What Guttenberg did for the printing press, Keogh did for the printing trade in Milwaukee

For some unknown reason, Edward Keogh’s birthday is given as either January 22, or May 5, 1835. What is definite, is that he was born in County Cavan, and at aged six years, he settled with his parents in New York. Sadly, I was not able to find the names of his parents. After a year in New York, the Keoghs moved to Milwaukee where young Edward was apprenticed in the printing trade, which he picked up quickly.

In the Iowa County Democrat, an article said that Keogh by ‘industry and cleverness’ worked his way up the ladder to become boss of the state of Wisconsin’s largest printing enterprises. Edward was one of the early settlers to make Milwaukee their home. The cannibal killer Jeffrey Dahmer may be infamously associated with Milwaukee today but, back in the day, Edward Keogh was the big name around town.

With what could only be called slim savings, Keogh started his printing establishment in a three-storey building on North Water Street, Milwaukee, in 1867, under the company name of Keogh & Schroeder. The website www.OnMilwaukee.com quotes Elmer E. Barton’s 1886 book, ‘Industrial History of Milwaukee, the Commercial, Manufacturing and Railway Metropolis of the North-West’, which said that: ‘In the first rank of Milwaukee firms, we find the name of Mr Edward Keogh. In 1867 he established a small business, with a few cases of type and one press. The superior quality of work turned out soon established a reputation second to none, and the large increase of orders compelled him to add to the facilities of his house from time to time, until he now occupies two floors with his printing and ruling departments, has three modern printing presses and a four-horsepower Otto gas engine, and a fine stock of the latest styles in type.’

The industrious Keogh had 10 workers on the payroll and his company boasted a trade across the state of Wisconsin. Keogh’s trademark was his specialisation in book work and the operation of a book binding service. He soon was the city’s chief printer and, in 1889, ‘The National Cyclopedia of American Biography’ recorded that Keogh seized an important business opportunity to open an office in Chicago. What Guttenberg did for the printing press, Keogh did for the printing trade in Milwaukee. Sadly, in 1903, the old building where Keogh began his printworks was razed to the ground and a new ‘brick’ building erected in its place, opening in 1904, as the well-known Miller Cafe.

Political career

Edward was a popular citizen and entered politics as a Democrat, beginning as a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly for the Milwaukee 3rd District from 1860 to 1862, and then for the 6th district from January 1862 to January 1864. He served for 17 years in the Wisconsin State Assembly and became the 37th speaker of the Assembly.

He is described in the ‘The National Cyclopedia of American Biography’ as having ‘a degree of modest dignity’ to be found in his features… ‘and yet the poorest constituents’ could call him Ed ‘without the slightest fear of offending him’. One of the things introduced by Keogh to Milwaukee’s voters was the provision of portable booths with divisions, dividing voting districts into precincts of around 500 voters, and helped to ensure the ‘absolute secrecy’ of the ballot, since only one voter could be admitted at a time to the booths. An in-depth look at Keogh’s political career may be found in Peter A. Cannon’s ‘Members of the Wisconsin Legislature: 1846-1999’.

Edward Keogh, the veteran printer, politician and pioneer settler of Milwaukee died on Tuesday, November 29, 1898. His life was shortened by a ‘stroke of paralysis’ suffered on the evening before Thanksgiving Day. At that time, he was still ‘a hale and hearty man’ in the very ‘best of health’, said the Iowa County Democrat. Keogh had been preparing for bed when he fell from his chair.

He was interred at Calvary Cemetery, which is the oldest Catholic graveyards in Milwaukee, which holds over 80,000 burials on a 75-acre plot with many ‘ornate statues, crypts and monuments’ to interest the visitors. In the cemetery, there lies a monument dedicated to the loss of 430 souls who drowned when the Lady Elgin sank on Lake Michigan in 1860; the majority of the dead came from Milwaukee’s 3rd Ward Irish’ community where Edward Keogh was first elected as a Democratic representative of the people.

THE EVICTION OF MRS COOKE

In June 1912, Lord Farnham was sarcastically labelled the ‘shining light’ of the anti-Home Rulers following a callous eviction. It was suggested that he ponder upon the feelings of the Cooke family who were of Orange heritage. In the previous month of May, Mrs Cooke was evicted from her homestead on the Farnham estate. The Cooke family, ‘all staunch Orangemen’, had witnessed their 86-year-old mother taken from her sick bed and ‘thrown on a heap of stones’ with only a quilt to cover her, as her desperate cries echoed from beneath a whitethorn hedge. The old woman was later brought to a neighbour’s home.

During the night she got up and left her neighbour's, only to be discovered sometime later, crawling weakly on her hands and knees towards her once ‘cherished cabin’. Responding to her demented cries, they took her back to her former homestead and, as she lay dying, her son entered the house while the police stood outside to guard the landlord’s interests, and they intimated to Mrs Cooke’s son that they had a warrant to arrest him for trespassing. The doctor was summoned and pointed out that the woman was too ill to be moved. Her eventual removal in an old manure cart was lamented throughout the district. Local people in their upset recalled the time Mrs Cooke’s late husband chaired a meeting in remembrance of the great honour bestowed by the people upon an earlier Lord Farnham. His widow did not receive the same honour, noted The Anglo-Celt.

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