. The same research identifies Alexander as a separate son, so the old family reconstruction does not force Alexander and William to be the same person.

The missing proof remains very precise: was this Bill the William A. Karr who married Caziah/Kasiah and fathered Andrew Jackson Karr?

A 1908 history of Meigs County says Hamilton Kerr was born in Philadelphia in 1764, became a noted scout, married Susannah Niswonger, and settled below the mouth of Leading Creek on the Ohio River in 1797. An Ohio geological history adds that Hamilton was boiling salt from Leading Creek brine in a camp kettle as early as 1796.

That gives Hamilton a life after the Fort Harmar stories: he moved from frontier scout to landowner and early settler in the lower Ohio country.

When Salisbury Township held its first election on July 27, 1805, Hamilton Kerr was elected trustee with James G. Phelps and Felix Benedict. He also appears among the township’s electors for governor that year, and later recollections place him helping lay out an early road toward Shade River.

After Hamilton’s death in 1821, the Meigs history says his estate was administered by Colonel Everett, while his widow and daughter Sophia moved north. That probate file is now a high-value research target because it may identify relatives or debts that connect collateral branches.

East Fork Cemetery records George Henry Karr Sr., born April 14, 1818 and died December 15, 1890, as husband of Sarah E. Wells, born February 22, 1822 and died March 17, 1890. Betsey’s recovered genealogy places George Henry in the same sibling group as Emily Matilda, Andrew Jackson, John Dial and Rachel Karr.

A Franklin County federal-pension-roll transcription adds a valuable geographic detail: George H. Karr, Fitts Hill, Illinois, pension no. 190,840, receiving $8 for “dropsy, scurvy.” The exact military unit has not yet been identified, so the site does not assign one.

Fitts Hill is especially important because the 1872–73 Illinois Industrial University catalogue later gives the same post office for young William Alexander Karr, Andrew’s son. That makes the tiny community another thread tying the generations together.

East Fork Cemetery independently records Emily Matilda (Karr) Ice, born January 29, 1825 and died March 24, 1883, wife of Andrew Jackson Ice. Their marriage is given as January 30, 1840.

East Fork labels Andrew “Capt 18th IL Inf”, but the 18th Illinois Infantry Company C roster gives a different and more specific service record: he mustered as 2nd lieutenant on May 28, 1861, was promoted to 1st lieutenant on October 21, 1861, and resigned February 1, 1862. Franklin County’s 1918 history likewise names William S. Crawford as captain and Andrew J. Ice as one of the lieutenants. No source found so far shows Andrew reaching captain.

A Franklin County pension-roll transcription also lists Andrew J. Ice at Parrish, Illinois, pension no. 197,250, receiving $15 for disease of the spine and nervous system, dated November 1881. The name, county setting, date and confirmed 18th Illinois service make this a very strong match to Emily’s husband, though the full federal pension file is still needed.

Another East Fork entry names their daughter Rachel J. Ice Fleming as a daughter of Andrew J. and Emily Matilda Karr Ice. Emily’s dates, place and surname closely match Betsey’s sibling reconstruction, making this one of the strongest collateral branches to search for probate, pension and family-bible material that might identify William and Kasiah directly.

On September 28, 1854, an appeal bond names John D. Karr and A.J. Karr together. John was appealing a $20 judgment and A.J. signed as his surety.

The adult John cannot be Andrew’s young son John, born about 1848. The record therefore puts Andrew Jackson Karr in a direct legal relationship with the older John D. Karr only weeks before Andrew died. It supports the sibling-family cluster without proving the exact kinship.

A grand jury indicted John D. Karr, then supervisor of a local road district, for failing to keep the public road in repair. The printed charge complains of defective bridges, fallen timber, logs, brush, mud holes, ruts, gullies, ditches, grubs and stumps.

It is a rare ordinary-life record: the older John was not just a name in a census. He held a local road office and got called into court when the road was judged unsafe or neglected.

