My Genealogy Hound

Allen A. Kersh, farmer and blacksmith of Diamond Township, was born in Orangeburg District, South Carolina, in 1817, on March 31, and is a son of William and Rachel (Shuber) Kersh, natives of South Carolina, who lived in that State until 1833. They then removed to *Rankin County, Mo., where they passed the remainder of their lives. Mr. Kersh was a farmer and blacksmith. His father, Andrew, came to America with his parents, from Germany, prior to the Revolution, and his parents being poor, he was bound out in order that he might support himself. The maternal grandfather of our subject was born of German parents in South Carolina. Allen A. Kersh is the third of a family of eleven children, and during his youth he attended the country school of his neighborhood. At the age of sixteen he accompanied his parents to Mississippi, where he was married, in 1842, to Elizabeth, daughter of James H. and Barbara W. Riddlespirger, natives of Collenton District, South Carolina, where Mr. R. died when Mrs. Kersh was but an infant. His widow afterward became the wife of Mr. Griffith, and when Mrs. Kersh was ten years old removed to Lauderdale County, Miss. In 1859 the family came to Sebastian County, where Mrs. Griffith died in 1861. Mrs. Kersh’s grandfather, David Riddlespirger, was born in South Carolina, and his father, Abram, was a native of Germany. Mr. and Mrs. Kersh have three sons and six daughters, viz.: Rachel M., wife of David Bishop, of Benton County; Eliza R., wife of Wiley R. Gwyn; William Horton; Samuel R., of Texas; J. Timothy; Sarah B., wife of George Bishop; Elizabeth M.; Susan L., wife of Cooper Hayes, and Viola A., wife of Wiley Martin. Our subject has had fifty-nine grandchildren. In 1858 Mr. Kersh came to Sevier County, and the same year located near Huntington, in Sebastian County, on the Brewster farm. He engaged in farming and blacksmithing, and became the owner of 1,400 acres of land. He now owns about 500 acres. He was one of the pioneers of the county, and remembers paying $13 for 250 pounds of salt, and $11 per barrel for flour, at which time the nearest trading point was either Fort Smith or Little Rock. Mr. Kersh has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, since his youth, and his entire family belongs to that denomination. He is a Democrat, and cast his first presidential vote for Van Buren in 1840. He belongs to Pulliam Masonic Lodge No. 133.

(*Rankin County, Mo., is likely supposed to be Rankin County, Mississippi.)