The Kerfoots of Frederick, Clarke, and Fauquier Cos: The Carr Connection
Copyright (C) 2002 by Abigail Ann Young
The name variously spelled Ker, Kerr, or Carr is a common one in the British Isles and it is not surprising therefore that many Carrs settled in Virginia. The John Carr from whom our ancestor Maria Carr was descended is supposed to have emigrated from Ulster to Pennsylvania in the 1740s and thence into Loudoun County in the 1750s, while his grandson Joseph is said to have made the move to Fauquier County late in the 18th or early in the 19th century. But there are two reasons to take a second look at this tradition.
First, eighteenth-century Virginia rent rolls show 2 John Carrs already in Fauquier County in 1770, 1777, and 1779 as well as 2 John Carrs in Loudoun County in 1769, 1771, and 1772. So the tradition may be based on the conflating of two different families: the one in Loundon County with one already settled in Fauquier County. Worse is the strong possibility that it may be based on the work of a forger. Early in the 20th century a wealthy tobacco magnate from Durham, North Carolina, General Julian Shakespear Carr commissioned a genealogist named Gustave Anjou to research his family history. Unfortunately Anjou was, unbeknownst to Gen. Carr, a genealogical fraud who produced very expensive but completely unreliable family histories for wealthy clients. In these histories, documented facts would be presented side-by-side with faked information and it can be very difficult to distinguish the real from the imaginary. Further information on Anjou and his problem lineages may be found at http://www.linkline.com/personal/xymox/fraud/fraud.htm. His information is therefore entirely suspect but unfortunately it appears to remain in circulation (for example, a copy of Anjou's report, "The CARR Family of Scotland, England and the United States Part 1: Scotland and the United States", is available in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City).
Gen. Carr erected an ornate monument to John Carr in the Leesburg, Virginia, cemetery in whose inscriptions the 'results' of Anjou's research are recorded. I remember visiting Leesburg in the 1970s with my mother and aunt just to see this monument. My aunt took a drawing, with indications of scale and size, and my mother recorded all the particulars in the inscriptions. She was aware of the monument and had been there before; I had the impression it was generally known among the people in the family who were interested in genealogy. Certainly none of us had any inkling that the "information" of which Gen. Carr had been so proud may have been forged.
In any case, here is what currecnt family tradition indicates about "our" Carrs:
John Carr (1684-1794) married twice: first, about 1732, Susan (maiden name unknown), and second, in 1743, Sarah (maiden name also unknown). He originally immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1741 (from County Down) and thence to Loudoun Co in 1750. I now strongly suspect this extraordinary lifespan of 110 years, as well as the story I was told in my childhood about John Carr's moving down into Virginia from Pennsylvania after his wife was scalped by Indians, to be romantic inventions. There is another strain of tradition according to which the scalping victim was John's mother, rather than his first wife.
Susan Carr had three children, all sons, and Sarah Carr had five daughters. Those sons, from one of whom we are said to be descended, were: Thomas Carr; John Carr Jr; and Peter Carr (1740--1812), who married Rachel Caldwell or Carwell in 1763.
Peter's two elder brothers are said to have gone away to fight in the Revolutionary War, while he stayed at home to protect family property and his stepmother and young half-sisters from possible Indian attacks, which were prevalent in Loudoun County at the time. Peter was also the first elder of First Presbyterian Church at Leesburg. His family home was called Willows.
The Joseph Carr who founded Upperville in 1806 as Carrtown is said to have been the eldest child of Peter and Rachel Carr, born 1765 in Willows, Loudoun Co, Va; died 1827 in Upperville, Fauquier Co. He married (1) Ann Elgin; (2) Delia Strother (c1775-?) on 16 October 1796 in Fauquier County. Joseph was one of seven children, five sons and two daughters: he was the second child and the eldest son. His home was called Old Stone House and he had a grist mill at the other end of town.
He had one son and one daughter by his first wife, Ann Elgin, and three sons and five daughters by his second wife, Delia Strother. I can only find the marriage to Delia in the Early Virginia Marriages list, and based on their dates of birth, Joseph Jr and Maria must both be Delia's children; family tradition suggests that John and Jane were also children of Delia and Joseph Sr. The names of the others are: Peter, Margaret (Mrs Bushrod Rust), Elizabeth (Mrs George Calvert), Amanda (Mrs. James McCrae), and Rebecca (Mrs Henly Bogress).
I suspect that this family may be the result of conflating two men named Joseph Carr, since Jane, Margaret, and Elizabeth Carr were all married in Loudoun County, while John's marriage to a Kerfoot took place in Clarke County and Joseph Jr and Maria were both married in Fauquier County like Joseph and Delia Carr. I am going to try to disentangle the Carrs on my next trip to Virginia.
The children of Joseph Carr and Delia Strother we can be fairly certain of were: John Carr, who married Emily Sowers Kerfoot (see the Kerfoot line); Joseph G. Carr Jr (19 Aug 1812-13 Sep 1878), who married Lucinda Stanley Armistead (1 Nov 1815-3 Jan 1850), daughter of Gen. W. K. Armistead (both are buried in the Armistead Cemetery at Gap Run on Rte 710); and Maria Carr (10 May 1807-4 Dec 1865), who married Daniel Sowers Kerfoot (16 Jan 1802-24 Aug 1884) (see the Kerfoot line).