Jakob Kelker

I represent Jakob Kelker. I was born near Lebanon, Pennsylvania in 1770 and was of Swiss descent. A lot of folklore surrounds me and what I actually did for a living – that I was a Spanish grandee or perhaps a pirate ravaging the shores of the Gulf Coast – but available records indicate I was engaged in various business ventures while I migrated southward from Pennsylvania, through Virginia; Tennesee; Natchez, Mississippi; and New Orleans. By 1818 I was well settled at the head of the Escambia Bay, on land still called Kelker Fields or the Kelker Grant in Santa Rosa County. I worked for a time with the Panton, Leslie Company delivering goods to Fort Crawford, Alabama. It was said by a neighbor that I lived among the Indians and was familiar with boating, so perhaps a bit of pirating wasn’t out of the question. I had three children with a free woman of color named Elizabeth “Betsy” Lewis: John, Frederick, and Maria. I died in 1827 in Floridatown.