DOB given as 1/5/1789 in Bio.

Following is an excerpt from the Gray land case. There was an ejectment suit instituted by William McKee against John Frederick and Samuel Kirk, January term, 1817. Frederick and Kirk were mere renters, holding the place at the time. The girl that Mrs. Hannah Gray (now Williams) had taken as her own, and always treated as her own, married a man named Gillespie, and they sold the property inherited from Mrs. Williams to a clergyman named William McKee, of Washington, D.C. , and he sold it to his nephew, William McKee, son of John, already named as married to Mary Hogg. [This lady is the "old Mrs. McKee," a witness at some of the trials. It has been published that she "spoke with a rich Irish brogue," and "on one occasion became quite garrulous, and entered into the history of the valley, to the great amusement of the court." and that "she describes the spurious girl as a big, black, ugly, Dutch lump, and not to be compared to the beautiful Jenny Gray." Mrs. McKee was native-born, and no doubt a woman of education, culture and refinement. As her son was claiming the land through Mrs. Gillespie's title, it is a very unlikely story that she spoke of her as above stated. The same writer says: "Her historical developments so much interested one of the jury at Lewistown, an old settler himself, that he, forgetting the restraints of a juryman, sent for the old lady to come to his room at the hotel, and enter more at large into the days of auld lang syne. The old man was a little deaf, and the old lady's voice could be heard throughout the house. One of the counsel, whose side of the case wore rather a discouraging aspect, overheard the old lady, and the next morning exposed the poor juryman, amidst a roar of laughter from the court and bar. The case, of course, had to be tried before another jury."