With a General Sketch of the Early McKee’s Prof. JAMES Y. McKee. PHILADELPHIA: JOSEPH D. McKee. 1892.

Pg. 9 - 10 The first real knowledge we have of the McKees dates from over two hundred years ago, when four brothers bearing that name left Scotland for bonnie England. There they soon joined the army of William, Prince of Orange, and shortly - afterwards, in 1690, we find them, with the rest of the army, in the northern part of Ireland.

We have been unable to learn the Christian names of these four brothers. All we know of one is that he returned with William's armv to England. where we lose all trace of him. Three were induced to remain in Ireland by grants of land for services rendered.

One married and settled in County Antrim; but even tradition has no further information for us concerning either himself or his descendants, although from actual knowledge in our possession concerning the other two brothers and their descendants, it seems almost a certainty that he and his family emigrated during the exodus from Ulster to America, about 1735, and were the progenitors of the McKees in Kentucky and Virginia, whose history has been written by George Wilson McKee, Major of Ordnance, U. S. A.

Another settled in the Ards, in Northeastern County Down, where he has had numerous descendants until this day

The fourth settled in Lisban, near Saintfield, County Down, with a fellow soldier named Edgar, both of whom have many descendants in the neighborhood still, who have inter-married for several generations. This soldier-pioneer, whose name was probably Hugh, had settled, built his house, married, and possibly had some children born to him before the year 1700. On the Lisban road, going from Lough Henney to Saintfield, about half a mile after crossing the Belfast road, your attention will be attracted towards the right bv an ivy-covered gable, which is all that remains standing of the original Edgar house. If you should go about a quarter of a mile farther on towards Saintfield, and turn to the left where the road from Tonaghmore to Carricknaveagh crosses the Lisban road, you will see the remains of the old McKee house, about a hundred feet from the crossroads, and on the left-hand side. The front wall is still standing, and is used as a fence between the road and the field. You are now on land once granted by the Crown to the pioneer for his services in the cause of the Protestant succession. -------------------- Probably went with his brother Thomas to Ireland and was one of those on the muster rolls in 1641.