Alexander Kerr, Sr.

Scottish jeweler; merchant in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.

Source: Colonial Williamsburg Official Guidebook 1779

Alexander was the son of Archibald Kerr of Graden. Alexander was trained as a silversmith before his capture and became a nabob of Williamsburg owning a house across the street from the Capital building. Alexander bought the house from the estate of a fellow prisoner transported on the same voyage of the Elizabeth and Anne, Dr. John Brown, a surgeon from Coldstream.

Alexander and his brother Henry were sons of Archibald Ker(r) of Graden and Helenor St. Clair, daughter of Sir James St. Clair of Roslin. The boys' father died when they were still young children. Their mother raised them as Roman Catholics.

Source: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/ALLEN/2006-09/1159136653

From The Kerrs of Roxburghe. Posted on February 6, 2021 by Brad Scott. < link >

The immigrant ancestor, and the first one to live in Virginia, was a man by name of Alexander Kerr, son of Archibald Kerr, who was Laird of Graden at the time of Alexander’s birth. Come to find out Alexander was involved in a plot to assist in the restoration of the Stuart Pretender to the throne of England in 1715. His punishment, which was substituted for hanging, was to leave Scotland for Virginia. He came on the ship “Elizabeth and Ann” with 111 other Jacobite prisoners, and landed on my birthday (January 14) in 1716. Here he was treated with a little deference because his grandmother was a relative to Governor Alexander Spotswood (who enslaved my German ancestor Conrad Amburgey). He was able to set up a Jewelry and Silversmith shop in old Colonial Williamsburg, and bought a house right across from the Capitol building (now known as the Palmer House, and restored in the 1950s to how it might have looked originally). He is said to have partnered with a Randolph in opening up the Carolinas for settlement. What is so wild is that Alexander’s daddy was considered a leader of his people in Roxburghe.

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Comments

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/notes/L5RZ-X6S

The problem with this particular person as an ancestor is that Colonial Williamsburg said he had no wife or children?

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References

• “Descendants of Henry Ker” < PDF >
• The Apperson Family in America. Vera Apperson English (1977). < GoogleBooks - snippet view >
• Alexander Kerr in the U.S., Craftperson Files, 1600-1995. < AncestrySharing >
• Directory of Scots Banished to the American Plantations, 1650-1775. Page 87. < AncestrySharing > [Alexander Kerr is not listed]
• http://www.nicholsgenealogy.net/nichols/kerr/kerr-alex-sr.htm (dead link)