San Joaquin County
Biographies
HON. THOMAS JAMES KEYS
HON. T. J. KEYS, Steward of
the State Insane Asylum, is a native of Ohio, born at Waynesville, Warren
County, January 16, 1823, his parents being Isaac and Sarah (Walker) Keys. His
parents were reared and married in Berks County, Pennsylvania, and in 1817,
with their children, made their way across the mountains in a one-horse wagon
to Ohio, their new home, which was then considered to be the far West.
T. J. Keys grew up amid scenes usually
attending the clearing up of a wild country, and was reared a Quaker. When he
was but seven years of age his father’s death occurred, and the seven children
were therefore compelled to look out for themselves at an early age. When our
subject was fifteen years of age he went to work with a man named Lewis
Kendall, a blacksmith who hailed from New Jersey. He was with him seventeen
months, and then went to work for I. B. Fairholm, another New Jersey man, at $6
a month and board. After two years and four months he was a “jour” blacksmith,
and for the next three or four years worked for $12 a month. He then went to
Mississippi and worked in Vicksburg some seven months. He then went to
Louisville, Kentucky, and there worked at his trade. In 1850 he started for
California, joining a party made up in Louisville. They chartered a boat, and
packing their supplies, wagons, oxen, etc., aboard, went to Weston, Missouri,
from which point their journey overland commenced. After waiting two or three
weeks till the grass was good, they took the old military trail and proceeded
on without meeting any serious obstacle until they reached Salt Lake. Here they
were compelled to wait until after harvest to get flour, and proceeded on,
arriving in Hangtown on the 27th of September. There Mr. Keys bought
an outfit and went mining, but gave it up after two or three weeks’ experience,
and went to Sacramento. Not finding any work at his trade, he went on to San
Francisco, but met with no better success there. He then went to work with a
street gang, planking streets, until they finished the work they had been
engaged upon. He then made up a party of twenty-three men to go to the southern
mines, and they went to Chinese Camp, Tuolumne County. After about two months
there, he organized another company and started south. They brought up at Fine
Gold Gulch, head of San Joaquin river. Mr. Keys was there four months, and
while there was captain of a military company, accolade, and recorder, but
having become afflicted with scurvy was compelled to leave. He took a mule team
and started for San Francisco. At Stockton he met a man he had known at Chinese
Camp, who told him there were four letters there for him. He gave the man $10
postage to get the letters for him, while he remained in Stockton. Meanwhile he
started to make the rounds of the blacksmith shops, and was offered work in
every one. After a month or so he got work enough so that he could do a fair
day’s work, and would turn out one and a half dozen picks a day, for $10 a day.
When he had between $500 and $600 together, he started a shop where Wolf’s
stables now are. He was afterward at the corner of California and Main, later
at the corner of Washington and El Dorado, and finally on Center street, being
in all engaged in business about eighteen years. The teaming business going
down to a low ebb, he gave his attention to other matters.
He had become largely interested in
freighting with William H. Hughes, the firm of Hughes & Keys running
sixty-seven mules between Stockton and the mines, and doing the bulk of the
business with the Mariposa estate, Trainor W. Park, Fremont, Armstead and others.
Finally the bubble burst, and it threw on Mr. Keys’ hands sixty-seven head of
mules when hay was $90 a ton, and barley at a correspondingly high price. He
did not give up, but went down in the tules and cut hay for his stock. Going
down to Stanislaus County, he plowed land, sowed wheat and sold the crop. He
freighted during the summer, and the next winter went to farming on his own
account. He cleared $17,000 in two years, and in the next four years lost over
$30,000. When he went on the ranch he had sixty-seven head of mules, money,
etc., and when he left it six years later he had less than $10. He was next
interested in the combined headers and threshers.
January 15, 1884, he entered upon the
discharge of his duties as steward of the State Hospital for the Insane at
Stockton, which position he has since held and filled with marked ability. He
was married in Ohio in 1848 to Miss Phebe Ann Trumbley, a native of Ohio. Her
father and his brother were soldiers in the war of 1812, and surrendered with Hull.
Mr. and Mrs. Keys have six children, viz: Elizabeth, wife of John Stowell, of
Stockton; John Milton, an engineer on the Southern Pacific Railroad; Mary, wife
of O. F. Atwood, county assessor; James C., traveling agent for the Chicago,
Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company; Emma, widow of Miles Reuter, and T.
J., Jr.
Mr. Keys is a Democrat politically, and
has taken an active and important part in more than one campaign. He
represented the district in the General Assembly of California in 1855 from San
Joaquin County, and again in 1863. In 1872 and again in 1874 he was elected to
the Senate from the district comprising Stanislaus County, Merced and Mariposa
serving as chairman of the Committee on Hospitals, and a member of the
committee on Agricultural and Swamp and Overflowed Lands.
Mr. Keys is a member of Charity Lodge, No.
6, I. O. O. F., in which he has passed the chairs, and also been its
representative to Grand Lodge. He is now one of its oldest members, having
joined in 1853. He is a good type of the hospitable, generous Californian of
the early days, and is a deservedly and widely popular man. He is a member of
the San Joaquin Society of California Pioneers.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 256-257. Lewis Pub.
Co. Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2008 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
Biographies
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
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