We stopped to pay a visit at the Clarkston, Utah, Cemetery in 2021. We were in Cache Valley for the Jonas Reunion and I knew Amanda had some ancestors buried in Clarkston. Amanda did not recall ever seeing their graves. We had then also been talking about Martin Harris in our study of the Doctrine & Covenants. I surprised the family with a surprise stop on our way home from the Jonas Reunion in Hyrum. It was a hot, windy, and smokey day. We stopped again this year, 2026, for a follow up since I have been doing some research on these families and it is fun to update pictures with the kids. Most of this post I wrote in 2021, but have updated it with new research and photos.

James & Ann Keep are Amanda’s 4th Great Grandparents. Amanda wasn’t very familiar with them so we had to do some homework.

James Joseph Keep was born 25 September 1804 to James Joseph and Ann Evans Keep. Family tradition, including his own later Church membership reporting, places his birth in Acton, Middlesex, England. He was christened 11 November 1804 in St. Nicholas Parish, Chiswick, about two miles away. His father died when James was 5, his father was 29 years old at death, and little James was raised for a time by his grandparents.

James married Elizabeth Parr on 15 June 1826 in Greenham, Berkshire, England. She was a widow, he a bachelor of 21. She died in 1836, confirmed by a probate record in Reading, although the exact date was not provided. James remarried to Ann Miller on 25 July 1836 in St. Mary’s, Reading, Berkshire, England. They joined the Methodists, then the Baptists, and then were Independents.

Two young Mormon men came near the house preaching the gospel and Ann told James to go out and hear them. They were preaching about baptism. He went into the house and searched his Bible to ascertain the truth of what they said. Here he found that baptism was to be born of the water and the spirit. When they came again to preach, James took a long bench for the people to sit on. That evening he went to the meeting house. There he heard the saints speak in tongues.

He and his family were baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His own account, written decades later, states he joined 23 July 1848 and Ann soon after, with his baptism arranged secretly, before dawn, without his family’s foreknowledge. Such a secret baptismal services may explain why no official record of the baptism and confirmation appear to exist. Official Church membership records instead show a longer process: daughter Mary Elizabeth baptized 14 March 1846, Sarah on 10 January 1849, James and Ann together on 15 March 1857, daughters Ann and Lucy on 24 April 1857, Harriet on 18 June 1858, Ruth on 1 January 1862, and Maria Jane on 1 February 1865. Rather than one dramatic family conversion, the record suggests a longer, gradual process, perhaps beginning with Mary Elizabeth on her own. I don’t wish to undermine the baptismal story, it does not match official church records.

Ann Miller was born 10 August 1816 in Newbury, Berkshire, England to James and Ann Elkins Miller. She was christened 2 October 1816 at North Croft Lane Baptist Church in Newbury.

Together James and Ann had 11 children.

Ann Keep Davies (1837-1892)

Mary Elizabeth Keep Turner (1838-1915)

Sarah Keep Buttar (1840-1935) – Amanda’s 3rd Great Grandmother.

James Joseph Keep (1841-1850)

Lucy Keep Downard (1843-1877)

Jane Keep (1845-1854)

William Richard Keep (1847-1854)

Harriett Keep (1850-1863)

Emma Martha Keep (1852-1856)

Ruth Keep Griffin (1854-1931)

Maria Jane Keep Wilson (1857-1875)

The 1841 and 1851 census both have the Keep family in Thatcham, Berkshire, England. He was a mason and bricklayer. It was during this time that Ann Miller had a miracle.

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Kennett Place, Newbury, Berks, Sept. 30, 1850

Dear President Pratt,

We have recently been favored with a manifestation of the miraculous power of God; in this branch of the Church a sister, named Ann Keep, the wife of Joseph Keep, who is a deacon in the Church, had a cancer in her breast for some time; and it became so bad of late that she intended to have it cut out, and the time was appointed for it to be done. Three medical men were to be present at the operation. A brother named David Davis, an elder in the Church, called to see her, and she told him she was going to have the cancer taken out; and he said to her “have you got any faith in the power of God?” and she answered “yes:” and he said “so have I.” Accordingly he anointed her breast with oil, and laid hands upon her, and the pain left her there and then, and she never felt it any more; and from that time the cancer got less, until it disappeared; and the breast that had the cancer is as well as the other. This is known by many out of the Church.

Yours, &c.

Thomas Squires

President of the Newbury Branch

It was Ann’s daughters Mary Elizabeth and Sarah who ran to fetch the Elders that day, according to the family’s own retelling of the story, a detail Sarah herself would later recall in her own history.

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James, Ann, and family left for the United States from London on 23 May 1866 on the ship American Congress arriving at Castle Gardens, New York, on 5 July 1866. They were in Wyoming, Otoe, Nebraska on 13 August 1866 traveling with the Abner Lowry Wagon Company arrving in Salt Lake City, Utah on 22 October 1866.

