Extract from Charles Burton Buckley's An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore 1819-1867, pp. 320-322.

In this year (1837) Mr. Benjamin Peach Keasberry came to Singapore. He was the youngest of the three sons of Colonel Keasberry, who was appointed Resident of Tegal, in Java, during the British occupation. Mr. Keasberry was born at Hyderabad in India 1811. His father died when he was a few years old, and the widow married a merchant in Soerabaya named Mr. Davidson. The three boys were sent to school at Mauritius and afterwards to Madras. When they grew up the elder brothers went to Soerabaya, and the youngest stayed in Singapore and opened a store. As it did not do much good, he went to Batavia, and was a clerk in a firm there, but making the acquaintance of Dr. Medhurst, of the London Missionary Society, he went to live with him, and joined him in his work, learning printing, bookbinding and lithography, which he found very useful afterwards in Singapore. About 1834 he received some money from his father's estate and he went to America, where he studied at College for three years, and in 1837 married Miss Charlotte Parker of Boston. He came to Singapore with his wife as Missionaries to Malays under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He remained in Singapore until his death.

The two brothers John and Alexander Stronach of the London Missionary Society were in Singapore then, and also Messrs. North, Dickenson, Tracy and Travelli of the American Board. In 1839 .the American Board removed their men to China, and Mr. Keasberry joined the London Missionary Society, and learned Malay from Munshi Abdulla. He then started a small school at Rochore, where a few boys were taught printing, &o., under agreement to remain for a certain period. Preaching in Malay was carried on in an attap building in North Bridge Road nearly opposite where the Chinese Gospel House is now. Mr. Keasberry lived in the house still standing on the plot in Brass Bassa Road behind the present Raffles Hotel.

In 1843 by his exertions in collecting subscriptions in Singapore the Malay Chapel in Prinsep Street was built and opened. The opening sermon was preached by the Rev. Samuel Dyer of Penang, and the second by Dr. Legge, afterwards well-known at Oxford, both of the London Missionary Society, at that time on their way to China. The jubilee of the Chapel was held on the 7fch February, 1893, when it was associated with the memory of Mr. Keasberry, as one, of the earliest, most respected, and most well-known pioneers in mission work in the Peninsula. Although it was eighteen years after his death, the Chapel was crowded with those who had known him in Singapore.

In 1846 Mr. Keasberry, being a widower, married Miss Ellen Scott, a niece of Captain William Scott, and when, in 1847, the London Missionary Society ordered all their men to China, Mr. Keasberry would not leave Singapore, as he had some boys bound to him for several years, and was doing so much useful work in the place. So he severed his connection with the Society and remained from 1847 as a self-supporting missionary, occupying himself with his school, his preaching, and the printing establishment by which he supported the school. He held regular services in the Chapel and visited the neighbouring islands and the Carimons in his sailing boat.

There is a letter among the papers in the Baffles Institution which he wrote on 2nd July, 1847, to the School Committee of the Singapore Institution, in which he asked the patronage of the Committee for his boarding school for Malay boys which he had established eighteen months before, in connection, he said, with the Mission of the London Missionary Society. He had expected that Society to support his School, but they declined, owing to the state of the funds, and he was obliged to rely upon local resources. He said that he had not room for more than the thirteen boys he had, which caused an expense of $250 a year, some of the boys paying $2 a month, and the printing establishment partly supporting the School. This was the beginning of the house at Mount Zion at River Valley Boad. It was a plank and tile-roofed house, which was pulled down and rebuilt in 1851 with some money left to Mr. Keasberry by his step-father Mr. Davidson. In the original bungalow were several Malay youths of good birth. Governor Butterworth sent the two eldest sons of Tumongong Ibrahim to school with Mr. Keasberry, and the elder, the late Sultan Abubakar of Johore, always spoke with the highest respect and gratitude of "Tuan Keasberry" and erected the monument over his grave. In 1858 there was a Malay girls' school taught by Mrs. Keasberry, at Mount Zion. About 1862 Mr. Keasberry opened a Mission station at Bukit Timah, and a chapel was erected there, which was supported by the members of the Malay Mission until his death when the Presbyterian Church was asked to take charge of it.

Mr. Keasberry wrote a number of books in Malay, and printed the Bible in Malay. His press was always resorted to by the European merchants to print their bills of lading, policies, &c., and Mr. Keasberry was always at work in the Square in the printing office, which was called the Mission Press. It eventually passed to Mr. Neave and afterwards became Fraser and Neave, Limited. Mr. Keasberry'a name had become a household word in Singapore. He died quite suddenly while preaching in the Malay Chapel on 6th September, 1875, after a residence in Singapore of 38 years, at the age of 64 years. (320-322)