THE PIONEER KEENEY FAMILY
by
Mona Hyler Waibel
All photos are from the personal collection of Mona Hyer Waibel.
Use of them for commercial purposes is prohibited without her permission
The Keeney family of Sweet Home has roots that go back to before the American Revolution, when their forebears came to America from Ireland.
John Keeney Sr. was born in 1750; he became the great-great-great-great-grandfather of Bill Keeney and Shirleen Claborn. Though the Keeneys had originally settled in the South, they were opposed to slavery and John hitched his oxen to a wagon and left for Indiana and later westward.
He eventually sought a new land where no ruts were made by wagons, or horse hoofs of white men. In his long and rich life of adventures, he blazed the way for others to follow into new territory.
John Keeney was one of a number of Baptist ministers in the family. It was believed he lived till 1821, leaving a wife, Mary Ramsey Buckhalter, and as many as 10 children who included the Rev. Jonathan Anthony (1778-1850), John Jr. (1772-1845), Rev. Thomas (1782-1846), Nancy (1786-1836), James and Hiram.
The latter half of the nineteenth century brought a wave of settlers to the Sweet Home area. They braved the dangers of 2,000 miles of travel on the Oregon Trail as they sought the fertile soil of the Willamette Valley. Among them were the Keeneys, Hirschis, Galbraiths, Sportsmans, Swanks, Ameses and the John Thompson family. Many of these pioneer families took part in businesses, civic activities, building churches and bringing civilization into the Sweet Home Valley.
The original pioneer Keeney family came to Oregon and settled here in 1851. Two brothers, the sons of John Keeney Jr., were the first to arrive. Elias, a famous mountain man, was born in 1828 and Jonathan Keeney, born in 1813, was known as a good rifle maker. The brothers traveled by covered wagon and brought Elias’ family, driving 300 head of cattle purchased with the gold dust they mined in southern Oregon and northern California. They lost about a quarter of the cattle on the trail but they had a good market for the rest of the herd when they arrived in the Willamette Valley.
In the 1850s, the early Keeneys settled first in Brownsville and later in Holley, with exception of Elias, who remained in Brownsville. They had a total of 423 acres for the family, from the Oregon Donation Homestead Act.
The area grew slowly, and in 1870, only 200 persons claimed this area as home. Locally, the Keeneys married into other early pioneer families: the Overtons, Warrens, Wigles, McHarques, Pearls, Swanks, Ameses and Putnams.
Capt. Jonathan Keeney, the great-great-grandfather of Shirleen and Bill Keeney, lived to the ripe old age of 65, passing away on Aug. 15, 1878. He married Catherine Shoemaker and fought in the Indian Wars along the Rogue River, was a mountain man with Jim Bridger, a wagon scout and pioneer on the Oregon Trail, a settler, banker, miner, soldier, inn and ferry proprietor across the Snake River.
Jonathan preferred to prospect and mine and wasn’t interested in ranching or farming. He died traveling to the High Desert area in Central Oregon in 1888, when he fell off his horse and was shot with own pistol.
Captain Jonathan’s son, James Benton Keeney, and his wife Susan Delaney Swank, had many children: sons George, Jerome (Jerry), Jaspar (Jack) who would be Bill and Shirleen’s grandfather, and
Henry (Hank) Keeney; and daughters Mary Bond, Nellie Price, Eva Geiger, Bessie Stewart and Elizabeth Keeney, whom he raised in Cascadia. Many of these are buried in the Pioneer Cemetery at Brownsville.
I recently saw the Keeney headstones in the lovely hilltop cemetery, including those of John, Malinda, Sarah, Silas and Margaret, who was the wife of E. (Elias) Keeney.
George and Jerry Keeney were twins and went into law enforcement. One time there was a payroll robbery at a log camp in Big Bottom Country (now under the waters of Green Peter), which ended in a midnight gunfight through Sweet Home on Long Street. The Keeney twins became state game wardens, who were graded on the number of arrests they made. Many settlers planned hunts when meat was needed, not by hunting season. The brothers’ jobs soon ended, after one unhappy hunter shot the saddle horn from under the game warden. The brothers decided this was not the right job for them.
George Keeney married May Johnson of Crawfordsville in 1885, with whom he had two children, Wilda and Wayne, and became proprietor of the St. Johns Hotel on Ames Creek, a much tamer job. George married Minnie Towne in 1890, with whom he had two more children, Otis and Vern. In 1930 he married Josie Peters.
Jerry Keeney was an outstanding trainer of sheep dogs and once stood on the sidewalk and his dogs drove a herd through Sweet Home, operating on signals alone. He was also involved in the Calapooia Round Up in Crawfordsville. He led the annual Grand Parade in front of the rodeo grandstand, holding the American flag atop his prancing horse.
Jerry married Sarah Malone in 1890, and they had a son, Glen. Sarah died and Jerry married Etta Wiley and they had two more children.
