Section 5 of Wagon Ruts West

The following selection is taken from "Wagon Ruts West" written & published by Ralph Ray Keeney in 1983. The book is currently out of print. This section is published with the kind permission of Ralph Ray Keeney. The book this selection is drawn from is under copyright and permission has been granted for educational purposes and it is not to be used in any way for any profit or commercial venture.

JOHN KEENEY, JR.
Son of John, Sr. and Martha Ann Keeney

John, Jr. was born in Virginia, now Jefferson County, Tennessee. He was a Baptist. His occupations were farmer, ferryman, blacksmith, locksmith, but best remembered as a gunsmith, because of the guns he made for each of his sons. These rifles, carried west with five of his sons, were later to become collector's items.

In 1805, he married Mary Ramsey Buckhalter. There are some conflicting reports of two marriages for John, Jr., but official Bible and Court Records, supplied by Elsie Bennett Browning, Lebanon, Oregon, substantiate one marriage. Perhaps the confusion arises because three of his eight sons died in Missouri, before the family immigrated to Oregon.

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MARY RAMSEY BUCKHALTER
WIFE OF JOHN KEENEY, JR.
(B. 1783 - S.C. - D. June 24, 1872 - Linn Co. Ore.)

    John, Jr. held a land claim in Fayette County, Indiana, dated November 1st, 1811. His children were born in Indiana, with the exception of the twins, Eli and Elias, who were born in Ray County, Missouri. They were:

      1. Mary (April 6, 1806 - after 1850)
      2. Thomas (1808 - Dec. 5, 1842)
      3. Isley (May 15, 1811 - Dec. 6, 1842)
      4. Jonathan (April 27, 1813 - Aug. 15, 1878)
      5. James (Aug. 20, 1816 - April 27, 1885)
      6. Abraham (Dec. 11, 1818 - May 25, 184 ,3
      7. Andrew Jackson (Oct. 7, 1819 - March 4 1898)
      8. Rebecca (July r, 1821 - Sept. 23, 1895j
      9. Elias, a twin (Dec . 18, 1828.- Decj0201 20, 1910)
    10. Eli, a twin (Dec. 18, 1828 - Nov. 10, 1878)

    In the early 1840's, tuberculosis struck John, Jr.'s family and three sons -- Thomas, Isley and Abraham -- died within months of one another. These were young, married men with small children. Six of these children were orphaned two years later, when Thomas' wife, "Sithy", died of T.B. also. During this time, other families in close contact with the Keeneys - the Borgarts and the Allens, also suffered deaths from tuberculosis. John, Jr., himself, died of T. B., December 6, 1845, in Holt County, Missouri.

    His widow, Mary Ramsey Buckhalter, immigrated west in 1851, on a large wagon train of her family members, including neighbors and friends. The train carried all of her children, except Mary Keeney Bogart and Andrew Jackson Keeney, who with his family were to follow six years later.