Ezekiel Polk

Who was Ezekiel Polk?

Ezekiel Polk, 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 100-acre 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.

Polk adapted with increasing difficulty to the shifting boundary and consequent loss of his position as clerk of court. At first he was chosen lieutenant colonel of the district militia. In 1775 he was elected a delegate to the South Carolina Provincial Congress held in June and was commissioned a captain in the Third South Carolina Regiment of Horse Rangers, assigned to the interior, where Whigs and Loyalists were competing for control of the province. But when the regiment was ordered to the coast, Polk balked, marching his men home rather than sacrifice their health, as he put it, for the protection of Lowcountry aristocrats and rice plantation nabobs. He subsequently relented, apologized for his insubordination and was restored to command. He led his company against Loyalist forces in the battle at Reedy River in December 1775 and the following summer commanded 300 militia in a successful expedition against pro-Loyalist Cherokees. On July 24, 1776, Polk's regiment was adopted into the Continental Army and assigned to the Southern Department. "Captain Ezekiel Polk's Independent Company," according to the U.S. Army's regimental history, was "concurrently redesignated as the 10th Company, 3rd South Carolina Regiment." ²²