Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1043

Rh of the Rebellion Official Records," since published by our National government. Mr. Kean's position in Richmond threw him in close and constant touch with many of the leaders of the lost cause, and gave him rare insight into much of the inside history of the war. In a diary which he kept during the time much of this is recorded. All the correspondence between the two governments regarding the Federal prisoners at Andersonville passed through his hands and his account of the matter can be found in Vol. I of the Southern Historical Society Papers, page 199. Returning to Lynchburg in the autumn of 1865, he resumed the practice of law and pursued it steadily until death closed his useful and honorable career. He was long recognized as one of the leaders of the Virginia bar, at a period in its history prolific in able lawyers, and was chosen second president of the Virginia state bar association, his only predecessor in that office being the venerable Judge William J. Robertson. As a scholar Mr. Kean's reputation was considerable. One of his letters to Prof. John Tyndall on a scientific subject was embodied in its entirety in an address by that distinguished scientist before the royal society of London. His public addresses and contributions to the press embrace a great variety of subjects and exerted a wide influence. A distinguished member of the faculty of the university of Virginia has said that his address before the Educational society of Virginia on the subject of the "Economy of Higher Education," induced the legislature to raise the annual appropriation to the university from $15,000 to $40,000. Nor was this his only service to his alma mater. For many years he served on her board of visitors and for two full terms as rector, and throughout his whole life he never missed an opportunity of advancing her interests. In 1854 Mr. Kean was married to Jane Nicholas Randolph, daughter of Col. Thomas Jefferson Randolph, and great-granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson. By this marriage he had six children, three of whom survive, one, Capt. Jefferson Randolph Kean, being a surgeon in the U. S. army. In 1874 he was again married, his second wife being Adelaide Navarro Prescott, a member of a distinguished Louisiana family, who with her four children survives him. Mr. Kean died at his residence in Lynchburg, on Monday morning, June 13, 1898, in the seventieth year of his age. At the time of his death he was, with the exception of Postmaster-General Reagan, of Texas, the highest civil officer of the Confederacy living.

James Milnor Keeling, a prominent attorney of Norfolk, was born in Princess Anne county, Va., August 31, 1844. His family is one of the oldest in Virginia, the first settler being Thomas Keeling, who came from England to Princess Anne county in 1635. The family homestead, which passed into other hands in 1881, had been continuously in the hands of the Keelings since 1693. The father of the judge was Solomon S. Keeling, born in 180S, died in 1881, who was the son of Adam Keeling, born in 1745, who served through the Revolutionary war as a lieutenant in the light horse cavalry, and died in 1805. Solomon S. Keeling took to wife Martha, daughter of Milnor Peters, a business man of Norfolk. She, a noble wife and mother, passed away in September, 1887. Judge Keeling was reared at the homestead, and at the age of fifteen years entered the military academy of Prof.