We later found a published account of that crossing by John Nicholson, the young elder appointed to lead the company of Saints aboard the American Congress. His company included James, Ann, and their daughters Ruth, Maria Jane, and Sarah Keep Francis with her baby, Lucy Ann.

~

As the ship neared Newfoundland, a thick fog closed in for several days. Captain Woodward, unable to see the sun, could not fix his position. On the quarterdeck, Nicholson’s counselor John Rider suddenly saw the fog lift and called out, “Captain, what is that?” Rocks and breakers lay dead ahead. Woodward sprang to the wheel and gave the order to come about just in time. Nicholson estimated that a few moments’ delay would have wrecked the ship, with few if any aboard surviving. At the captain’s request, most passengers, the Keeps among them, never knew how close the danger had come.

John Nicholson, “Saved by Providence,” Juvenile Instructor, 16:2 (15 January 1881), p. 19.

~

James was ordained a Deacon 5 August 1849, a Priest 19 January 1851, and an Elder 18 May 1851, all by Thomas Squires, and was set apart to travel and preach the Gospel in the open air throughout England. James and Ann received their endowments and were sealed to each other at the Endowment House in Salt Lake City on 6 June 1868. James was ordained a High Priest later that year, on 25 September 1868, his 64th birthday, by Edwin D. Woolley, bishop of Salt Lake City’s 13th Ward and Brigham Young’s business manager (and later grandfather to Spencer W. Kimball and J. Reuben Clark).

The 1870 Census places the James & Ann Keep in Newton, Cache, Utah with Maria. Shortly afterward they moved to Clarkston and James built a masonry home. The 1880 Census has them located in Clarkston. James was known for his masonry work and often built chimneys for individuals.

Ann helped in the fields with James to raise crops. They had oxen with which they did their farming. Sometimes she would be very tired when she got home. The oxen’s names were Jack and Jue. Ann called them by name and they would reply by their actions.

Ann enjoyed her home and loved to make it look nice. She had flowers in the windows and all around the house and a fine orchard of apples, English currants, and gooseberries. All kinds of vegetables were grown in the garden. Her husband helped to care for it too. There was a small porch on the front of her house with a hop vine all around it which grew and ran all over the porch making a nice shade in the summertime. In the fall she would gather the hops and dry them and make yeast with them three times per week. The sisters in the town would send a cup of flour to trade for a cup of yeast to make their bread. In this way she kept herself in flour.

The house, located at about 53 West 200 South in Clarkston, was plastered white on the outside by their son-in-law, Morgan Davies, husband of their daughter Ann. Morgan was a professional plasterer who worked as a foreman on the Salt Lake Temple and helped finish several other prominent Salt Lake City buildings, including the Salt Lake Theater and the State Capitol.

She was called as first counselor to Mary Griffin in the Clarkston Relief Society on 12 January 1875, per a contemporaneous letter published in the Woman’s Exponent. She was released in 1885 as she and her husband were getting old and could not do their work so well. Ann was a very busy woman. When too old to do heavy work, she would sew quilt blocks for the Relief Society and for her grandchildren or anyone who would let her do it for them.

James and Ann decided to sell their house and property and live on the principle and interest. In 1890, they sold out and moved to Lehi, Utah for two years. They then returned to Clarkston for several years. Ann had a very bad sick spell and it took her a long time to recover. After she got well, they moved to Newton to live with a daughter, Ruth Griffin.

Just before her death Ann bore a strong testimony to the truth of the gospel, telling her daughters and families to hold fast to the end for this was the true Church of Jesus Christ and to do all they could for their dead. She told her nurse, Caroline Thompson, to hold her pocket book for her, then she took out a dollar and passed it to her daughter, Sarah Buttars and said, “Get my brother Joseph’s temple work done for he was a good man.” She passed away 25 October 1896 in Newton.

Nine days after Ann’s death, James wrote to his grandson, John Griffin, then serving a mission: “I can tell it is such a blow to me that it makes me feel so lost that I can hardly bear up with my spirit… after living with a good wife 60 years it is very hard to part with each other.” He wrote that Ann had told him not to pray for her life to be spared, “I want to die and I am going to die so give me up to the Lord.” She spent her final hours talking and praying, urging their children to “stand fast to this church, it is the true church.” James added that he had recently been to the temple, baptized eleven times for the dead, and sealed forty-one couples as man and wife since her passing.

Ann’s funeral was held in the Clarkston meeting house on 28 October 1896, with remarks by Thomas Griffin, John Griffin, Ole Peterson, Bishop W Griffin, Counselor A W Heggie, and Bishop John Jardine. A local correspondent noted that James, then 93, sat at the head of her coffin, “he has lost his right hand,” the account read. “He is deaf and can’t hear a sound but can walk around and converse with others and may yet live many years.”

James passed away while staying with his daughter Mary Turner in Lehi on 14 March 1899. His body was returned and buried in Clarkston.

