Ezekiel Polk

Ezekiel Polk (December 7, 1747 – August 31, 1824), American  soldier, pioneer and grandfather of President James Knox Polk, was the next youngest of five boys and three girls born to William Polk and Margaret Taylor Polk of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, near present-day Carlisle. About 1753 the family moved southwestward to the southern boundary of North Carolina in what would become Mecklenburg County. His parents appear to have died shortly afterward, and Ezekiel probably was brought up by his older brother Thomas, the senior member of the family, a leader of the local militia and a member of the first and subsequent North Carolina provincial assemblies. At age 20 Ezekiel, recently married, was named clerk of court in the new county of Tryon across the Catawba River, where he and his bride established themselves on a farm just south of Kings Mountain. In 1772, however, the provincial boundary was surveyed, and Polk's property was discovered to lie in South Carolina.