Bios: John C. Key: Jasper County, GA


Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Harris Hill      harrishill@starband.net


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This bio was abstracted from "Biographical Souvenir of the States of Georgia & Florida," reproduced from from an 1889 edition in the private collection of the publisher, Easley, South Carolina.  (Note:  This is a non-copyrighted publication.)
 
John C. Key, the subject of this sketch, comes of an old family.  It is said that the first ancestor in this country came over with William Penn and settled in Philadelphia, and there is a family tradition that the first white male child born in the "city of brotherly love" was a Key.  The Keys were numerous in Virginia and it was from there that Joseph Key, paternal grandfather of John C. key, came.  He was born in Bedford County, Virginia, and on reaching maturity moved to Georgia, settling in the year 1787 in Greene County, afterwards in 1810 moved to Jasper County and made his home on Gap Creek, where he owned a mill and was a considerable planter in the early days.  He had one daughter and seven sons.  The sons were Tandy W., Joseph, Abraham, Thomas, Henry, Burwell P., and Caleb W.   These became useful citizens, selecting different callings in life and locating at various points in middle Georgia.  Caleb W. was a distinguished minister of the Methodist Church and father of the present Bishop Key.
 
Burwell P. Key was the father of John C. Key.  He was born in Greene County, and was taken when a lad in his teens to Jasper County, where he was mainly reared and where he spent his life.  He was a farmer, mechanic and mill owner, and was generally prosperous and was greatly esteemed for his kindness of heart and benevolent disposition.  He died in august 1872.  The mother of John C. Key was Temperance Brooks, daughter of Micajah Brooks, of Warren County, Georgia.  He bore the distinction of having been a gallant soldier in the Revolution and an Indian fighter and pioneer and settler of middle Georgia.  He died at the great age of one hundred and two.
 
To Burwell P. and Temperance Key were born eleven children, namely:  Amanda, Mary, John C, Thomas, Micajah, Jane Z., Judith W., Sarah, William, Caleb W. and Lafayette.
 
John C. Key was born in Jasper County, Georgia, February 25, 1826.  He received only a common school education.  He read law under Burney & Dyer, of Monticello, and was admitted in 1848.  On account of a failure of health he was not permitted to begin practice until 1857.  In 1859 he was elected to the State legislature and served in that body until the opening of the war.  He declined a re-election which was tendered him in 1861, and raised a company of volunteer soldiers and entered the Confederate service.  His company was mustered into the Forty-Fourth Georgia and ordered immediately to Virginia.  He was subsequently elected major of his regiment and served through all the Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania campaigns up to the battle of Gettysburg, where he was wounded and compelled to retire for a time from the service, rejoining his command afterward, however and going with it until the close in 1865.
 
On his return to Monticello, he resumed  the practice of law, and in 1867 formed a partnership with Joseph W. Preston which lasted for more than twenty years, being terminated in 1887 by Preston's appointment to an Indian agency on the Pacific coast.
 
In 1877 Major Key was sent by his county to the State legislature.  He also represented his county in the State constitutional convention of 1877.  In 1882-83 he was again sent to the legislature and during the session was active in the stock law and shaping prohibition measures which passed into the statutes restricting the liquor traffic in Jasper County.  Besides this service Major Key has been identified with the Macon and Covington Railroad from the inception, being one of the first projectors of the road in his county and aiding largely in securing capital from the north which built (it?).
 
July 27, 1857, Major Key married Phoebe Allen, daughter of William Allen, of Jasper County.  He has never had any children.  Although in his sixty-second year he is active, being of a wiry, nervous temperament, and can accomplish as much, whether it involve physical or mental toil, as any young man half his age.