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Reprinted here with permission from the Brockville Recorder.
The Rev. Sylvanus Keeler� by Harry D. Blanchard ����������� We here conclude the Keeler-Warner story with a brief biography of the Rev. Sylvanus Keeler, compiled from notes made by our dear friend, Major David M. Warner, of Dayton, Ohio, on a visit he paid to the Library of Congress in Washington, at which time he made a close study of books and records there on this subject. ����������� The Rev. Sylvanus Keeler was converted and raised up in the ministry in Elizabethtown. He had no advantages of education in early life, but, by private study, so far surmounted this defect as to become possessed of tolerable attainments in English. He had endowments of natural and divine bestowment, which went far to counteract the defects referred to. His person was commanding and even handsome. His voice was clear, melodious and strong. The distance at which the old people said he could be heard was marvelous. His zeal and fervour in his Master�s cause knew no bounds. He was received on trial in 1795 and was that year appointed to the Bay of Quinte circuit. From 1796 to 1799 this name disappears from the records, probably due to family cares. In 1800 he was reappointed to the Bay of Quinte charge, where he remained for two years. During this period, in 1801, he was received into full connection. In 1802 he was appointed to Oswegatchie, which embraced his family residence and Ottawa, with Seth Crowell and Nehemiah Tompkins for colleagues. His circuit must have extended from Gananoque to La Chute, a distance of 200 miles and as far north as there were settlements. In 1803 his circuit was Niagara and Long Point., which would include Newark, Caledonia, Port Ryerse and Port Rowan on Lake Erie. In 1801 he was back in the Bay of Quinte district. In 1805 he returned to Oswegatchie, a proof that he had honour in his own country and among his kin. He had never found it convenient to move his family from Elizabethtown. He was often three months at a time from his faithful and encouraging wife and his family of small children. The story of the destitution and the shifts they were put to to exist might wring tears from the eyes of the most unused to weep. No wonder that his return to them was always considered a jubilee. When the time of his periodical visits drew near, his little ones would mount the fence and strain eyes to catch the first glimpse of their returning father, often for hours, even days, before his appearance. ����������� After 12 years of hard, itinerant labour the Rev. Sylvanus Keeler retreated to his farm in Elizabethtown near Brockville, (Greenbush), where, and in the surrounding country, he continued to preach all of his days. He became a patriarch among the people his hair, woo-white, long and flowing down upon his shoulders his voice deep yet soft as the roll of thunder in the distance. He died in the faith. He was greatly beloved and respected by the people in the surrounding neighborhood. After his family grew up and were able to provide for themselves, �Father Keeler�, as he was now called, extended his labours, carrying the Gospel into the destitute settlements beyond the Rideau. His last public labour was in Quarterly Meeting in the Boyd Settlement beyond the Mississippi. His piety lives in the person of his descendants. One record says, �Let good Father Keeler live forever in the veneration of Canadian Methodists.� ����������� And now we set out a copy of the Certificate of Ordination. It is headed, �Certificate of Ordination as Deacon in the Methodist Episcopal Church� and read, �Know all men by these presents that I, Richard Whatcoat, one of the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America, under the protection of the Almighty God, and with a singly eye to His glory, by the imposition of my hands and prayer, have this day set apart Sylvanus Keeler for the office of Deacon in the said Methodist Episcopal Church, a man whom I judge to be well qualified for that work. And I do hereby recommend him, to all whom it may concern, as a proper person to administer Baptism, Marriage and the Burial of the Dead. In the absence of an elder, and to feed the flock of Christ as long as his Spirit and Practice are such as becometh the Gospel of Christ. IN testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal this Twentieth Day of June, in the Year of Our Lord, One Thousand eight hundred and one. New York. (signed) Richard Whatcoat� ����������� The Certificate has been handed on for safe-keeping, by Miss Ella Hamlin, Almonte, granddaughter of John Keeler, to Kenneth Powell Keeler, Brighouse, B.C., great-grandson of the Rev. Sylvanus Keeler, grandson of John Keeler and son of our revered old neighbor, the late Morton Keeler. In justice, we should say that the above biography of the Rev. Sylvanus Keeler is based upon matter recurred in the library of Congress by Major Warner from such works as Stevens� History of Methodism and Carroll�s �Case and His Contemporaries.� ����������� We have repeatedly assured our dear old neighbors that we have only made a small beginning of the monumental task of writing the history of Old Greenbush. Some may have thought we exaggerated in so saying. The conclusion of this story merely adds another brief chapter. The life of Father Keeler will make us all realize how busy and faithful we must be to live up to the traditions of Greenbush and Elizabethtown. God give us each one grace to quit us like men during our brief pilgrimage here, so that we may hand on the lighted torch to those yet unborn. And may we hang our heads in shame, if we listen to anyone who attempts to controvert the Word of God, as preached by the noble Father Keeler and his contemporaries. ����������� To complete the record we should say that about the year 1875, Mrs. Clara Keeler Warner, great grandmother of Major Warner, came back on a visit to Greenbush and spent many happy days with the Morton Keeler family. Her son, Orman Ralph Warner, and his son, Morton K. Warner, also visited the Morton Keeler family in Greenbush about 40 years ago. That was after the time of our departure to reside in Farmersville, but doubtless some of the old-timers will recall these visits. We shall fitly bring this to a conclusion by rendering sincere thanks t our old neighbor at Harlem, Mr. Homes E. Eyre, for his noble assistance to Major Warner in searching the history of his ancestors; also