Descendants of William Tell Kerby

The parents and birth place of these three men is unknown: William Tell Kerby, Quill Kerby, and Bud Kerby. (The information I have, was obtained from Bertha Ingram, daughter of William Sustser Kerby, youngest son of Willam Tell in 1985.

These three men arrived at the home of Euall and Pricilla (Kerby) Bryson. For years the family thought Pricilla was William Tell's sister, but that has been proven wrong, she was actually the daughter of Bailey and Elizabeth (Sherrill) Kerby, who were first cousins. This makes for an interesting combination of how she would be a cousin of William T. or the other two men. Bailey was born in 1799 and william T. in 1814. Bailey would have been to young to be married and a father.

After arriving the men parted company. Quill stayed in the area of, Blue Ridge, Ga. Bud is believed to have gone to Fannin County. Wiilliam Tell put in for and received several land grants from the government, extending from Double Knob Mountain down into the valley which also contained a good source of running water. He cleared and farmed a good portion of the land, sold off some parcels of the property and donated some of the land, on which the Young Harris College was built, to the college founders, but he kept a major portion of the land.

William Tell Kerby was bornin 1814 in North Caronlina, died, (date unknown.) They were married in 1847 or 1848. She was 16 years younger than William T. They had 4 children:

Augustus Willburn Kerby (Wib or Web) born 1849, died 1885
Rebecca Adeline Kerby, born 1850, died (unknown)
Howell Cobb, born 1856, died (unknown)
William Sutser, born 1865, died, 10-10-1937

*See Chart


One of the men accompanying William Tell from North Carolina, was Quill Kerby. Quill lived around Blue Ridge, Ga. and is reported to be buried in the Blue Ridge Cemetary after losing his life in the Civel War.

We were told, the other person coming from North Carolina was a nephew of William Tell, Bud Kerby, who was reported as going to Fannin County, becoming a minister, marrying (name and dates unknown ) having at least one son, who suffered shell shock during World War One. When these three arrived at the home of Euell Bryson and his wife, Pricilla Kerby Bryson, they carried everything they owned in individual bandana handkerchiefs.

*Augustus Willburn Kerby known as (Wib or Web) born, 1849. died, 1885(?), with pneumonia. Married, 1-12-1874, Barbara Louise Keys, called by family and friends (Lou), born, 1849, died, 1918. They had four children:

William Dolfus, born, 11-15-1874, died, 1943. (?)
Johnathon Dewitt Talmadge, born, 2-9-1879 died, 8-14-1960,

Georgia, born, 1883, died, 1936. (?)
Marie, born and died in southern Georgia (dates unknown),

possibly in Clinch County, where Augustus had gone to obtain work. He didn't care for the area and soon moved back to Young Harris. Marie could have been born between Dewitt and Georgia because Cora Lee Garland, William Sutser's oldest daughter told me, Barbara Lou spoiled her daughter, Georgia, rotten or as she but it, "She petted that girl to death." And having lost a daughter, perhaps this is why. (pure speculation.)

Rebecca Adeline Kerby born, 1850, (date of marriage and death unknown.) Married, as recorded in the , county Marriage records, Jas. H. Hedgecock (dates of birth, etc. unknown.) After their marriage, she and her husband decided to make their home in Oklahoma. Rebecca asked her father to give her, her hare of her inheritance in cash, rather than waiting to inherit the land. He paid her, in gold, the going price for the acreage she would have inherited. This money would help the young couple get settled. They had five children:

Patrick Hedgecock
Arthur Hedgecock
William Hedgecock

2 daughters (names unknown)

Howell Cobb Born 1856, (date of marriage and death unknown). Married Sally Mathis, the information I have is that they had 9 children:

George Kerby
Frank Kerby
Fred Kerby
John Kerby
Willey (Wild) Kerby (Banjo Player and Dancer)
Grady Kerby
Henry Kerby
Lee Kerby
Etta Kerby

nate: (If this needs to be corredted, please let me know). Howell Cobb was considered the black sheep of the family. He was a heavy drinker and was always in trouble because of his lawless ways. Matilda, his mother, was constantly bailing him out of one scrape or another using up a considerable amount of her inheritance from the Plott family. He was instrumental in the deather of his mother. He was arrested in North Carolina for drunkenness and fighting. The authorities put him in jail, where a black man was sick with small pox. Howell Cobb became sick with the disease, when the authorities notified the family, Matilda went to north Carolina, paid his fines and brought him home where she nursed him back to health. She contracted the illness and died shortly thereafter. At that point, William Tell, his father, disowned him and told him to change the spelling of his name, which from that day forward was spelled with an (i), Kirby. Later, some of his descendants started spelling the name with an (e) again.

