FAYETTE COUNTY OHIO OBIT: KERAN, A.A. *********************************************************************** OHGENWEB NOTICE: All distribution rights to this electronic data are reserved by the submitter. Reproduction or re-presentation of copyrighted material will require the permission of the copyright owner. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. *********************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Tina Hursh frog158@juno.com August 21, 1999 *********************************************************************** From the The Ohio Biographies Project http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~usbios/Ohio/mnpg.html a part of The U.S. Biographies Project http://members.tripod.com/~debmurray/usbios/usbiog.html File contributed to Ohio Biographies Project by Sandra Bagwell bagfunfarm@hcis.net August 21, 1999 ************************************************************** "I have found one more from Ohio. This is another typewritten page with no author or information about where it was published." DR. A. A. KERAN DEAD ----------- A DISTINGUISHED SCHOLAR, PHYSICIAN, AND DIVINE --------------- After weary months of illness and days of intense physical suffering the close of life came to Dr. Azariah Asbury Keran, at his home in Lockwood, Monday morning, and at 11:30 he ceased to breathe. The last few hours of his illness were gentle with him, a state of coma succeeding very painful attacks of heart trouble, and his death was painless. Funeral services were conducted at the Cumberland Presbyterian church, in Golden City, on Tuesday, at 11:45 A.M., and according to the request of the deceased Reb. W. E. Shaw delivered the sermon. The church was crowded with old-time friends and neighbors of the kindly man of whose worth and virtues the speaker eloquently discoursed, and at the conclusion of his remarks the cortege took up its way to the I.O.O.F. cemetery, where not quite two years ago Dr. Keran's good wife was buried. All who know Dr. Keran testify to his worth as a man and his virtues as a citizen. On March 12, 1823, Azariah Asbury Keran was born in Fayette County, Ohio. His father was of Irish descent and his mother came of good old English stock, ahtough her father, John Clemmons, took an active part in the sturggles of the Revlolution. Dr. Keran was a man of vigorous intellect and robust physique, and his early training on the farm was of great service to him in moulding his character and fitting him for the pioneer work which he followed during the most of his career. When he was three years old his father removed to Illinois and settled in Edgar County. There Dr. Keran grew to manhood. When 16 years of age he was converted at a camp-meeting held in Edgar county near Westfield. His parents were both members of the M. E. Church, and the circuit preacher being a very officious and important individual in those days took the liberty of ading his name to the class book. Young Keran had a good deal of spirit and this action led him to study the church discipline and form of government very closely during the following two years, with the result that he concluded to withdraw his name. He was nineteen years of age on November 3, 1842, when he married mis Catherine Dick. His wife was a baptist, but subsequently they both untied with the Methodist Protestant church, a society then in its thirteenth year. Three years later he was licensed to preach. In 1848 he joined the Illinois annual conference and was sent to the Crooked Creek Circuit. The next two years saw him Ordained successively a deacon and elder and for seven years he traveled in the Illinois and South Illinois, Annual conferences. In 1855 he joined a colony bound for the wilds of Minnesota and there he located at Pine Island, on Zumbrow River. On Sunday, June 17th he organized what is supposed to have been the first M.P. church in Minnesota. After a sojourn of thirteen months, however, he became convinced that the climate was too cold and having processed his transfer from the Illinois conference to the Iowa conference he removed to Appanoose County, in the later state, in the Iowa conference was conferred upon him, and his duties called upon him to travel throughout the state for the next two years. Three years later found this sturdy pioneer and christian worker in Kansas. In September, 1863, he called a meeting of his scattered brethren in that state which was held on Alexander Emerson's farm, twleve miles southof Topeka. The object of the meeting was to organize an annual conference, but war's alrms were heard along the border then, and little was acomplished. Dr. Keran served during the last two years of the war as chaplain of the 6th Kansas State Militia, and when peace was declared received an honorable discharge. At close of the war he was appointed missionary in Kansas by the board of missions of the Protestant Methodist church and for a year he traveled and labored strenously, but owing to the unsetttled state of society he had many difficulties to contend with. However, he succeeded in organizing an annual conference comprising of nine circuits and supplying all the pastors. Following his last year's work in Kansas he removed to Dade County, Missouri, where he located northeast of Goden City on Horse Creek in 1866. Here Dr. Keran practiced medicine (A study which he commenced in 1839 and in the prctice of which he was fitted to engage in 1851), during the next twenty years. He united with the Cumberland Presbyterian church soon after his arrival in this vicinity and remained with that religious body for ten years when he returned to his own denomination once more. While engaged in work for the C.P. church he represented that society in the General Assembly at Lincoln, Illinois, in 1868, and at Huntsville, Alabama, in 1873. At least four of his converts are now ministers of the Gospel, Viz: Rev. W.H. Stephens and Rev. W.E. Shaw, of Goden City; Rev. William Russell, of Lockwood, and Rev. W.A. McMinn, of Wynnewood, I.T. After returning to the Methodist Protestant church he was elected president of the Missouri Annual conference in 1883 and Re-Elected on 1884. In the following year he with-drew from church work on account of failing health. Two years later he became superannuated and sustained that relation up to the time of his death. Dr. Keran removed to Golden City, in 1892 and on the 25th of July that year, his life-long companaion and faithful wife died and was buried in the cemetery near where he now sleeps. Their union was blessed with six chidren, three girls and three boys. Dr. Keran was a man of Giant Intellect and few could cope with him in debate or grapple with him in intellectual conflicts. He was learned not only in medicine and theology, but he commanded equal respect when he chose to talk upon any branch of scinence or jurisprudence. He was widely read in the domain of politics and his food of information was practically inexhaustible. Sometimes he was abrupt in speech but still he was a kindly hearted man, and his influence was always for good. Dr. Keran was truly a man for the times in which he lived.