Notes on Jane’s Family Background

Jane’s parents were Samuel Kerr and Mary Calhoun. Samuel was descended from a Kerr family closely connected to and intermarried for generations with the Pickens family, which settled prior to 1720 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and then migrated in the 1730s to Orange (later Augusta) County, Virginia. Samuel Kerr appears in the baptismal registry of Reverend John Craig of Tinkling Spring Presbyterian church in Augusta County, which shows that Samuel, son of Samuel and Margaret Kerr, was baptized by Reverend Craig at Tinkling Spring on 29 November 1741.[2] Margaret’s surname is not given in this record, but it’s clear to me that she was Margaret Pickens, daughter of William Pickens and Margaret Pike, a point I’ll discuss in detail in a later posting.

Samuel Kerr, father of Jane Kerr Green, died in May or June 1781 in Ninety-Six (later Abbeville) District as a result of wounds he received in battle, evidently at the siege of Ninety-Six, at which he served as a captain under his cousin General Andrew Pickens, who married Rebecca Calhoun, the sister of Samuel Kerr’s wife Mary Calhoun. On 19 May 1785, Mary was granted an annuity by the state of South Carolina for the Revolutionary service of Samuel Kerr, and on 5 February 1787, she received an additional annuity for herself and her children.[3]

As a previous posting has noted, Jane Kerr Green is named as the daughter of Mary Calhoun Kerr in Mary’s 21 January 1805 will in Abbeville District, South Carolina, which also made Jane’s husband John Green an executor of the will along with Andrew Pickens Norris, Mary’s half-brother, and George Bowie, husband of Jane’s niece Margaret Pickens, daughter of Andrew Pickens and Rebecca Calhoun.[4] Mary Calhoun Kerr was the daughter of Ezekiel Calhoun and Jane/Jean Ewing, two families that were, as were the Kerrs, of Ulster Scots origin. As with the Kerrs, the Calhouns settled first after immigrating to the U.S. in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, before moving up the valley of Virginia, remaining there for a time, then finally settling in the Long Cane region of what would become Abbeville County, South Carolina. This Calhoun family is the family to which John Caldwell Calhoun, who held the office of U.S. vice-president among other offices, belonged; he was the son of Ezekiel Calhoun’s brother, and married his cousin Floride Bonneau Colhoun, a daughter of Mary Calhoun Kerr’s brother John Ewing Colhoun.

Pendleton and Abbeville District, South Carolina, Records

Mary Calhoun Kerr died in Abbeville District between 21 January 1805, when she made her will, and 11 February 1805, when an order was given for the appraisal of her estate. As a previous posting shows, by the time Mary Calhoun Kerr died in 1805, her daughter Jane and husband John Green were living on the east bank of the Keowee River in Pendleton District, South Carolina, where they settled immediately after marrying around 1788 and where, by 1790, it appears they had begun to manage the plantation of Jane’s uncle, Keowee Heights, in Pendleton District, as John E. Colhoun and wife Floride Bonneau Colhoun lived in the South Carolina lowcountry on land that had come to John from her Bonneau family.

As the posting I linked in the preceding paragraph shows, in a 12 May 1793 letter John Green sent John Ewing Colhoun from Keowee Heights, John Green mentions Jane, stating that if Mrs. (Floride Bonneau) Colhoun had concerns about her safety should she visit the upcountry, John and Jane Green would escort her, carrying guns that John owned.[5] The posting linked above has a digital image of this letter. Another letter from John Green to John E. Colhoun dated 12 August 1793 also mentions Jane, ending with the statement, “Jane desires to be remembered to Mrs. Calhoun I am yours with Respect Jno Green Junr.”[6]

As another previous posting notes, Jane Kerr Green is also named in a 28 May 1805 deed of her aunt Floride Bonneau Colhoun which deeded an enslaved woman Nancy to Jane’s sister Ruth, and which stated that if Ruth should die without issue, Nancy was then to be owned jointly by Ruth’s sisters Jane Green and Catherine Mecklin.[7] Floride Bonneau Colhoun was living in St. John’s Parish in Berkeley County, South Carolina, when she made this deed.

