History of Michigan, / by Charles Moore. [Vol. 3]

1300'

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN

good he did. In the business life of the city he was a sturdy pillar that
stood square to every storm. In private life he was a devoted husband
and father, and a faithful friend. In public life his zealous, disinterested and untiring service accompanied at all times by personal kindness,
endeared him to all and inspired the confidence and affection of his associates. It is the lot of few men to be loved as he was.
"As a mark of respect to his memory, it is ordered that on Tuesday
afternoon the public offices in this city be closed so that the city officers
may attend the funeral in a body. All city officials will meet at one
o'clock P. M. at the recorder's officer for that purpose.
"D. C. SAUER, Mayor of Jackson."
The Union Bank of Jackson, of which Mr. Lewis was long a director,
also closed during the hour of the funeral, and other local establishments showed similar courtesy to the family and respect to the memory
of a man who was much beloved in his own community.
JAMES J. KEELEY. For his public spirit in securing to the city of
Jackson the beautiful Keeley Park, Jackson citizens will always have
cause to remember gratefully this enterprising and far-sighted business
man, whose home has been in Jackson for the past twenty-four years. In
business affairs, Mr. Keeley is proprietor of the James J. Keeley Plumbing Company, and Boiler Works, an establishment which is a product
entirely of a skill in a mechanical trade, and his ablity as a business
builder. Mr. Keeley is one of Jackson's foremost citizens.
A son of Irish parents, he was born at Columbus, Ohio, March 15,
1856. Jeremiah Keeley, his father, was born in County Waterford, Ireland, August I8, 1823, and in early life became a machinist. After coming
to the United States in I848 he located in Columbus, Ohio, and died at
Newark, in that state, in I891 when sixty-eight years old. In I854, at
Columbus, he married Mary Kelly, who was born in County Tipperary,
Ireland, about I825, and came to this country with her father and a
brother, her mother having died in Ireland, when she was eighteen years
old. Her father, Richard Kelly, first lived in Cleveland, Ohio. Mrs.
Keeley survived her husband about ten years, and was seventy-five when
she passed away. Both are buried at Calvary Cemetery in Newark, Ohio.
The Jackson business man was the second in their large family of six
sons and five daughters, two daughters and three sons being now alive,
the others named as follows: Michael T. Keeley of Newark; Ann, widow
of William Gorman, of Newark; Jeremiah D. Keeley of Newark; and
Mary, now Mrs. James Stankard of Newark.
James J. Keeley, the only representative of his family in Michigan,
spent his boyhood in the Ohio cities of Columbus, Zanesville, and Newark. With only a common school education, at the age of fifteen, on April
I, I871, he started upon a long apprenticeship to learn the trade of boiler
work at Zanesville. His apprenticeship continued five years and five
months, and at the end of that time he was pronounced and was in fact a
master workman. Several years following were spent as a journeyman
at various localities, in Ohio, and in Indiana. It was in I889 that Mr.
Keeley came to Jackson, and in this city first became an independent business man. On a modest scale, compared with its present proportions, he
established the James J. Keeley Boiler Works, and has made this an industry with a large payroll, furnishing employment to a number of hands,
and with an output that is supplied much beyond the limits of his home
locality. Five years ago, Mr. Keeley added a plumbing business and the
two lines have since been carried on with marked success.
As already stated, it will be for his public services to the city of Jackson that Mr. Keeley will be longest remembered. For sixteen years he has