My Genealogy Hound

Judge Joseph Keller, a well-to-do farmer and successful stock raiser of East Dallas Township, is a Tennesseean, born in Bedford County November 15, 1840. His parents, Rev. F. A. and Catherine (Green) Keller, were born, reared and married in Bedford County, Tenn., and were engaged in farming in that county until 1855, when they started to move to Missouri, but the father died at the residence of a brother, in Perry County, Ill., November 25, of that year. He was a minister of the Baptist Church, and after his death his family remained in Illinois until February of the following year, when they pushed on to Missouri, and settled in Webster County, and purchased a farm, on which they resided until the breaking out of the war. Judge Keller is the eldest of a family of five children, and made his home with and assisted his mother until the breaking out of the war and March 12, 1862, enlisted in the Fourteenth Missouri Cavalry of State Militia, and served until receiving his discharge for disability in January, 1863. He participated in several skirmishes, and was wounded by a gunshot while on detail duty. January 17 1859 he married Miss Martha Burks, who was born in Coffee County, Tenn., a daughter of J. W. Burks, one of the pioneers of Webster County. Soon after he began making a farm in Benton Township where he resided until 1877, when he located on his present farm of 280 acres, about 115 of which are under cultivation. He has 180 acres under fence, and a pleasant and comfortable dwelling house. Since the war Mr. Keller has been a stanch Republican in politics, and in 1880 was elected justice of Benton Township, and six years later was elected one of the judges of the county court, and was re-elected in 1888. He and wife have a family of seven children: James F. (who is married, and resides in the county), W. E. (who is married and is a teacher of Webster County), John L. (at home), Mary J., Sarah C., Sophia E. and Charles Winfield. The Judge, wife and oldest daughter are members of the Missionary Baptist Church, and the Judge is church clerk. He is also a Master Mason in the Masonic order.