| WOODSON COUNTIES, KANSAS. | 441 cont'd |
WILLIAM KENNEDY.
WILLIAM KENNEDY, who is residing in Elsmore township, Allen county, was born in McDonough county, Illinois, October 31, 1842, and is a representative of an old southern family. His father, John Kennedy, was a native of North Carolina, and in 1832 took up his abode in the Prairie State. He married Susan Conner and they had six children, of whom three are now living, namely: S. M., a resident of Illinois; William, our subject, and Mrs. Mary A. Toland, who resides in Wilson county, Kansas. The father, who was born in 1805, died in 1871; and the mother, whose birth occurred in 1808, passed away in 1855.
William Kennedy, the youngest surviving child, was reared to farm
| 442 | HISTORY OF ALLEN AND |
life in his native State, there remaining until 1870, when he came to Kansas and purchased a farm in Neosho county, upon which he made his home for eight years. He then sold the property and came to Allen county, securing a claim on the disputed land where he has since lived, hoping from year to year that the United States courts would decide the question of the property rights. He has here a valuable tract of one hundred and sixty acres and certainly deserves the title to the same. He also owns another tract of eighty acres in Allen county. In connection with the cultivation of the fields he is successfully engaged in raising stock, feeding from one to two carloads of both cattle and hogs annually.
Mr. Kennedy was formerly a Democrat but now gives his political support to the Populist party. Socially he is connected with the Ancient order of United Workmen, belonging to the lodge in Elsmore. He was married in November, 1862, to Miss Louisa H. Wheeler, a native of Brown county, Illinois, and the eldest daughter of Charles T. and Elizabeth Wheeler. Her father died in 1894 at the age of seventy years, while his wife passed away in 1857, at the age of forty-two. They had twelve children, of whom five are now living, namely: Eliza, John, Charles and Louisa. Lee, the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy died June 8, 1895, at the age of twenty-seven years. Our subject and his wife have the warm regard of many friends in Allen county and enjoy the hospitality of many of the best homes of the community.
Pages 441-442, transcribed by Carolyn Ward from History of Allen and Woodson Counties, Kansas: embellished with portraits of well known people of these counties, with biographies of our representative citizens, cuts of public buildings and a map of each county / Edited and Compiled by L. Wallace Duncan and Chas. F. Scott. Iola Registers, Printers and Binders, Iola, Kan.: 1901; 894 p., [36] leaves of plates: ill., ports.; includes index.
