Charles H. Keep

Keep was born in Lockport, New York in 1861. He was a descendant of Roger Wolcott, the colonial governor of Connecticut from 1750 to 1754.

He attended Harvard University, where he graduated in 1882, followed by Harvard Law School.

After graduating from Harvard Law, Keep was admitted to the bar and began practicing law in Buffalo, specializing in investment and financial business. While in Buffalo, he served as a director of the Marine Bank of Buffalo (which after a series of mergers, was acquired by HSBC Bank).

In 1903, Keep was nominated to succeed Milton E. Ailes as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Secretary L. M. Shaw during President Theodore Roosevelt's administration. Ailes had resigned to accept the vice presidency of the Riggs National Bank.{{cite news |title=SUCCEEDS MILTON E. AILES.; Charles Hallam Keep of Buffalo Appointed Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1903/05/25/archives/succeeds-milton-e-ailes-charles-hallam-keep-of-buffalo-appointed.html |access-date=17 February 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=25 May 1903}}{{cite web |title=Letter from Charles Hallam Keep to William Loeb. Theodore Roosevelt Papers. Library of Congress Manuscript Division. |url=https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Research/Digital-Library/Record?libID=o49710 |website=www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org |publisher=Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University |access-date=17 February 2021}} While in office, President Roosevelt appointed him chairman of the Keep Commission (formally known as the Committee on Department Methods), which revised to a large extent the methods of doing business in the Federal departments. In 1906, Keep along with Lawrence O. Murray (Comptroller of Currency) and Gifford Pinchot (Chief of the United States Forest Service), provided President Roosevelt with a detailed report of the organization and operations of the Department of the Interior. The report highlighted "grave defects" in the structure of the department such as redundant job functions, an "abuse of letter writing" that impeded public business, and rampant inefficiency. The report recommended the dissolution of several divisions.{{cite web |title=Report upon the organization of the Department of the Interior |url=https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Research/Digital-Library/Record?libID=o196288&from=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theodorerooseveltcenter.org%2FAdvanced-Search%3Fr%3D1%26st1%3D2%26t1%3DKeep%252C%2520Charles%2520Hallam%252C%25201861-1941 |website=www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org |publisher=Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University. |access-date=17 February 2021}}

Keep served as Assistant Secretary until 1907 when he was appointed New York State Superintendent of Banks by New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes. In 1907, he became the first prominent New Yorker to endorse then Secretary of War William Howard Taft for president to succeed Roosevelt.{{cite news |last1=Times |first1=Special to The New York |title=C.H. KEEP OUT FOR TAFT.; Gov. Hughes's Banking Superintendent Committed -- What Foraker Thinks. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1907/01/01/archives/ch-keep-out-for-taft-gov-hughess-banking-superintendent-committed.html |access-date=18 February 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=1 January 1907}} He was in that position for less than a year until he was appointed to the New York Public Service Commission for the Second District. Keep resigned from the Commission in 1908 to assume presidency of the Knickerbocker Trust in March 1908.{{cite news |title=CHAS H. KEEP HEADS THE KNICKERBOCKER; Voting Trustees Retain Only Five of the Old Directors and Cut Board to Fifteen. RESUMPTION ON THURSDAY Bankers and Business Men Make Up the New Board -- Receivers May Get $200,000 Each In Fees. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1908/03/23/archives/chas-h-keep-heads-the-knickerbocker-voting-trustees-retain-only.html |access-date=17 February 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=23 March 1908}} Keep saw Knickerbocker through its 1912 merger by acquisition with the Columbia Trust Company.{{cite news |title=TWO MORE BIG TRUST COMPANIES TO MERGE; Plan Under Negotiation for Consolidating the Columbia and Knickerbocker. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1912/05/15/archives/two-more-big-trust-companies-to-merge-plan-under-negotiation-for.html |access-date=17 February 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=15 May 1912}} Columbia's president, Willard V. King, served as president of the new company and Keep became chairman of the board of the new company, known as the Columbia-Knickerbocker Trust Company,{{cite news |title=RATIFY TRUST MERGER.; Stockholders of Both Columbia and Knickerbocker Take Action. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1912/06/05/archives/ratify-trust-merger-stockholders-of-both-columbia-and-knickerbocker.html |access-date=17 February 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=5 June 1912}} from 1912 to 1923.

On May 17, 1894,{{cite news |title=The Weddings |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/71418870/invitations/ |access-date=18 February 2021 |work=The Buffalo Sunday Morning News |date=8 April 1894 |pages=7}} Keep was married to Margaret Turner Williams (1872–1954) at Trinity Episcopal Church in Buffalo, New York in what was described as "one of the largest weddings of the season".{{cite news |title="WITH THIS RING," ETC. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/71419108/with-this-ring-etc/ |access-date=18 February 2021 |work=The Buffalo Enquirer |date=19 May 1894 |pages=4}} The reception was held at her parents home at 249 North Street. Margaret was a daughter of George L. Williams,{{refn|group=lower-alpha|George L. Williams was one of the most prominent bankers in Buffalo. Two years after the Keep wedding, her parents moved into their new home at 672 Delaware Avenue in Buffalo, which had been designed for them by Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White.{{cite web |last1=LaChiusa |first1=Chuck |title=History - Williams-Butler House / Jacobs Executive Development Center |url=https://buffaloah.com/a/del/672/hist/index.html |website=buffaloah.com |publisher=Buffalo Architecture and History |access-date=18 February 2021}}}} and a granddaughter of prominent banker Gibson T. Williams of Buffalo.{{cite news |title=MARTHA KEEP BETROTHED Morris Shotwell Shipley Jr. Is Her Fiance--Other Engagements Are Announced. Keep--Shipley. Burlingham--Butler. Harris--Hoffman. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1929/04/27/archives/article-1-no-title-will-become-bride-of-charlton-macveagh.html |access-date=18 February 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=27 April 1929}}{{cite news |title=DEATH OF GIBSON T. WILLIAMS. Buffalo's Prominent Financier and Businessman Passes Away. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/55894637/obituary-for-gibson-t-williams/ |access-date=18 February 2021 |work=The Buffalo Enquirer |date=15 April 1891 |pages=5}} Together, they were the parents of two daughters:

