Mr. David Kerr, the founder of this family in America, and the father of Mr. John Leeds Kerr, emigrated from Galloway, Scotland, at a very early age and settled in the year 1768 as a merchant at Fredericksburg, Virginia. Here he remained until 1773 when he married Hamutel Bishop, grandaughter of Col. Charles Hammond, the Colonial Treasurer of the Western Shore. This lady died without children surviving her, leaving her husband in the possession of an estate known as Greenbury Point, at the mouth of the Severn river. Kerr's Creek, opposite the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, still perpetuates the name of David Kerr. He continued to reside upon this estate until a few years after the Revolutionary war, and then removed to Talbot county, upon the Eastern Shore, where he had married his second wife. Mr, Kerr was a patriot during the Revolution, as he was commissioned by the Council of Safety as First Lieutenant in Captain George Watts company of Militia in Anne Arundel county. On April 17, 1777, he married for his second wife, Mrs. Rachel Leeds Edmondson (nee Bozman), widow of James Edmondson, and sister of the Hon. John Leeds Bozman, the well known historian of Maryland. He settled at Talbot Court House, later called Easton. In 1789 he embarked in a successful mercantile business in the town of Easton, having for his copartners Messrs. Robert Lloyd Nicols and Thomas Chamberlaine. His Scottish thrift and diligence were attended by the usual reward of competence and wealth, so that he was enabled not only to live in great comfort, but to settle his children respectably in life, after having given them the advantages of a liberal education and refined associations. He retired to his attractive estate, Cook's Hope Manor, on the Peach Blossom Creek in Edmondson neck, about three miles south of Easton. Soon after coming to Talbot he enlisted actively in politics.He attached himself to the Federal Party and became an ardent supporter of Washington and the elder Adams. His intelligence and integrity of life won for him the esteem and confidence of his fellow citizens, so that he was elected a delegate to the General Assembly of Maryland for seven successive years, namely, from 1788 to 1794, and again in 1797. After the parties had assumed form, he became identified with the Federalists. In 1789 he was commisioned one of the Justices of the Peace for Talbot county, and after the change in the judiciary, by the law of 1790 he was appointed by the Governor, in 1801, one of the associate or puisne judges for the county, an office which by reason of a political change in the state administration he held for one year only. In 1802 he was appointed a Judge of the Orphan's Court, a place which he held for an equally short term. He was a member of the Church of England, and after its organization of the Protestant Episcopal Church.