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KEAGY FARM HISTORY
(Researched by Gary Worley)
The Keagy Farm, just outside Littlestown on the Basehoar
Road, was built in 1905 by landowner Abraham G. Keagy. The
family delivered milk and eventually started a dairy in Littlestown.
By 1929, son Samuel Keagy moved to East King Street in Littlestown
and continued the dairy business. The farm was leased by
the Paul C. Worley family who farmed it until the early 1950's,
when Paul & wife Annie retired and moved to a house on
the Littlestown-Hanover road near the Pine Grove Road. Paul's
son George and family continued to live there, but the land
was farmed by neighbor David Little. By the mid-1950's the
105-acre farm had been sold to the Kline family, Evan "Sonny" and
brother Harvey, who occupied the farmhouse and farmed the
land until the death of Harvey in the 1990's. Harvey's wife
Marie remained in the farmhouse until her death around 2000.
The dairy farming had ended with Harvey's death, and the
land was being farmed by Vernon "Butch" Arentz
and family, who purchased the farm about 2005 ...i.e., 100
years after it had been built. |

| The Littlestown Historical Society story by
Kenneth Sell points out that the land for the Valley Grove
School was purchased from A. G. Keagy in 1891, and that its
location was a mile North of Christ Church on the Christ Church
Road. The farm discussed above did NOT extend to the Christ
Church Road and a mile North of Christ Church would put the
school more in the vicinity of the Millard Basehoar (originally
Andrew Shriver) farm, so A.G. Keagy apparently owned additional
land at that time. The Keagy/Kagy family immigrant had arrived
in America from Switzerland in 1715 and first-settled in Lancaster
Co; by 1850, A.G.’s father Joseph and family were in
Conewago Twp, near McSherrystown (there is a Keagy family cemetery
on a farm just North of McSherrystown); and by the 1870 Census,
A.G. was a landowner in Union Twp with neighbors Samuel Basehoar,
Samuel Grove, and John Rebert. |

Story by Gary Worley who grew up on the Keagy farm with parents
George & Grace Worley, siblings Marian, Brenda and Jim,
and with grandparents Paul & Annie Worley. Some of my scariest
memories include catching pigeons in the barn, and painting
the peak of the barn in about 1955. ggworley@frontier.com
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