Biographical Sketch of Thomas C. Keefer, M.Inst. C.E.,C.M.G.

Thomas Coltrin Keefer, one of the most successful civil engineers, and public writers in Canada, was born at Thorold, near the Falls of Niagara, on the 4th of November, 1821. He is the grandson of a United Empire Loyalist, George Kieffer, an Alsatian Huguenot, who emigrated from France, and settled in the Province of New Jersey, before the American Revolution, where the father of the Canadian family was born a British subject, in 1773. The emigre lost his life and property in the cause of the House of Hanover, and in 1790 George Keefer, his son, came to Canada, where … Read more

Biography of George Keefer

George Keefer, grandson of a loyalist during the American revolution, and son of George Keefer, senior, who was from Essex County, N. Y., was born half a mile north of where he now lives, February 25, 1799. This country was then a dense forest, with here and there a small opening, where an enterprising frontiersman had begun to make a farm. The father of our subject received 300 acres of land from the British Government, and most of that land is now embraced in the corporation of Thorold. George Keefer, senior, was originally a carpenter by trade; became a merchant … Read more