Settled in Lisban

Referred to as ‘The Pioneer’.

The fourth settled in Lisban, near Saintfield, County Down, where with a fellow soldier named Edgar, both of whom have may descendants in the neighborhood still, who have inter-married for several generations. This soldier-pioneer, whose name was probably Hugh, had settled, built his house, married, and possibly had some children born to him before the year 1700. On the Lisban Road, going from Lough Henney to Saintfield, about half mile after crossing the Belfast road, your attention will be attracted towards the right by an ivy-covered gable, which is all that remains standing of the original Edgar house. If you should go about a quarter mile farther on towards Saintfield, and turn to the left where the road from Tonaghmore to Carricknaveah crosses the Lisban road, you will see the remains of the old McKee house, about a hundred feet from the crossroads, and on the left-hand side. The front wall is still standing, and is used as a fence between the road and the field. You are now on land once granted by the Crown to the pioneer for his services in the cause of the Protestant succession. If you are a "Logstown McKee," or a descendant of David McKee, the subject of this book- or of Hugh or John his brothers, you must feel an interest in this spot. Two centuries ago your ancestor was living within these walls. Two centuries ago he had beaten his sword into a plowshare, and was laboring to put the land about you in its present state of beauty.

The patent which accompanied the grant, with its crest and motto, is now beyond our reach, having been recalled by the Marquis of Downshire, the lord of the soil, at the expiration of some stipulated period of life, or after the passage of some land act increasing the powers of the landlord, of which there were forty-four. The pioneers grandson, Hugh McKee of Poagsburn, became a successful linen merchant in that latter part of the eighteenth centrury, and acquired from Lord Donegal the privilege of creeting a stone in the old linen market in Donegal street, Belfast, on which to buy and sell linen. This neccessitated his having a stamp for marking the linen thus purchased or sold, and so he had one made from the original crest on the patent, using however the English translation of the motto. This stamp was lost, but his son John, who was killed in 1812, was one of the few men in that neighborhood to get a watch, and with it he go a seal with the family crest; both of which are now in the possession of his grandnephew, Mr David McKee, Oughley, Saintfield, County Down, Ireland.

As to the pioneers wife and as to the number of his children we knew nothing, although in all probability he had a large family. There are, however, only four of whom we have any definate knowledge.