Reynold Keene, elected 1781, resigned 1790; eleventh Secretary (1783 and 1786) and the seventh President of Board of Managers.
He was born on the Island of Barbadoes about 1738 and was the son of Peter Keene. He passed most of his life in Philadelphia and was elected to represent the city and liberties of Philadelphia in the Provincial Convention of Pennsylvania, (January 23-28, 1775.)
After this, Mr. Keene removed to Reading, Pa. and was appointed April 21, 1777, a Commissioner for the County of Berks, to audit and settle the accounts of the militia and flying camp of the said county, for arms and accoutrements purchased by the officers of those corps and the property of persons lost in actual service; also of those persons who have been killed, died in the service of the States or were made prisoners.
In 1778, Mr. Keene returned to Philadelphia, then occupied by General Howe, leaving his family in Reading; this step induced some suspicion of his loyalty to the cause of the colonies, and a "vendue" of his personal goods was ordered by Col. Henry Haller. He was also required by an act of General Assembly, passed March 6, 1778, to render himself to the judge of the Supreme Court to abide his trial for treason to the Commonwealth. Mr. Keene was unable to comply with this and he incurred the penalty, viz. attainder as a traitor, and he forfeited his property to the State.
Subsequently, upon his petition, an act was passed annulling the former one so far as it regarded the person of Mr. Keene, provided he rendered himself to one of the justices of the Supreme Court abiding his "trial for any treason or misprision of treason, that he is or has been or may be charged with." Subsequently, Mr. Keene was discharged from prosecution.
Mr. Keene was designated one of the signers of Bills of Credit authorized by our Province, February 26, 1773; his name, with that of Hon. Richard Penn, is appended to a document respecting the improvement of a road in the Northern Liberties in 1773.
In November, 1789, he was elected alderman of Philadelphia, a position he held the rest of the life; by virtue of this office, he exercised the functions of a justice of the peace, sometimes sitting in the Orphans' Court.
May 8, 1794 he was commissioned an associate judge of the Court of Common Please for the city and country.
Mr. Keene married first, October 21, 1762, his cousin, Chrstiana Stille, daughter of John and Sarah Stille; she died in Reading, Pa., on November 3, 1777. Mr. Keene was married, secondly, by Rev. William White, June 6, 1780, to Patience, widow of Joseph Worrell, and daughter of Alexander Barclay, Esq., of Philadelphia.
Mr. Keene died in Philadelphia, August 29, 1800, in the sixty-third year of his age and was buried in Gloria Dei churchyard.
Source: Morton, Thomas G. and Woodbury, Frank. The History of the Pennsylvania Hospital, 1751-1895. Philadelphia: Times Printing House, 1893, p. 419-420.
Contributed by: Nancy.