My husband is from this family in Miller County. Web site created by Wallace McKeehan. http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/mckstory2.htm In the middle of the 19th century the dream of many Americans was to go west and that they did by covered wagons, trains, horseback and any other feasible way. Charles Coffner McKeehan dreamed of the Tarrant and Parker counties of north Texas. No doubt he dreamed of the opportunities to exercise his carpentry and business skills that were offered by the booming area. Sometime between 1871 and 1873, he rented space in a boxcar on the Iron Mountain "M.P." railroad in which he could move family, belongings, animals and tools of his trade to Texas. An outbreak of measles prevented Parker County, Texas from becoming the hub of the next generation of this McKeehan family. They got as far as Texarkana on the border of Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana in Miller County, Arkansas where Charles had to postpone his dream, unload, rent a house and seek employment until the family recovered. However, the originally temporary stop became permanent and the tri-states Texarkana area became the hub for the next generations of this line which began in Ireland, Germany, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Tennessee. Spokes of the wheel branch out in many directions, but for the majority of descendants the area is the hub, the home country. Like central Arkansas, the Texarkana area also offered virgin timber and tillable land. The lumber industry was in full swing and sawmills driven by huge steam boilers were humming to capacity. It was in one of these that former justice of the peace, merchant and carpenter Charles Coffner McKeehan employed his knowledge of math, bookkeeping and office management skills to make a living and provide for his family. A huge explosion of a boiler adjacent to his office injured him so badly that he never recovered. He died on January 13, 1877 in Miller County, Arkansas. Charles Coffner lies on the east side of Harmony Grove Cemetery, next to wife Sarah Maria. In 1996, descendants placed a modern, prominent stone marker at the site. Virginia and Joshua, none by relatives as Jenny and Josh, lived in the Texarkana area throughout their lives and have a large number of descendants in and around Texarkana. They are buried in the Old Harmony Grove Cemetery south of Texarkana. Hot Springs County marriage records state Josua C. Gray, 19, wed Virginia A. McKeehan, 14, at residence of John Gray by Wm. ??, a young Baptist minister. Nettie Moore Camp’s records indicate that Virginia’s brother, Charles H., age 19, married Mary E. Ridley, age 15, at the same time. Children Jesse Chesterfield (1874-1949) m. Lona McBride Charles Coffner (1876-1955) m. 1. Grace Laverna Moore 2. Mary Lee Jackson Annette (Nettie) Virginia (1878-1968) m. John David Moore George Washington (1881-1904) Martha Lea (1884-1965) m. Mark Edward Jackson Ida Elizabeth (b. 1886) m. Ruben Giles Alta Lillian (1889-1978) m. 1 James H. Works 2 William Glanis Dendy 3 Samuel Stewart 4 Deliverance Throckmorton; 5 Richie Minnie (1891-1922) m. Jeff E. Works) Ruth A. (1894-1908) Lona (1896-1975) m. Quiller Melvin Day Mae Helen (1900-1990) m. Marshall Nardone Hobson