Keith Spence

Keith Spence was born in Kirkwall but became a merchant in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and then a purser in the US Navy 1800-1805. He was on USS Philadelphia when it ran aground in Tripoli harbour during the Barbary Wars. The crew was taken prisoner but the ship was recaptured by a small band of men led by Stephen Decatur, an American naval hero. Keith Spence is described as his friend and mentor.

It seems remarkable that an Orcadian should be grandfather to two United States ambassadors, James Russell Lowell, son of his daughter Harriet, and Carroll Spence, (1818-1896) son of his son Robert Traill Spence.