W D KillenWilliam Dool Killen served as a Presbyterian Church in Ireland preacher and church historian. Born on April 16, 1806, in Church Street, Ballymena, County Antrim, he was the third of four boys and nine children born to John Killen (1768-1828), a groce and seedsman in Ballymena, and his wife Martha, daughter of Jesse Dool, a farmer in Duneane. His paternal grandfather, a farmer from Carnmoney, married Blanche Brice, a descendant of Edward Brice; a brother, James Miller Killen (1815-1879), was a clergyman in Comber, County Down. Thomas Young Killen, his father's great-nephew, served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland in 1882. Killen attended local primary schools before enrolling in Ballymena Academy in 1816 and the collegiate department of the Royal Academical Institution in Belfast in November 1821, where he studied under James Thomson. He was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Ballymena in 1827 and ordained as a minister at Raphoe, County Donegal, on November 11, 1829. Read More Read Less