Franklin County’s marriage index records William P. Armes marrying Jemima Karr on February 6, 1866. East Fork Cemetery later records Jemima (Karr) Armes, died May 4, 1909, wife of William P. Armes.

Her exact relationship to Andrew’s family remains unproved, but she lived in the same Karr/Armes/East Fork community. Because women’s later death records and descendants sometimes preserve maiden-family information, Jemima remains a useful collateral target.

East Fork Cemetery contains one especially tantalizing entry: A. Karr, born September 12, 1819, died February 17, 1879. The birth year falls directly between George Henry Karr (1818) and Emily Matilda Karr (1825), but no reliable web-indexed record has yet supplied the full given name.

The date places A. Karr in the same generation as George Henry (1818), Andrew Jackson (1826) and the older John D. Karr (c. 1827–28). That makes the burial more important as a collateral-family lead, but age and cemetery alone do not prove a sibling relationship.

Exact-date searches under Aaron, Alexander, Abraham, Amos, Archibald and Andrew produced no defensible identification. The site therefore leaves this person anonymous rather than forcing a match. The best next checks are the 1850–1870 local censuses, 1879 probate/death material, deeds and any surviving East Fork plot or sexton records.

The Illinois Industrial University catalogue lists Karr, William Alexander among the students and gives his home post office as Fitts Hill. That matches the tiny Franklin County place named in the family papers for Dr. William Alexander Karr.

It is a rare contemporary glimpse of him as a young man before marriage and the family’s move west.

The 1902 Topeka directory catches the Karr household in one snapshot at 1030 Monroe Street:

• W. A. Karr — druggist
• Ernest A. Karr — lawyer
• Myrtle M. Karr — student
• Ortee C. Karr — milliner

It independently supports the family memory of William’s drugstore work and shows Ernest already practicing law before he left Kansas for Seattle.

Betsey’s report describes Andrew Jackson Karr’s son John as a physician who moved from Illinois to Minnesota, then to Kansas and finally to Alva, Oklahoma. The family account says he practiced medicine, owned a drugstore, and later moved the store during the opening of the Cherokee Strip.

A 1902 Woods County directory independently confirms the Alva part of the story: John D. Karr, physician; Lulu G. Karr, pharmacist; and Karr W. L. & Co., druggists owned by William L. and John D. Karr.

The binder also says John was elected mayor of Alva in 1897. That specific office remains unconfirmed. But a later history based on old Northwestern Normal School files independently names Dr. J. D. Karr among the Alva citizens who spent time at Guthrie lobbying the territorial legislature for the school in 1897. The bill passed the council in February, the house on March 10, and was signed March 12. That gives John a documented role in one of Alva’s major civic campaigns.

The Betsey papers say Jasper W. Karr was killed when struck by a switch engine at El Reno, Oklahoma, on June 22, 1907. The family report also records his marriages to Isabell Groot and later Frances Felts.

Franklin County records independently confirm Jasper’s 1889 marriage to Frances F. Felts, but I have not yet found a period newspaper or railroad record confirming the accident. The death story belongs on the site, clearly labeled as coming from the family archive while the search continues.

The Oregon Historical Society holds a circa-1864 carte-de-visite portrait of Albert G. Hovey. Its catalog identifies him as a New Hampshire native who lived in Corvallis and Springfield. That gives this collateral relative something rare for a mid-nineteenth-century family story: a named surviving photograph held by a major state archive.

Susan Kuebler remembered that Ernest Day “Pops” Karr went to law school in Kansas and then headed west to “seek his fortune,” reaching Seattle in 1904 and building Karr & Gregory with George Gregory.

A University of Kansas alumni report from 1907 gives unusually strong corroboration: “Day Karr, l ’00” had married Jessie Payne and was living in Seattle, where he was practicing law. That also shows Ernest used his middle name professionally.

A surviving February 15, 1938 letter from Spokane was addressed directly to Day Karr, Regional Administrator, Securities and Exchange Commission, 821 Second Avenue, Seattle. The writer enclosed a new SEC trading release and asked Karr’s office to explain how it applied to business between Vancouver and Spokane.

