SAMUEL E. KEITH
is one of the earliest pioneers and oldest business men of Vinton and
Benton county, his investments and interests having spread into several
states of the middle west. As he is now in 1910, in his eighty-third
year, his natural activities are on the wane, although he still keeps
his widely extended interests well in hand and his mind is strong and
clear. With his cultured and beloved wife, he resides in a comfortable
home in Vinton, in which city he owns other real estate, as well as
farming property in the county. He is also interested in the Iowa
Canning Company and other local enterprises; is president of the First
National Bank of Colman, South Dakota, and at the head of a land
company at Crook, Colorado; and is connected with the Creamery Supply
Company of Chicago, as well as a property owner in that city. It is
noteworthy in this connection that all his property has one feature in
common; it is free of ineumbrance. With all his success and prominence
in business and with all his public spirit, his best friends say that
he "will hold an office only long enough to get rid of it."
Mr. Keith was born in Huntington county, Pennsylvania, on March 28,
1828, and is a son of Jacob and Mary (McPheran) Keith. His father, who
was born in 1775, died in 1848, and was interested in various mining
and iron industries of the state. An able business man, he was still a
Scotch gentleman of the old school, and was a worthy descendant of Lord
George Keith, the polished and cultured founder of Aberdeen College.
The American ancestors of the Keith family were five brothers who
emigrated from Scotland and at an early day were instrumental in
founding the characteristic industries of Pennsylvania. Samuel Keith,
of this sketch, had resided in his native state for twenty-seven years
when he entered the period of his western life. On April 15, 1856,
while his face was still turned in that direction, he stopped at Iowa
City, which was then the terminus of Iowa's first railroad. There he
met Harvey Gay, John A. McDaniel, William Loree and Silas Osgood, who,
like himself, were bound for the little village of Vinton. They were
all young men seeking their places in the untried west, and the
subsequent progress of Benton county was much indebted to their various
abilities; but of this sturdy, ambitious band only Mr. Keith is now
living.
The first three years of Mr. Keith's residence in Vinton were passed as
a store clerk, when, having become posted as to the general conditions
of western trade and the special features of local business, he founded
a general mercantile establishment as well as a furniture store, and
became one of the leading men of the locality. He also entered three
quarter sections of land in Benton county, and it was only at quite a
recent date that he disposed of his farm near Vinton. The large and
varied enterprises in whieh he has become interested outside of Benton
county and Iowa have already been mentioned.
On October 1, 1857, Mr. Keith married Miss Adelia Beck, daughter of Dr.
O. E. Beck of Vinton. She died November 21, 1866, the mother of three
daughters, as follows: Missouri, who died in infancy, and Cora and
Mollie, who reached womanhood and married. Cora became the wife of
Thomas Pierce on August 31, 1882, and died February 19, 1885, leaving a
daughter, who now resides at Long Beach, California, wife of James
Heartwell, a leading banker of that place. Mollie married George W.
Farmer, October 12, 1892, and resides in Chicago, where her husband is
engaged in the erection and sale of apartment buildings. On February
24, 1869, Mr. Keith married as his second wife, Miss Emma Whitlock,
formerly of New York, but then residing in Vinton. The two sons born to
them were: Karl, who is a jeweler and a prominent Mason of Eagle Grove,
Iowa, and Victor W. Keith, who is engaged in the newspaper business at
Albuquerque, New Mexico. Mrs. Emma Keith died April 14, 1879, and in
February, 1883, Mr. Keith married Miss Mina J. Briggs, of Albany, New
York, the ceremony occurring in Vinton, at the home of the bride's
sister, now Mrs. A. Briggs, of New York city. Two children have been
born to this third union, as follows: Leo B. Keith, May 22, 1885, who
is cashier of the First National Bank of Colman, South Dakota, and
married Mary Shreeves of Blairstown, April 16, 1908; and Genevieve
Keith, born April 13, 1889, who was married October 20, 1909, to Dr. G.
E. Funston, of Waterloo. Both parents and daughter are active members
of the Presbyterian church, and Mr. Keith has long been identified with
Masonry, the brotherhood of that order and the fraternity inculcated by
the religion of Christ being the brightest guiding stars of his life.
Mr. Keith is the only survivor of nine children, the last one, a sister
dying in 1909, aged ninety-one years.
Picture of Samuel E. Keith
