Lexington, Ky., 1864, when I was twenty-nine years old; she was eight years old when she came from Delaware to Kentucky, and knew a great deal of the early family history that now we can never learn. I have often heard her speak about it, but it made no impression on me, as I then felt that I should never know anything more of our immediate family. By dint of hard work, with perseverance, a vast amount of correspondence, and ransacking the old offices of record in Delaware and Maryland, I have gathered from old wills, deeds, bonds, etc., a sufficient amount of matter that will be of interest to all who have Hearne blood in their veins, and I trust that the generations who are to follow me will continue to keep up the record which I have commenced. It was a remarkable coincidence of the two kinsmen, Jacob Hearne, who came to Kentucky 1790, and Clement Hearne, who came 1798, and lived for so many years within twenty-five miles of each other, that they should both die on the same day, July 7, 1851; Jacob Hearne near Hopkinsville, Ky., aged eighty-two years, and Clement Hearne, near Lexington, Ky., aged eighty-eight years.

There is quite a family of HEARNS in Florida and Georgia, and I cannot do better for their history than give it as written me by one of the family, WILLIAM H. MILTON, JR., U. S. Surveyor General, Tallahassee, Florida. He says, 1897:

I found much trouble in securing the desired information; and, in fact, did not secure as much as I intended to obtain. My great-aunt, upon whom I depended, has quite recently lost her memory (she is about eighty-five years of age); therefore I can only give you such data as my records and memory of fireside talk can afford. We spell the name Hearn; but my mother, who was well posted in family lore, has often said in my presence that the name was Hearne, and she usually wrote it that way. Our family moved to Florida from North Carolina. They went to North Carolina from New York, I think, but it may have been Baltimore. This Hearn who moved to North Carolina from New York city, I do not recall his name, nor the name of his wife. He lived near Tarboro, Edgecombe Co., N. C.; went there quite a young man, and probably married there. He was born about 1700 or 1710. I do not know how many children he had. His son, my immediate ancestor, was named Michael Hearn, born about 1740 or 1750;

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Thanks to Catherine Bradford for transcribing this page.