Sedgwick County KSGenWeb

Portrait And Biographical Album of Sedgwick County, Kan.

Chapman Brothers 1888

Pages 1020 - 1023 

DUNCAN R. KEIR, a worthy representative of the farming and stock-raising interests of Grant Township, is situated about six miles from Sedgwick City, where he owns and occupies 160 acres of finely cultivated land located on section 9. He has a good residence, a view of which we give elsewhere, and the necessary out-buildings for the care and shelter of his stock, which includes Norman horses, Durham cattle and Poland-China and Berkshire hogs. He takes pride in his calling, and has a worthy ambition to make his farm and his stock models in their way, and thus maintain his position as a skillful agriculturist among the other enterprising men of Sedgwick County.

         Like many of those who years ago sought the fertile regions of Southern  Kansas, upon which to locate, Mr. Keir first opened his eyes in the Empire State, his birth taking place in St. Lawrence County, Feb. 3, 1835. He was fourth in the family of nine children born to William and Maria (Hurd) Keir, natives respectively of Scotland and England, who emigrated to America in their youth, settling first in the Dominion of Canada. Thence they removed to New York State a few years later, where the father of our subject battled with the primitive soil of St. Lawrence County, and opened up a good farm. In 1858 he determined to push still further westward, and removed to Whiteside County, Ill., where he still continued farming until retiring from active labor. He spent his last years in the town of Morrison, where his death took place about 1878.

        The paternal grandfather of our subject, John Keir by name, was also of Scotch birth and ancestry, and after crossing the Atlantic served as a soldier of the War of 1812. He possessed all the sturdy and substantial traits characteristic of his nationality, and transmitted to his descendants his own inherent integrity and high moral principles.

        The subject of this record spent his boyhood and youth amid the quiet scenes of country life, and acquired his education in the district schools of his native county. He was twenty-three years of age when he removed to Illinois with his father's family, and had in the meantime learned the trade of mason, which he has since followed to a considerable extent in addition to his farm operations. He purchased in Whiteside County, Ill., eighty acres of land, where he engaged in the raising of grain and stock until his removal to Kansas. Upon coming to this county in 1879, he purchased a quarter-section of railroad land, which he has now brought to a good state of cultivation, and has arrived at the point where he can “rest upon his oars,” as it were, and contemplate the labors of his hands with a goodly degree of satisfaction. 

        Mr. Keir, while a resident of Whiteside County, Ill., was married in the town of Morrison, Jan. 3, 1863, to Miss Ann Eliza Collins, a native of Catskill, N. Y., who removed West when a young woman, and after the decease of her parents. Mrs. Keir was born Aug. 10, 1833, and was the eldest in a family of five children, her parents being Seymour R. and Hester A. Collins, natives of New York State. Mr. and Mrs. K. commenced life together on the farm already spoken of, where they remained until crossing the Mississippi. Their household included originally four children, three of whom have fled from the home nest, and are now comfortably established under their "own vine and fig tree." Their eldest son, Willis Burr, is married, and engaged in the feed and grocery business at Sedgwick; Sarah Maria is the wife of M. L. Hartman, and lives not far from her father; Edith Belle, now Mrs. E. Robinson, is the wife of a thrifty farmer of Grant Township; Elwood remains with his parents, and is completing his studies in the district school.

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