Son of the American Revolutionary War chapter inducts six new members

The Dothan area chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution increased its membership by a quarter in one day.

“We have never had six before at one time to be inducted,” Richardson said, the president of the Tri-State chapter of the Alabama Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. “You’d normally get one or two but this is all one family.”

Richardson said the local chapter had 24 members before the induction of six members of the Clarence Shirah family Saturday. Shirah serves as the vice president of the Tri-State chapter of the SAR. The new members included Clarence Shirah’s two sons, Keith Eugene Shirah and Kendall Clarence Shirah, three of his grandsons, Sean Keith Shirah, Christopher Ryan Shirah and Robert Terry Hughes Jr. along with his great-nephew, Justin Lynn Kelly. 

The membership required a documented lineage to a soldier or patriot who fought in the Revolutionary War.

Richardson said all six new members provided documentation of ancestry to Richard Byrd. Byrd served as a private in Jeese Cobb’s company under Col. Richard Cadwell in North Carolina in 1776.

Keith Eugene Shirah called the ceremony important because of the significant family ties. 

“To me it’s an honor,” Keith Eugene Shirah said, who traveled from the Atlanta area for the ceremony. “It’s not something that just anybody can be apart of.”

Robert Terry Hughes Jr., who traveled from Frederick, Md., for the ceremony said he planned to try and also become a SAR member in Maryland.

“I didn’t even realize that our ancestry went back that far, to the Revolutionary War, Hughes said.

John Wallace, a member of the Wiregrass chapter of SAR out of Enterprise, welcomed the new members with several facts of the organization, including its purpose. He said the society has nearly 27,000 members, including the first six or seven U.S. presidents.

“A lot of it is aimed at trying to preserve our patriotic history,” Wallace said. “We’ve had 15 presidents who were members.”

As part of part of its educational and historical preservation Wallace said the organization holds several essay contests for area high school students.

Wallace said he understood President Barack Obama to be eligible for the SAR through his mother’s descendants. Wallace also asked the audience of a couple dozen people whether they could name the only American president who was a prisoner of war.

“Andrew Jackson at the age of 14 fought in the American Revolution and was captured by the British,” Wallace said.