Godfrey Carriger, Jr., a son of Gotfried Kercher, was born May 13, 1767 or 1769. (The old German record is very dim and it is difficult to tell whether it is 67 or 69.) He was about thirteen years of age when the family home was established in Carter county, Tennessee. A soldier of the Revolution, he received a grant of land issued on a military warrant. He held the rank of major and was always known as Major Carriger. He acted as register of his county from July 4, 1796, to May 6, 1827, the date of his death, a period of thirty-one years, having the distinction of serving his county in this capacity longer than any other man. He was justice of the peace and member of the school board and took great interest in educational affairs. He and his brother Christian built the first schoolhouse east of Elizabethton in the territory including Johnson county and extending to the Virginia and North Carolina lines. This was built for school purposes and as a meeting house, according to the deed conveying the land which was donated by Godfrey Carriger, Jr. Five generations of his descendants have attended school here. The original building of brick was torn down in the year 1912 to give place to a new and larger building, but some of the material of the first building was used in the foundation of the new. Godfrey Carriger, Jr., married Mrs. Elizabeth Lovelace Crawley on the 27th of October, 1803, and they had seven sons and three daughters, all reaching adult age and marrying, save one daughter who died when young. The two-story log house which Godfrey Carriger, Jr., built in 1796 and in which he reared his family is still in good state of preservation. It was considered a mansion in that day, being the best residence in the Watauga settlement. His wife departed this life February 27, 1826.

Transcribed from: Tennessee, The Volunteer State, 1796-1923 by John Trotwood Moore and Austin P. Foster published by S.J Clarke Publishing Co., 1923.