The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-07-10
COL. JOHN MKEE AND THE
 ANCESTORS OF HARDING

Dr. George F. Mellen fin the Knoxville
 Sentinel writes some interesting facts re-
 garding the ancestry of W. P. G. Hard
 ing. Dr. Mellen takes as his subject.
 Col. John Mckee" and writes as fol-
 lows:
 Reading that my college mate, Will liam Proctor Gould Harding, of Birming-
 ham. Ala. had been named by President Wilson a member of the federal reserve 1 board, I began to think of him pleas
 antly and to connect him remotely with
 east Tennessee. He entered the Uni versity of Alabama in the fall of 1878, which was the beginning of my last year in the institution. He was very young,
 only II, when he entered. and at the age
 of 16 took his bachelors degree. At the l time one little thought that the modest
 stripling that he was would one day l become the great fnancier that he really | is, and eventually be called by President to institute with his colleagues new financial policy in governmental affairs.
 Mingled New England and French blood flows in his veins. The Harding and Gould stock represent the former, while through a grandmother, Eliza Williams Chotard, was injected the French strain. The marriage of the young New Eng lander, William Proctor Gould, whose
 name in full the banker wears, to Miss Chotard was ocoasioned by a juxtaposi-
 tion brought about by an Alabama con gressman, John Mckee. whose name a sop of the union bore.
 'The name of John Mckee appears in biographical encyclopedia and in state history, but nowhere in connection is to l be noted the fact that he belongs very ..fg period of east Tennessee. His services as United States agent to the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians are duly comment orated, but the part he played with Will liam Blount in establishing stable gov ernment in Tennessee territory and in placating the fury of the Cherokees has no adequate reference in any of the works examined HaYwoods and Rapsey's his tories of Tennessee barely refer to him. What James Robertson was to the from
 tier under North Carolina government, John Mckee was to the territory organ ized as that southwest of the Ohio river, now Tennessee. In trying and hazardous situations Mckee was the foremost agent used for the peaeeable adjustment of diff faculties with the Cherokees. As superin- tendent Of Indian affairs in the touth, Blount at the same time with exercising the office of governor used Colonel Mckee to happy advantage. In mitigating the strife which for three years, 1792-94 made Tennessee soil, whether upon the Holston or the Cumberland rivers, dangerous Tor
 the white mans habitation, he was a potent factor.
 'F'urther than Scotch Irish origin be- trayed by the name, it is easy to account
 for the presence of John Mckee in east
 Tennessee. Born in Roel1bridge county,
 Virginia his mother was Esther Hous-
 ton, aunt of Gen. Sam Houston. Early
 the Houstons came to this region Rev.
 Samuel Houston was a conspicuous ngure
 in the formation of the tentative state of
 Franklin. He drew up a constitution for
 the new commonwealth. As soon as pop
 ulation began to flow into the country
 south of the French Broad and Holston
 rivers, James Houston established
 hlockhouse known In history as Hous-
 tons station. This was a lew miles
 northward of Maryville in Blount county.