CORWIN B. KEITH                         

The Moran Herald, Friday, Apr. 30, 1909

Died:  Apr. 21, 1909

 

WAS AN EARLY SETTLER.

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C. B. Keith Was a Pioneer of the Eastern Part

of Kansas.

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  Corwin B. Keith was born in Horton county, Ohio, July 24, 1841, the youngest of five children.  In 1853 he moved with his parents to Ogle county, Illinois, when he made his home until he came to Kansas, in 1869.  His higher education was obtained at Rock River Seminary, Mount Morris, Ill., and was cut short only by the breaking out of the civil war.  During the year 1862 he enlisted in Company A, Second Illinois Cavalry, and served through its campaigns in Tennessee and Mississippi, first as an escort of Gen. Ord and later as a personal escort Gen. John A. Logan.  He was mustered out of the service before the end of the war owing to severe wounds he received in battle, and after a long period of confinement in the Federal military hospital in Memphis, Tenn.

  Coming to Allen county, in 1869 he settled in Iola where he and Cyrus M. Simpson engaged in the mercantile business.  While living there he was married to Miss Ella Morse, of Mound City, Kans., who died in 1874, as did their infant daughter, Mary Alice Keith.  Moving onto his farm northeast of Moran, he was married in 1876 to Miss Josephine Gilfilian (sic), of Fort Scott, who died in 1900.  Two children were born to them—a boy, Essie, who lived less than a year, dying August 1879, and a daughter, who is now Mrs. J. R. Jewell, of Emporia, Kansas.

  In 1882 Mr. Keith removed from his farm to Gilfilian (sic), Kans., where for some years he was actively engaged in connection with the extensive flagstones (sic) quarries of that place and from where he went to Fort Scott as a flagstone contractor.  Coming to Moran in November, 1892, he operated a feed grain, and coal business for almost fifteen years, and retired only when his health would not permit him longer to be in continment.  In August, 1907, he moved with his daughter to Emporia, where he made his home till his death, April 21, 1909.