BIO- Pen Pictures
SURNAMES: BULLS, HASTY, RAPER, HANSON, 

THOMAS B. KEESLING, one of our most successful fruit-growers, has a  beautiful home in the Willows, on Willow Street opposite Cherry Avenue.   The place has an area of about twenty acres, planted mostly in cherries and  apricots, 
with about an acre of grapes near his house, and cost him in 1873  $10,000, or $500 an acre.  In 1887 he had about seven tons of grapes, which  sold for an average of $15 a ton.  The cherries produced about seven and  one-half tons to 
the acre, and apricots also bore a very full crop.  Mr.  Keesling has two ranches in Santa Clara County, one a mountain ranch of fifty  acres planted in grapes and prunes, and forty acres about three miles west from  his residence in 
various kinds of fruit.
 
Born in Preble County, Ohio, in May, 1824, his grandparents, John Keesling,a native of Wythe County, Virginia, and Melinda (Bulls) Keesling, a native of  North Carolina, having moved into Ohio in its earlier settlement.  The  family removed to a point near New Castle, Indiana, where the subject of this  sketch went to school and worked on his father's farm.  Commissioned  Postmaster of Mechanicsburg, Indiana, in 1848, by President Taylor, he held that  position 
for eight years, meanwhile conducting a general store and steam  saw-mill, the post-office being in his store.  His old sign, painted by  himself, still hangs over this store.
 
His father's farm having been on the wagon road between Cincinnati and  Chicago, he had heard as a boy many and wonderful stories of the great West  beyond.  These did not decrease as to the great development of that section  while 
he was merchant and Postmaster of Mechanicsburg, so that in 1856 he  resolved to cast his fortune toward the setting sun.  Selling out his  interests in Indiana, he took his family and settled where Minneapolis now  is.  At that time 
there were but few shanties on the west side of the  river, although on the east side was the town of St. Anthony's Falls.  He  bought twelve acres of land now in the center of Minneapolis, and remained there  for sixteen years, during 
which time he worked in the saw-mills and at  gardening.  This land, for which he paid $1,400, appreciated so much in  value that he sold off $35,000 worth, and has been offered $50,000 for what he  still holds!  Having always had a 
fondness for horticulture, which he  undertook in Minnesota with unsatisfactory results, owing to the intense cold,  he made a trip to California, settling in the Santa Clara Valley in 1872.   Here he worked during the first year for 
James Lick, purchasing at the end of  the year the home place in the Willows.
 
He was married, in 1884, to Miss Elizabeth Hasty, a native of Preble  County, Ohio, her parents also removing into Indiana during its early  settlement.  Her parents were Thomas Hasty, a native of Kentucky, and Anna  Raper, a native 
of Virginia.  This union has been blessed with a numerous  progeny, numbering eleven: Martha Ann, now the wife of George W. Hanson, a  resident of the Willows; Francis M., connected with Wells, Fargo & Co.'s  Express in San Jose; Leander B., residing near Glenwood, in the Santa Cruz  Mountains; Horace G., now a fruit-grower in the Willows; Alva C., a fruit-grower  in Santa Clara County; Oliver M., fruit-grower in the Willows; Carrie E., George  C., Thomas C., Emma E., and Edwin E., the five latter still attending school and  occupying the paternal home. 
 
Mr. Keesling has been always a believer in the principles from which the  Republican party sprang, and which carried it on in its successful  career.  In these he but followed in the footsteps of his father, as he has  been followed 
by his sons.  His father was in favor of the abolition of  slavery, and helped every slave who escaped from thralldom and came within his  reach.  Death called the old gentleman before the day of Emancipation, but  his spirit battled 
for liberty and union in the persons of a son and nephew, who  gave up their lives that their country might be saved.  The son, Isaac B.,  died at Vicksburg, and the nephew was killed at Richmond.  Other relatives  also lost their 
lives during the war.

SOURCE:  Pen Pictures From The Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, Illustrated. - Edited by H. S. Foote.- page 517
Chicago:  The Lewis Publishing Company, 1888.

SANTA CLARA COUNTY BIOGRAPHIES

SANTA CLARA COUNTY- THE VALLEY OF HEART's DELIGHT