Son of Barbara Rowland & Jacob Keithley, husband of
1) Frances (Fannie) White, married 4/4/1815 in Warren County KY and
2) Mary Helen Bell, married 4/5/1836 in Ralls County, MO and
3) Druzilla America Thompson, married 3/9/1843 in Pike County, MO and
4) Mary Couch, married 6/24/1858 in Ralls County MO and
5) Alicy Frances Hale, married 7/12/1863 in Audrain County, MO

Acknowledgment to the Ralls County Historical Society for the following:

Bit of Ralls County History
Died at his residence in Centre Township, Ralls Co. MO., on The 28th of Oct. 1875, Levi Keithley, aged eight-one years, five months.

As the decreased was one of the pioneers of MO., it is thought by his relatives and friends that it would be of interest to publish a short

SKETCH OF HIS LIFE
He was born in Warren Co. KY. A. D. 1794. At the age of twenty-one he married Miss Fannie White, near Bowling Green, KY. Two years after the young couple left their native state and came to MO. This was three years before MO. became a state. He Lived one year at St, Charles and in November 1818 moved near the Ely Springs, in what is now Pike Co., encountering the pathless woods and unfelled forest, to hew himself out a home in the primeval wilderness. His means were scanty, but he and his companion had left their kindred to make their home in the far West. With deep interest, I have listened to his stories of his early life and pioneer hardship and soon all these octogenarians will be gone and the last link broken that binds us back to the scenes and incidents of the first settling of our state. I would like, if I could, to tell of these in his own plain, simple language, giving the pathos with which he warmed up at the relating. I would tell of now, upon landing on Spencer Creek in November, he placed his "plunder" under the branch of a tree, five miles from his nearest neighbor, began a rude structure in which to winter, for as yet not a stick was cut, nor a board, nor a friendly dash of Mortar had been placed to protect the family from the near approaching winter. Trusting in God and his own string arm, he set about to work and soon the reverberating hills sent back the echo of the last lick stuck upon a finished cabin, in which he snugly tucked his little effects wintered as happily, perhaps as if his pointed cabin had been a mansard instead.
The winters were spent in clearing for the field and the first few years were attended with toil, privation and danger. The few coins which he had brought were soon exhausted and may want remained unsatisfied. His own wardrobe, however, he supplied from the forest, of buck of his own tanning. The second winter was drawing nigh and the family shoeless. Procuring some leather, he, upon lasts of his own, manufactured clap down shoes for all around. The nearest mill was St. Charles– 75 miles away, though a sparsely settled and almost unbroken wilderness. Although his fellow men lived far from him and were few, yet his neighbor were near and numerous. The wolf, bear, panther and wild cat made night hideous or crept around his lonely cabin and preyed upon his pigs, calves and sheep, besides being a constant terror to the little ones that "played round the door."
The dinner horn was an instrument of summons in hour of peril at the house and one day while the subject of this sketch was in the field he heard the horn blow with unusual violence. Hastening home, he found his wife trying to frighten away a huge black bear from the hog pen, from which it took a fat porker, intending the same for an evening repast. Hot pursuit was made, with gun and dog and Bruin's fat carcass helped to fill the larder. The wolf was sly and hard to capture, besides the pioneers hadn't the profit arising from the sale of the wolf scalps to the state.
Snakes were too "numerous to mention," and it is a wonder how the little barefooted urchins escaped unbitten as they did. Nine years of toil, Privation, and battling with wild beasts and venomous reptiles brings prosperity to a certain extent, for by that time other settlers had arrived and Mr. Keithley sold his land and moved to the place where he died – on Salt River – again encountering the dense woods. By industry, frugality and perseverance, he soon acquired a competence.
But death visited his home and snatched away the companion of his toils; he married again and this one likewise died; and so with the third and fourth and the surviving widow was his fifth wife. Numerous progeny – mostly grown up men and women as well as useful and respected citizen – are left to mourn his loss and to revere his name
He served in the Black Hawk War, under Capt. Matson.
From this sketch of his life, in which not a tithe of his hardships are related, we see under what circumstances our fathers redeemed this country from the savages and wild beasts and built up society and planted churches and schools. The subject of this sketch was an ardent supporter of schools and a consistent member of the Christian church over thirty years.
He was a marked force and solidity of character, with dauntless energy and believed in success being attainable by every youth, without exception. In fact, his motto was, "there should be in the bright vocabulary of youth which leads on to a brighter manhood, no such word as ‘fail'". He despised all kinds of chicanery and sophistry and believed in the old fashioned "hewed and split road to wealth", instead of the new speculating routes which oftener lead down than up the hill of fortune.
G. W. Waters