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A Brief Biography of Steven Keese excerpted from "Keese Family History and Genealogy" written by his son Willis T. Keese

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Stephen R. Keese and Sarah H. Keese Stephen R. Keese, born 8th month, 30th, 1801, in Clinton county, New York. His mother died ere he reached his twelfth year and Stephen went to live with his uncle, William Keese, where he remained until his father married again, then he came on to Ohio and helped to clear up two farms in what is now Morrow county, one located on the east bank of Alum Creek, some ten or twelve miles southeast of Cardington, the other three miles northwest, near Weston meeting house. He labored hard and diligently until he was twenty-four years old. Then he took a trip in the fall of 1825 back to the scene of his childhood, and to see his girl that he had left behind him, Sarah H. Gove, daughter of Jonathan and Hannah Gould Gove, of Lincoln, Vermont. She was a blithe lassie five years his junior, well formed and intelligent, with auburn hair. Stephen had made this journey mostly on foot and as the journey was a long one he got work during the winter and spring, and they were married 5th month, 14th, 1826. There is a little incident connected with their wedding which I will relate as told to me by my mother. They were both members with Friends, but Father's membership was in Ohio, a long way off, and no very good way of traveling, and it cost fifty cents to send a letter if it weighed over one-half ounce. Friends did not approve of a marriage by a priest or a civil officer, but only in the regular way in meeting and parents were liable to be dealt with if they allowed a marriage to be consummated in their presence, so to get around bringing her mother and father into trouble they arranged to have the Justice of the Peace to come to the house while her parents were gone to midweek meeting, and in the presence of her younger sisters and an aunt the knot was tied and all trouble was avoided, and the young couple soon set out on their wedding trip to Ohio. I do not know how they got from Vermont to the lakes, but they arrived in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, early in June. There he left his wife with friends and walked home, a distance of some fifty miles. I will let Richard Wood, an old friend of the family, tell this part of the story in his own way. In writing a paper for a pioneer meeting he makes mention of this wedding trip, as follows: “Stephen Keese left his bride at Upper Sandusky and walked to his father's house and procured a horse and saddle to bring his wife home, but, neglecting to let down the upper bar, the horn of the saddle caught on the bar and broke the girth, and Stephen broke down and cried, but the repairs were soon made and he returned for his bride. Then after seeing her safely mounted, he took the rein and led the horse proudly home.” They rented a house and commenced the struggle of life. It appears that these young people did not gain much wealth while living in Ohio. The times were dull and wages low; 50 to 75 cents per day was about all a man could command. He said that children came faster than money. I don't believe that he wished to complain of the presence of children in the home, but he wanted a home of their own to put them in. Father loved his children and six were born to them in the eleven years they lived in Ohio, one pair of twins, one of whom died in infancy. In the year 1836 they decided to go to Indiana, where there was government land they could enter. They borrowed $100 of a friend (Samuel Howell, I think) with which to purchase the land. Father went on in the spring to clear some land and build them a house to live in. Mother remained in Ohio until autumn, then she and four of the children came out in a covered wagon. She left my sister Elizabeth with her grandmother in Ohio. One Thomas Edmondson furnished the conveyance. The road was bad, through the woods, and it took four good horses to draw the wagon, and then they stalled several times in the mud. She brought two good cows and a pony that 'my brother Jonathan and one John Frame rode and walked by turns, and drove the cows. And they were all glad to join Father in their new home in the woods. It was a small cabin with a wide porch on the north side. In this cabin I was born, and some of the other children. There was an addition built to it later on to meet the needs of the growing family, and school was held in it, taught by Ellis Davis. About the year 1862 a frame house was built and the cabin abandoned. On this farm they lived until all their eleven children matured and married, then the home was sold. In the spring of 1882 they went on an extended visit to their children in Iowa and Nebraska, where Father died at the home of their daughter, Hannah Haines, 1st month, 5th, 1883, and mother died in the year 1891, 9th month, 20th, and their remains rest peacefully in the cemetery near Franklin, Nebraska.

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Steven Keese Biography

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