William J. Kehoe

William Kehoe (August 21, 1842 – December 29, 1929) was an Irish businessman who emigrated to Savannah, Georgia, where he became a successful iron founder. The Kehoe Iron Works is now named for him.

Life and career

Kehoe was born on August 21, 1842, in Wexford, County Wexford, Ireland, to Daniel Kehoe and Johanna Rath. He was one of seven children, including another son, Patrick, who was born in 1830. His family emigrated to the United States in 1851, arriving in Savannah, Georgia, on February 28, His father died, at the age of 51 or 52, shortly after their arrival, during a yellow fever epidemic.

On November 26, 1868, seven months after the death of his mother, he married Savannah native Anne Flood, in Savannah.

Over the next fifty years, Kehoe grew one of the best-equipped marine engineering stores on the South Atlantic coast. The latter property is now a 13-room inn, and is one of three "Historic Inns of Savannah," the other two being The Gastonian, on East Gaston Street, and the Eliza Thompson House Bed and Breakfast, on West Jones Street.

The inn is owned by Savannah's HLC Hotels, Inc., which also owns the city's Olde Harbour Inn, the Eliza Thompson House, the East Bay Inn and The Gastonian.

Kehoe sold the family home after the death of his wife in 1920 and moved to East 36th Street. and was survived by seven of his children.

His funeral was held at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, of which he was a member. He is interred in Savannah's Catholic Cemetery, on Wheaton Street, with almost all of his family. (It is not known where infant Annie was buried, and Kehoe's son, Daniel, was interred in Savannah's Greenwich Cemetery upon his death in 1954.)