George Kirkman Jr.’s most memorable contribution to family lore occurred in May 1785 when he became the first Kirkman to move his family from Dorchester County, MD to North Carolina’s rolling Piedmont hill country.

After the Revolution ended in 1783, hundreds of Marylanders who had fought in the Carolinas returned home and spread the word that North Carolina’s rich, fertile soil was tailor-made for raising tobacco. It’s likely that the sandy soil of George’s Dorchester plantation was exhausted by too frequent tobacco plantings..

So George joined the wave of new pioneers flooding into sparsely populated central North Carolina. He sold his plantation and with his wife, Elizabeth, and their family and slaves trekked to Pleasant Garden, Guilford County, eight miles south of present day Greensboro.

George purchased 300 acres of tobacco land on May 7, 1785 and was listed in North Carolina’s 1790 census as the father of seven children.

Six other Maryland Kirkmans (Elisha, James, another Leven, Peter, Thomas and William) followed George to North Carolina and were tabulated in the 1790 census or contemporary court records.

George eventually sired 12 children (Leven, William, Peter, John, James, George, Elijah, Thomas, Mary, Sarah, Anna and Martha.) Old militiaman George’s adventurous life ended on October 3, 1820 (age 85) in Pleasant Garden. He’s buried there in a family plot.

George’s son, Leven, became noteworthy in 1808 by being one of the founders of Greensboro, Guilford County (the surrender site of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s Confederate army in May 1865).

Four of George Jr.’s eight sons emulated their land hungry father and moved from North Carolina to Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee during the early years of the 19^th century.

George (another of the no middle namers) migrated to Richmond, IN (75 miles east of Indianapolis). Kirkmans still reside there.

William went to southwestern Kentucky (40 miles west of Bowling Green), became a farmer and founded Kirkmansville, a village of 200 people. Kirkmans still reside near the town.

Elijah moved to Bedford County, TN (50 miles south of Nashville) and was recorded on the Volunteer State’s 1820 census.

Thomas was the most adventurous: he became a Midwestern Yankee by settling in central Illinois (50 miles west of Springfield, the state capitol).

George Walter Kirkman, born in or near Richmond, IN in 1853, was a typical George Kirkman. A great-great-grandson of the old Valley Forger, Hoosier George migrated to Missouri in 1872, farmed there for a decade, then completed the family’s coast-to-coast journey by settling in Exeter, CA (between Bakersfield and Fresno). He built a store and became Exeter’s first merchant.

William T. Kirkman, Jr. also became a late 19^th century Californian by moving from Arkansas to Merced in the San Joaquin Valley in 1888. He founded the Kirkman Nurseries in Fresno in 1906.

Not all of the Dorchester Kirkmans followed George to North Carolina. Some remained in Dorchester and others moved 60 miles to Baltimore. Families headed by yet another Leven and two or three others went to Baltimore where Leven owned a ship named the "Free Mason," possibly so named because he was a mason.

The seven Kirkman families who settled in North Carolina in the late 18^th century were prolific and members spread widely throughout the state or moved westward as the United States fulfilled its manifest destiny by expanding from coast to coast.

But North Carolina has remained the family’s American center point and there now are so many Tarheel Kirkmans that they ought to rename the state Kirkmania. And Greensboro is the Kirkman capitol of the world with 122. There also are substantial numbers of Kirkmans in Winston-Salem, High Point, Pleasant Garden and Mt. Airy.

Currently, Kirkmans reside in 47 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, but not in Montana, North Dakota or Vermont. The World Book of Kirkmans indicates 540 Kirkmans still reside in North Carolina. Other states with substantial populations include California (173), Florida (124), Indiana (120), Missouri (99), Ohio (93), Texas (90), Utah (51) and Virginia (50).

Very few Kirkmans reside in the northeast: none in Vermont, two in Delaware, three in Maine, four in New Hampshire, four in Rhode Island, 15 in Connecticut, 21 in New Jersey, 22 in Maryland, 26 in Pennsylvania, 37 in Massachusetts and 42 in New York.