There Was No More Faithful Veteran To The Cause Than He, GEORGE KEYES.

George Keyes (1845-1908) was one of the most prominent and respected African American men, not only in the city of Scranton, but throughout Lackawanna County.  Keyes was the son of fugitive slave from Virginia, George Keyes Sr., who by access of the Underground Railroad found his freedom in Waverly, Pa. George Keyes Jr. even remembered the resistance free black community: “...at Waverly the slaves banded together and drove kidnappers away.” Keyes fought in the Civil War along side his father in the The 22nd United States Colored Infantry Regiment. In 1866, when he came to this city at the end of the war. He became a member of Ezra S. Griffin Post, G. A. R.  George Keyes was one of the oldest members in the Griffin Post and “there was no more faithful veteran to the cause of the post than he.” 


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Negro History Week in Scranton, 1954

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This Day in History… “Group Gathers for Meeting on Negro Plight”