Ancestors

Milton Jackson Keele

Milton Jackson Keele was born in 1828 in Bedford County, Tennessee, south of Nashville. His memorial gives his parents as Philmore Keele and Margaret Box, called Peggy, a South Carolina woman. They had married in Bedford County by 1818 and raised nine children there and in neighboring counties. Milton's brothers included Maston Green Clay Keele and Mathias Washington Keele. Another brother was Richard Richmond Keele, and the name Richmond came down to Milton's own son.

Milton married Mary Ann Hall, a Tennessean born in 1831. Their son Finis Richmond Keele was born in Bedford County in March 1857. Their other children included Malinda Frances, called Fannie, who married a Wilson, William Bestokes Keele, Mary Ann, who married a Keeney, a son named for his father, JoAnna and Jefferson Russell Keele.

He grew up in Coffee County, around Beech Grove and the head of the Duck River. In 1849 he and his father witnessed a neighbor's deed of trust there. In March 1853 his brother Maston, who owed money on notes their father had guaranteed, put his property in trust to Milton to protect the old man. The trust made Milton responsible for selling the property at the Manchester courthouse if the notes went unpaid.

Before 1870 the family moved to Bell County, Texas, where his brother Maston already lived near the site of Killeen. Milton is remembered as a Confederate soldier. He died on 9 March 1870, about 42 years old, and was buried in the Salado Cemetery in Bell County. Mary Ann lived thirty years longer and raised the younger children in Bell County, near Temple. Finis was living at Temple in 1886.

In the 1850 census Milton J. Keele, 21, and his wife Mary Anne, 19, were newly married and living in Coffee County, Tennessee. By June 1860 he was farming in Warren County, with the post office at McMinnville. He was 31 and owned land worth $1,000. Mary A. was 28, and their children were John G., 10, Margaret, 6, Melinda, 4, a son written Francis, 3, and William, 1. The boy of 3 is Finis, born in March 1857; the oldest boy is probably Leamon Ganaway, whose given name the census taker seems to have misheard. In the very next house lived Margaret Keel, 61, a housekeeper born in South Carolina, with a son Filman, 32, a laborer. Philmore Keele had died the autumn before, and his widow Margaret was born in South Carolina about 1799.

Milton died in March 1870 in Bell County, Texas, aged 41 by the schedule of deaths taken that summer. His last child, Jefferson Russell Keele, was born at Salado on 2 August 1870, five months after his father's death. When Jefferson died at Burnet in 1964 his certificate named his father as Milton F. Keele and his mother as Mary Jane Hall. His sister Mary Ann Keeney's certificate of 1952 also named their father as Milton Keele, born in Tennessee.

If Milton Jackson Keele is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Milton Jackson Keele (1828-1870)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/milton-jackson-keele-1828-1870-b8c640.