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BARBOUR COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA
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Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
Valerie & Tommy Crook
vfcrook@trellis.net
November 10, 1999
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume III,
pg. 310-311
Barbour
JESSE E. KEYSER. Belington is one of the fast growing
commercial centers, particularly well situated to enjoy the
advantages arising from the developments in a vast ter-
ritory on both sides of the Alleghanies. The first whole-
sale business established here is now the Kane & Keyser
Hardware Company, of which Jesse E. Keyser is presi-
dent. He has been a business factor in the locality since
1901. At that time the corporation was started with a
capitalization of $100,000. The capital was raised to a
quarter of a million in 1921, but the official personnel
remains practically the same.
The normal territory served by this house is all of
Eastern West Virginia, a portion of Virginia and the
western part of Maryland. A staff of five salesmen cover
this region. The company handles an extensive line of
general hardware, and a large volume of the business is
in builders, mine and railroad supplies. Besides the head-
quarters at Belington, the company maintains offices at
107 Chambers Street, New York, in the Union Arcade
Building at Pittsburgh, and in the Continental & Com-
mercial National Bank Building in Chicago. Mr. Keyser
is a member of the National Hardware Jobbers Association.
Jesse E. Keyser has been a West Virginia business
man for nearly thirty years. He is a native of Ohio
and was born near Bellaire in Belmont County July 31,
1863. The remote ancestor of the Keyser family settled
in Philadelphia in 1688, coming from Amsterdam, Hol-
land, where he had been a silk manufacturer. The old
Keyser home is still standing on Grermantown Avenue in
Philadelphia. The early generations of the Keysers were
of the Quaker faith, consequently opposed to war and did
not participate in the Revolution, but later generations
have departed somewhat from the anti-military customs
and the family was represented on both sides in the Civil
war. The grandfather of the Belington business man
was Jesse Keyser, who lost his life while raising a log
house in Belmont County, Ohio. Isaac Keyser, father of
Jesse E., was born in Belmont County, and his life was
devoted to farming. He lived in Noble County, Ohio,
from 1864 until his death in 1898, at the age of eighty-
five. He was a democrat and a member of the Presbyterian
Church. He married Monica Porterfield, who died just
two weeks before him, at the age of seventy-eight. Her
father, John Porterfield, arrived in New York City from
the North of Ireland in 1800 and settled in Belmont County,
Ohio. He married a member of the Robb family, pioneers.
In the Porterfield family there were sixteen children.
Isaac Keyser and wife had six children, and of these Jesse
is the only survivor.
Jesse E. Keyser was reared and educated in Noble County,
Ohio, attending the public schools and the Normal School
at Sharon, Ohio. While in an office at Dover, Ohio, he
learned telegraphy, and he earned his first money as a
telegraph operator in the service of the Cleveland, Lorain
and Wheeling Eailroad, later the B. & O. system with
which he was connected for three years. Later he was with
the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, and was with
that company eight years, chiefly in station work. His last
work for the railroad was at Hayward, Wisconsin.
>From there Mr. Keyser came to West Virginia in 1894,
and, locating at West Union in Doddridge County, engaged
in the hardware and oil well supply business as a member
of the firm E. J. Kane and J. E. Keyser. Out of this
relationship has since developed the Kane & Keyser Hard-
ware Company, and in. 1901 they moved their business to
Belington, where it has grown and prospered to the condi-
tion above noted.
Mr. Keyser and Mr. Kane came together from Ohio and
reached West Union at the time Coxey's Army was march-
ing on to Washington. Mr. Keyser left the railroad serv-
ice just before the big A. R. U. strike under Debs. These
young men were about the same age, had little capital,
but a great deal of enterprise and confidence in them-
selves, and in spite of the business depression prevailing
during most of the decade of the '90s, they more than
realized their expectations, and out of their efforts has
been developed the big wholesale house at Belington.
Mr. Keyser is also vice president of the First National
Bank of Belington, of which he was one of the founders.
He was a member of the City Council during the era of
paving and sewerage construction. He has interested him-
self in party politics only as a voter of the democratic
faith, is a deacon in the Belington Presbyterian Church
and a member of the Allegheny and Cheat Mountain Clubs
and the Business Men's Club of Belington.
At West Union, June 27, 1900, Mr. Keyser married Miss
Dagmar Neely, daughter of Alfred and Mary (Morris)
Neely. She is a native of Doddridge County, where her
father was a well known country physician. She finished
her education in the Fairmont State Normal School and was
a teacher until her marriage. Mrs. Keyser is a sister of
Matthew M. Neely, former Congressman from the First
West Virginia District. Her sister, Delmond, is the wife
of C. H. Jones, secretary-treasurer of the Kane & Keyser
Hardware Company of Belington. Mrs. Keyser is a mem-
ber of the Daughters of the American Revolution, due to
the service of her great-great-grandfather as a soldier in
the war for independence. During the World war Mr.
Keyser was active in home work, was a member of the
Council of Defense, was vice chairman of the local Red
Cross, and was chairman of the Y. M. C. A. drive and a
worker in other local campaigns.
Mr. and Mrs. Keyser have two children. The son, Robb
Neely, is a student in the Davis and Elkins College at
Elkins. The daughter, Mary Monica, is a high school girl at
Belington.
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