James’s funeral was held in Clarkston on 17 March 1899, three days after his death; his body had arrived the day before, accompanied by his daughter and grandson, Mr. and Mrs. Turner of Lehi, and his grandson Mr. Davies of Salt Lake. By his own prior request, six friends spoke, including John E Godfrey, the same Godfrey who had stood beside him as a witness to Martin Harris’s testimony some 24 years earlier. Six of his grandsons served as pallbearers.

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James Keep finds himself in history due to being present in the home of Martin Harris at the visit of Ole Jensen in July 1875. John Godfrey and James Keep both signed as witnesses to the statement of Ole Jensen, Clarkston Ward Clerk. This is from Jensen’s statement:

It was in Clarkston, Utah, July 1875. Early in the morning a thought came to my mind that I would go and see how Brother Martin Harris was feeling. It was only three blocks from my home. I heard he was not feeling well. People came from other towns to see Brother Harris and hear him bear his testimony on the Book of Mormon. When I arrived there were two men present. Brother Harris lay on his bed leaning on his elbow. I said, How are you? Brother Harris answered slowly, Pretty well. We came to hear your testimony on the Book of Mormon.

Yes, he said in a loud voice as he sat up in bed, I wish that I could speak loud enough that the whole world could hear my testimony. Brother stand over so I can see you. Then he stretched out his hand and said, Brother I believe there is an Angel to hear what I shall tell you, and you shall never forget what I shall say. The Prophet, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and myself went into a little grove to pray to obtain a promise that we should behold it with our own eyes.

That we could testify of it to the world. We prayed two or three times and at length the angel stood before Oliver and David and showed them the plates. But behold I had gone by myself to pray and in my desperation I asked the Prophet to kneel down with me and pray for me that I may also see the plates. And we did so and immediately the Angel stood before me and said, Look and when I glanced at him I fell but I stood on my feet and saw the Angel turn the golden leaves over and I said, It is enough my Lord and my God. Then I heard the voice of God say the book is true and translate correctly!“

Martin Harris then turned himself as though he had no more to say and we made ready to go but he spoke again and said, I will tell you a wonderful thing that happened after Joseph had found the plates. Three of us took some tools to go to the hill and hunt for some more boxes of gold or something and indeed we found a stone box. We got quite excited about it and dug quite carefully around it and we were ready to take it up, but behold by some unseen power the box slipped back into the hill. We stood there and looked at it and one of us took a crowbar and tried to drive it through the lid and hold it but the bar glanced off and broke off one corner of the box.“

“Sometime that box will be found and you will see the corner broken off and then you will know I have told the truth again. Brother as sure as you are standing here and see me, just so sure did I see the golden plates in His hand and He showed them to me. I have promised that I will bear witness of this truth both here and hereafter.”

His lips trembled and tears came into his eyes. I should liked to have asked one more question but I failed to do so. But I refreshed myself and shook hands and thanked him and left. When I think of the day I stood before Martin Harris and saw him stretch forth his hand and raise his voice and hear his testimony, the feeling that thrilled my whole being, I can never forget. Nor can I express the joy that filled my soul. This is a true statement.

Sarah Keep later confirmed this in her own written history, noting that her father’s presence was recorded “in the presence of John Godfrey, Ole A. Jensen and James Joseph Keep, my father.”

~

We also visited the grave of Martin Harris in the same cemetery at Clarkston.

You can read James Keep’s autobiography here.

Thomas Squires (1811–1868), who ordained James and later served as President of the Newbury Branch, had followed a strikingly similar religious path of his own. A Wesleyan preacher from age fifteen, he later turned to the Baptists, and finding neither fully satisfying, began preaching what he considered an improved doctrine of his own. He first heard of the Latter-day Saints from two women he met after preaching in a village on a Sunday morning, tracked down and corresponded with an Elder in London, and was soon baptized, confirmed, and ordained an elder in a single day. He baptized many converts and established several branches of the Church.

When the Newbury Saints raised the means to send him to Zion, Thomas emigrated in 1854 with his large family, sailing from Liverpool to New Orleans on the Golconda. Cholera struck the company in St. Louis, killing his wife, Mary Ann, and all but a son and a daughter, Sarah Ann, among his children, along with the wife of his son-in-law John Green. Thomas himself was gravely ill but survived, arriving in Salt Lake City on 30 September 1854, where his brother John, who had emigrated a year earlier, nursed him back to health. Sarah Ann later married her brother-in-law, John Green, himself recently widowed in the same epidemic.

Thomas settled in Kaysville, mending shoes for a living, but never fully adjusted to life afterward. In the words of his brother, John Paternoster Squires, Thomas had been “almost worshipped” as a preacher in England, and mending and pegging old shoes “seemed too monotonous for him.” He grew discouraged, drifted from the Church, briefly joined the Josephites (the RLDS movement), then left Utah altogether for Denver and later Cañon City, Colorado, where he preached for the Baptists and was supported by the townspeople until his death on 18 May 1868, of paralysis.