Henry C. Keeling, a director and life member of the Kansas State Historical Society, is one of the pioneer settlers of CaIdwell, Sumner county, and one of her successful and progressive citizens. He first came to Kansas in 1873, where he joined an elder brother, at that time quartermaster at Fort Leavenworth, and who in 1874 was appointed post-trader at that post. In 1876 Mr. Keeling went to Montana, where he remained during the Custer campaign. He returned to Kansas, in 1878, and purchased a half interest in a grocery business at Great Bend. The following year, 1879, he was appointed post-trader at Cantonment, Indian Territory, ninety miles south of Caldwell, on the Canadian river. During the early eighties he was induced by a number of friends, who were in the cattle business, to remove his stock to Caldwell, Sumner county. He remained in the mercantile business in this town until 1887, since which time he has been engaged in the real estate and loan business. He is widely known throughout the state as a student of Indian life, his collection of Indian relics being one of the most extensive within her borders and his contributions to the State Historical Society, in the way of personal reminiscences, are many and valuable. His life among the Aborigines as a trader made possible a close study of their habits, character and traditions and his fund of information on the Indian is probably as extensive as that possessed by any citizen of Kansas. His address, "Early Days in Kansas," delivered before the Research Club of Caldwell, is a vivid word picture of frontier life and contains material which has been drawn upon for use in the preceding volumes of this work.