Name: Jesse KENNEDY
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Birth: 11 Aug 1787 Bourbon County, Kentucky
Death: 3 Apr 1863 Bourbon County, Kentucky Age: 75
Father: Thomas KENNEDY Sr. (1744-)
Mother: Rachael GRIMES

Memoirs of Jesse Kennedy

Written by Jesse Kennedy at his home, Concord, near Paris, Ky., 1850. Jesse Kennedy's memoirs were copied by hand by Miss Nanon L.Carr of Kansas City, Missouri, in May, 1969. Copied from the "Kennedy" file in John Fox, Jr., Library, Paris, Ky., June, 2000, by Robert E. Francis, and transcribed July, 2000.

This is a brief history of the Kennedy family as derived from my Father in his lifetime, according to the best of my recollection.

My grandFather, John Kennedy, was kidnapped on the shores of Ireland in company with several other boys when six or seven years old and brought to the colony of Maryland and sold for a term of years. After performing his term of servitude he married a wife who left him at her death two sons, Francis and Daniel Kennedy. He afterwards married a lady from Wales, by the name of Owen, by whom he had six sons and one daughter: John, Thomas, James, Butler, Joseph, Hugh and Elizabeth. I think Elizabeth married a Mr. Hagerty and that a man named Archbols married a daughter of hers or a daughter of uncle James Kennedy and raised a family in Va.. I met one of the young Archbols between Lower Sandusky and Ft. Meigs in February 1813. He was quite a spritely and intelligent young man; belonged to a volunteer militia company called the Va. Blues and was one of the certificers. We recognized each other as cousins then, but have not seen nor heard of him since.

My grandFather, John Kennedy, was a heavy-set man; low in stature and inclined to be corpulent; of a kind, benevolent disposition; and being a physician by nature was skillful among the sick, an excellent nurse, useful in his neighborhood; was of course much beloved by those who knew him. He did at an age not far beyond the meridian of life while still useful in the community in which he lived, greatly lamented by said community.

His eldest son Francis was a very famous fiddler, raised a family in Maryland, removed to the southern part of Ky. in early times, and was killed by Indians. One of his sons, Sam, was at my Father's house when a boy, went to Natchez, and has been long since dead.

Daniel Kennedy was also a very renowned musician, made his living in early life teaching music; was a portly goodlooking man of genteel deportment and popular manners; devoted several years to performing the duties of sheriff in the Co. in the Co. in which he resided in Md. He was much beloved by those who knew him and died young. His wife had died previously and left him a son and a daughter. The son John was killed by a fall from a horse at Paris when I was a boy. He was here on a visit and on business. His daughter married Joseph Penn in Md., removed to Ky. And was the mother of the elder part of the Penn family in this Co.. His son, John Kennedy, died in Ohio many years ago and may have children living in that state (not clear to me-NLC)

Our grandmother was red-headed; large in stature, possessing great muscular powers, industrious and economical in all the business relations of her life, having been left poor with seven young children to raise. She married an Englishman, Robert Daw (Dew? Dow?), a scholar and gentleman, a teacher by profession from whom her children received moderate educations at such leisure hours at home as could be spared, having to work hard for a living. He was a good husband and a good Father to her children.

Uncle John Kennedy was the oldest of grandFather's children by his last wife, and being of a delicate constitution, too weakly to perform much manual labor, consequently obtained a pretty good education; and owing to his steady habits and prudent deportment, it was said that he had a man's head on a boy's shoulders. While still a minor he carried on successfully the business of common school keeping, and successfully (illegible) that of teaching vocal music with it and ultimately devoted his whole time to the latterHe married the daughter of a wealthy Dutchman, Peter Stilley, who thought very highly of uncle as gentleman but thought him not rich enough to be his son-in-law; consequently, the young folks were married without his consent but enjoyed none of his estate, the old man cutting them off by last will and testament. Being thrown on their own resources, uncle John bought a farm in Bedford Co. Va., bought some Negroes, hired an overser, and set them to farming while he turned his attention to sheriffing and prospered finely for a time. The Revolutionary War came on and being drafted as militia man, he was taken prisoner by the British at the battle of Guilford Court House in N. C., and died on board a British prison ship-literally starved to death.

