California Biographies, San Joaquin Valley

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

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

Source:
History of the state of California and biographical record of the San Joaquin 
Valley, California. An historical story of the state's marvelous growth from 
its earliest settlement to the present time.
Prof. James Miller Guinn , A. M.
The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago 1905
Notes: Missing Page: 865-866,983-984,1175-1176


JOHN K. KENNEDY. An early settler and a pioneer who has endured the hardships and privations 
incident to the founding of a statehood, John K. Kennedy is living in the enjoyment of the prosperity 
which has followed his efforts. He was born in Logan county, Ohio, April 21, 1853, a son of William 
Kennedy, who came from his native land, Ireland, to the United States in 1850. He located for one year 
in Philadelphia, Pa., where he followed his trade of weaver, and in 1851 removed to Logan county, 
Ohio, in the vicinity of Bellefontaine. There he engaged as a railway contractor until 1856, in which year 
he settled in Madison county, Iowa, and followed farming for twenty-one years. He came to California 
in 1887 and located on a farm adjoining that of his son, in Fresno county, where his death occurred in 
1891. His wife, formerly Nancy Brazill, a native of Ireland, died in California in 1896. They were the 
parents of three sons and five daughters, of whom John K. was the eldest son and the third child in 
order of birth. 

John K. Kennedy received a limited education in the common schools of Iowa, where he grew to 
manhood and engaged in farming until 1885. In that year he came to California and in December 
located on his present place, consisting of two hundred and eighty acres, three and a half miles 
southwest of Fowler, Fresno county. He first followed the cultivation of wheat, but has since devoted 
a large part of the land to fruit, putting in forty-eight acres of vineyard and eighteen acres of orchard. 
Sixty acres is devoted to alfalfa and the balance to wheat and pasture. 

Near Des Moines, Iowa, Mr. Kennedy was united in marriage with Lydia Hastie, a native of that vicinity, 
and they became the parents of three children, namely : J. Herman, an undertaker of Fresno; Charles 
Edward and Clyda Elizabeth, both at home. Mr. Kennedy is a member of the United Presbyterian 
Church of Fowler, and politically is a Republican.