Serena Margreta Keeler

Jeanette Sergeant Ames Rice (Sergeant) wrote in her 1883 memoir "Tales That Have the Rime of Age," which she addressed to her niece Frances Bagley (Newbury):

"When your mother [Mary Ann Newbury (Sergeant) was eighteen years old she was in poor health, so was sent to New York to Uncle Matthew Keeler, my mother’s youngest brother, to try the benefit of a change. He spared no pains nor expense for her improvement, and in a few months sent her home with the bloom of health upon her cheek. I remember Uncle Matthew very well in those days. He was my mother’s favorite brother; used to come to visit us and never tired in sending us beautiful things. A box from Uncle Matthew was sure to come every little while filled with useful as well as rare and costly things. He, at this time, was very wealthy, owning an elegant residence on Broadway, which was then the fashionable street for homes. He married a Miss Serena Howard, a most lovely woman, and his house was always open to receive those he loved. He was a very affectionate, generous-hearted man and we all loved him. My mother’s immediate family all lived in New York. Her mother, Margaret Pynchon Keeler, at this time a widow, made her home with uncle Matthew. The oldest brother, Stephen and three sisters — Nancy who never married, Martha (Mrs. Knox), and Sarah (Mrs. Charles Bonticou) — all lived there at this time, so New York possessed many attractions, and my sisters used often to go there. My Grandmother Keeler died there when I was ten years old, at the age of seventy-seven, in full possession of her faculties."