Keefer, Jacob, 1800-1875 (family) : The Keefer family in North America traces its origins to a Huguenot Cooper of Paris, De Wald dit Tonnellier, who emigrated to Alsace ca. 1565 and changed his name to Kieffer. Two sons of Samuel Kieffer (d. 1744), a peasant farmer in the Strasbourg area, emigrated to New Jersey in 1749, and the Canadian branch of the family descends from the elder, George Kieffer (b.1739), who was a loyalist. After loyalist George Kieffer's death, and the confiscation of his property, his sons George Keefer (1773-1858) and Jacob Keefer (1775-1814) moved to Upper Canada in 1790 and became the first settlers at Thorold in Welland County.
The National Archives of Canada's Library has a copy of the "Memoirs of the Keefer Family," compiled in 1935 by the Reverend Robert Keefer, a descendant of Jacob Keefer, who was mortally wounded at Lundy's Lane in 1814. Jacob's elder brother, George Keefer, Sr., who was a cabinet maker by trade, prospered as a general merchant and surveyor and became one of the original promoters of the Welland Canal, as well as the first president of the Welland Canal Company formed for its construction.
This unit includes material relating to George Keefer, Sr., (1773-1858), and to four of his sons by Catherine Lampman (1778-1813), the first of his four wives, as well as to a son by his second wife, Jane Emory, née McBride (d. 1833). His eldest son, George Keefer, Jr. (1799-1885), was a civil engineer, miller, magistrate and clerk of the Division Court at Thorold. His second son, Jacob Keefer (1800-1875), was a Thorold businessman and Post-Master who held a number of offices in local government and married Christina Theresa Grant, the only child of another local businessman and office holder, Robert Grant (d. 1838), a Scotsman from Inverness. His third son, Peter Keefer (1805-1886), settled at Galt in Waterloo County. His fifth son, John Keefer (1813-1892), remained in Thorold. His sixth son, James Keefer (1816-1874), was the clerk of the Division Court at Strathroy in Middlesex County.