It is a small record, but a good one: it shows regional market participants turning to Pops personally for help interpreting the young federal securities system, and it places his work in the cross-border Northwest economy rather than only in court cases.

The SEC still preserves Day Karr’s August 5–6, 1938 address, “The Securities Act of 1933 and Its Application to Mining Securities.” He delivered it to the Mining Association of Montana at Dillon while serving as regional administrator.

The speech is unusually useful family history because it preserves Karr’s own words about his work. He explained that the securities law sought full and fair disclosure to investors, warned about dishonest mining promoters, and stressed that legitimate mining ventures still had access to capital.

Susan Kuebler’s history says her father worked at a grocery store at the corner of Brooklyn and Ravenna when he was twelve, then spent high-school and college summers at the McKinstry Candy Company, remembered as Society Candy.

He later followed his father into law. The family binder says he founded the firm that became Karr, Tuttle and Campbell and held major bar and insurance-law leadership positions.

The 1969 Washington State Bar profile says a 1941 newspaper described Payne as Seattle’s “native son” and reported that the local Junior Chamber of Commerce had selected him as the young man who rendered the most outstanding community service since 1940.

Seattle’s official Clerk Files Index adds a concrete municipal role: on September 7, 1943, the city recorded the appointment of Payne Karr as Transportation Commissioner. His 2001 State Bar memorial later described him as a member of the Seattle Transit Commission.

Those posts help explain why his later 1951 Chamber of Commerce agenda paid so much attention to downtown traffic, rail facilities and a second Lake Washington bridge.

A 1940 Ninth Circuit opinion, Hicks v. Bekins Moving & Storage Co., lists Day Karr, Payne Karr and Howard Tuttle, all of Seattle, as counsel for Bekins.

That one line of a federal case reporter captures an important family transition: Ernest — professionally “Day Karr” — was practicing alongside his son Payne and future name-partner Howard Tuttle in the same firm.

The University of Washington’s 1935–36 catalog lists Payne Karr, ’29, as treasurer of the UW Alumni Association. A decade later, the 1946–47 catalog lists Mrs. Payne Karr, B.A. 1929 — Susan Hovey Fitch Karr — as vice-president of the Alumni Association. This corrects an earlier version of this site that called her president.

Susan also appears in Pi Beta Phi’s June 1926 Arrow as Susan Fitch, ’29, Tacoma. The Washington Alpha chapter report says that, among the freshmen, Susan Fitch had a part in a university dance drama. It is a small but unusually personal glimpse of Susu as a UW student years before the later family and civic records.

A 1936 Toastmasters directory lists Payne Karr as secretary of Seattle Toastmasters No. 1, which met at the Washington Athletic Club. By 1943, Seattle Municipal News lists him on the Municipal League of Seattle board of trustees, and city records soon document his appointment as Transportation Commissioner.

Those records show a steady civic path before his later Chamber and bar leadership: public speaking, nonpartisan city-government work, transportation policy and then broader Seattle business leadership.

In 1954, Payne published a law-journal article titled “Use and Abuse of Civil Aeronautic Board Investigation Reports in Civil Actions Arising Out of Aircraft Accidents.” It shows a specific part of his legal practice that is lost when he is described only as a Seattle lawyer.

His professional reach later became national. Washington State Bar News reported him as president-elect of the International Association of Insurance Counsel in 1960, and his 1968 profile lists him as a past president before he became president of the Washington State Bar.

A 1954 Broadcasting magazine profile of Seattle station KIRO lists Payne Karr among the trustees of Queen City Broadcasting Company, the station’s operator. The profile identifies him as a partner in Karr, Tuttle & Campbell, a past president of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce and former chairman of the Seattle Transit Commission.

This adds another piece to his civic life: by the mid-1950s Payne was not only a lawyer and city leader, but also part of the governing circle of one of Seattle’s major radio stations.

