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Genealogy - Keepers Family of Washington County Maryland

Group 6.

Joseph Keepers Jr. (see Keepers Family of Colonial America) was the founder of this group. The name of his wife and the dates of his birth and death are unknown.  Two of Joseph's sons, William and Isaac, moved their families to Ohio.

William (wife: Elizabeth King) is the progenitor of the Harrison County, Ohio, line, Group 3.

Isaac Keepers (wife: Margaret Harper) migrated to Rapids Forge in Ross County, Ohio, in 1830 and is the apparent ancestor of the entire Ross County Keepers line. He resided there for the remainder of his life. He was a forge man and his sons, Joseph Greer Keepers, John Schnell Keepers, and Henry Clay Keepers were later employed by the Woodbridge interests (owners of Rapid Forge). John was a wagon maker, Joseph a clerk, and Henry a tenant farmer on Woodbridge land. He also farmed sixty acres of his own land.

Isaac's daughter, Maria, was born in Virginia (assuming the census record is correct).  It is certainly possible that her parents moved to Virginia from Maryland before settling in Ross County, Ohio.  Another son, William Harper Keepers and his wife Rebecca Morris, may have stayed in Virginia and raised a family there.  We have records of several Keepers family members that are unaccounted for and have ties to Virginia, and they may be descendants of family members from Group 6.

Isaac's grandson, J. S. L. "Louis" Keepers, was a confederate veteran of the Civil War.  An interesting story was published in the New York Herald dated 5-28-1919. It was printed upon the death of Louis' wife Eliza Whitaker, then of Brooklyn, New York. The newspaper story stated that Louis Keepers was a Colonel in the Confederate states Army and was captured behind the Union Army lines while operating as a spy. He was court-martialed and sentenced to be shot. He somehow got word to his wife, Eliza Whitaker Keepers, who went to Washington, obtained an audience with President Lincoln, and after review of the case the President ordered the sentence suspended. Colonel Keepers lived for several years after the war.  Elizabeth had remarried a union officer.  There is no evidence in President Lincoln's papers that Eliza's story about an audience with President Lincoln is factual.