Yesterday, in rambling about Sylva, I paid a visit to the grave of a man once well known in the annals of Haywood and Jackson, a citizen of the last when it was part of the territory of Haywood.
Jos. KEENER was a man of mark in his day, a man of sound judgment, large practical common sense, a fine speaker, a man of keen wit and terrible powers of sarcasm, genial, yet feared, popular, influential and successful. He was a member of the House in 1844-5, and of the Senate in 1863, and may have been in the Legislature at other times. Few men of the county have left so deep an impression upon the memories of the people or the history of the county.
His family may boast of a kind of antiquity in Jackson. It settled on Scotts Creek when the Indian titles were scarcely extinguished, and where the savages must have been close and troublesome neighbors. I notice among the few legible tablets, the names of his maternal parentage, the Cunninghams the most frequent.
Mr. KEENER died at the age of 65. One son, Mr. J.P. KEENER, lives at the old homestead on Scott’s Creek, a place dear to the memories of the politician of antebellum days.
The Asheville citizen. (Asheville, N.C.), 22 April 1885. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84020682/1885-04-22/ed-1/seq-1/>