By his last will and testament written by himself previous to his departure from home, he made it the duty of his executor to sell his farm in Va. And the most of his slaves and personal property for the payment of his debts, and directed that his family should move to what was then called his "wild lands" in Ky.-all of which was carried out accordingly, and the widow and her unmarried children migrated to Ky., and settled on Kennedy's Creek (where S. H. Clay now resides) where she lived for a number of years and died at a good old age in October 1820.

Uncle John left five daughters and two sons. Elizabeth married in Va. Zachariah Wheat, an industrious farmer and removed to Ky., and settled on his wife's land, reared a large and respectable family and died at a moderately old age. His widow still resides on her farm where her husband died.

Rebecca married in Va. Josiah Ashurst, farmer and mechanic-brickmason, migratd to Ky., and settled on her land, reared seven or eight children, and he died. She is yet enjoying good health and (illegible) on her farm.

Julia married in Va., Sam Hatcher, of whom Father used to say "if his brother had lived, no such damn rascal would ever have gotten into his family." They migrated to Ky., and lived on his wife's land until he spent it on a life of profluency, vice, and dissipation. They had but one son and all of them are long since dead. Cousin Julia was a very amiable woman, much estemed by her acquaintances and made an excellent wife to a worthless husband.

Sophia came to Ky. with her mother and married Joshua Rawlings (Rollis) with whom I was not acquainted. He died, leaving her with two daughters and a son, Lee Rollis. After they were all grown, she migrated with her son to Clay Co. Missouri. [Transcriber's note-Lee Rollin's married Susan Penn, sister of Jane Penn Duncan-NLC], where she was still living a widow when I last heard from her.

Aria, the youngest, married Nicholas Talbot, a wheelwright, a good workman and an honest man. He settled on his wife's land, was a respectable farmer, filled the office of justice of the peace, and once represented his Co. in the lower house of the legislature. He died in the meridian of life and usefulness, leaving his widow, three daughters and five or six sons. Cousin Aria is living with her sons Charles Perry Talbot, a widower without children and much like his Father.

Cousin Eli Kennedy came to Ky. with his sister Julia and Sam Hatcher when about eighten, a year before his mothr came, to aid in making provision for her and the balance of the family. He became a brickmason, which trade he followed for several years, and afterward became a respectable farmer. He married a McClanahan [should be Patsy McConnell] who at her death left him two sons and a daughter. He subsequently married Polly McClanahan by whom he reared four daughters and a son, Eli M. Kennedy, who is intelligent and highly respectable; all his sisters equally esteemed as a citizen and Christian; was in comfortable circumstances in life, but fell a victim to cholera, June 1835, leaving a very interesting widow; at least she became very interesting to me and to my children for she has been to them one of the best of step-mothers and to me one of the best of wives. And this is not all, she furnished two of my sons with excellent wives as well.

Cousin Washington Kennedy came to Ky. with his mother when about 15 or 16 years old, worked with and for her during his minority managed and conducted her business during her life and decently interred her at her death. He was a brickmason by trade and subsequently one of the best Bourbon farmers. He was a man of steady habits and strict morality; indeed, he was one of the best of men. Nicholas Talbot and he were two of my best friends, whose lives I felt more saintly and more deeply deplored than that of any other friends I have ever lost, with the exception of the mother of my children. When I lost my parents, their ages and infirmities rendered death a blessing to them hence their loss could not be rationally so much deplored as the loss of those friends who were called off in the midst of their usefulness. It is my earnest desire that (illegible) and love shall ever abide between their children and mine.

