Key Family History

 
KEY FAMILY HISTORY

 
            Members of the Key family have spent a considerable amount of time and energy in writing their family history.  Special credit, however, is to be given to Arden Key, who compiled much information about his family.  He worked for ten years before his death to gather information and hired researchers in various locations around the world to obtain historical data for him.  His wife would not allow him to keep all of the papers in their home, so as a result the papers were stored at his barber shops in Mason City and Charles City, Iowa.    

 

            Arden was the son of Kenneth and Anna (Koecke) Key of Prairie Du Chien, Wisconsin.  Kenneth was a descendent of Abraham Key (brother of Mary Key Martin).  Arden was born February 17, 1930 and died February 7, 1986 of cancer.  He served in the U. S. Navy during the Korean Conflict.   Edna Melissa (Horton) Millin of Patch Grove, Wisconsin, a descendent of Benton Key (brother of Mary Key Martin), compiled much of Arden's data about the Key family.    Arden's work would lead us to conclude that he believed that the ancestry could be traced back to 14th century European royalty.  The following is taken from his writings and collected data.     

 

     The Keys are from an ancestral line that held sway in Wales in the 14th century.  The first recorded ancestor was Mary Dudd who fathered a son Ennifed.  The genealogy of the Key family can be traced as far back as Charles V of France (1337 _ 1380).  His son, Charles the VI (1368 _ 1422) was king of France in 1380.  Catherine, the daughter of Charles the VI first married Henry V, king of England.  After his death, she married Owen Tudor.  Henry the VII (1445 _1509) founded the house of Tudor and was king of England.    

 

            It was from this lineage that Thomas Key entered the family royalty.  Lady Mary, daughter of Henry Grey and Lady Frances Brandon (direct descendent of the royal line) secretly married Thomas Key, sergeant_porter (door man or gate keeper) to Queen Elizabeth.  The following story about their marriage was found in the West Lafayette, Indiana library: 

"Elizabeth the First, Queen of England" by Neville Williams

(Pages 98 _ 99)

 

            "Lady Katherine's younger sister, Lady Mary Grey, fared no better.  She had stayed on at court as a maid of honor, despite her sister's disgrace, so Elizabeth could keep an eye on her.  Alas, after six years of life at court, fearing at twenty_five that she was becoming an old maid, Mary clapped her eyes on Thomas Keys, the Queen's serjeant porter.  It was an incongruous match, for Lady Mary was petite and Keys an enormous fellow with a huge girth.  One evening in August 1565, after a quiet supper in her rooms in Whitehall Palace with Lady Stafford's daughters, she walked over to the privy chamber and thence to the council room where she found a messenger to take a prearranged token to the serjeant porter.  At 9 P.M. they were married by candlelight in Keys' chamber near the water_gate, by an unidentified priest, 'apparelled in a short gown, being old, fat and of low stature'.  But Elizabeth soon heard and she was furious.  That a maid of honour __ let alone a candidate for the succession __ should marry without her permission was lese majeste, but that she should marry so far beneath her, and right under the Queen's nose, was unpardonable.  Key was ultimately packed off to the Fleet Prison, where he spent three miserable years, hoping in vain to be given a second chance;  he even volunteered to serve in Ireland.  His health suffered, particularly after eating a rib of beef which had been immersed in a liquid wash prepared from mangy dogs.  At length he was freed, on condition that he live quietly at Lewisham and not attempt to see his wife.  Even a letter of Keys sent with Archbishop Parker's blessing, begging for the Queen's mercy to live with his wife 'according to the laws of God' was flatly refused.    

            Lady Mary meantime had been placed in the custody of William Hawtrey at Chequers in Buckinghamshire.  Then she was allowed to live at Greenwich with the Dowager Duchess of Suffolk, a kindly soul, who bemoaned that she had no decent furniture 'for the dressing up of' the girl's room.  Out of loyalty to the serjeant porter Mary continued to sign herself 'Mary Keys' and on his death unsuccessfully petitioned Elizabeth to be allowed to wear mourning.  The hapless Mary died in 1578.   

Quotations taken from Wright, Elizabeth I, 207;  State Papers Domestic, 12/37;  fos.  25/7; S. P. 12/41/47 State Papers 12/43; fos. 99_100; S. P. 12/69/17; Dictionary of National Biography s.v. Keys, Mary.         

            Although no children are mentioned in the above account, Arden seemed to believe that they did live together as man and wife and that at least one of their children, Thomas Key came to America in the early pioneer days.  The exact date of the first Key coming to America is not known.  Thomas Key purchased land in the name of his wife in New Kent County, Virginia on December 2, 1628. 

            Other Key Family facts taken from Arden Key's Writings include:

 

* "Abraham Key, brother of Mary Key Martin enlisted in the Civil War Sept. 3, 1864 in the first Wisconsin Heavy Artillery and was active in service until the close of the war.  The command belonged to the army of the Potomac and a large part of its service was assigned to fortifications around Washington D.C.  In later years, Abraham became a leading citizen of Grant County, and even in his old age was known for his athletic ability."

 

* "A remote branch of the family to which Mary Ann Key Martin belongs was from the same family as Francis Scott Key, author of the "Star Spangled Banner" written at Fort McHenry during the War of 1812."

 

* "Philip Barton Key, son of Francis Scott Key was killed in a duel on Sunday February 27, 1859 diagonally opposite the White House.  Key, the U.S. District Attorney for the District of Columbia was shot to death by General Daniel Sickles then U. S. Congressman from New York.  The cause of the fatal affray was Sickles' pretty wife, the former Teresa Bagioli.  Key was a ladies' man _ tall, handsome, athletic _ then about 40 and a southern aristocrat of the first rank.  In his veins ran the blood of the Calhouns, Lees, and Pendletons.  The shooting, was one of the sensations of the Capitol City in the late 1850's."           

 

            After the war, Price moved to the territory of Tennessee and Kentucky and raised his family.  Among his children was Marshall Key (father of Mary Key Martin). 

 

            There were several generations of John Keys.  One of them lived in Albermarle County, Virginia and was a neighbor and admirer of Thomas Jefferson.  He had several children among them, Price Key, grandfather of Mary Martin.