Welcome to TheKirkLine website; a site specifically for the
descendants of Levi Kirk, father of John Wesley Kirk and
grandfather of Howard Wilbur Kirk. All three lived and
worked in Chesapeake City; Levi as the bridge tender there
and both John and his son, Howard, as pilots on the
Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. I am a son of Joseph Thomas
Kirk, a son of Howard's. Howard moved to Philadelphia
around 1880 where he met and married Catherine McCool, the
only daughter of Annie Campbell and James McCool--both born
in Ireland. Annie was born in The Glenties, County Donegal
in 1825 and James was born in Antrim, county Tyrone about
1830. They met in Philadelphia and married in 1860.
My father,Joseph, was the sixth child of ten born to Howard
and Catherine. Two of the children, John (1894) and Edward
(1898) were stillborn. Joseph was born in 1899 in
Philadelphia. In 1901, the family moved to Delanco, New
Jersey where Howard opened a boat yard for his affluent
friends at the University of Pennsylvania. At that time,
Howard was the captain of the yacht, "Franklin", owned by
the university. The purpose of this website,
primarily, is to make this line of Kirks as complete as
possible with all the branches. So, if you are a Kirk,
Denneler, Posch, Zurbrugg, Hullings, or Scanlon, you may
have some valuable information to add to this site. In the
pages following this one I will add the Family Web Cards of
the Kirk's from Levi down to the present day. At this
point, we are talking about 8 generations (seven in my
particular case.) How this descends for me is as follows:
Levi had John who had Howard who had Joseph who had me
(James) who had Kevin who had Justin. However, a couple of
my siblings have great grandchildren which makes the 8th
generation. In addition to the web cards, I will include
some historical (or hysterical, as Dad would have said)
notes about the Kirks and the Schwertzlers. The
secondary reason for building this site is the hope that
someone out there can help us get beyond Levi. At this
point, we do not know who his parents are. What we do know
about him is this: He was born in 1801, somewhere in
Maryland. In 1829, he married Elizabeth Gray (born in
Delaware in 1806) and moved to Chesapeake City, Maryland
when the canal was first opened for traffic. They had eight
children (these will all be listed later in the family
tree.) Levi died in 1876 and Elizabeth died in 1878. That's
about all I know about Levi. If anyone out there can help
us find his parents, we will be eternally grateful.
In addition to the Kirk tree, I am putting my mother's
tree, Schwertzler, on this site; hoping that the relatives
on that side will add information as well. If, after
reading the information on The Kirk Family Tree, you find
incorrect data or, if you wish to add to or delete from the
tree, please email me at the address on the email page.