After having enjoyed a state of single blessedness (if there be any enjoyment in it) until he acquired the character of a bachelor, cousin Washington married on 25 June (his birthday) 1812, Elizabeth Bedford, oldest daughter of Littleberry Bedford of his own vicinity, by whom he had three sons (the eldes died young) and four daughters, all of whom are respectable men and women, all married but the youngest son who died of fever in August 1832, leaving his family in comfortable rather affluent circumstances. His widow died not long after his death.

My Father, Thomas Kennedy, was the next in age of grandFather's children.

James Kennedy was probably the next. He was a mechanic whoi worked in wood and was thought to be one of the best fiddlers in the world. A fine jolly fellow, beloved by all who knew him, but was too fond of lively company and [too] high spirited for his own good, and died young, leaving a small family of whom I can give no satisfacory account.

Uncle Butler, next in line, married young to what was denominated an old maid, who issued forth children with great rapidity and subjected him to a petticoat government, to which he submitted with great alacrity for he was naturally kind and industrious. Under her influence he moved his family to N. C. and back two or three times, but the las time he got there he died and his family beig unable to get back remained. Cousin Washington told me he accidently fell in and tarried over night with one of his daughters in N. C. many years ago, that she was married and doing well.

Uncle Joseph was a man of low stature, heavyset and inclined to be corpulent from a child, said to be more like his Father in person than any of grandFather's children, and at his death (not quite fifty years old) weighed about 300 pounds. He married the widow King (a Dutch lady) in Maryland; she was the mother of John King, Esq., of this Co.. Uncle Joe was a farmer in Maryland, removed with his family to Ky., settled on his own land in Bourbon Co. and was one of the best Bourbon farmers of his dayHe came to his end by taking arsenic which he had bought at a store for cream [of tartar?-words unclear]. Feeling a little unwell, he took it in the morning and died in the evening of the same day and was buried on his farm. He left a widow, four sons and three daughters. David, the oldest son, died an old bachelor two or three years ago. Elizabeth married Joseph Hildreth, reared a family of sons and daughters, and are both dead. Joseph, the next oldest son, yet resides in Bourbon. Sophia married big John Redmon and died several years ago, leaving a son and a daughter, both living in this Co.; the daughter is the wife of Henry Croxton. Rebecca married James Hildreth and is the mother of a large family in Rush Co., Indiana. Nathan, the youngest, is a resident of this Co..

Uncle Hugh Kennedy was the youngest of grandFather's children. He was a tall, portly, goodlooking man; of a lively desposition and somewhat corpulent, a tailor by trade, greatly gifted in exhortation and prayer and a good singer. He married a widow in good circumstances and became a farmer in Frederick Co., Va. He raised two daughters, his eldest, Susanna, married John Steele, migrated to Ohio and died in 1848, leaving sons and daughters, among them John W. and Va.. Uncle Hugh was murdered and robbed many years ago in Va. His watch and some of his money were identified and recovered; the murderer, James Steele (his son-in-law's brother) was convicted of the crime.

My Father, Thomas Kennedy, was born in Maryland 22 [may be 7] January 1744. He was a small lean man, who in the prime of his life weighed 136 pounds and never weighed over 140 pounds. He had an excellent physical constitution, was energetic and hardy as a pine knot. His mental abilities were naturally good, though without polish, his education being very limited. He was a man of unbounded resolution and unwavering perserverence in whatever he conceived to be the path of duty. He might be led but could not be driven. He was a man of great hospitality and of strict moral integrity. He would voluntarily submit to the loss of dollars rather than wrong or to be thought to wrong others out of cents. The violent irritability of his temper was his greatest infirmity and caused him more mental agony and contrition than anything else.