William Sutser, born 1865, died, 10-10-1937. Married, 1st wife: (date unknown) Lula Virginia Crawford, born 5-3-1873. Died, 1904. Children:

Cora Kerby

Lee Kerby
Bonnie Kerby
George Kerby (could be George Farrish Kerby)
Farrish Kerby
Edley Kerby
Narvel Kerby

Married second wife (date unknown)
Roberta Lewis born 1875, died, 1911. Children:

Bertha Kerby
Hoyt Kerby (who lived 1 year)

Married third wife
Mattie Howell Justice born 1884, died 1940 (date of marriage unknown) She had one son by her former marriage, Grady Justice. William and her had two children

Charles Britt Kerby
Selma Billie Kerby

William Sutser was given a $10.00 gold piece by his sister, Rebecca, before she left for Oklahoma. His brother Howell Cobb took it away from him and spent it.

This is the family history of Johnathon Dewitt Talmadge Kerby, (known as Dewitt or more informally as: Dee Kerby)

Dee had a minimal amount of schooling, as did most of the children during this period in time, he was able to read, write and do math. He told me he went to school and completed the 6th grade. Ke was not a stupid man and became an accomplished farmer and rancher. When he was in his early twenties he fell in love with Genett Hooper, dauther of, John Marion and Artie Catherine (Ash) Hooper. He asked her to marry him and she accepted. But, before he got married he wanted to be able to afford a wife and family, and because the work opportunities, around Young Harris, Ga. were limited, he left and went to Oklahoma. Genett promised to wait for him. He worked , saved his money and was finally able to buy some property. He hadn't returned to Young Harris during the three years it had taken him. When he returned he was rudely surprised to learn Genett had met and married another man. He was hear broken and took to drinking and gambling. Thank goodness, he was a lucky gambler. After a few moths of that, he finally realized it wasn't helping. He started courting Genett's younger sister, Martha Ethel, everyone called her, Ethel, she was seventeen years old. He convinced her to marry him and they were married, 12-15-1904. After their marriage Dee left her with his uncle, William Sutser, and his family, while Dee went back to Oklahoma and built them a house on the land he had bought with the money he had won gabling. He returned to Georgia in the spring and took his wife to their new home. I don't know the exact area where they lived, Dee, never told me, but the Hooper family moved from Georgia to Altus, Oklahoma, about this time. On 3-13-1906, Dee and Ethels' oldest son, John Wilburn, (known as Web) was born.

When Web was just over a year old, Dee recieved a letter from his mother, Lou Kerby, asking him to come home and take over the family property because George Howell, Dee's sister Georgia's husband was to lazy to work and when Lou finally confronted him about it he kicked her off the porch. She immediately ordered him off the property and Georgia went with him, taking their two children. Dee sold his farm in Oklahoma, packed up his family, Ethel was pregnant with their second child and returned to Young Harris. He was shocked at how run down the place was. Now this was prime property left to Dee's father, Augustus. by William Tell. When Augustus died in 1885 the property went to Lou, his widow. There was over 400 acres. Dee using the monies from the sate of his farm.], repaired the fences, the outbildings, as well as the house. He did a lot of work on the land , getting rid of weeds, applying fertilizer to the farm land, putting it back into production, and clearning the wood lots. Ethel gave birth to a daughter , Artie Mable, 4-22-1908. This was bout the time Georgia came to the house crying and told her maother and Dee that her husband, George, didn't have a steady job and any money he made he squandered. She and the children were starving. Dee told her, she and the children could move home, but George would not be allowed near the place. Goeargia said she would rather die than give up her husband. Lou spoke up and told Dee he didn't own the land and gave Georgia and Gearge, both, permission to move back in. Dee was absolutely furious he sold the equipment he had bought and demanded repayment, from his mother, for the cost of the improements he had made. She paid him what she could and he packed up the family and left. I was told he never saw or spoke to his mother or his sister again.

After leaving Young Harris, Dee took his family to her parents in Oklahoma. He continued on to souther Texas, where some of his distant cousins lived. They had told him there was a lot of money to be made from truck farming, especially raising tomatoes because of the weather they were able to get three and four crops a year off the fields. He rented a farm then returned to oklahoma and returned with his family. He planted the fields with tomatoes, they grew beautifully and produced a fine crop, but a few days before they were ready to pick, it started to rain. It rained for days and the entire crop rotted in the fields. This happened twice more, Dee was desperate, he tried it one last time and finally everything worked out, but after he had paid the rent and the costs of the failed crops there was a very small profit made for the amount of work involved.

He was in town on day, and went into a saloon where he got into a poker game. Among the players was a rancher from northern Colorado, he had brought a herd of cattle down and sold them. As the game progressed Dee had been winning steadily, finally there was just Dee and the rancher playing, who had lost most of his money. On the last hand he didn't have enough money to cover the bet. He asked the bartender from a piece of paper and a pen, he then wrote out a bill of sale for his ranch and added to the pot. Dee told me he tried to talk the fellow out of doing that, but the guy was adamant. He was sure he had a winning hand and Dee was just trying to talk him out of it. So, Dee, told him, okay. Well, Dee had the winning hand and was now the owner of a ranch, located between Windsor and Eaton, Colorado. He returned to the farm gather up his family, their possessions and moved to northern Colorado.


