Charles Keach

It was in November, I854, that Mr, Keach was united in marriage to Miss Laura Jane Doty, who died in September, 1858, leaving a son, William E., who married Miss May E. Sammis, and is a resident farmer of Kickapoo township. Mr. Keach was again married on the 25th of March, 1862, his second union being with Miss Marion A. Fash, a daughter of Abraham and Georgietta V. (Smith) Fash, The father died in Peoria in 1886. Abraham Fash’s father, John Fash, who married Ann Bogart in New York, made the overland trip from that state to Illinois in the early ’30s, at which time he took up his abode in the city of Peoria, which was then a tiny town. The Fash family were among the earliest settlers of Peoria county and hardly a home had been established in this part of the state. Indians were still numerous in Illinois, for the Black Hawk war had not then occurred, ending forever the supremacy of the red men in this section. Deer were numerous and wild game was to be had in abundance. As the years passed the Fash family bore their part in the work of general improvement and development, and their name Deserves an honored place upon the pages of Peoria county’s history and the history of the state of Illinois

From the book Peoria City and County, Illinois: A Record Of Settlement