The family now identifies the newspaper that published the recovery photograph as The Seattle Times, not TIME magazine. Earlier versions of this site preserved the mistaken TIME recollection; that has now been corrected.

The exact Seattle Times issue and page still need to be pinned down in the newspaper archive. Until that page is recovered, the site treats the publication name as a strong family recollection while the photograph itself remains independently documented by World Press Photo.

The lawsuit eventually became Karr v. State, 53 Wash. App. 1, 765 P.2d 316 (1988). Barbara Karr and other personal representatives of Mount St. Helens victims argued that the state’s restricted zones had been drawn too narrowly.

The Washington Court of Appeals did not hold the state legally liable. It affirmed summary judgment for Washington, ruling that Governor Ray’s decisions about the closure zones were protected discretionary policy decisions made after weighing the available risks and advice. Review was denied in 1989.

That legal result does not erase the point that mattered to the Karr family: Day Bradley Karr and his sons died outside the restricted zones then established by the state. Later reporting on the eruption likewise found that only a small number of the known victims were inside the government-designated danger zone.

On June 30, 1980, USGS photographer Joseph G. Rosenbaum photographed the damaged Karr pickup on the north side of the South Fork Toutle River. The archive description identifies the truck as Day Bradley Karr’s and records that he and his two sons had been caught on the west side of the volcano.

Unlike the recovery photograph of Andy, the truck image documents the site without showing a victim. It is a good visual record to keep with the family history.

Bob was born in Seattle on March 6, 1937 and grew up in the Madrona and Mount Baker neighborhoods. He attended Franklin High School, where his memorial remembers him as a Franklin Quakers cheerleader who could still perform the old cheers for his grandchildren decades later.

Before starting at the University of Washington in fall 1954, Bob and friends hitchhiked to Walla Walla to work the pea and wheat harvests for spending money. His sister Sue Karr then introduced him to her sorority sister Judith Ann “Judy” Hazen. Sue and Judy had recently won a singing competition with “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.” Bob and Judy graduated from UW in 1958 and married in 1960.

A Washington State Bar publication lists Robert Payne Karr among the successful July 1961 bar examinees. By January 1968, Bar News reported that he had been made a partner in Karr, Tuttle, Campbell, Koch & Campbell — practicing alongside the law firm associated with his father and grandfather’s Seattle legacy.

In 1988, when Karr Tuttle Campbell moved about 250 people into 66,000 square feet at Seattle’s new 1201 Third Avenue tower, Washington State Bar News identified firm shareholder Robert P. Karr as the person who supervised the office selection and design. The two-year project included new computer infrastructure, conference facilities, a library and space reserved for future growth.

It is a good snapshot of Bob’s role beyond day-to-day legal practice: he was helping steer the physical and organizational future of one of Seattle’s long-established law firms.

One story worth preserving alongside the family’s law-firm history is that of Muriel Mawer. Before joining the firm, she co-founded an all-woman Seattle law partnership, served in federal legal posts and became the first woman to chair a local housing authority. Under her leadership, the Seattle Housing Authority also became an early leader in racially integrated public housing.

Howard Tuttle recruited Mawer to the Karr firm in 1953. She built an estate- and tax-planning practice there and became a partner in 1962. Her career shows that the history of the firm bearing the Karr name also intersects with wider changes in Seattle law and public life.

Karr Tuttle Campbell traced its Seattle origins to the partnership of “Day Karr” and George Gregory in the early 1900s. The Karr name remained attached to the firm through generations of Seattle legal history.

The firm announced that it would close effective March 31, 2025 after roughly 120 years of service. Later that year, Seattle-area auctioneers offered the firm’s long-built corporate art collection. The September 2025 Northwest Modernism sale included works by artists such as Mark Tobey, Guy Anderson, Kenneth Callahan, Paul Horiuchi, Frank Okada, Richard Gilkey, Alden Mason, Z.Z. Wei and Dale Chihuly.

