My Genealogy Hound

PROF. JOHN T. ROSS was born in 1834, in the State of Maryland, and is descended from Scotch and German ancestors. His father, Robert Ross, was a native of Alleghany County, Md., and his mother, Elizabeth Klipstein, was born in Winchester, Va. The family was first represented in the United States by Robert Ross, Sr., who, in the colonial period, settled on the east shore of Virginia, from whence he removed to the western part of Maryland, where Robert Ross, Jr., was born, reared and married. His wife, Miss Elizabeth Klipstein, was the daughter of a Dr. Louis Klipstein, who served as a surgeon in the war of the Revolution. Prof. John T. Ross is the fourth of a family of six children born to these parents. He was educated in his native State, and early in life devoted himself to the profession of teaching, from which he has never departed. Prof. Ross is not only one of the oldest teachers in the State, but a man of pronounced efficiency, as is evidenced by the fact that he has been retained in the city schools of Paducah for the past twelve years, and for the past fourteen years has been a member of the board of education for McCracken County. His experience in the schoolroom covers a period of thirty-one years, twenty-three years in the State of Kentucky. Prof. Ross was twice married, first in 1862, to Miss Louisa Richardson, of Ballard County, who died in 1863, leaving one son, Lewis F. Ross, now of Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1864 he contracted a second marriage, this time to Miss Mary L. Polk, a native of Springfield, Tenn., and second cousin to President James K. Polk; she was born in 1838, and is the mother of two sons, viz.: Clarence Ross and Polk Ross. Prof. Ross is a member of the A. F. & A. M., I. O. O. F., K. of H., and both he and wife are members of the Christian Church at Paducah.