Samuel Fleming Kerns, the son of William and Isabelle (Gibson) Kerns, born about 1834 in Hillsboro, Ohio. He came overland to Oregon via the Barlow Road with his brother, John Tulley Kerns, in 1852, and settled in the Montavilla area of Multnomah County. He was active in the Indian Wars in Oregon. He married Elizabeth Clagett in 1868, and they settled on a 20-acre tract of land in what is now the Hawthorne District of Portland, where he planted one of the first nurseries in Portland. They had two sons and two daughters. He died in Eugene, on October 8, 1916, after having broken his leg the month before.