Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/560

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
524
KER
KERFOOT

1745 took part in the battle of Fontenoy as aide- de-camp to the Duke of Cumberland. In 1702 he was made lieutenant-general and given command of the army of 14,000 men which, in conjunction with the fleet under Admiral Pocock, took the city of Havana on 4 Aug., 1762. He was subsequently governor of the city, and returned to England with a large fortune. He was great-grandfather of William Coutts Keppel, Viscount Bury. (See Bury.)


KER, Henry, traveller, b. in Boston, Mass., about 1785. At an early age he removed with his father to London, and was educated at Westmin- ster school for a mercantile life. Being fond of adventure, he left England on 25 April, 1808, and after travelling through North and South Caro- lina, Tennessee, and Mississippi, he went to Jamaica, W. I., but returned to New Orleans, and sailed up Red river, where he found a tribe of Indians, the Mnacedeus, from whose language and customs he inferred that they were descended from Madoc, a Welsh prince. Ker remained among these Indians for some time and discovered a platina-mine, for which he was condemned to death, but was rescued by the daughter of a chief. He subsequently trav- elled through Mexico, Florida, and the Gulf states, returning to England by way of New York. He published " Travels through the United States and Mexico in 1808-'16 " (Elizabethtown, N. J., 1816).


KERATRY, Charles Albert, Chevalier de (kay'-rah'-tre'), French soldier, b. in Dinan in 1753 ; d. in Nantes in 1794. He was sent to this country by Beaumarchais in 1776, and served during the war of independence in 1776-'83, being wounded at Brandy wine and at Yorktown. Congress brevetted him colonel at the close of the war, and he was made a member of the Society of the Cincinnati. In 1785 he was appointed major of the Port au Prince regiment in Santo Domingo, and was con- spicuous among the members of the council who urged Governor Blanchelande to disobey the orders of the home government and to refuse to the negroes the benefit of the clement laws that had been voted by the constituent assembly in 1790. He was instrumental in bringing about by his in- tolerance the rebellion of 1791, and was left for dead during the massacres ; but, having recovered, he organized a company of volunteers and made terrible havoc among the negroes. Going to Louisiana in 1793, he offered his services to the Spanish government, and commanded for some time the artillery of the colony ; but his hatred of the blacks and the cruelties to which he resorted caused his resignation in 1793. On his arrival in France he was arrested, and after a mock trial condemned to death and executed. Ho published "La colonie Francaise de Saint Domingue; ses ressources, commerce, industrie ; de la population creole et des negres " (Paris, 1790).


KERATRY, Emile de, French soldier, b. in Paris, France, 20 March, 1832. His father, Au- guste Hilarion de Keratry, was made a peer by Louis Philippe in 1837. Ihe son entered the army as a volunteer, 30 Sept., 1854, serving in Africa during the Crimean war, and subsequently in the Mexican campaign of 1863-'5, after which he pub- lished articles denouncing the frauds and impolicy of imperial intervention in that country. He re- tired from the army in 1866, and devoted his at- tention to politics and literature. In 1869-'70 he was prominent in the corps legislatif as an active opponent of Napoleon, although he approved of the war against Prussia. At the beginning of the revolution in 1870, he was prefect of police in Paris, and as general of division under Gambetta organized nearly fifty battalions in Brittany. He was prefect at Toulouse and Marseilles under the Thiers government of 1871-2. He has been con- nected with various periodicals, a newspaper en- titled " Le Soir," and has published several plays and miscellaneous writings, many of which relate to the Mexican expedition, and is now (1887) about to issue a volume entitled " A travers le passe."


KERCKHOVE, Lorenz Wenceslas (kair-ko'- veh), Dutch naturalist, b. in Bois le Due in 1785; d. in Amsterdam in 1839. He studied in Rotter- dam, and early showed a fondness for the natural sciences. At the age of sixteen he joined an uncle who was established in business in New York ; but having made the acquaintance of Alexander von Humboldt during his sojourn in the United States in 1802, he gave up business and went to Central America. He had resolved to follow the steps of the German naturalist, and like him write an account of his travels, but after visiting the West Indies, Central America, Louisiana, Mexico, and Guiana, during 1804-'9, his health declined and he was compelled to return to his native land. For several years he was professor of natural history in the University of Leyden, but resigned in 1821 to devote himself exclusively to science, and, settling in Amsterdam, published many works, including "Reisen durch Cuba, Porto Rico, Louisiana, Nueva Esparia und Guiana " (2 vols., Leyden, 1817) ; " Historia ecclesiastica et Universalis Guianas " (Amsterdam, 1825) ; " Die Kriege von 1814-1821 in Mexico " (Leyden, 1833) ; " Surinam in Bildern und Skizzen " (Amsterdam, 1835) : and " Historia plantarum circa Havana sponte crescentium " (3 vols., Amsterdam, 1839).


KERFOOT, John Barrett, P. E. bishop, b. in Dublin, Ireland, 1 March, 1816 ; d. in Meyersdale, Pa., 10 July, 1881. He was brought to Lancaster, Pa., by his father in 1819, and at an early age entered a Sun- day-school that had been opened by the Rev. William A. Muh- lenberg, for whom he formed an attach- ment that lasted through life. Young Kerfoot followed Mr. Muhlenberg to Flushing, and was his pupil there and at College Point. On his twenty-first birth- day he was ordained to the Protestant

Episcopal ministry

by Bishop Onderdonk, of New York. On the establishment of St. James's hall in Maryland, Mr. Kerfoot was put in charge, and he continued there, at the head of the school and afterward of the College of St. James, from 1842 till 1864. The civil war had a disastrous effect on the prosperity of the institution. Most of the students were from the southern states, while the sympathy of the rector was strongly with the supporters of the Union. In the midst of much trouble and anxiety, the work of the college was continued until in August, 1864, when the buildings were occupied by Confederate soldiers. Dr. Kerfoot was put under arrest, but released on condition that he should secure the surrender of Dr. Boyd who had been, it was claimed, unjustly held a prisoner by the Federal authorities. This was accomplished, and in September Dr. Kerfoot entered on the duties of the presidency of Trinity college, to