He married Ann Locker in Maryland on 19 April 1772. In the fall of 1775, he went to N. C. in search of a home for himself and family. He returned without being sufficiently pleased to induce him to migrate thither. In the spring of 1776 he came to Ky. under a verbal contract with the brothers John and Joseph, to endeavor to procure land for them as well as for himself in case he should like the country well enough. They promised to remove to the country also and be his neighbors, promising to compensate him to his satisfaction out of the land which might be procured for them, or in such other manner as he might prefer. He came to Boonesborough where he fell in with Michael Stoner who invited Father to go with him and help him clear a field and plant corn. He accepted the invitation, helped him clear the ground and planted corn in what was long known as Stoner's fiel, the land now owned by Samuel Clay, adjoining the farm of Mrs. Moran, northward and down Stoner.

On occasion he lived these months without either bread or salt. The country was full of wild game and they had a variety of fresh meats, but the buffalo furnished their principal food in the absence of which the country could not have been settled when it was. In the summer or fall of the same year, he returned to Fauquier Co., Va., where he then lived, intending to remove his family immediately to Ky., but owing to various difficulties that interposed, principally produced by the Revolutionary War, he did not return until the fall or winter of 1779 with his family. He was a brickmason and carpenter, could do rough stone work also and was a plasterer. He started to Ky. with a train of pack horses well loaded with household and kitchen furniture and such tools as belonged to his business, expecting to have use for them in Ky.. Owing to the difficulties in traversing the great extent of wilderness country that lay before him without a road and without forage, his horses tired and gave out one after another, causing him to hide his his plunder in the woods at different places until he was dispossessed of almost everything and ultimately got to Boonesborough in December 1779 with but a little mare and a bull, upon which he packed a bed after his other animals had given out. He then had three sons and a daughter, and being reduced to extremities, he made two baskets out of white oak splints, in each of which he placed one of his boys (Jacky and James) connecting the baskets with hickory bark or buffalo twigs, swinging one of them on each side of the little mare, and placed Thomas, then about 6 or 7 years old, on top. Father walked and carried Nancy on his back, she being born the January preceding. His wife walked also and carried such articles of clothing as she could. He never went back to recover any of his plunder deposited in the wilderness. Owing the great lapse of time before circumstances would permit him to do so, he could not expect to find them. After remaining a short time at Boonesborough, they joined a company (Capt. John Strode at their head) and helped build Strode's Station, where he resided for four or five years.

Somewhere in their journey to Ky., the nag fell down and broke the rider's (Thomas) leg, not hurting the other children. They bandaged it as well they could, put him up again and pursued their journey without the loss of much time. The winter of 1779-80 was unusually severe, so cold that the cane in the country upon which the buffalo wintered was mostly killed which caused many of them to die, causing much suffering among the emigrants for buffalo meat was their reliance for sustenance.

Sometime in the spring of 1780, Father's wife died leaving him with four children, one of whom (Jacky) died the same year.

Thomas Kennedy procured a settlement and preemption of land for himself and two brothers each. He located his own on Strode's Creek and his brother's on Kennedy's Creek. He would have located his own on this Creek also had there been room enough for all of them without clashing with others who wanted some of the Kennedy's Creek land also; he gave the preference to his brothers concluding that as they would pay him in land for his services (about two hundred acres each) that would be as much as he would settle his children on Strode's Creek when they should want it. He selected the place on which I now reside for his own residence. Sometime after these locations were made, uncle John Kennedy came to the country and being delighted with the location made for him, as well as the country generally, he employed Capt. James Duncan to clear his land out of the office which was to have 600 acres out of the claims. Capt. Duncan took in Michael Couchman as a partner and in this way they became the owners of 300 acres each of the land in John Kennedy's survey on Kennedy's Creek, which at their deaths descended to their heirs. Capt. Duncan also undertook to clear Father's land on Strode's Creek out of the office on the same terms; but finding that other claims would clash with it, he became discouraged, told Father that he (Duncan) must return to his family in Va. and that if he should think proper to have the survey made to call on his friend Edward Wilson, a surveyor, and they would hereafter settle upon equitable termsDuncan removed the family from Berkeley Co., Va., to Strode's Station and he and Father resided there until they settled on Kennedy's Creek on 1 February 1785, where they continued to exercise toward cash other all the friendly relations of neighborship until separated by death. Duncan died Oct. 1817 and Kennedy, August 1827.