• Eleanor Williams Keep (1895–1953),{{refn|group=lower-alpha|Various sources list Charles' eldest daughter as Eleanor H. Keep, and indicate she died after 1959.}} who died unmarried.
• Martha Gibson Keep (d. 1980),{{cite news |title=Obituary Notes |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1980/04/09/archives/obituary-7-no-title.html |access-date=18 February 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=9 April 1980}} who married Morris Shotwell Shipley Jr. who was then working with the National Sugar Refining Company, in 1929.{{cite news |title=FORMER CINCINNATIAN WED. Morris S. Shipley Jr. Takes New York Girl For Bride |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/18281742/the-cincinnati-enquirer/ |access-date=17 February 2021 |work=The Cincinnati Enquirer |date=21 June 1929 |pages=4}}{{cite news |title=MISS AUCHINCLOSS WEDS B.J. LEE JR.; Ceremony in St. Bartholomew's Church Attended by Many Society Notables. MISS MARTHA KEEP BRIDE Banker's Daughter Married to Morris S. Shipley Jr. at Parents' Home--Other Nuptials. Shipley--Keep. Seymour--Webster. Patterson--Seymour. Klee--Merz. Warden--Becker. Warland--Outerbridge. Trask--Bird. Dill--Monro. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1929/06/21/archives/miss-auchincloss-weds-bj-lee-jr-ceremony-in-st-bartholomews-church.html |access-date=18 February 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=21 June 1929}}

In the mid-1920s, he bought a six-story, twenty-four-room Beaux Arts style townhouse at 9 East 89th Street in Manhattan that had been designed by Oscar Florianus Bluemner in 1901.{{cite news |last1=Miller |first1=Tom |title=The 1903 Stern Mansion -- No. 9 East 89th Street |url=http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-1903-stern-mansion-no-9-east-89th.html |access-date=17 February 2021 |work=Daytonian in Manhattan |date=9 June 2015}} His wife had an extensive furniture collection, including pieces by Chippendale and Colonial furniture from Philadelphia.{{cite web |title=A CHIPPENDALE CARVED MAHOGANY SCALLOP-TOP TEA TABLE |url=https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-5764148 |website=www.christies.com |publisher=Christie's |access-date=18 February 2021 |language=en}}{{cite web |title=A QUEEN ANNE WALNUT EASY CHAIR |url=https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-5821703 |website=www.christies.com |publisher=Christie's |access-date=18 February 2021 |language=en}}{{cite web |title=A FEDERAL INLAID MAHOGANY, FLAME BIRCH AND EGLOMISE LADIES WRITING DESK |url=https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-a-federal-inlaid-mahogany-flame-birch-and-4226115/?from=searchresults&intObjectID=4226115 |website=www.christies.com |publisher=Christie's |access-date=18 February 2021 |language=en}} In 1963, over 200 pieces from her collection were sold by her daughters at auction by Parke-Bernet Galleries fetching $188,240.{{cite news |title=Antique Furniture Sold For $188,240 at Auction |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1963/10/20/archives/antique-furniture-sold-for-188240-at-auction.html |access-date=18 February 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=20 October 1963}}

Keep died at his Summer home in York Harbor, Maine on August 30, 1941.{{cite news |last1=TIMES |first1=Special to THE NEW YORK |title=CHAS. H. KEEP DIES; EX-TREASURY AIDE; Assistant Secretary, 1903-07, Once State Superintendent of Banks, Was 80 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1941/08/31/archives/chas-h-keep-dies-extreasury-aide-assistant-secretary-190307-once.html |access-date=17 February 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=31 August 1941}} Keep was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo. After his death, the 89th Street house was sold it to the American Institute for Iranian Art and Archaeology in 1942. His widow died at her home, 101 East 72nd Street, in December 1954.{{cite news |title=MRS. CHARLES H. KEEP |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1954/12/26/archives/mrs-charles-h-keep.html |access-date=17 February 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=26 December 1954}}

;Notes

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;Sources

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• {{find a Grave|119155310|C. Hallam Keep}}

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Category:1861 births

Category:1941 deaths

Category:Harvard Law School alumni

Category:Burials at Forest Lawn Cemetery (Buffalo)

Category:People from Lockport, New York

Category:Lawyers from Buffalo, New York

Category:American corporate directors

Category:People from the Upper East Side

Category:People from York, Maine

Category:American bank presidents

Category:Businesspeople from New York City

Category:Knickerbocker Trust Company

Category:Harvard College alumni