Another brother, Jack (Jaspar) Keeney, purchased timber for the early Lebanon Paper Mill that processed 2 million board feet annually.
Jack and his wife, Zilla Ames Keeney, were grandparents of Shirleen and Bill. They helped develop Sweet Home and were community leaders. Their two sons, the great-grandsons of Jonathan, were Dean and Chesley Keeney, who spent most of their lives on Old Holley Road near Sweet Home.
Dean Keeney, born in 1910, became a logger and bought a farm on Old Holley Road that had timber on it. Of course he logged most of it off. He also worked as a log bucker, sawing fallen trees into
lengths using a hand saw. In 1948 he bought 18 acres of land on the edge of Sweet Home, located on 10th avenue and built houses. Later he owned a Richfield service station business on the corner of 18th and Main. He and his two brothers-in-law, Doug Bentley and Glenn Wells, each bought stations across the street from each other. The three all married Hamilton sisters.
Ripley’s Chevron station completed the four corners. Bentley owned a cut-rate station that sat where Les Schwab operates today and Wells had the Texaco for many years. Dean retired from pumping gas in 1974 and died in 1987.
Frances Hamilton was born in 1912, the daughter of a Forest Service packer. She married Dean in 1930. The Hamiltons and the colorful Keeneys were at first displeased with this wedding.
Dean and Frances spent most of their married life on the farm, which they purchased and on 10th Avenue. They liked to socialize and they belonged to a club that exchanged dinners every week.
Cleo Thompson, Amos Horner, Albert Galster, Royce Hinton, Tex Calvert and Lynn Rice were friends and hosted dinner parties together.
Frances, who passed away in 1992, and Dean’s two children were Bill, born 1941, and Shirleen, in 1944. Today Bill and wife Judy live on Dean’s Old Holley Road farm, in a beautiful home with a fine barn, livestock and a patch of colorful dahlias in their front yard. Bill worked for many local loggers and enjoyed fishing, deer hunting and rock hounding. Judy Barr Keeney, who was born in 1945, volunteers at East Linn Museum after retiring from State Farm Insurance. Bill and Judy had two sons: King, born in 1968 and Chanz, in 1971. King has been in the military for 22 years, and is now a Sergeant 1st Class. He has never married and lives in Ft. Riley, Kan. He is expected to leave in February for his fourth tour of Iraq. Chanz lives on adjoining property to his parents on Old Holley Road. He and wife Christy have two children, Kayleen, born 1999 and a son, Blake, in 2001. Chanz runs a faller-buncher for Wolf Co. and is active on the Sweet Home School Board.
Shirleen Keeney married Gene Claborn in 1960. She has lived since 1960 on 20 acres on Old Holley Road, just down the road from her brother Bill. Shirleen drove school bus for many years, before she suffered a serious accident in a bus and became a dispatcher for the school district, completing 30 years. Gene Claborn went into the Navy, built houses, and later built the Sweet home Sanitation Transfer Station, then worked there for 23 years. They have two sons, David and Gene. David lives on the home place with his parents. Gene Jr. lives in eastern Oregon. Shirleen said the joy of her life is her family, particularly her four granddaughters: Kelley, 24; Kaitlyn, 19; Emily, 14; and Miya, 9. Shirleen told the story of her serious hang man’s broken neck and how brother Bill also broke his neck as he fell from a logging shovel he operated, both siblings wore neck braces for a long period.
Chesley Keeney, born in 1908, married Lenore Russell, the daughter of John and Winifred (Boyd) Russell who owned The New Era newspaper in its early years. They did not have children but had
good enjoyable lives together. Lenore was well known for her great cooking and was head cook at Sweet Home High School for many years. She was famous for cooking the elegant Chamber Banquet dinners for 500 or so persons for some 20 years. She was a dedicated member of the local Garden Club and enjoyed her flowers, especially African Violets which she gave to me often. When my plant looked sick, she traded me a nice one and took mine home to get well.
Chesley and she were active in the Rock Club and liked rock hunting. Chesley had only one job in his lifetime, he liked to farm and they lived on a knoll on Old Holley road, where he built Lenore a fine house. Chesley had an accident with his tractor and the gas exploded and burned him badly. He recovered and led a quiet life. He died in 1978. Lenore passed away in 1996.
Jim Keeney of Cascadia has led a colorful life. Jim was the son of Henry C. Keeney, who was born up the Calapooia and had many more family members there. Henry was 62 years old when Jim was born in 1938. Jim’s mother, Elinor Keeney Allsion was widowed early and remarried. That makes Jim the cousin of Dean Keeney and a second cousin of Bill Keeney and Shirleen Claborn. Jim fathered three sons and one daughter: Kevin, born in 1960; Krysia, born in 1962; Kerry, born in 1963; and Kyle, the youngest, in 1975. They have children and grandchildren of their own.
With all these young Keeneys about, it looks like the Keeney name will live on in Sweet Home for years to come!
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