Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 4.djvu/564

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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

trade, but is president of the A. D. Keen Com- pany, Inc., vice-president of the Perpetual Building and Loan Association, and direc- tor of the Phoenix Building and Loan Asso- ciation. In 1912 Mr. Keen was president of the Tobacco Board of Trade. His partner- ship in E. K. Jones & Company dates from 1900, while he has been president of the A. D. Keen Company, Inc., since its forma- tion in 1912. He holds the Knights Temp- lar degree in the Masonic order, and is a charter member of the Tuscarora, the Coun- try, and the Merriwold clubs. His church is the Main Street Methodist Episcopal, in which he has been a member of the board of stewards for fifteen years, at the present time being treasurer of the board, and for five years has been assistant superintendent of the Sunday school. The elements of his life have been indeed well-mixed and it is vastly to his credit that into his church serv- ice and his relations with the Sunday school he has put the same unflagging energy and has displayed the same unremitting zeal that has characterized his dealings in the in- dustrial, mercantile and financial world.

Mr. Keen married, March 30, 1904, at Danville, Daisy Thurmond, daughter of John H. and Susan B. (France) Schoolfield, both of her parents natives of Henry county, Virginia. Mr. Schoolfield at the present time is vice-president of the Riverside and Dan River Cotton Mills, and on October 17, 1914, will fall the fifty-fourth anniversary of their marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Keen have one daughter, Daisy Schoolfield, born June 19. 1909.

Robert Blackwell, D. D. S. Many years prior to the revolutionary war, a great-great- great-grandfather of Robert Blackwell, of Danville, was deeded land in Lunenburg county, Virginia, which descended from father and son, and where Robert Blackwell was born. His father, William T. Blackwell inherited it from his father, Benjamin Black- well, who was also born at the homestead farm, as was William T. Benjamin Black- well married (first) Miss Jones, of Mecklen- burg county, X'irginia, who bore him three children. He married again, and left issue by his second wife.

William Thweatt lUackwell lived all his life (ni the homestead in Lunenburg county, and there died in 1884, aged sixty years. He was an invalid during the greater por-

tion of his life, and though a man of means, was so in sympathy with the cause of the Confederacy, that he parted with a large share of his fortune in relieving the suffer- ing caused by the war. Not being able to take a part in actual warfare, he showed in that way his loyalty and devotion. He mar- ried Sallie Orgain Penn, born in Lunenburg county, Virginia, in 1835, died 1875, daugh- ter of William Penn, born in Pittsylvania county, Virginia, a farmer ; his wife, a Miss Edmunds. Children of William T. and Sallie O. (Penn) Blackwell: William; Ben- jamin, died in infancy; Elizabeth, married R. W. Manson. and resides at Olo, Lunen- burg county; Sallie Penn, married S. M. Hawthorn, of Lunenl)urg county; Robert, of whom further ; Mary Constance, married C. J. Hawthorn, of Lunenburg county ; Pattie Edmundson, widow of Thomas Saun- ders, now residing in Lunenburg; Lucy F., widow of Dr. Cage, resides in Woodford, Tennessee ; Thomas, resides in Lunenburg.

Robert Blackwell, son of William Thweatt Blackwell, was born at the old Blackwell plantation in Lunenburg county, Virginia, March 15. i860. He was educated in the local schools and began business life as a clerk with his father, who was proprietor of a general store at Holydale. He continued as his father's assistant in store and farm management until about twenty-five years of age, then became a student at Baltimore Dental College, whence he was graduated Doctor of Dental Surgery, class of 1888. He began the practice of his profession at Marion, Virginia, remaining there four years. He then, located in Syracuse, New York, practiced his profession there a short time, then returned to Virginia, locating in the city of Danville in 1893. ^^ ^'^^'^ prac- ticed continuously in that city for the past twenty years, has acquired high professional standing, and is interested in the business prosperity of his adopted city. He is presi- dent of the Danville Drug Company, and is one of the public-spirited men of his com- munity. He is a mem]:)er of the Masonic order ; the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks ; a Democrat in politics, and a mem- l:)er of Mount Vernon Methodist Episcopal church.

Dr. Blackwell married, November 16, 1898. Ida Neal Blackwell (unrelated), born in Caswell county. North Carolina, in 1873, daughter of lohn B. Blackwell, who died in