Louis Keller

Louis Keller was a curious little fellow; he had sandy hair, was short and stocky, walked with a limp, had a "gay nineties" mustache, and a squeaky, affected voice. He was troubled early in life with deafness - an affliction which seemed to ward off, at least from his point of view, some of the criticism he received for the sole distinction of his life - which was to found the Social Register. He was not a captain of industry, but was merely a young man who had inherited some money and a farm in Springfield, New Jersey. He was, however, intelligent, resourceful, energetic, and possessed fairly reliable entrepreneurial instincts.

His father, Charles M. Keller (1810-1874), was a prominent lawyer who drafted the United States Patent Law of 1836 and became the first Commissioner of Patents in the United States. Keller himself was born on February 27, 1857, the product of his father's second marriage to Heloise Antoinette de Chazournes (1823-1890). His mother was a member of a well-known French family in New York, the daughter of Felix de Chazournes, an affluent merchant, importer, and broker of some notoriety. Although born and raised in Manhattan, Keller spent the majority of the summers of his youth with his family at his father's "country cottage" and farm in Springfield.

There is no record of Keller's attendance at either a preparatory school or a university. He apparently needed an income but was not inclined to work a normal job. He tried a few things. He owned and operated a gun cartridge manufacturing plant and dabbled in gunsmithing. He also tried his hand at dairy farming on his father's farm in Springfield. None of these ventures were met with any particular success.

In spite of his modest inheritance and familial ties, Keller was not a member of New York’s social elite. They tended to be members of the established Protestant families and Keller was a second generation Catholic American. Although he was not a member of high society, he knew many who were, and socialized with them often. In 1885, Keller and a partner started a newspaper, Town Topics, devoted to society news and gossip. Two years later, they sold their paper. Keller then got the idea of creating a simple list of members of society, chosen only by him, called The Social Register. He sold it to those listed in it for $1.75 per copy and published winter and summer editions, showing the summer addresses in that season. As time went on, he expanded its coverage to eighteen cities. This venture was a great success and put Keller on a firm financial footing.

At some point, Keller began holding an annual picnic on his family farm in Springfield, hosting all of his friends and acquaintances who were listed in his Register. The picnic grew in popularity and became a “fixture” that was eagerly anticipated annually. The affair, complete with the guest list, was reported each year in the society pages.

Although he had never been so inclined to play the game himself, Keller noted that an increasing number of his acquaintances were learning to play golf and were joining clubs in eastern Long Island and elsewhere, and might be looking for a place closer to New York City in the fall and spring. Keller decided to start a golf club on his farm. A nine-hole golf course was constructed and Keller’s farmhouse was renovated to serve as a clubhouse. It was named the Baltusrol Golf Club, derived from a shortening of Baltus Roll who had farmed the land fifty years before.

Keller launched the club in April 1895 when he sent a letter to everyone he knew, including the subscribers to the Social Register, offering memberships with dues of $10 per year. Opening Day occurred on October 17, 1895.

Despite early successes, the club suffered from a large annual turnover in membership. To combat this problem, Keller instituted a number of improvements and maintained an interesting schedule of exhibitions and tournaments. Members of the club, nearly all residents of New York City, reached the grounds by an hour’s train ride and thereafter were conveyed to the club by horse and carriage over the local area's unimproved thoroughfares. Keller found transportation services to the club less than desirable. With the automobile in its early stages of development, Keller presumed that a railroad offered the most sound transportation option to the club.

At the hands of the Elmira syndicate, neither the New York & New Orange Railroad, the New Orange Four Junction Railroad, nor the Cross-Country Railroad, of which Keller was a part, succeeded in their pursuit of a railroad to Summit. With this fact in mind, Keller resolved to disregard them as partners and drum up his own support for the railroad project. Employing his resourcefulness, and capitalizing upon the long stated reason for a railroad to Summit, Keller induced the men pouring their dollars into the Kenilworth Realty Corporation (successor to the New Orange Industrial Association) to invest in his project. He convinced them that a railroad from Kenilworth to Summit would benefit the community greatly. On July 18, 1904, the Rahway Valley Railroad was formed, so named after the Rahway River which it planned to cross.