John Ker (planter)
| John Ker | |
|---|---|
| Born | June 27, 1789 |
| Died | January 4, 1850 |
| Resting place | Linden, Natchez, Adams County, Mississippi |
| Education | University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine |
| Occupation | Surgeon, planter, politician |
| Title | Doctor |
| Religion | Presbyterian |
| Spouse(s) | Mary (Baker) Ker |
| Children |
David Ker Sarah Evelina Ker John Ker Lewis Ker Mary Susan Ker William H. Ker |
| Parent(s) |
David Ker Mary Ker |
| Relatives | Joshua Baker (father-in-law) |
John Ker (1789-1850) was an American surgeon, plantation owner and politician.
Early life
John Ker was born on June 27, 1789.[1][2] His father, David Ker (1758–1805), born in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland and of Scottish ancestry, immigrated with his wife Mary to the United States in the 1780s. He served as the first President of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[3][4]
The family moved to the Mississippi Territory about 1800. in xxxx after President Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) appointed the father David Ker to the Supreme Court of Mississippi.[3]
John Ker was educated privately. He received a Doctor of Medicine degree from the Medical School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1822.[2][4][5]
Career
He worked as a medical doctor.[6][7] He served as a surgeon in the War of 1812 and the Creek War of 1813-1814.[3]
Ker also became a planter, owning the Good Hope Plantation, which produced cotton in Concordia Parish, Louisiana.[6] He was a patron of Oakland College in Lorman, Mississippi, a college founded by Reverend Jeremiah Chamberlain (1794-1851); it closed down during the Civil War.[4]
In the 1830s, Ker served in the Louisiana State Senate.[2] That same decade, together with major slave owners Isaac Ross (1760-1838), Edward McGehee (1786-1880), Stephen Duncan (1787-1867), and educator Chamberlain, all of Mississippi, he co-founded the Mississippi Colonization Society, whose goal was to send freedmen to the colony of Liberia in West Africa in order to get them out of United States society. He served as the vice-president of the society.[2][7][8][9] The organization was modeled after the American Colonization Society, but it addressed the issue of slavery and free blacks in Mississippi, where slaves outnumbered whites by about three to one.[9][8] Additionally, he went on to serve as one of the vice presidents of the American Colonization Society.[2][10][11][12]
Personal life
He married Mary (Kenard Baker) Ker, the daughter of Joshua Baker (1799–1885), who served as the 22nd Governor of Louisiana in 1868.[2][10] They had four sons and two daughters:
- David Ker (1825-1884).[10]
- Sarah Evelina Ker (1826-1868).[10] She married Richard E. Butler.[10]
- John Ker (1826-1870).[10]
- Lewis Ker (1831-1894).[10]
- Mary Susan Ker (1838-1923).[6][10]
- William H. Ker (1841-1902).[6][10]
He and his family summered at Linden, a mansion in Natchez, Mississippi now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[6] The property was formerly owned by Thomas Buck Reed (1787–1829), a United States Senator from Mississippi who was the son-in-law of Isaac Ross, whom he knew through the Mississippi Colonization Society.
He was a Presbyterian.[7]
Death
He died on January 4, 1850.[13][1] He was buried on the grounds of the Linden mansion in Natchez, Mississippi.[13]
References
- 1 2 Smithsonian Institution
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 UNC Libraries: Ker Family Papers
- 1 2 3 Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Mississippi, Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Publishing, 1999, Part 1, p. 521
- 1 2 3 Taylor, Michael, CIVIL WAR TREASURES: “What a Price to Pay, for What?”: Four Civil War Letters of Sarah Ker Butler, Civil War Book Review, Issue: Fall 2011
- ↑ General Alumni Society (1922). General Alumni Catalogue of the University of Pennsylvania, 1922. University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved April 21, 2015.
- 1 2 3 4 5 Louisiana State University Libraries: John Ker Papers
- 1 2 3 Mosette Broderick, Triumvirate: McKim, Mead & White: Art, Architecture, Scandal, and Class in America's Gilded Age, New York, New York: Random House, 2010, p. 52
- 1 2 Dale Edwyna Smith, The Slaves of Liberty: Freedom in Amite County, Mississippi, 1820-1868, Routledge, 2013, pp. 15-21
- 1 2 Mary Carol Miller, Lost Mansions of Mississippi, Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2010, Volume II, pp. 53-56
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 UNC Libraries: Collection Title: Mary Susan Ker Papers, 1785-1958
- ↑ Annual Report of the American Colonization Society, American Colonization Society, 1933, Volumes 16-30, p. 54
- ↑ The African Repository, American Colonization Society, 1842, Volumes 18-19, p. 54
- 1 2 FindAGrave