Nicholas Keim

Nicholas Keim, Hardware Merchant, was born in Oley, now in Berks county, Pennsylvania, April 2d, 1719; and was the son of John Keim, who emigrated from the province of Alsace, on the Rhine, to America, in 1707, locating in the fair valley of Oley, a French Huguenot settlement "remarkable in the annals of Pennsylvania." Here he took up land, lived a quiet and godly life, and died, beloved by the whole settlement, in 1732. His son, Nicholas, with his wife Barbara and their only son John, then in his sixth year, moved to Reading during the November term of court, 1755. Berks county was separated from Philadelphia county in 1752; the town of Reading had been previously (1748) laid out by Thomas and Richard Penn. It had now been made the shire town of the new county, and, many people of means, in the neighboring townships, took up their residence there. Nicholas Keim established himself there in the business of a hardware merchant, or as was termed it those days, of an iron-monger, which he carried on successfully, and then was succeeded by his son. He was a man who practiced a rigid morality, and was a constant student of everything relative to the temporal and spiritual welfare of those around him. He died, August 23d, 1802.

Source: The Biographical Encyclopedia of Pennsylvania of the Nineteenth Century. Philadelphia: Galaxy Publishing Co., 1874, pp. 355.

Contributed by: Nancy.