In 1729 he returned to England, where, it is sad to record, he died in obscurity, in London, November 17, 1749.
“It may be very little known,” says Watson, “that he who moved with so much excitement and as our Governor in 1726, should at last fall into such neglect, as to leave his widow among us unnoticed and almost forgotten! She lived and died in a small wooden house on Third Street, between High and Mulberry. There, much pinched for subsistence, she eked out her existence with an old female, declining all intercourse with society or with her neighbors. The house itself was burnt in 1786.”
Lady Ann Keith died July 31, 1740, aged 65 years, and lies entombed at Christ Church graveyard.
Governor Joseph Hiester, Distinguished
Revolutionary Officer and Statesman,
Born November 18, 1872
In the early settlement of that part of Pennsylvania which is now included within the limits of Berks County a large portion of the population was drawn from those parts of Germany bordering on or near the River Rhine.
Among these sturdy emigrants were three brothers, John, Joseph and Daniel Hiester.
John, the eldest, emigrated in 1732, and was followed in 1737 by Joseph and Daniel, who sailed in that year in the ship St. Andrew from Rotterdam.
These three brothers were sons of John and Catherine Hiester and their birthplace was the village of Elcoff in the county of Wittgenstein, in the province of Westphalia, Prussia. The father, John Hiester, was born in January, 1708.