BIOGRAPHY: Thomas P. KEEDY, Cambria County, PA 

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From Wiley, Samuel T., ed. Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Cambria 
County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Union Publishing Co., 1896, p. 389-90
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THOMAS P. KEEDY, assistant superintendent of the great Cambria rolling-mill, and 
who was instrumental in securing the erection of the present Thirteenth Ward 
Public School building of Johnstown, is a son of Grafton Jacob and Sarah Ellen 
(Morrison) Keedy, and was born at Duncansville, Blair county, Pennsylvania, 
December 13, 1856.
     The Keedy and Morrison families are respectively of German and Scotch 
ancestry; and the former was founded in Maryland, where Henry J. Keedy, the 
paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born at Sharpsburg. 
Henry J. Keedy was an active business man and operated a cotton factory and 
flouring mill at Keedysville, where a fire occurred in 1844 and destroyed his 
property. He never rebuilt, but opened a hotel at Sharpsburg, which he conducted 
up to the time of his death, in 1858, at sixty years of age. He was a married 
man, and his son, Grafton Jacob Keedy, was born and reared at Sharpsburg, 
Maryland, which he left in 1859 to become a resident of Martinsburg, Virginia, 
now West Virginia. He was postmaster of Martinsburg during the late Civil War, 
and then served in the car-tracing office of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 
company until the time of his death, which occurred in 1877, when he was in the 
forty-fifth year of his age. He was an exemplary member of the United Brethren 
church; and married Sarah Ellen Morrison, who was born at Antietam, Maryland, in 
1833, and is now a resident of Duquesne, this State, where she is a member of 
the Methodist Episcopal church.
     Mrs. Keedy is a granddaughter of Parkinson Morrison, who was a native of 
Maryland, and died at Hagerstown, that State, in 1878, at the ripe old age of 
ninety-nine years. His son, Henry Morrison, the father of Mrs. Keedy, was a 
native of Antietam, and a Lutheran, and in 1850 went to Duncansville, Blair 
county, which he left ten years later to settle at Johnstown, where he was a 
foreman in the puddling-mill of the Cambria Iron company, and where he died in 
1863, at the age of sixty-one years.
     Thomas P. Keedy was reared principally at Martinsburg, West Virginia, then 
Virginia, and received a common-school and academic education, after which he 
accepted a position as book-keeper and salesman in a large dry-goods store, 
where he remained until 1873. On account of his health he then resigned that 
position at Martinsburg, and came to Johnstown. Needing out-door labor to 
improve his health, he entered the Cambria Iron company's rolling-mill, and held 
numerous positions up to 1890, when he was appointed assistant superintendent, 
and has served in that capacity ever since.
     In 1878 Mr. Keedy wedded Mary E. Brixner, and they have one child, a son, 
named Roy. Mrs. Keedy is a daughter of Christian and Barbara Brixner, of 
Johnstown.
     Aside from his official duties in the rolling-mill, Mr. Keedy has been 
engaged, to some extent, in business for himself during the last twenty years. 
He was a member of the firm of Beutsch Brothers & Co., at the corner of Main and 
Bedford streets, for several years, but, fortunately for himself, had sold his 
interest just before the great flood, which not only swept away the property of 
the firm, but also everything of Mr. Keedy's. With the proceeds of his sale he 
was enabled to recover from his losses by the flood, besides having an interest 
in other enterprises. He is a member of the English Evangelical Lutheran church; 
Cambria Lodge, No. 278, Free and Accepted Masons, and Johnstown Council, No. 
401, Royal Arcanum, of which, he has been secretary for the last ten years. 
Thomas P. Keedy is a staunch republican in politics, and has been serving for 
three years as burgess of Westmont. He has held numerous and important borough 
offices. He served for several years as a member and president of the school 
board, and as treasurer and burgess of the borough of Millville, now comprising 
the Thirteenth and Fourteenth wards of the city of Johnstown. He was chairman of 
the Republican County committee in 1887, and is always consulted by leaders of 
his party upon all matters of political importance. When a member of the school 
board he was instrumental in securing the erection of the Peelor or Thirteenth 
Ward School building; and, in recognition of his disinterested and valuable 
service in securing that building, his name is inscribed on its bell.