William H. H. Keltner. The
paternal great-grandsire of William Henry Harrison Keltner was Henry
Keltner, one of four brothers who came from Germany to America in
early Colonial times and settled in Kentucky, in what came to be
known as Keltner Township. He spent his life there, a planter of
prominence and wealth. He had four sons who served in the long-fought
war for American independence. One of the four was William Keltner,
the father of J. C. C. Keltner, and grandfather of this subject. This
patriot, William Keltner, fought with General Jackson at the battle
of New Orleans, and he died in Dardanell, Arkansas, a prosperous
planter and mill owner.
Harrison Keltner was born in Bonham, Fannin County, Texas, July 18,
1852, and is the son of J. C. C. Keltner, born in Kentucky in 1828.
In 1844 J. C. C. Keltner came from his native state to the Indian
Territory, where he worked for his father-in-law on one of his
plantations, and later he became overseer of his wife’s father’s
plantation, and in 1851 he married the daughter of Arnus Spring, his
employer. Crossing Red River in 1852, he resided in Bonham, Fannin
County, where W. H. H. Keltner was born. In that year he came back to
the Choctaw Nation, settling near Hugo, thence to near Atoka, and
finally to near Leon, Chickasaw Nation, and spent the remainder of
his life there, engaged in stock farming. He died there in the year
1910. He was captain of an Indian company of volunteers in 1861-5,
and was a staff officer in Gen. Joe Wheeler’s regiment throughout the
war. He was a member of the Church of Christ, and in politics was a
whig, but after the war became a democrat. He married Nancy E. E.
Spring, born in the Choctaw Nation, and a quarter-blood Indian. She
died in Wise County, Texas, and William H. H. Keltner was her only
Mr. Keltner attended
the Spring Chapel School under the tutelage of Doctor Dabney, now a
resident of Sulphur, Oklahoma, and when he was sixteen years old he
left school and went to work as a cowpuncher, in which he continued
until 1874. However, in 1871-2 he found it possible to attend Oplaca
Academy, in Alabama, for about twenty months, which was a very
valuable addition to, what had been a somewhat meager education. When
ranch work in 1874 he became a stake driver in a railroad engineering
camp, and in 1877, after three years of continuous work in that
line, he took a field position as a qualified civil engineer. He
followed that work through the Indian Territory, Texas, Louisiana and
Arkansas, until the year 1895. During those years he had been
accumulating farming lands, and in 1895 he retired from his
engineering work to his farm at Hickory, Pontotoc County, where he
remained until 1900. In that year he moved to his farm on Red River,
continuing there until 1912, when he moved to his farm at Reck,
Oklahoma, six miles south of the town of Wilson. This place of 600
acres is the present home of the family. Another valuable farming
property of Mr. Keltner’s is his Red River farm of 2,100 acres, and
he has title to 170 acres of lead and zinc lands in the Arbuckle
Mountains. Mr. Keltner also is interested in certain valuable oil
lands in the Healdton fields and in the Madill District as well.
It is perhaps
unnecessary to say that Mr. Keltner is a republican of the old
school. His name would carry that assurance with it, and it is safe
to assume that any man who signs himself William Henry Harrison would
vote the republican ticket. Mr. Keltner was a deputy marshal in the
Indian Territory, and he served on the election board in Love County
in 1911-12 and 1913. In 1876 he became an ordained minister in the
Church of Christ, and since that time he has devoted a good deal
of his time to the ministry. He is a
member of Leon Lodge No. 189, Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
In 1876 Mr. Keltner
was married at Pilot Point, Denton County, Texas, to Miss Susie
Potter, the daughter of Col. Zack Potter, a farmer, now deceased. He
was a colonel in the southern army, serving in a Missouri regiment
throughout the war.
Five children were
born of this union. Hattie May married John Moore, a farmer, and they
live in Hickory, Oklahoma. Nema Pearl married F. E. Kinney, and they
have their home in Durant, Oklahoma, where Mr. Kinney is a merchant.
J. Arthur lives in Madill, Oklahoma, and is engaged in the real
estate business, as well as giving some time to the ranching
business. Hazel is the wife of Oscar Babb, a Nebraska farmer. Ruby
married Walter Middleton, and they live in Chicago, where he is the
superintendent of an electric power plant.
The wife and mother
died in 1897 and in 1898 Mr. Keltner married in Stonewall, Oklahoma,
Miss Mattie Burns, the daughter of S. B. Burns, of LeFlore, Oklahoma.
She has borne him four children. They are named Goodwin, Neroli,
William H. H., Jr., and Wallace L. All of them are attending school
in Reck, where the family home is located.