After they arrived and got settled in, Ethel gave birth to their third child, a son, Clarence Ford Kerby , born 7-19-1910. The ranch was about 6000 feet above sea level and Ethel had a lot of problems with altitude sickness the first years they lived there, but she finally acclimated to it. In 1912 she gave birth to their fourth child, a daughter, Helen Louise, born 3-20-1912, She was born with heart problems. Ethel blamed it on the high altitude. Helen lived almost a year before she died, 3-19-1913.

Their fifth child, a daughter, Ruby Lee, born, 1-29-1914, was born in Altus. Oklahoma. because Ethel had gone to her parents home when the doctors discovered she had tuberculosis of the bone in her upper left thigh. All of the doctors told her it was incurable and they would have to amputate after the birth of the baby, but there was one doctor who said maybe not. After Ruby was born, this doctor did the surgery, he made an incision in Ethel's thigh, removed all of the diseased tissue, scraped the bone clean, then (Ethel told me ) he sprinkled the entire area with a white powder after which he stitched up the incision. Ethel made a complete recovery and held the medical claim (unproven) that she was the first person to have been cured of tuberculosis of the bone, without amputation.

When she was strong enough she returned to the ranch and they lived the ranchers life, raising hay, grain and cattle, but Dee wasn't happy with this type of farming. He heard of some land being developed in southern Idaho on what was called the salmon Track, near Hollister, Idaho. He went to Idaho and talked to the developers, one of the fellows told him he would like to hire Dee to work for him and help him get the land cleared and into production. Dee was really impressed with what he saw, not so much around Hollister, but in the surrounding area. Dee returned to Colorado and after living there for seven years, sold the ranch and moved to Idaho in 1917.

Dee and Ethel's sixth child, a son, Delbert Ray, was born 5-1-1918, at Hollister, Idaho. Dee stayed out the year he had contracted for, but he had been over to the Twin Falls and Kimberly areas, they were much more to his liking than the sagebrush flats around Hollister. He rented a farm near the town of Kimberly and moved his family there. Their seventh child, Wayne Dee was born, 2-18-1924, at kimberly as was their ninth child, a daughter, Ethel Marie, born 10-6-1926.

The Kerby family left the Kimberly area, moving to the Wedgewood and Cannon ranch, three miles south and three miles west of Gooding, Idaho in the fall of 1940. The property was between 400 and 500 acres of farm land, plus a dry butte of pasture land. Dee's three younger sons, Delbert, Wayne and Floyd, still lived at home and id most of the farming under their father's direction. They also had several hired hands to help. The main crops were: beans, potatoes, and sugar beets. They also raised alfalfa and grain. They used mostly horses and mules to power the machinery. Although they used a tractor for plowing the fields.

When World War II started on December 7th 1941, Wayne married and then enlisted into the Navy. Floyd was still in high school and not yet old enough for the draft. After he graduated and was eighteen he was inducted into the U.S. Army, while at Boot Camp he was diagnosed with stomach ulcers. He recieved a medical discharge and was sent home. Delbert tried to get into every branch of the service, even the Merchant Marines, but he was refused because of the polio he had had at the age of fifteen, leaving him with a slight limp and som leg muscle damage.

Delbert was married in 1942 and continued to work for his father. During the winter, 1943/44 and 1944/45, as soon as the harvesting was finished, he and Corrien went to the Seattle area and both worked for Boeing Aircraft Co. until it was time to return to the farm and start spring planting. In 1944 Dee finally bought an eighty acre farm at Tuttle, Idaho. His daughter Ruby and her dusband, Harley, came from Tooele, Utah and farmed the prperty for Dee. When the war ended in August of 1945 they returned to Utah. Dee had given Delbert a 62 acre piece of land to farm and keep the profits, from which, plus the money earned and saved working for Being's He was finally able to put a down payment on a 160 acre farm, 6 miles north and 1/2 mile east of Richfield, Idaho, moving there the first of January, 1946. Corrine was pregnant with their firt child, due in May.

Dee and Ethel lived their final years at Tuttle, Id. untill her heath 4-10-1952. Dee sold the prperty and spent his final years, staying with his daughters or living at Hagerman, Id. He died, 8-14-1960.

Artie Mable Kerby married (first husband) George Harrison, 12-4-1927, they had two children, a son, Dale (date of birth and death unkown) it is believed he died round the age of 11, of pneumonia. A daughter, Ethel May, (date of birth unknown), she died August, 1990, of cancer. Mable and George divorced the later part of the 1930's. (Second Husband) Clyde Sommerville (date of birth unknown) died, in 1975. (date of formal marriage) 7-3-1951, although they had lived together for a number of years in a, "common law", marriage. Clyde had three children from a former marriage: Faye Sommerville Cochran, Ina May sommerville Beebe, and Jean Sommerville Kerby. Mable died1-29-1997 and is buried in the Tooele Cemetery, Tooele, Utah.