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KEEFLER, Thomas Twining (290)

Birth

  • Born on March 26, 1824 in Halifax, Halifax Regional Municipality, NS

Death

  • Died on November 16, 1906 in Bridgewater, Lunenburg Co., NS
  • Buried in Brookside Cemetery in Bridgewater, Lunenburg Co., NS

Marriages

Notes

  • Occupation: Bookkeeper - Yeomans & Co. Insurance/ Merchant
  • Obituary: We have to record the death of Thomas Twining Keefler, Esq., the last of Bridgewater's pioneer merchants, and for upwards of fifty years a most active figure in town and county affairs. He died on Friday afternoon, the 16th, inst., at his residence on Pleasant Street, after an illness of some months. He was in the eighty-third year of his years, and was one of the oldest residents of Bridgewater. Mr. Keefler was born at Halifax in 1824. He was the eldest son of Joseph Keefler of that city, a man well-known in his day, and who is mentioned in a life of Joseph Howe, as having told some midnight enquirers as to where the great man lived, that Joe Howe killed the Tories and Joe Keefler buried them. His son (the subject of our sketch) referred to this incident more than once, and said that those stirring times, when Howe was doing battle for the political liberties of Nova Scotia, made him a Howe man and a liberal in politics. During his youth and early manhood, Mr. Keefler was bookkeeper for Yeomans & Co. - who carried on a large insurance business in Halifax, and were men of sterling old time precision and courtesy. No doubt it was in their office that he acquired that neatness and exactness in his methods of business and that comprehensive brevity of expression, which characterized his business correspondence, and upon which he prided himself. After leaving the Messrs. Yeomans, he lived for a year or so in the United States, and then went to Newfoundland, where he engaged in trading and fishing. His reminiscences of those days in the ancient colony, were very interesting as giving an insight into the manners and customs of the long-shore people. Although for the most part he led a lonely life there and one which taxed his physical strength in long overland tramps and perilous journeys by water, he looked back upon that portion of his career, with evident pleasure. Perhaps the distance of time and the fact that he was then young and full of enthusiasm of life, gave a romantic coloring to the memories of those days. Mr. Keefler came to Bridgewater in the fifties. The late Robert Dawson, Robert West, and Thos. K. Cragg were in business here, then, and the place, which has since grown to such promising importance, was nothing but a hamlet, of a dozen houses or more and the stores mentioned. That it was, however, a place for business enterprise is proved by the fact that Mr. Keefler and others were kept busy day and night, and as the village grew into a town were enabled to lay the foundations of fair competence. For more than forty years, Keefler's corner was the centre of business activity; and when he gave up store-keeping, some few years ago, it was his wont to spend a portion of the day, near his old premises, chatting with his former customers and going over with them the times when lumber and wood and bark were trade indeed. Although a busy man, Mr. Keefler found time to interest himself in the moral and political life of Bridgewater. He was for many years a strong upholder of temperance reform, and, as a magistrate, took a prominent part in the various matters that then devolved upon the old sessions court. In politics, as we have said, he was a liberal and at all times zealous for the welfare of his party. It was therefore a fitting tribute to his influence, when in 1882 he was as the standard bearer of liberalism in the general election of that year. He defeated C.E. Kaulback, Esquire, and went to Ottawa as M.P. for Lunenburg county. But the pleasure of representing the people of his adopted county in the Federal Parliament was his for only one year. An election trial voided his seat, and Mr. Kaulback was successful in the by-election which followed. On returning to private life, Mr. Keefler devoted himself once more to business, at his old stand, continuing until age and failing health obliged his retirement. In person, Mr. Keefler was a man of large frame, with massive head and strong features, betokening strength of body and mind. Socially he was interesting, and although no public speaker was a good talker. What he said was like his letters, brief and to the point. He had a large following of friends among the early men of Bridgewater and surrounding county; and his outliving all the old timers, reminds one of Holmes' Last Leaf. "They say that in his prime, ere the pruning knife of Time, cut him down, not a better man was found by the Crier on his round, through the town". Mr. Keefler was twice married. His first wife was Lydia Sophia Tupper, of Milton, Queens County, who died some twenty odd years ago, leaving two children, Ralph and Mary, now living in the United States. His second wife is Adelia, daughter of the late B.W.C. Manning, and widow of the late Daniel Benjamin, of this town, and to her and the son and daughter of our worthy and highly esteemed townsman, we tender our respectful sympathy. Death, at the age of eighty years, is an event to be expected; and the last years of Mr. Keefler were a gradual preparation for that unending sleep into which he sank peacefully and without pain, and so entered into eternal rest. The funeral takes place tomorrow. The Oddfellows of the town will march in procession, as a mark of respect to one, who was himself a member of the order, in early life and who signified his desire that they should lay his body in the grave. Bridgewater Bulletin Bridgewater,NS November 20,1906
  • Election: Lunenburg Co. MP

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