I represent John Kelker, son of Jakob Kelker, a man of Swiss descent, and Elizabeth “Betsy” Lewis, a free woman of color. I was born in what was then Escambia County but would later be Santa Rosa County. Records indicate my brother Frederick and I were both born around the same year and may have been twins. In 1848, I married Cecilia Gomez, the daughter of Agustina Noriega, an enslaved woman in the household of Victoire LeSassier. I worked as a carpenter and mechanic, and served as the first pastor of the New Providence Missionary Baptist Church in Bagdad. I died in 1893 in Santa Rosa County.