| Appendix XV. Who was Silas Keck? The Kecks of Hocking Co, Ohio - Don Slivka, February 2001 [In a 1796 act of congress, a 2,500,000-acre tract of public lands was set aside in the �Territory Northwest of the River Ohio� and east of the Scioto River as the �United States Military Land� to fulfill land warrants held by officers and soldiers of the Revolutionary War.] In 1846, Silas Keck (10 Apr 1824 VA?-8 Feb 1891 OH) entered Laurel Twp, Hocking Co, Ohio, and acquired 120 acres of land with land warrants. He possibly acquired the land warrants from a captain in the Revolutionary War [or the War of 1812]. Within a year he married Mary Ann Sudlow (1826 Starr Twp-1890 Laurel Twp) and began their farm and family. [Mary Ann�s parents, Hannah Clapp and Joseph Sudlow, were among the first settlers in Starr Twp, Hocking Co. Hannah�s family came in 1816 and Joseph came in 1817. The Sudlows were Quakers from the Hartford, Connecticut area, who then helped found the first school and first Methodist church in Starr Twp, Hocking Co. Hannah Sudlow was the first school teacher in the school held on the O�Neill homestead. Mary Ann�s grandfather, Richard Sudlow, was educated in England as a surveyor and engineer, immigrated in 1766 to CT, taught school, surveyed, farmed, operated a grist mill there, and was imprisoned for a time during the Revolutionary War because he was thought to be a Tory/loyalist when he was surveying for the king. - Dolly Rardain, 1999] Silas� and Mary Ann�s seven children were Sarah M (1848-1874), Henry (1850-1914), Daniel J. (1854-1943), George (1858-1914), John (1860-1868), Francis A (1862-1929), and Mary (?). All were born, lived, died, and were buried in or near Laurel Twp. Son Henry was named after his grandfather, who is said to have married Sarah Munion. Thomas W Keck (1836-1875), who fought in the Civil War and is buried near Silas and Mary Ann, may have been a brother of Silas. Henry Keck (1850-1914) married M. Zuriah Stiveson (1851-1937) in 1871 and they had four children. Henry traded 120 acres of the family�s lowland acreage and $20 for Marion Morse�s 120-acre ridge top farm where Marion was not doing well and needed the $20 cash. Henry began the apple orchards for which the Keck family is still known [1988]. Their farmhouse burned to the ground in 1888 and the family lived in the barn while they rebuilt the house. [Henry�s grandson, Ray, now deceased, sold the last 41 acre parcel of the 120-acre farm on the ridge to me in 1987 for $29,000 toward his grandchildrens� college expenses. The farm had been in Keck hands for a hundred years. Three of the four corners are still marked by stones (the fourth is now marked by a State of Ohio survey mark). The soil is depleted, the barn is gone, and the house is in serious decay. But it is beautiful there amidst the hills being returned to forest by the state. According to Ray, at least seven whiskey stills were being operated within sight of nearby Blackjack Road prior to Prohibition. During Prohibition (1920-1933), whiskey could not be made or sold and that deprived many families of a major source of income. Then the Depression, which severely depressed crop prices, and Great Drought came. Many families in these hills had to give up on the land and sold or donated it to the state or federal government in the 1930's, 40's, and 50's. The Starr Twp Sudlow farm is now part of Wayne National Forest while the former Keck farm has Hocking State Forest on two sides.] Interestingly, the 4-foot-diameter, hand-dug well, high on the ridge but only about 30 feet deep, has never gone dry, even during the Great Drought and Dustbowl years of 1933-34. [How was it known to dig the well exactly there?] As told by Ray and Mary Keck, 1988 [with Don Slivka�s comments]. [Was Silas Keck, son of Henry and Sarah Munion Keck, a descendant of 1732 immigrant Heinrich Geck?] Return to Joseph's page |