Thomas-Montgomery County GaArchives Biographies.....McKinnon, Alexander J. 1857 - living in 1913
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 October 23, 2004, 10:37 pm

Author: William Harden
p. 930-932

   ALEXANDER J. McKINNON, the prominent farmer and stock grower of the Way
district of Thomas county, can boast descent from two families who have been
gentry in Scotland for many hundred years, the McIntosh and the McKinnon
families. The grandfather of the subject of this sketch, John McKinnon, was the
first representative of the family to make his home in Georgia. He was born in
Robeson county, North Carolina, about two years after his parents had come to
the United States from Scotland, about 1773. He spent his early youth in the
locality of his birth, and was there married to Mary McIntosh, whose natal day
occurred in Scotland in the year 1775, and who came to the United States with
her parents when she was but six years old. Mary McIntosh McKinnon had two
brothers, Daniel and Murdoch. Daniel had three children, John Anderson,
Roderick, and Margaret McLoed. The offspring of Murdoch were John, Caroline,
Benjamin, Daniel, Mary and Charlotte. John McKinnon had two brothers, Hector and
Kenneth, who passed their lives in Robeson county, North Carolina, and whose
descendants still live in the turpentine and lumber district of that state.

   After his marriage, John McKinnon left the community where he had been born,
and migrated to Montgomery county, Georgia, in which locality he was a pioneer.
He resided there as a farmer and stock raiser until about 1830, in which year he
moved to Thomas county, settling about six miles east of Thomasville, on
timbered land. He was quite a large slave holder, and used slave labor in
clearing his new property, and engaging in farming and stock raising. He died
five years after coining to Thomas county, in the spring of 1835, of measles. He
had been raised in the faith of the Presbyterian church, but on coming to Thomas
county, where there was no church of his denomination, he had united with the
Methodist congregation, and in that church he died. A pious, God-fearing man all
his life, it is said that almost with his dying breath he repeated snatches of
the old hymn, commencing,

   "Jesus, and shall it ever be, a mortal man ashamed of Thee."

   And so passed to his eternal reward with his Master's name upon his lips.

   After her husband had been laid away in the plot of ground which he had set
aside for the family cemetery, the cares of a large family of children, and of
the farm as well, devolved upon Mary McIntosh McKinnon. She did her duty well,
managing the business of the farm so efficiently that when her children reached
the age of maturity, she was able to start each one out in life with a plot of
ground and two or three slaves. She fell asleep in the year 1857, after a life
devoted to all that is loveliest and best in Christian womanhood.

   John and Mary McIntosh McKinnon had twelve children, many of whose
descendants are now honored and prosperous citizens of southern Georgia. They
were Malcolm, who was born in the year 1799, and married Margaret McArthur;
Roderick, whose natal day occurred in the year 1801, and who died unmarried;
Neil, whose birth took place in 1803, and who married Sarah Rains Mitchell;
Elizabeth, born in 1805, who became the wife of Thomas Pugh; John, born in 1807,
whose wife was Mary Louise Jordan; Nancy, who married Murdoch McKinnon; Kenneth,
husband of Ann McRae: Daniel, who died as a young man; Margaret, who became Mrs.
Malcolm McKinnon; Murdoch, whose wife was Mary Ann McArthur; Mclntosh, who
married Margaret McArthur, sister to Mary Ann, and niece of the Margaret
McArthur who married Malcolm McKinnon; Mary, who became the wife of Alexander
McRae, the brother of Ann McRae.

   The father of the subject of this history, Kenneth McKinnon, was born in
Montgomery county, Georgia, July 14, 1814. He accompanied the family to Thomas
county, and after his father's death continued to live with his mother on the
old homestead until his marriage, when he settled on a tract of land in what is
now the Way district of Thomas county. There he engaged in general farming and
stock raising. In 1861, when the War of the Rebellion broke out. lie joined the
Georgia Reserves, and served until honorably discharged on account of physical
disability. He was not the only one of John McKinnon's descendants to take part
in the great struggle. At the very beginning of the conflict between the states,
twenty grandsons of John McKinnon gave their lives in the aid of the Confederate
cause, and later, two more grandsons died in the service of the stars and bars.
Seven of these young men were unmarried, but the rest left wives to mourn them.

   When the war was over, Kenneth McKinnon continued farming on his old farm,
and remained there until his death, which occurred in the year 1882. His wife
survived him by nearly twenty years, departing this life on the twenty-eighth of
May, 1900. Mrs. Kenneth McKinnon, who was Ann McRae before her marriage, was
born in Telfair county, Georgia, April 10, 1819. Her parents, Philip and
Elizabeth McRae, were natives of Scotland, and pioneers of the county in which
Mrs. McKinnon was born. Ann McRae McKinnon bore her husband seven children, by
name, Mary, Isabelle, Philip, Margaret, William D., Alexander J., and Julia F.

   Alexander J. McKinnon was born on the farm where he now makes his home on
March 4, 1857. He attended the schools of the neighborhood, and resided with his
parents until he gradually succeeded into the active management of the property,
after which they made their home with him. He has continued to farm the home
tract of eight hundred acres, but, as his prosperity has increased, he has added
to it from time to time until he now possesses about twelve hundred acres.

   Mr. McKinnon was married on May 8, 1882, to Mattie Dukes, the daughter of
John W. and Wealthea (Peacock) Dukes. Six children are the issue of this
marriage, namely, Frank L., Clara May, Wealthea Elizabeth, Lucy Alexander,
George Remer, and Howell Edward.

   Mr. McKinnon shares the dominant characteristics of the McKinnon family, and
is a quiet, law-abiding citizen of his community. He and his wife are members of
the Methodist Episcopal church, and are valued workers in the congregation.


Additional Comments:
From:

A HISTORY OF SAVANNAH AND SOUTH GEORGIA
BY
WILLIAM HARDEN

VOLUME II
ILLUSTRATED
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK
1913

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