As the posting linked in the preceding paragraph also states, Jane was a signatory to the 4 May 1818 Pendleton District deed in which she and husband John Green sold their 1,345 acres on the Keowee in Pendleton District as they prepared to move their family to Alabama.[8] Jane relinquished her dower interest in this land on 28 October 1818 in Pendleton District, and it appears to me that the Greens then moved shortly after that date from South Carolina to Alabama.[9] The linked posting also notes that by the time John Green and Jane Kerr made the move to Alabama, Jane had borne eleven children, with the last, their son George Sidney, born 2 August 1817 in Pendleton District. John and Jane moved to Alabama with nine of their children, while their oldest-born child Samuel Kerr Green and his younger brother Ezekiel Calhoun Green headed to Tennessee (and in Ezekiel’s case, Kentucky) as their parents made the move from South Carolina to Alabama.

Bibb County, Alabama, Records

The last posting before this one documents Jane’s appearance in John Green’s Bibb County, Alabama, estate records. As that posting indicates, at the sale of John Green’s personal estate on 13 November 1837, Jane was the primary buyer, buying, in addition to household furniture and kitchen items, a bay horse and carriage and enslaved persons Abraham/Abram, his wife Winney, and their children Patsey, Sina, Lucy, Bessy?, Ephraim, Elizabeth, and Nancy.[10]

As the posting linked in the previous paragraph also states, it’s clear from John Green’s estate records and other records that his widow Jane continued the operation of John’s plantation with her sons James H. Green, John Ewing Green, and Joscelin B. Green pooling their land as well as the land Jane acquired from John Green’s estate to keep the plantation viable and to expand it over a number of years. Jane continued living in the house southeast of Woodstock, Alabama, that John Green and his son John E. Green built between 1830-4, along with John E. Green, who died unmarried, and his brother James H. Green and James’s family. Following Jane’s death on 2 November 1855, James’s family lived in the house, with James’s daughter Mary Caroline (“Callie) Green, who married John Rucker Caffee, living in the house up to her death on 6 January 1939, after which the house and land passed to a Hamilton family who sold the house and farm to Ellis Davis Clouse in 1946.

The 1850 federal census enumerates Jane in the household of her son James H. Green in Bibb County.[11] The census states that Jane was aged 82 and was born in South Carolina. The census shows James H. Green with $3,000 real worth; the 1850 agricultural schedule for Bibb County shows him with 400 acres of improved and 500 acres of unimproved land, all valued at $3,000.[12] This document shows James operating what appears to be a sizable plantation, with three horses, seven mules, twelve milk cows, two working oxen, thirty other cattle, 45 sheep, and 50 swine, all valued at $1,150. In the previous year, the farm operation had produced two bushels of wheat, 1,500 of corn, and 200 of oats. There is no slot on this 1850 agricultural census in Bibb County for bales of cotton produced in the previous year. The 1860 federal agricultural schedule shows that in the decade 1850-1860, James had increased his landholdings to 400 acres of improved land and 1,500 acres of unimproved land, with the plantation producing forty-seven 400-pound bales of cotton (among other produce) in the previous year.[13]

The extensiveness of the Green plantation in 1850, not long before Jane’s death — again: James H. Green was now operating what had been his father’s plantation in Bibb County, augmented and expanded by landholdings pooled by his mother and brothers John and Joscelin — can also be measured by the number of enslaved persons James H. Green is shown holding on the 1850 federal slave census.[14] This source shows him holding twenty-nine enslaved persons. These would have been, I think, very likely enslaved persons owned jointly by James and his mother Jane, with the labor of these enslaved people producing the plantation’s crops, caring for its livestock, and so on.

