BIO: Alexander Kerr, Tillard Pen Pictures, 1911, Blair County, PA

Contributed April 2003 for use in the USGenWeb Archives 
by Judy Banja <jbanja@comcast.net>

Copyright 2003.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/blair/
_________________________________________ 

                Pen Pictures of Friends and Reminiscent Sketches
                                by J. N. Tillard

             Altoona, PA: William F. Gable & Co., Mirror Press, 1911 

                       One of County's Pioneer Railroaders

                ALEXANDER KERR Helped to Build Line Through Here
          and Still Retains Possession of All Faculties at Age of Eighty

IT is the fortune of some men to be born in an era marked by such startling 
changes in the development of civilization that it is always interesting to 
hear them recount the events that their eyes have witnessed and in which they 
have borne a part, even though an humble one. The living man who has now 
passed his three-score and ten and is still in the full possession of his 
faculties can tell more of radical innovations in the way of material 
progress than could the oldest man of any preceding age. It was not until the 
last century that the genius of man succeeded in harnessing the forces of 
nature and compelling them to serve him to any purpose. Prior to that time he 
had got no further than the subjugation of animals as vehicles of 
transportation, and when one day he had created a machine with tendons of 
steel and breathed a mighty life into it through the agencies of fire and 
water, he had called to his aid a force that was destined to revolutionize 
the world. The men who first abandoned the ox team to drive these Titans of 
transportation had an experience not vouchsafed to any of their predecessors, 
and when one of them grows reminiscent he is bound to have interested 
listeners.
  One of these pioneers of the new era is living in an apartment in the Levan 
Block, this city, in the person of Alexander Kerr, whose clean Scotch blood 
and active life has brought him to his four-score with his mental faculties 
so well preserved that he can recall the minutest details of events that 
transpired in the days of his far-back youth, when this valley was a 
wilderness, inhabited by the fiercest of native wild animals and the mighty 
forests still bore the marks of the Red Man's tomahawk. His father, the son 
of a Scottish laird, chose to forsake the comforts of his home in the old 
world to try his fortunes in the rough places of the new, and finally landed 
in Tuckahoe Valley, where he followed the occupation of a pedagogue in the 
infrequent log school houses of the vicinity.
  On August 16, 1829, the subject of this sketch was born on what was then 
known as the Kantner place, a stone's throw from the present Greenwood 
Cemetery, in Logan Township. At that time it was part of Huntingdon County 
and quite remote from any centre of population. The Kantner place was but a 
clearing at the foot of Brush Mountain and wild animals frequently frolicked 
in the dooryard. All about were wide stretches of the primeval forest, just 
beginning to fall before the woodsman's axe for the purpose of being 
converted into charcoal to feed the furnace that marked the coming of the 
iron age.
  Before Mr. Kerr was old enough to venture beyond the call of his mother's 
voice into the luring shadows of the mighty trees, the Death Angel laid his 
hand on the mother's lips and her guiding voice was heard by him no more. His 
father moved to Sinking Valley and took unto himself a new wife, who did not 
look with favor upon the boy and he was bound out for nine years to a master 
who, in the language of the old gentleman, "only needed bristles and a snout" 
to place him at the trough with the other swine. This is the only period of 
his life that seems to have left any trace of bitterness in his recollection. 
But he endured his hard servitude as best he might until he had nearly 
reached man's estate, and he then betook himself to Clarion County, where he 
worked for some time as a charcoal burner.
  Returning to the scenes of his childhood in 1849, he became a farmer lad, 
working for John Bell of Bell's Forge. The engineers who were surveying a 
route for the new railroad came along, and his employer, shrewdly learning 
something of the proposed route, began clearing off the fine timber on his 
lands in a strip wide enough to let the iron horse through, thereby at the 
same time saving his own timber and lessening the labor of the road builders. 
Day after day he worked with his ox team, in company with Eli Green, 
afterward Altoona's famous fat man, dragging logs from what was then known as 
Fisher's Swamp, but which is now the town of Bellwood - then occupied, so far 
as human habitation went, by Mrs. Garner's Log House. Mr. Kerr tells some 
amusing stories of his choleric, though kind-hearted employer. Mr. Bell 
always knew when he had a good hand, and when his driver wanted to quit one 
day he strenuously objected and hid his employe's extra pair of old shoes for 
the purpose of detaining him. The argument waxed warm, for Mr. Kerr's Scotch 
blood was not easily turned from its purpose, and flails were resorted to on 
the barn floor, in order to settle the dispute. However, a compromise was 
reached before there were any serious casualties and the young man returned 
to Clarion County. He only remained a few months, when he came back and 
worked again for Mr. Bell, and later for Joseph Dysart, near Hollidaysburg, 
during this time planting the great shade trees that stand along the pike 
near the present Biddle Farm.
  But in the meantime the railroad had been built to the Y Switches, and Mr. 
Kerr quit farming and went to ramming ties on the sub-division between Bell's 
Mills and what is now Ninth Street, in Altoona.
  He was industrious and capable and a year later was promoted to what was 
then the responsible position of night track walker. The roadbeds were not 
good and were always in danger of washouts or falling trees, and the lives of 
a train load of passengers might depend upon the fidelity and courage of the 
watchman. After another year or two he was moved to a similar position west 
of Johnstown, probably for the reason that it was difficult to get men who 
would walk the tracks in the lonely mountain gorges, subject at any time to 
the attack of wild beasts. After serving some time at this occupation, he was 
made division foreman and for nearly ten years repaired track between Lilly 
and Johnstown.
  But he had larger ambitions, and about the beginning of the Civil War he 
obtained a job as fireman on a locomotive on the Pittsburg Division, and one 
year later was placed in charge of an engine. When asked whether this was not 
a rather short time to serve as a fireman, he replied that "in those days, 
whenever a man knew enough about railroading to make a coupling he could get 
an engine and keep it as long as he did not blow it up." Mr. Kerr had a way 
of always making good at whatever he went at, and no untoward event 
interfered with his service. For many long years he piloted his iron steed 
through the mountain passes as faithfully as he steered oxen in his younger 
days, but in somewhat swifter and more perilous fashion. While for the most 
part he was a freight engineer, in the stormy days of the great strike of '77 
when red riot ran about the Union Station in Pittsburg, and men who had the 
courage to haul a train out of that whirlpool of passion were few and far 
between, largely because he loved adventure and the blood of his ancestors, 
running red in his veins, rebelled against taking a dare, he hauled out the 
trains, bidding defiance to the stones and bullets that flew about him.
  In 1892 he had reached the age when the rigors of a life of hardship began 
to bear heavily upon him, and he reluctantly gave up his locomotive and was 
put in charge of a stationary engine in the blacksmith shop in the Altoona 
Car Shops, where he staid until 1899, when, having reached the age limit, he 
was placed upon the retired list.
  Though somewhat circumscribed, his life has been by no means uneventful, 
and he has marked time in a period that meant much to the industrial life of 
mankind. He fought his fight in the ranks, but he fought a good fight none 
the less and deserves well of his fellows.

                                       #