LEONARD WORTHY KEELING

 The following bio was taken from page 266 of the book entitled “Rusk County History” compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

 Transcribed by Shirley Koym

 Submitted by Gloria Brimley Mayfield, Cemeteries of Texas

Leonard Worthy Keeling, born in Georgia in 1827, his wife, Frances Ann Briley, and their five sons came to Texas in the winter of 1869-1870.  Having arrived in Shreveport by boat, Leonard looked for a way to his destination, and always said he turned down a free ride to Rake Pocket and paid for transportation to Pine Hill.

Leonard, the son of Thomas Jefferson Keeling, born in 1803 in Elbert County, Georgia, and his wife, Sarah, said to have been a Shepherd, and the grandson of Leonard Sanford Keeling and Elizabeth Haynes.  Elizabeth’s father, Moses Haynes, was in Elbert County in the 1790’s, and his will was probated there in 1829.  Leonard’s brother, John, probably came with him since John was listed in the Panola County census of 1870.  By 1880 another brother, Monroe Keeling, was in Panola County, where he died in 1881 and was buried in Rusk County.  William Patterson Keeling, whose father was their brother, James W. Keeling, came to Rusk County with his mother and stepfather, Nancy and Matthew Estes, and lived with them in the New London area.  Other nephews who joined their kin here were:  Tom Amos, Robert L., and Ed Barnes, sons of Julie Ann Elizabeth Keeling Amos Barnes.

Leonard Worthy and Frances Ann Briley Keeling lived near Pine Hill in 1870, and in 1873 they bought land near the county line on the road from Brachfield to Jumbo in Panola County.  There they lived the rest of their lives.  Their five sons born in Talbot County, Georgia were William Briley Keeling, who married Sarah Atwood Clinton, then Martha Zorada Turner, and then Ethel Clinton; John Thomas Keeling, who married Susan Parker and then Ida Hull, and lived in Timpson; James Monroe Keeling, who married Kitty Gaddy; George W. Keeling, who died as a young man; and Nehemiah Owen Keeling, who married Miss Emma Harrington.  Two daughters born in Rusk County were Nancy Elizabeth Keeling, who married her cousin, Robert Leonard Barnes; and Sarah Frances Keeling, who married Curtis Eugene Whitmire.

Other descendants of Leonard Sanford Keeling later came to Texas.  Descendants of his son, Moses Monroe  Keeling, came to Arkansas, then to Mexia, and in the 1930’s to Rusk County.  Another son, George W. Keeling, settled in Upshur County, and there are many descendants of two other sons, Leonard Worthy (Uncle of the Leonard Worthy in Rusk County) and Littleton Madison Keeling, in Texas.  No doubt there are Keelings in Texas who aren’t related to the Leonard Sanford Keeling family, but certainly a large number of them are.

Submitted by Mrs. W. E. Langford