At some point around 1850, portraits were made of Jane Kerr Green, her son James Hamilton Green, James’s wife Sarah Echols Randolph Green, and James and Sarah’s oldest son John Randolph Green. These portraits, whose painter is unknown (to me, at least), hung in the Green house until it was broken up following the death of Mary Caroline Green Rucker and its furnishings sold, and today are in the possession of a descendant in Virginia who has kindly sent me digital images of photographs he had made of each of these portraits. I’ll share the ones of James, his wife Sarah, and their son John when I post about them. The portrait of Jane, capturing her as she looked not many years prior to her death, wearing an old-fashioned mobcap that had gone out of fashion for younger women by this period, is at the head of this posting.  

When I compare Jane’s portrait with the one of her uncle John Ewing Colhoun that appears in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, which I have posted previously, I do see a strong family resemblance. To my eye, uncle and niece share similar expressions and have similarly shaped faces and chins, and their noses and eyes are much alike.

Jane’s Death and Estate Records

Jane Kerr Green died 2 November 1855 at the Green family house in Bibb County and was buried beside her husband John Green and several of her children who predeceased her — Mary Calhoun Green Woods, Lucinda Green, and John Ewing Green — in the family cemetery near the Green house, a cemetery that, as noted above, was later relocated to Tannehill Historical State Park in Tuscaloosa County about five miles northwest of the Greens’ homeplace. On 17 March 1856, Jane’s son James H. Green applied for letters of administration on her estate and was granted them, giving security in the sum of $3,000 with George B. Randolph, and J.N. Smith.[15] William S. Hayes and Milton A. Randolph were ordered to appraise.[16] George B. Randolph was, I think, likely the brother of James H. Green’s wife Sarah Echols Randolph — though I have not proven that connection. George Randolph lived next to James and Sarah per the 1850 federal census and nearby in 1860, and is of an age to be Sarah’s brother. J.N. Smith was Jonathan Newton Smith (1814-1885), husband of Jane Kerr Green’s granddaughter Frances Jane Green, a daughter of Joscelin B. Green and wife Elizabeth Nichols. Jonathan N. Smith was a principal partner in the Little Cahaba Iron Works on the Cahaba River in Bibb County, along with William Phineas Browne and Alexander K. Shepard, and in 1861 he developed the Brierfield Furnace in Bibb County.[17] He represented Bibb County in the Alabama legislature following the Civil War.

On 14 April 1856, James H. Green presented the estate inventory to court and it was filed.[18] The inventory is likely recorded in Bibb County’s Administrator Records Bk. H, which covers the period 1855-7 and definitely has information about Jane Kerr Green’s estate, according to abstracts of that book’s index. But for reasons unbeknownst to me, this records book is not among those available digitally in the FamilySearch collection of Bibb County probate records, which skip from Administrator Records Bk. G to Bk. N. I think the account of the sale of Jane’s estate is also almost certainly in Administrator Records Bk. H — and because this book is not available digitally at FamilySearch, I have copies of neither the inventory nor the sale.

On 25 September 1857, James H. Green filed vouchers and appealed for the final settlement of Jane’s estate, which was set for 23 November.[19] The appeal for the final settlement names the following minor heirs of Jane Green’s estate: John K. Green, Samuel K. Green, Mary M. Green (these are all children of Ezekiel C. Green, though this is not stated in the minutes), and the children of George S. Green, who were Francis P., Elias J., Benjamin C., George W., Agnes J., and Sarah E. Green. William M. Wilson was appointed guardian ad litem for the minor heirs. The court minutes also note that the following heirs of Jane Green lived out of state: Samuel K. Green, Elizabeth B. Green, wife of James Thompson, Benjamin Green, and Jane C. Green, wife of Thomas Keesee.

