California Biographies 

Source:
History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California
by: C M Gidney - Santa Barbara. Benjamin Brooks - San Luis Obispo. 
Edwin M Sheridan - Ventura
Volumes II - Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, ILL., 1917

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


SETH A KEENEY. California has drawn within its borders many valued citizens of worth and 
influence, men whose character and ability have been shown forth in splendid achievement in 
varied fields of human thought and action. The city of Santa Barbara claims as one of its 
substantial capitalists, influential business men and loyal and progressive citizens Seth A. 
Keeney, who is vice-president and a director of the First National Bank and who has other large 
and important capitalistic interests in this favored section of the state, his idyllic home, 
"Ivydene," being in the attractive little suburban village of Montecito, about four and a half 
miles distant from Santa Barbara.
Mr. Keeney was born at Jamaica, Queens County, New York, on the 30th of March, 1864, and is 
the eldest son of Col. Abner C. and Susan (Ashby) Keeney. He whose name introduces this 
article was afforded the advantages of the Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute at Brooklyn, New 
York, and later prosecuted a course of study in Bellevue Medical College, New York City, though 
circumstances and opportunities have led him to devote the greater part of his active life to 
business affairs rather than to the practice of medicine.
In 1888 Mr. Keeney removed with his family to Denver, Colorado, where he became the 
executive representative of the Prudential Insurance Company, one of the foremost life-
insurance companies of America. As general agent for this great company he continued his 
residence in Colorado until 1897, when he came to California and centralized his interests in 
the city of Santa Barbara. He was a member of the directorate of the Prudential Insurance 
Company for twenty-one years, and his capitalistic and executive associations at the present 
time are briefly noted in part in the following schedule : Vice-president and a director of the 
First National Bank of Santa Barbara ; vice-president and a director of the Press Publishing & 
Printing Company of Santa Barbara ; vice-president and a director of the Bankers' Realty 
Company of this city ; a director of the Arlington Hotel Company, Santa Barbara ; vice-president 
and a director of the Occidental Life Insurance Company, of Los Angeles. At Brooklyn, New 
York, he is one of the owners of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, one of the leading newspapers of the 
United States. Mr. Keeney is serving in 1916 as president of the Santa Barbara Club, besides 
which he holds membership in the Santa Barbara Country Club and in the California Club of Los 
Angeles. In the time-honored Masonic fraternity he has received the thirty-second degree of 
the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite. His well fortified political convictions are indicated by the 
staunch allegiance which he accords to the republican party, and in his civic attitude he is 
distinctively progressive and public-spirited.
In the year 1886 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Keeney to Miss Cornelia Huntington, 
daughter of the late Benjamin H. Huntington, of Brooklyn, New York, and they have two 
children, Miss Gladys Keeney and Ashby H. Keeney.