Lawyer John Keyes (1787-1844), son of Westford, Massachusetts storekeeper Joseph Keyes and first in a long line of prominent Concord citizens, moved here in 1811. He married Ann Stow Shepard in 1815. Their children included John Shepard (1821-1910; see #20 and #38) and George (1832-1893).

Unlike his brother John, who graduated from Harvard and became a lawyer, George Keyes chose to enter the commercial world. In 1854, he married Mary E. Brown, daughter of New England Farmer editor Simon Brown and his wife Ann Caroline French Brown. (Mrs. Brown was the sister of Judge Henry Flagg French and the aunt of sculptor Daniel Chester French; see #27.) George and Mary Keyes had five children—Bessie (born in 1857; see #9 and #10), Marion (1860), Grace (1866), and twins George Shepard and Arthur French (1869; see #8). George Keyes was a member of the Social Circle in Concord.