On 23 November 1857, James H. Green’s final settlement of the estate was recorded.[20] The sum of $514.85 was divided among the heirs, who are named as Samuel K. Green, Elizabeth Thompson, Benjamin Green, Jane C. Keesee, James H. Green (these being Jane’s living children), the children of Joscelin B. Green (Susan M., wife of Joseph D. Neely, Frances J., wife of Jonathan N. Smith, William N. Green, and Eliza C. Green), the children of Mary C. Woods (Elizabeth W. Woods, James L. Woods, and Rebecca, wife of John Wallace), the children of Ezekiel C. Green (John K. Green, Samuel K. Green, and Mary M. Green), and the children of George S. Green (Francis P. Green, Elias J. Green, Benjamin C. Green, George W. Green, Agnes J. Green, and Sarah E. Green). The bulk of Jane’s property was tied up at the time of her death, it seems to me, in the house and land that would pass on to her son James and his family, who lived with her during the final period of her life.

According to William Oscar Taylor, whose 1983 manuscript about the Green family was discussed in a previous posting, John Green’s wife was a Sue or Sun Ewen (he gives both names).[21] This is, of course, incorrect information. From the May and August 1793 letters cited above, which John Green sent to John Ewing Colhoun, we know that John Green’s wife was named Jane, and the will of Jane’s mother Mary Calhoun Kerr makes clear, as also discussed above, that John Green’s wife Jane was Jane Kerr, daughter of Samuel Kerr and Mary Calhoun. The manuscript compiled by Cornelius Marion Hutton sketching the genealogical connections of the Calhoun family — this was also discussed in a previous posting — states that Samuel Kerr and Mary Calhoun’s daughter Jane married a Mr. Green.[22]

The Taylor manuscript also states that John Green’s wife “Sue/Sun Ewen” “was not only a very large woman but, in time, became very fat. She was said to have weighed 500 lbs.” But the portrait of Jane painted about 1850 does not suggest to me that she was a corpulent woman. Note that the surname Ewing passes down in the Green family tree from Jane/Jean Ewing, the mother of Mary Calhoun, who married Samuel Kerr and whose daughter Jane married John Green. The surname Ewing was used through multiple generations of the Green and Calhoun families as a given name in honor of Jane/Jean Ewing, wife of Ezekiel Calhoun, the parents of Mary Calhoun Kerr. Jane Kerr was named for her grandmother Jane Ewing Calhoun, and Mary Calhoun Kerr’s brother John Ewing Colhoun got his middle name from the same grandmother. John Ewing Colhoun’s name — John Ewing — then passed down as a given name in multiple generations of the Green family.

In my next posting, I’ll provide information about the children of John Green and Jane Kerr other than Samuel Kerr Green, my ancestor, whose life I’ve documented in detail in previous postings.

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[1] See Find a Grave memorial page of Jane Kerr Green, Tannehill Historical State Park, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, created by Kathy, with tombstone photos by wdlindsy and J R MORRIS-AKA-FRANK DOCKERY. See also Alton Lambert, History of Tuscaloosa County, vol. 1 (Centre, Alabama: Stewart University Press, 1977), p. 28. The tombstones of John Green and wife Jane are transcribed in Billie Thomson Lockard and Mary A. Sinclair, Bridging the Past of Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, vol. 2 (Tuscaloosa: Mary A. Sinclair, 1987), p. 56. Family Adventures, Bibb County, Alabama, Cemeteries, Graveyards, and Family Burial Plots (San Antonio: Family Adventures, 1988), pp. 84, 289, also transcribes the tombstones of John and Jane Green and the three children buried with them at Tannehill Historical State Park, Mary, Lucinda, and John, noting that these graves were removed from the Green family cemetery in Bibb County to Tannehill State Park.

[2] Reverend Craig’s original baptismal register is in his papers held by the library of Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, and is available digitally at the Family Search website.