[NLC Transcriber's Note: There follows a lengthy harangue about the 12 years of litigation over land between Thomas Kennedy and James Duncan. Either Thomas or Jesse Kennedy or both seem to have had persecution complexes as shown by the accounts of what Thomas's brs. John's family did to him.]

Father also became involved in lawsuits with Sam Hatcher who had migrated to the country and resided with his family in my Father's house, receiving gratuitous support during the greater part of one winter and was furnished with bread and meat for his family through the spring and summer, for which Hatcher promised to pay but ultimately paid not a dime for any but what was proved and forced from him by law, which probably was not more than half of the amount received, this augmenting the necessity on the part of Father for selling more land-but the most unkind cut of all has not yet been told.

After the widow and heirs of uncle John Kennedy migrated to Ky. and received and enjoyed the kind aid and fostering care of Father until they became able to live without his further beneficience, they then demanded and brought suit for the 200 acres of land upon which he was living and which he had expected to retain as a reasonable compensation for services rendered in procuring land for his brother under a contract previously made with him. The suit was vigorously prosecuted and vigorously defended, and notwithstanding he proved his contract and satisfactorily by his brother Joseph Kennedy and Thomas Logwood, executor of John Kennedy's will, it being a verbal contract of more than five years standing, he was defeated by the statute of limitations and thus cut off from every particle of compensation for the hazardous toil endured by him in procuring all the lands which they were permitted by other claims to hold in the country.

This was the most distressing and heartrending contest that he had because it was with those from whom he had a right to expect kinder treatment, who owed him a debt of gratitude as well as of land. The descendants of a brother that he loved most dearly and in whom he had the most unbounded confidence, a debt which would have been punctually discharged had his brother lived long enough to consumate it. The conduct of the widow and heirs amounted to the very quintessence of ingratitude. Most of the heirs, however, were sufficiently magnimonous to permit him to retain the land by paying its value and money and other lands, and thus he retained about 150 acres, his pecuniary condition not enabling him to retain more.

It was the wish of Sam Hatcher to exterminate him, but in this he was failed. I have often heard Father say that it had been a fixed and determinate purpose with him to live and die on Kennedy's Creek from the time he located on it, if consistent with the will of God.

[More litigation and defending titles to lands Kennedy had sold-had to pay Isaac Davis of Virginia nearly $2000-had to borrow from friends to save the 150 acres.]
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Subject: Fw: Article Written at the Death of Jesse Kennedy
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 22:34:08 -0600
From: "Bev Harris"

Bob, here is something which I don't think you have about Jesse Kennedy. It certainly speaks well of my gg grandfather, Jesse Kennedy. (This clipping was copied from an newspaper concerning the death of Jesse Kennedy who died on April 3, 1863. My personal belief is that it was clipped from the newspaper, The Western Citizen, to which he was an occasional contributor.)

