West Keating: Known for timber, natural beauty, 100 years of electricity in 2022

By Christopher Miller

Before I begin to touch on West Keating Township, one of Pennsylvania’s most rural municipalities, let’s first dive into the namesake of two townships which used to be one in our fair county. And yes, I believe each one of the Keating’s is deserving of their own spotlight in The Townships.

An aged newspaper article glued into an equally aged scrapbook at the Ross Library sheds some light on the namesake.

“These Keating names were given in honor of an Irish-French gentleman adventurer John Keating, agent for the Ceres Land company in northwestern Pennsylvania.”

John Keating was born in Limerick, Ireland in 1760, a “Norse Irishman,” being descended from one of the oldest Norman families in the Emerald Isle. He had escaped from prison on the night before he was to be executed for a crime that I cannot quite understand from the news report – something about the fall of a king in France.

He made his way to the island of Jamaica which was under British rule, and he made the acquaintance of William Bingham, who was one of the richest men of his time, who took a quick fancy to Keating and asked him to be his secretary. Bingham loaned several million dollars to Pennsylvania and New York during the Revolutionary War and the states, being unable to pay him back, gave him one million acres of land to liquidate the debts.

Keating eventually made his way to Pennsylvania and had arrived in Philadelphia when he was offered a position as an agent for the Ceres Land company, a group who had bought 300,000 acres of land in what is now Clinton, Cameron, Elk, and Potter Counties. “For the rest of his long life – Major Keating died in 1856 in his 96th year – he devoted himself to the interests of the Ceres company.”

Now Keating spent much time on his vast domain arranging sales to settlers, lumber companies, and speculators, most of the property being closed out by the end of his life. “Keating was widely known and greatly admired by all classes of people, and his justice and patience towards the pioneers, who had a great struggle to pay for their lands, is still remembered by their descendants.”

Now that the namesake has been covered, let’s move onward to the Keating Township of yore. The January 7, 1875 issue of Renovo Record issued this legal advertisement, “Division of Keating Township Recommended – The Commissioners – Michael Quigley, W. P. bairds, and Michael Stout reported in favor thereof, and an election is to be held in that township on the 19th of January, 1875.” Basically, they were voting on the creation of East and West Keating as we see them today.

What is also valuable to note is that the area of West Keating Township was at one time owned by the City of Philadelphia. “Clinton County Timber Tract is Owned by the City of Philadelphia,” is what the Clinton County Times reported in 1929. “This property was devised in trust for supplying the poor inhabitants of the city of Philadelphia with (timber) fuel.”

The book Historical View of Clinton County makes note that the principal business of West Keating is lumbering and farming. “John Rhon is the most prominent citizen in West Keating, both as a businessman and politician, and has the handsomest house in that section of country…and that West Keating is conspicuously Democratic, there being only three Republican votes polled at the last election (late 1800s).”

Today, West Keating Township boasted a population of 29 souls at the time of the 2010 census, down from 42 at the 2000 census. A July 2020 article in The Record reported that there was a proposed petrochemical plant to be built in the West Keating area, but nothing much has been mentioned since.

This is a centennial year for West Keating Township; actually in fact, the matter of electricity there. “West Keating Township Electric Company, the character and object of which is supplying light, heat and power, or any of them, by means of electricity, to the public in the Township of West Keating, Clinton County, Pennsylvania,” the May 5, 1922 issue of Clinton County Times reported.