[3] See Mary Calhoun Kerr’s widow’s pension claim in “Annuities for Persons Hurt in the Service of the State, 1778-1786” and “House of Representative Claims and Pension Reports, 1787-1796.” These are transcribed in South Carolina Magazine of Ancestral Research 1,2 (spring 1973), p. 67 and 1,3 (summer 1973), p. 159. The pension records show Mary Kerr, widow of Samuel Kerr, being paid ￡8 15d on 19 May 1785 due to Samuel Kerr’s having been killed in 1781, and on 5 Feb 1787, being paid ￡9 pounds for herself and her children. Her widow’s annuitant’s claim states that Samuel Kerr was killed in service in 1781: see Bobby Gilmer Moss, Roster of South Carolina Patriots in the American Revolution (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1983), p. 530. See also South Carolina Revolutionary indent # 677, vol O), issued 2 May 1785; and South Carolina Account Audited file #4253, claims Growing Out Of The American Revolution.

[4] Abbeville District, South Carolina, Will Bk. 1, p. 304; and Abbeville District, South Carolina, estate files box 52, pack #1231.

[5] 12 May 1793 letter of John Green from Twelve Mile River (Keowee Heights) to John Ewing Colhoun at Bonneau’s Ferry, archived in the John Ewing Colhoun Papers in the South Caroliniana library at the University of South Carolina, Columbia.

[6] The letter is in the John C. Calhoun family papers, 1765-1818, special collections, at the Rubenstein Library, Duke University.

[7] According to an abstract by James Wooley, the deed is in a Pickens County, South Carolina, estate packet for Floride Bonneau Colhoun: see Wooley, A Collection of Upper South Carolina Genealogical and Family Records, vol. 3 (Easley, South Carolina, Southern Historical Press, 1982), p. 46, citing a Pickens County estate packet, #70.

[8] Pendleton District, South Carolina, Deed Bk. O, pp. 136-8.

[9] Ibid., pp. 234-5.

[10] Bibb County, Alabama, Administrators Records Bk. E, pp. 1-3; and Probate Minutes Bk. A, pp. 195-7.

[11] 1850 federal census, Bibb County, Alabama, “W.C. [i.e., west of the Cahaba] River Dist.,” p. 31A (dwelling/family 396, 30 October).

[12] 1850 federal agricultural schedule, Bibb County, Alabama, W.C. River, p. 217.

[13] Ibid., 1860, p. 23.

[14] 1850 federal slave schedule, Bibb County, Alabama, W.C. River, p. 331.

[15] Bibb County, Alabama, Probate Minutes Bk. F, p. 117.

[16] Ibid., p. 118.

[17] See “Little Cahaba Iron Works,” in the Encyclopedia of Alabama, online.

[18] Bibb County, Alabama, Probate Minutes Bk. F, p. 147.

[19] Ibid., p. 366.

[20] Ibid., pp. 411-3.

[21] William Oscar Taylor, “John Ewen Green 1843-1930 and Descendants,” typescript (1983), p. 1. Michael W. Taylor of Albemarle, North Carolina, kindly sent me a copy of this typescript in February 2003. William Oscar Taylor was a grandson of George Sidney Green’s son John Ewing Green, George Sidney Green being a son of John Green and Jane Kerr.

[22] Cornelius Marion Hutton, “Genealogical Tree of Calhoun family of America, 1733-1912 from Donegal County, Ireland to America, 1733.” The handwritten original of this manuscript was owned on 6 December 1956 by Mrs. John B. Taylor of Shaker Heights, Ohio. A typewritten copy prepared by W. Calvin Wells III of Jackson, Mississippi, was circulated among Calhoun researchers by Alan T. Calhoun of Spartanburg, South Carolina, and has been filmed by the LDS library (US/Canada film 362675). Cornelius Marion Hutton was a grandson of General Joseph Hutton and wife Nancy/Agnes Calhoun. Nancy/Agnes was a daughter of William Calhoun, brother of Ezekiel Calhoun whose daughter Mary married Samuel Kerr.