Peter Kerr (Texas settler)
Texan settler (1795-1861)
Peter Kerr (September 12, 1795–November 18, 1861), also known as Peter Carr, was one of the founders of Burnet, Texas, and a member of the Old Three Hundred, the original settlers in Stephen F. Austin's colony.
Early life
Peter Kerr or Carr was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on September 12, 1795.
Kerr and his partner, William Kerr, received title to a league of land now in Washington County, Texas, on August 10, 1824. At some point in 1824, he landed at Matagorda Bay and proceeded overland to Victoria, where he established a mercantile business. He was listed in the census of 1826 as a merchant with three servants. Soon thereafter his plans to marry a Spanish girl were thwarted when he was robbed on a trading expedition among the Indians further down the Texas coast. Her father broke the contract because the robbery left Kerr penniless.
Kerr obtained a charter ship, which was soon wrecked in a storm. Kerr received insurance money for his ship and bought a hack and a pair of horses, which were in turn wrecked the first time he put them into use. After a trip to Pennsylvania he returned to New Orleans, purchased a still, and put it on a ship to Texas.
“Peter Kerr (Texas settler)” enters the record as texan settler (1795-1861). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Peter, Kerr and Texas can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Peter Kerr (Texas settler)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.