Draft:John C. Keffer

John C. Keffer (July 4, 1827 - December 31, 1906) was a Freedmen's Bureau official, Union League leader, and the first chairman of the Alabama Republican Party.

He served as the private secretary of General Wager Swayne at the Freedmen's Bureau in Alabama and was involved in organizing schools for African American students. In 1877 he returned to Cleveland and worked as an editor and managing editor at some of the city's newspapers. He was a Republican and Swedenborgian. He had six children by his first wife and remarried after she died.

He worked at John W. Forney's Press newspaper.

He moved to Alabama from Washington D.C. for a Freedmen's Bureau position.