Slavery and four years of war

by Joseph Warren Keifer

Abram, though once in prosperous circumstances, through irregular habits and the inherited disposition to rove over the world, became poor, and sometimes, when remote from his family and friends, in real want, yet he, the youngest of the four, lived past the traditional family fourscore years, dying poor (near Lawrenceville, Illinois), but leaving children and grandchildren in many States of the West, who had become, at his death, or since became, distinguished as soldiers and eminent citizens. He was a man of most cheerful disposition, and whatever his circumstances or lot were he seemed content and happy.

Five of Dr. Peter Smith's daughters (besides my mother) lived to be married. Sarah married Henry Jennings; Elizabeth, Hezekiah Ferris; Nancy, John Johns; Margaret, Hugh Wallace, and Rhoda, Dr. Wm. Lindsay, but each died comparatively young. They also each left children; and their grandchildren, etc., are now numerous and many of them highly esteemed citizens, also scattered widely over the country.

Two others of Dr. Smith's children (Catherine and Jacob Stout) lived only to the ages of fifteen and seventeen years respectively.

But Peter Smith was not the sole head of this remarkable and long wandering family, nor the repository or source of all its brains or good qualities of head and heart.

He was married, as stated, to Catherine Stout, in New Jersey, whose family was theretofore, then, and since both numerous and widely dispersed, and many of them more than usually prominent or celebrated in public or private life.

Her ancestry may be traced briefly. Richard Stout, who seems to have been first of his name in America, was the son of John Stout, of Nottinghamshire, England. When a young man he came to New Amsterdam (New York City), where he met Penelope Van Princess, a young woman from Holland. She, with her first husband, had been on a ship from Amsterdam, Holland, bound for New Amsterdam. The ship was wrecked in the lower bay and driven on the New Jersey coast below Staten Island. The passengers and crew escaped to the shore, but were there attacked by Indians, and all left for dead; Penelope alone was alive, but severely wounded. She had strength enough to get to a hollow tree, where she is said to have lived unaided for seven days, during which time she was obliged to keep her bowels in place with her hand, on account of a cut across her abdomen. At the end of this time a merciful but avaricious Indian discovered and took pity on her. He took her to his wigwam, cared for her, and thence took her to New Amsterdam by canoe and sold her to the Dutch. This woman Richard Stout married about the year 1650. The couple settled in New Jersey, and raised a family of seven sons and three daughters. The third son, Jonathon, married a Bullen, settled at Hopewell, New Jersey, and had six sons and three daughters. The fifth son, Samuel, married Catherine Simpson, by whom he had one son, Samuel, born in 1732. This Samuel served in the New Jersey Legislature, and was a Justice of the Peace. He married Anne Van Dyke, and had seven sons and three daughters. His daughter Catherine, great-great-granddaughter of Richard and Penelope (born November 25, 1758), married, December 25, 1776, Peter Smith, whose history we have traced. She was the companion of all his journeyings, caring for and directing affairs and the family in his frequent absence and itinerarys from home "preaching the Gospel and disbursing physic for the salvation of souls and the healing of the body." She, too, was a devout Christian (Baptist), and ministered to the exposed and often needy pioneers in the wilderness. She survived him fifteen years, dying March 3, 1831. She is buried beside her husband.

Mary (my mother), a daughter of Peter and Catherine Smith, born January 31, 1799, on Duck Creek near Columbia Church, within the present limits of Cincinnati, married (as stated) Joseph Keifer, when not yet seventeen years of age, and became the mother of fourteen children, eight of whom lived to mature years—two sons and six daughters. She died at Yellow Springs, Ohio, March 23, 1879, passing her eightieth birthday, like her brothers named, having survived all her brothers and sisters. She was next to the youngest of them. She inherited, cultivated, and practised the essential virtues necessary in a successful, useful, pure, happy, and contented life. She had a most cheerful disposition, and was a confident and buoyant spirit, in sorrow and adversity. She was devoted to all her children, and all owe her much for their fundamental preparation, education, etc., together with the habits of industry and perseverance, essential to whatever of success they have attained in life. And, above all, she early became a member of church (Baptist and Christian), and maintained her church relations for above sixty years, to her death, never doubting in her Christian belief, yet never bigoted or intolerant of the religious views of others.

She was a devoted companion to her husband, and with him ever took a deep interest in their family and neighbors, never neglecting a duty to them. She, born in the Ohio territory, lived within its borders above eighty years, witnessed its transformation from savagery to the highest civilization, and its growth in wealth, power, and population from little to the third of the great States of the Union. She witnessed the coming, through science and inventions, of railroads, telegraphs, steam, and electric power, telephones, etc. She saw the soldiers of the War of 1812, the Mexican war, and the War of the Rebellion, and something of the Indian wars in Ohio. In her childhood she lived in proximity to savages. With her husband she had ministered to escaped slaves, and saw slavery (always detested by both) abolished. She witnessed with becoming pride a degree of success in the efforts of her children and grandchildren, and she held on her knees her great- grandchildren. She is buried beside her husband in Ferncliff Cemetery, Springfield, Ohio.

The children who grew to maturity were: Margaret, born September 22, 1816, who married Joseph Gaines, and died March 10, 1896, leaving two sons and a daughter; Sarah (still living) born September 29, 1819, who married Lewis James, and, after his decease, Richard T. Youngman, having one son, J. Warren James (Captain 45th Ohio, War of the Rebellion), and five children by her last husband; Benjamin Franklin (still living), born April 22, 1821, who married Amelia Henkle, and has three sons and three daughters living; Elizabeth Mary, born February 20, 1823, unmarried, still living; Lucretia, born January 20, 1828, died August 5, 1892, surviving her husband, Eli M. Henkle, and her only son, John E. Henkle; Joseph Warren Keifer, born January 20, 1836, who married, March 22, 1860, Eliza Stout, of Springfield, Ohio. [They have three sons living, Joseph Warren, born May 13, 1861; William White, born May 24, 1866, and Horace Charles, born November 14, 1867. Their only other child, a daughter, Margaret Eliza, was born June 2, 1873, and died August 16, 1890.] Minerva, born July 15, 1839 (died July 22, 1899), married to Charles B. Palmer, and they have two sons and a daughter; and Cordelia Ellen, born July 17, 1842, not married.

From the ancestry described and from the widely diversified strains of blood—German, English, Welsh, Dutch, and others not traced or traceable—meeting, to make, in composite, a full-blooded American —came the author of this sketch. He also sprang from a farmer, shoemaker, civil engineer, clergyman, physician, etc., ancestry, no lawyer or soldier of mark appearing in the long line, so far as known.