Keats, Virginia
Keats, Virginia is one of the most important place anchors in the Wally Atkins family story.
In A Long Time Ago: A History of the Atkins-Paynter and Allied Families, Patrick Henry Atkins is said to have moved to the Keats area around 1866, reportedly by flatboat down the Roanoke (Staunton) River. He later worked at Boyd's mill across the river from Keats and purchased land on Keat's Branch. In later family memory, Keats remains one of the places where the Mecklenburg branch became firmly rooted.
The Keats area also appears in connection with Dosha Lawson, who spent her later years with Patrick Henry there, and with the wider branch that includes Joseph Henry Atkins, Adelia Jackson Paynter, and their children.
Keats matters because it is one of the places where the names in the family history become part of a recognizable landscape. It is not only where people lived. It is where the family line settled into memory.
