John (Jack) Keyser ^3,5

  General Notes:

John was only 16 when he joined a party of other pioneers who crossed the Alleghenies to settle in the then "Far West". With oxcarts they followed the Kanawha, or Buffalo Trail, crossing Meadow River, Gauley Mountain into the Kanawha Valley (now the Charleston WV. area) on into Teays Valley (near present day, Barboursville, WV.). The alighted at Russell Creek, near where the mouth of Guyandotte River flows into the Ohio River. Here they killed a buffalo for their first evening meal there. (This story was told to Doris Warden Redding by a Keyser descendant whose parents were both grand children of John Keyser. He also told her that his parents mentioned many times that their grandmother, Elizabeth Hill, spoke only in an Indian language).

The present area of Huntington, WV., formerly called Guyandotte, was comparatively unsettled until 1796 and 1797 as the banks of the Ohio were almost uninhabited comparatively of hostile Indians. The first settlers on the upper waters of the Big Sandy River, where John settled, arrived in 1799.

John Keyser is listed twice in Hardesty's book in "The History of Wayne Co. W.Va." vol. 7, pages 157,158, as on of the first settlers.

The first commerce around this area was measured in thousands of bear skins. It was the only article of merchandise for the first decades of 1800. Bearskins were in great demand at that time by Napoleon's Army, for use in making his grenadier's hats. French traders gathered the furs from the Kanawha, Gyandotte and Big Sandy Valley hunters and sent them to Europe by way of Pittsburgh, or by the way of the Ohio River route to New Orleans.

John was evidently a very successful hunter and trapper, as he was able to purchase 1400 acres in Wayne Co. His plantation was built 4 miles south of the mouth of the Big Sandy on the Virginia side of the river. He also bought 450 acres across the Big Sandy on the Kentucky side within the counties of Greenup, Laurence and Carter counties. (Doris Redding has the original deeds for these 2 purchases) Timber was a big business between 1830 and 1880 in the Sandy Valley and John wen ed a sawmill and lumber yard between Cattlesburg and Ashland, KY. Owning land on both shores of said river, he operated his own ferry service, with his oldest son, Allen, being his boatman.

First Order Book of Cabell Co. VA, compiled by R. S. Douthat, county clerk shows in Vol 3, page 329 that, "in 1813 John Keyser, who is by law, authorized to keep a ferry across the Big Sandy River from his land to the Kentucky shore, appeared in court and gave bond thereof". The same record book shows he served jury duty in 1828 and 1830 while court was held in Barboursville.

Facilities for education were very limited during this period. The first school houses built, located on a small point on a hill near Docks Creek Road -- a cut off from Rt 75. It was in use until the 1890's when it was torn down and the logs were used again to build another school house near the bottom of the hill. The original school was built on Lot #22 of the Savage Grant, which John had purchased from Lewis Shortridge, who had purchased from Philip Gatewood, who had been given the land through the Savage Grant, for his services in the French, Indian War.

The above research was done to disprove Mr. Iron's claim that it was his ancestors who gave the property for Dock's Creek Cemetery and my (Doris Warden Redding) Keyser-Warden aunt's claimed it was Keyser who donated God's Acre for burial purposes. My grand father, Emmett Warden, who married Edna Keyser is buried here, along with several of his children who died young.

John was a slave trader in a pioneer region, constantly in need of labor, where land needed clearing, fenced, and homes constructed, a prime slave was readily negotiable. On the frontier, there was no stigma attached to the slave trader. When I visited a granddaughter of John, Ida Keyser Walker Hurley, she made the remark -- John gave each of his children, when they married, 100 acres and a slave!

The other Keyser descendant, first mentioned, twice escorted me, my brother and sister in law to Keyser land, which lined Rt 75, an d pointed out the different homesteads before giving to the various sons. This land has since been subdivided. He also showed us the location where John's plantation had stood and where both John and his first wife Elizabeth Hill, the Indian are buried on this land, with only small, smooth stones, as their markers, which was an Indian custom.

  Noted events in his life were:

• Alt. Death, 4 Oct 1847.

John married Elizabeth Jane Hill before 1809. (Elizabeth Jane Hill died after 1840.)

John next married Jane Holligan on 10 Nov 1842 in Greenup, KY.³ (Jane Holligan was born on 20 Mar 1803 in Bedford, VA ⁴ and died on 20 Aug 1889.)