Person:Daniel Keller (1)

According to Lillian's family tree, "He came to Kentucky with his father in 1806. While his father moved around in his building activities, Daniel Keller lived part of the time with the Starr family near Jeffersontown, then called Brunerstown, Jefferson Co., Ky.

"'Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Kentucky, Soldiers of the War of 1812,' printed at Frankfort, Ky., 1892, lists Daniel Keller as a private in Capt. Martin H. Wickliffe's Co., Kentucky Mouted Volunteer Infantry, Sept. 20. 1814 to Nov. 20, 1814. See page 311.

"His first purchase of property in New Albany (then in Clark Co.) Indiana, was in 1815, and the deed lists him as being of Jefferson Co., Ky. He m. 1st, Sarah Risinger, April 20, 1817, at Brunerstown, Ky. They moved to New Albany, Indiana, before the Census of 1820. Sarah (Risinger) Keller, b. Nov. 24, 1798; d. July 17, 1822. They had two children; Ann Maria, who died soon after her mother, and Isaac Rees Keller.

"Daniel Keller m. 2nd, Zeruiah Starr (No. 49), May 3, 1823, Floyd Co., Indiana. Also in his household were his father and step-mother, who had come to keep house for him after his first wife died.

"Daniel Keller bought several additional pieces of property in New Albany and some pieces of farm land in Floyd County. His home was on the Elm St. lot and the clay for his pottery come from the Water St. lot. After the family moved to a home in the country northeast of Georgetown, Daniel Keller continued to run his pottery business and have rental properties in New Albany. He was appointed by the governor of Indiana to be coroner of Floyd Co. for two years beginning Aug. 4, 1823. He was elected as county commissioner in 1832.

"At a barn raising on his farm on New Year's Day in 1836, Daniel Keller caught a cold and then became ill with what was called consumption. No doctors seemed able to help him and in the fall he planned to go south to the home of his brother-in-law John M. Starr in Mobile, Alabama. Accompanied by another brother-in-law James W. Starr, he made this trip down the Ohio and Mississippi in Nov. 1836. He lost his voice on the way and died three days after they arrived in Mobile. Family Bible records say he died Dec. 3, 1836. 'Burial Records, Mobile County Alabama, 1820-1856,' pub. by the Mobile Genealogical Society, 1963, says on page 19, under the year 1836: Chalar?, M., 40, Indiana, December 4. Some acquaintance of the Starr family must have given this rather sketchy information about Daniel Keller to this office. His will, written October 28, 1836, was probated in Floyd Co., Indiana.

"Daniel Keller's will provided for his wife, father and step-mother, for the surviving child of his first wife and for the six surviving children of his second wife. He had leased lot 6, Upper High (now Main) St. and its improvements to James Brooks. After his death this was sold to Mr. Brooks by some of the heirs. For her interest in this New Albany property Zeruiah (Starr) Keller was given a bond providing $100.00 would be paid her every year at the time of her birthday. The subsequent owner of the lot had to continue the payments as long as she lived."