From Pioneer History of Washington County, Kentucky

The Kyle Family

The early records of Washington County are pregnant with entries relating to this family.  They concern chiefly the Rev. Thomas Kyle.

The Rev. Thomas Kyle, a native of Pennsylvania, was born in 1757.  He was a soldier in the Revolution and it is said that he once sat with George Washington in the Masonic lodge.  As a soldier he was wounded by a sabre in the hands of a British officer and he carried the scar on his head as a token of the war in which he had participated.

After studying medicine with Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, Thomas Kyle emigrated to Kentucky and settled in Washington County in 1790, and here he co-mingled the practice of medicine with preaching, for he was a minister of the Methodist Church as well as a physician.

We surmise that in Pennsylvania the Rev. Kyle and the Rev. Jesse Head were associated.  Kyle came to Washington County in 1790, and it may have been through his acquaintanceship with Head in their native state that the man who was later to marry Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks was influenced by his friend, already in Washington County, Kentucky, to come on about the year 1795.  Both men were Methodists and both were active as pioneer preachers of that faith in Kentucky.

After a sojourn of 8 years in Washington County, Thomas Kyle moved to Mercer County where he died June 26, 1846.  His children were John, Andrew G., Matthew, Jane and Rebecca.  Andrew G., was born in Washington County in 1796 and at the age of 6two years removed with his parents to the County of Mercer.  He married Jane, daughter of John Glover, of Mercer County, and had two sons, Thomas A. and John G.  The latter became a prominent lawyer and was an ardent supporter of General Grant in the presidential races of 1868 and 1872.