DIED
On Friday night, April 3rd, at nine o'clock, at Concord, his late residence, on the Winchester Pike, Mr. Jesse Kennedy, in the 76th year of his age, one of the most honored and respected citizens of Bourbon County. Mr. Kennedy at the time of his death was probably the oldest native-born citizen who resided in the county.
A son of an early pioneer, he was born the 11th of August 1787, on Kennedy's Creek in Bourbon County, on the same farm and within a hundred yards of the place where he closed his mortal career--having resided there all the days of his life. The farm was settled in 1785 by his father, Thomas Kennedy, who redeemed it from a wilderness, and transmitted his name to the stream which ripples through it, after he had lived several years in the fort at Boonesboro, had assisted Capt. Strode in building Strode's Station, and had with Michael Stoner cleared and planted "Stoner's Field," noted in the early annals of Kentucky. About the same time, came Capt. Duncan and Michel Couchman, and soon after the Clays--all of whom, though long since passed away, have left honored names and generations still living in the neighborhood who will keenly sympathize with the relations and friends of him whose recent death many deplore because of his excellence as a man and his usefulness as a citizen, before age and afflication had laid an embargo on his powers. In early life--like most others of that period--he enjoyed but few facilities for education or mental improvement. Possessed however of a superior natural mind, by close application and a strict fidelity to truth and honor he rose to a position of prominence in the estimation of his fellowmen. In 1812, he was a commander of a brigade of pack horses in the service of the country in the war with Great Britian. No officer of his rank gave more attention to the duties of the position, or rendered greater satisfaction. In 1813, he was appointed a constable of Bourbon County, which office he filled with success and acceptability of nearly six years--when, as stated by himself in a private memoir, he resigned "because times were getting hard in a pecuniary point of view, and consequently required a degree of rigor in the collection of debts that was in divers instances revolting to my feelings." As early as 1819, and for a number of years thereafter, he was an occasional contributor to the columns of the Western Citizen upon the leading political topics of the day. His articles were all characterized by a vigor of thought and lucidness of expression which rendered them attractive to the readers!

For many years, he was a justice of the peace for the county--under the old Constitution--the duties of which he discharged with a fidelity and intelligence that conferred honor and dignity upon the office. In 1829, he was elected one of the representatives of Bourbon County in the Legislature of Kentucky, along with Hubbard Taylor, Esq. and Maj. G. W. Williams. At that time the sessions were annual, and Bourbon had three representatives. In 1831, he was again elected--and again in 1832 and 1841, after which he declined all solicitation to fill public office. During this period of his active life, perhaps no citizen of Bourbon County commanded more fully the confidence of its people, or held that confidence in more sacred trust. As a member of the legislature, he served in its councils during the brightest period of Kentucky history. Menifee, Marshall, Speed Smith, Hardin, Crittenden, the Sickliffes, Moreheads, and other distinguished names gave tone and dignity to its deliberations; while the shafts of wit, the magic of oratory, and the profundity of logic were so sublinely illustrated as to give to Kentucky statesmanship imperishable renown. It was the epoch of pride and glory in our Commonwealth; and a seat in its councils then was an honor which the degeneracies of time cannot efface. Mr. Kennedy was no orator and rarely, if ever, entered the lists of public debate; yet in the midst of this charmed circle of powerful men, wielding only his remarkable common sense, repudiating all hypocracy and adhering always to truth--following the impulses of honor, and convictions of duty--he was enabled to exercise an influence little inferior to any member of those justly celebrated assemblies. At a later period of life, he embraced the doctrine of the "Universal Salvation of Christ" for all men. His confident trust was in the goodness, the mercy, and infinite love of God to purify the earth from sin, "to wipe away the tears from all eyes," and to cause "every knee to bow, and every tongue to confess him Lord to the glory of God the Father." With unshaken firmness he believed in the eventual holiness and happiness of all the human race, as revealed to the world in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and this happy conviction disrobed death of its terrors, and made smooth his pathway to the tomb. Long an invalid and often an acute sufferer from disease, he bore his afflictions with patient and Christian resignation, many times expressing his willingness and even earnest desire to be released from his sufferings and go to his eternal rest, "Tis done!

Calmly and peacefully, "after life's fitful fever is over he sleeps well." A kind neighbor, an affectionate father, a steadfast friend, a good citizen, a patriot, a Christian --and above all the noblest work of God, "an honest man," rests in his grave. A numerous family of children mourn his loss and revere his memory. Not far hence, and they too will be "snatched from this dreary abode, and all laid to rest in the arms of their God."
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Spouses
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1: Polly WAUGH
Birth: 11 May 1788
Death: 1837 Age: 48
Children: Washington (1821-1899)
Mary Waugh (1828-1871)

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2: Polly McCLANAHAN
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Last Modified: 28 Nov 2000
Created: 18 Mar 2002