The auction adds a final chapter to the firm’s material history: after the lawyers and staff moved on, a collection assembled in the offices over many years also left the firm.

The family memorial’s “first on the West Coast” wording should be preserved, but not treated as completely settled. A Federal Way historical timeline cites a 1973 newspaper account saying that Weston Betts built and operated a dry-storage boat marina at Redondo on Puget Sound in 1961.

That earlier facility means the exact “first” claim depends on how the Boat Loft’s rack-and-forklift concept was defined. The safest description is that Bill founded a pioneering West Coast dry-storage marina, while preserving the family obituary’s stronger claim as part of the record.

The Port of Edmonds’ own history lists the Boat Loft as a dry-boat-storage tenant by 1979. A 1990 western-Washington moorage study lists the Boat Loft at 465 Admiral Way with 200 land-storage spaces.

The Port purchased Boatloft Inc. from the private operator in 1996. The old sheds were demolished in 1998 and replaced by the Port’s modern dry-stack facilities. In other words, the storage model Bill helped establish became part of the long-term infrastructure of the Edmonds marina.

After the Boat Loft, Bill returned to finance and founded Evergreen Capital Management, which he ran until retiring in 2001. His memorial remembers engines, cars, boats and extensive travel with Jill, especially cruising Desolation Sound aboard Cheers.

His community life also continued: later Bainbridge Community Foundation reports list a Jill & Bill Karr donor-advised fund and recognize Bill and Jill among longtime community supporters.

Susan Kuebler’s account says John Payne Hovey — a musician — moved west with Rebecca Maharry Miller, worked for the Tacoma Logging Company, ran a mercantile store and owned Tacoma real estate. Much of the land and money was lost in the depression of 1893.

The family later lived at 307 North G Street, remembered as a beautiful old Tacoma mansion. Their daughter Ivy Susan “Trixie” Hovey returned there with three small children after her husband James Grimes Fitch disappeared from family life.

The family history says Susan Hovey Fitch worked hard enough to become valedictorian at Stadium High School and then attended the University of Washington. Three Tacoma supporters — Mrs. W. W. Seymore, Mr. Emery Walker and Mr. Walter Lawshin — helped pay her tuition.

The detail Susan Kuebler made sure to preserve: her mother later repaid all three.

Susan remembered spending time on prairie-like land near Tacoma at “Uncle Jack’s.” The children called it Violet Hollow and named three meadow trees after themselves. In summer, Trixie took the streetcar into Tacoma to teach piano and play at local churches.

The family tradition says Violet Hollow later became the Tacoma Mall. I have not independently located the property from that nickname, so the site preserves this as family memory rather than mapped fact.

After Day and Susan married, Trixie would ride the bus to Seattle to watch the Seattle Rainiers. Susan Kuebler remembered her making braided rugs while she watched baseball at Sick’s Stadium.

Sick’s Stadium opened in 1938, so this memory belongs to the later part of Trixie’s Seattle visits, before her death in 1951.

Trixie taught Susan Latin when Susan was ten. During high school and college summers, Susan in turn taught Latin, piano and shorthand. The family history remembers money as tight but Susan as determined, positive and unwilling to complain.

It is a good example of why the scanned documents matter: this is personality and lived experience that no census can supply.

The binder says Day and Susan met at the University of Washington when they were sixteen and courted for eight years. Trixie was described as one of their biggest supporters throughout the courtship and marriage.

Day and Susan married on February 2, 1933, a date now proved by their King County marriage certificate, and remained together until Day’s death in October 2001. Susan died five weeks later.

The family tradition says the older William Payne struck the young George Washington with a stick during an election dispute and expected a duel the next day, only to receive Washington’s apology. Smithsonian notes that the story comes through Parson Weems, so historians cannot treat every detail as proved.

A separate 1762 account in Washington’s hand, signed by William Payne as Fairfax County sheriff, does prove that the two men had direct public dealings. The vivid quarrel remains a historic account inside a relationship that the records themselves confirm.

