O'Keeffe, Laurence Eugene , 1835-1907
Biography
Laurence Eugene O'Keeffe was born in Ireland on August 10, 1835 and died on January 16, 1907. He is buried in Westview Cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia. His family immigrated to the United States in 1850 and by 1853 was living in Columbus, Georgia. During the Civil War he served with Company C of the 17th Regiment of the Georgia Volunteers, stationed in Virginia. He was captured at Richland, Tennessee on May 23, 1863 and incarcerated at the U.S. Prison Depot in Johnson's Island, Ohio. He was paroled and sent to City Point, Virginia for exchange on February 24, 1865. He returned to Columbus after the War, and ran a steamboat line on the Chattahoochee River. In the early 1870s he moved to Atlanta and became head of the one the largest chemical and fertilizer industries in the country. He married Sarah (also known as Sallie) C. Cox on June 30, 1880 in Atlanta, Georgia.