to our dear old schoolmate, Miss Amanda V. Eyre as collaborator. They loaned Major Warner a copy of Leavitt�s history of Leeds and Grenville, a copy of which he also found in the library of Congress in Washington. We speak for all of the exiles when we say that our hearts go out to Franklin Howard Warner, the Major�s father, in his homesickness for the scenes of his youth at Greenbush and Harlem. He was born in the old Alford farm at Harlem, but spent many happy days at Greenbush. His father, the second son in the family, Amos Curtis Warner, remained in Canada after the rest of the family moved to Illinois. In 1865, his wife having died, he took his two boys to DeKalb county, Ills., where he visited his sister, Mrs. Nancy Warner Brown. Two years later he married Almenia Hall. Then he and his whole family, in a covered wagon, make the journey overland to Grinnell, Iowa, where he died Oct. 3, 1890. In the genealogical table in the previous story it will be seen that Sylvanus Wilson Warner was the eldest son of Ralph Warner and his wife, Clara Keeler, there having been eleven children all born in Elizabethtown. Sylvanus went first from Leeds to Burns township, Henry county Ills. He remained there three years, returned on a visit to Canada, and the entire family, including his parents, but with the exception of Amos Curtis, went back to Illinois with him. He became a wealthy grain dealer in Kewanee, Ill. Percy Alford, Athens, husband of our very popular schoolmate at the Athens high school, Alice Campbell, is a descendant of Amherst Alford. Percy and Alice were married about the time Alice taught school at Harlem. We recall other members of the Alford family, whose Christian names are forgotten, but who were very popular in the county in our youth. ����������� Mr. Franklin Howard Warner can qualify for membership in the old committee at Mammy�s at �The Corners� by reason of his birth in the county and his residence at Greenbush. Our dear friend, Major David M. Warner, can likewise qualify, as a son of his father, and by reason of the fact that he has traveled hundreds of miles in a pioneer covered wagon and in view of the further fact that, up to 12 years of age, he was in mortal fear of strange white folk, but would go anywhere with a blanket Indian. Major Warner says that he has lived in a log house, in two dugouts, in a sod-house, and in two frame houses, all of which he helped to build, as well as for several weeks in the old �covered wagon�, when they cooked in frying pans and skillets on real camp-fires. In Oklahoma there was plenty of wood, but in western Kansas there were no trees for miles and they rarely had any wood to burn. Like the other pioneers, they gathered dry �cow chips� on the range, bleached white in the sun and wind, and piled them high out in the yard. With these they kept warm in winter and fired the kitchen stove. Such were the necessities of the pioneers, of the folk who made the country we live in. ����������� We wish to humbly and sincerely say to all our dear old neighbors that in Major David M. Warner and his father, Mr. Franklin Howard Warner, we and they have found, in the land of our cousins to the south, two friends whom we can all into our circle as dear brothers of these latter years. It is such real 100% men as they who have made the North American half-continent what it is, a leader among the nations of the earth. And the, just let us visualize the noble heroism of Mrs. Sarah Ann Bickford Warner in sharing the heart-breaking pioneer struggles of her husband during all of the years of their early married life and in rearing and bringing to maturity a family of 13 children, while she, at the same time, attended to her hundreds of other duties on the farm. Had she been spared, she could have written a book of experiences that would have been a great American classic. She is now reunited with those of her dear children who went on before. The angels in heaven must have pealed out an anthem of joy in welcoming home such a saint. ����������� And, now may our loving Heavenly Father be with us each one until the time of our next gathering around the old wood fire at Mammy�s at �The Corners,� when it will be our mournful duty to chronicle the passing of one very dear to us and to all of the old neighbors at Greenbush and to all of the township exiles in foreign lands.� The address of Major David M. Warner is 43 Glenwood Ave. Dayton, Ohio. He will be delighted to hear from any of his cousins and hopes thus to line up his ancestry unbroken to Col. Seth Warner, the worthy Vermont patriot. We should call attention to the remarkable fact that Mr. Franklin Howard Warner has traveled from Harlem and Greenbush to Illinois, to Iowa, to the far-flung Mexican frontier, to Indian Territory, western Kansas, to Oklahoma and on route used no modern wheeled contraption save the good old �covered wagon.� As evidence of the interest of the exiles in matters of the history of their noble fathers, we must say that now, just as we are mailing this, we are overjoyed to receive a dispatch from out of the middle-west, from our dear friend and next door neighbor of old-time at Greenbush, Dr. John M. Patterson, now of Burlington, Iowa, in which he calls our attention to the fact that his late revered father, John Patterson, orphaned in youth, was adopted into the family circle of the late John Keeler, son of the Rev. Sylvanus Keeler, Greenbush, where he was reared to manhood. Dr. Patterson, well says that this accounts for his father�s splendid Christian training. We should just try to visualize the heroism of John Whitney Keeler and his wife, Lucy Pennock Keeler, in finding a place by their fireside and at their table for a 14th child. Just think of that happy board surrounded three times daily by sixteen vigorous folk, large and small, each with an avid, pioneer appetite. There was always room for one more at a Greenbush farm table, but, as we said in a previous story, when the minister, the �member� or two or three other guests arrived unexpectedly just before dinner, the family was usually pre-admonished in the kitchen by the hostess, with her index finger upraised for emphasis, and with the use by her of the famous Leeds warning slogan, made just to fit such cases, �F.H. B.� (family hold back). Back to the Warner Page
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Copyright 1997-2009 Forever Publishing�
April 7, 2009
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