Ezekiel Polk
From Freepedia
Ezekiel Franklin Polk (December 7, 1747– August 31, 1824) was an American surveyor, soldier and pioneer. He was born to Wiliam and Margaret (Taylor) Polk, near Carlisle in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and was the youngest of eight children. The family moved to Mecklenburg County, North Carolina around 1750. Ezekiel became a surveyor, became a prosperous landowner, and raised a large family. He would eventually marry three times, and raise 12 children to adulthood.
During the Revolutionary War Polk served in the state militia. He was a captain in the North Carolina militia, but after his property there was occupied by the British, he joined the South Carolina militia. After the British capture of Charleston, South Carolina, Polk became Colonel of one of the three regiments that General Sumter raised in the back country to support Nathaniel Greene's resistance.
This period of his life is very little known. After the active phase of the war, Polk's deist or perhaps even atheist beliefs brought him increasing conflicts with his neighbors. By 1790 he removed his immediate family to Tennessee, becoming one of the pioneers in the area that is now Hardeman County. His neighbors in the Carolina's removed the names of several people that they believed to be atheists from local records.
Having had one property burned by the British in the war, he used purchased land bounties from other veterans to build another sucesssful property. His grandson, James K. Polk would go on to be President of the United States.
Ezekiel died at home in Bolivar, Tennessee. Sometime before 1844 he was reinterred in the Hillside Cemetery (sometimes called the Polk Cemetery) in Bolivar.
