Philadelphia merchant.

Immigrated to Philadelphia (1738). Merchant and owner of the ship Catharina. Prominent member, elder (1743), trustee (1765), and treasurer of St. Michael’s German Lutheran Church. Served in the Pennsylvania General Assembly (1764-65); opposed Franklin’s appointment as provincial agent. Signed non-importation resolutions (1765). First president of German Society of Pennsylvania. Deeply impressed by the misery of his twenty-five-week immigrant passage, during which three-quarters of the passengers perished; active in charities for German immigrants.

Son of Leonard and Eva Dorothea (Schuhmann) Keppele of Treschklingen, Baden. Married Anna Catharina Barbara Bauer, a relative of the prominent Wister/Wistar family (1741); fifteen children. Resided near Franklin on the south side of Market Street.