Description
The Kerr-Hurd Family Collection affords insights into medicine, society, politics, education, and family life in San Joaquin
County, California, during the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It includes correspondence, diaries, account
books, published material, memorabilia, medical books, and other material collected by San Joaquin County physician William
Reed Kerr (1813-1861); his wife, Frances Brown Kerr (1849-1866); and other family members.
Background
William Reed Kerr (1813-1861) studied medicine at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. During this period, he married
Frances Brown of Maytown, Pennsylvania. After receiving his license to practice (1843), Kerr moved with his wife to Miami,
Ohio, where they produced a son, John Brown (1847-1922), and a daughter, Emma (1848-1941). After living in Ohio about five
years, Kerr heard about the discovery of gold in California and resolved to go West with his family to offer his medical services
to the miners of California. The Kerrs traveled to the Golden State via New Mexico and Arizona (1849), and, after many difficulties,
including trouble with Indians and with quicksand along the Gila River, they arrived in San Joaquin County. There they established
themselves on a ranch east of Stockton called "Sheltered Oaks." From this base, Kerr became a "circuit-riding doctor," traveling
from mine to mine, ministering to the needs of the sick. Kerr also opened a pharmacy in Stockton. During their years in California,
the Kerrs had other children, including William Jr. (1851-1872), Benjamin E. (1855-1897), Sarah (Fish) (b. 1857), and Louis
C. Kerr. Kerr and hs wife were good friends of another prominent early physician in San Joaquin County, Dean Jewett Locke,
who lived in the nearby hamlet of Lockeford. Both families participated in temperance society activities and in the establishment
of the Republican Party in San Joaquin County (1856). Although William Kerr contracted typhoid and died suddenly at the age
of forty-eight, his widow survived well into the twentieth century (1918). She later married a Mr. Russem. Kerr's eldest daughter,
Emma California, attended the University of the Pacific and San Francisco Normal School, subsequently teaching school briefly
in Merced County before marrying Charles E. Hurd of Stockton (1870). Hurd owned a dairy on the site of the present University
of the Pacific campus near the Calaveras River until 1900. The family then moved to Lodi, where Hurd operated a ten-acre farm
until his death (1935). The Hurds had eight children: Lila, Nell (Bessac), Clarence W., Frances (Manning), Ethel (Comfort),
Lester K., Algae (Trewhitt), and Charles Jr. The Hurds' second daughter, Nell, married a Mr. Harry.