Brooke Payne’s The Paynes of Virginia, drawing on surviving colonial records, places John Payne in Virginia by the early 1650s. A 1659/60 affidavit gives his age as about 44. In 1653 he bought 940 acres on Pepetick Creek, and from 1653–1666 he accumulated more than 5,000 acres through a series of patents.

County records also show him provisioning and transporting Burgesses to Jamestown and later serving as a collector of tithes. By April 1690 a deed referred to him as deceased.

A 1673 Rappahannock County court reference identifies “William Payne, son of Mr. John Payne.” William later became a merchant, planter and county justice in Westmoreland County.

His will, dated January 31, 1697/98 and proved February 23, names his eldest son William, son Edward, daughters Anne, Betty and Mary, and his wife. That makes this part of the Payne descent much more than a later family tradition.

A Westmoreland County court order dated August 26, 1713 is unusually specific: it identifies William as the son of the deceased William Paine and says his father’s own account book recorded his birth on August 10, 1692. The same proceeding names William’s wife Alicia.

The family pedigree’s William + Alicia Jones generation therefore aligns closely with an early county-court record.

You were right that Betsey’s broader material points to a Thomas Payne in the early 1700s. Research based on Brooke Payne’s work identifies a Thomas born about 1700 as a son of George Payne. In 1713 Thomas, William and Jane Payne were described in court as orphans of George Payne under Thomas Pace’s care.

The important distinction is genealogical: George Payne was another son of immigrant John Payne. The Jessie Glick Payne line reconstructed above descends through John’s son William, so Thomas c. 1700 appears to be a collateral cousin branch, not the direct step between John and Jessie.

The reconstructed line places William Payne (1725–1782), son of William and Alicia, on the 1774 Fairfax County committee named by the Fairfax Resolves alongside George Washington and George Mason. His eldest son, Colonel William Payne (1751/52–1813), served as a captain in the 1st Virginia State Regiment at Valley Forge and later as one of Washington’s honorary funeral pallbearers.

Those three links are documented. The older story that William knocked Washington down during an election dispute remains a historic account rather than proved fact.

The five core Karr-related files are now preserved in the project. Future requests should focus on deeds and title transfers for Section 1, T8S R3E, any estate/probate material for the older Karr generation, and records that identify William Alexander Karr and Kasiah before Andrew’s generation.

Order the full pension files for George H. Karr 190,840 and Andrew J. Ice 197,250. The supporting affidavits may name spouses, children, residences, witnesses and relatives.

IRAD holds many Illinois county records and is the best next route for the 1849 John/James Carr + Elizabeth Swofford entries and the 1862 John D. Karr + Margaret Eplon entry.

Request all available papers for Flat Lick Creek grants 13630 and 13671, including warrant or certificate, entry, survey, plat and grant. Grant 13630 is tied in the older research to County Court Certificate 690.

The continuation audit identifies Jane Kerr, born in Ireland about 1764 and later associated with Shawneetown, Gallatin County, Illinois, as a compiled daughter of Matthew Kerr Sr. and Margaret. Shawneetown is close enough to the Franklin County Karr cluster to make this the first useful southern-Illinois geographic thread from the Matthew branch.

This does not prove that Andrew Jackson Karr descends from Matthew Kerr. Jane’s identity, residence and descendants should be checked against the 1911 Kerr booklet and original Gallatin County records before the lead carries more weight.

The continuation package identifies two sets of published family histories that may explain where later online trees came from. For the Matthew branch, the key work is James M. Kerr’s 1911 Matthew Kerr: Revolutionary Hero and Pathfinder. For the separate New Jersey branch, the main works are William C. Armstrong’s 1931 The Kerr Clan of New Jersey and Milo Custer’s 1922 Karr family records.

These are useful compiled sources, not proof of our descent. The next step is to read them against probate, land, tax, court and vital records rather than copy their pedigree claims into the direct line.