Martin Van Buren Kennedy
Martin Van Buren Kennedy, farmer, student, teacher, soldier and merchant, was born near Georgetown, Brown County, Ohio, February 24, 1843. His mother, Drusilla Davis Smashea, was born in Maryland. His father, William Kennedy, was born in Pennsylvania, but removed to Brown County when a child and spent the remainder of his life there as a teacher and a farmer. He was a Justice of the Peace for many years and never had a decision appealed from. He died in 1864.
As his name would indicate, Mr. Kennedy is of Scotch-Irish descent on the paternal side; on the maternal side, he traces his ancestry to the Burbage family, a sketch of which is found in this work. His grandmother, Dolly Smashea, was a Burbage from Maryland. Mr. Kennedy's mother died when he was but two years old, and he was brought up by his aunts, Mrs. Sarah W. Bradford and Mrs. Mary M. Williams, of West Union. He attended the Public schools of West Union and the North Liberty Academy, spent two years as a teacher and about the same period as a student at Miami University. In June, 1863, he assisted in recruiting Company G, 129th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and at its organization was appointed its First Sergeant, which office he held during his term of service with the company. In the Summer of 1864, he attended Military school at Philadelphia, and was afterwards commissioned a First Lieutenant of colored troops and assigned to the Eighth Regiment, United States Heavy Artillery, then stationed at Paducah, Kentucky. He was given command of Company I, and held that position until the mustering out of his regiment in April, 1866, having seen service in Kentucky, about Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia, and lastly in Texas. His regiment was in Washington at the time of President Lincoln's funeral and was at the station as part of an honorary guard at the time the body of the lamented President left Washington.
After leaving the army, he took a course in Nelson's Commercial College at Cincinnati, and engaged in the book and stationery business at Gallipolis, Ohio, with the Hon. S. Y. Wasson, now of Hamilton, Ohio. He continued in this partnership for six years, when he removed to Zanesville, where he has been engaged in the same business to the present time.
He was married September 13, 1871, to Miss Emma Caroline Hartwell, of Groton, Massachusetts. They have only one child, a son, Harris Hartwell Kennedy, born September 29, 1873, a graduate of Kenyon College at Gambier, and is at present a bookkeeper of the American Encaustic Tiling Company, of Zanesville, Ohio.
Mr. Kennedy is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and has been Post Commander at Gallipolis and Zanesville. At the latter place, during his administration, the membership of the Post increased from 140 to 444, and its finances were increased from nothing to over five thousand dollars. He has been a delegate for both State and National Encampments of the order.
He has always been a Republican in his political views. He was brought up in the Methodist Episcopal Church and is a member of it, but is broad and liberal in his views. In personal appearance, he is tall
slender, and of elderly bearing, and is courteous and cordial in his manners. He is devoted and constant to his friends and charitable and considerate for the rights and prejudices of others.
Mr. Kennedy has a remarkable vein of humor, which makes him an entertaining companion to all with whom he associates. He has a fund of humorous stories which would do credit to Artemus Ward, Mark Twain, or any other of our celebrated humorists, and it is to be hoped that his collection will be preserved and published. He takes life easy, and while he has his troubles, as all persons in active business have, he does not let them worry him to any great extent, but takes it for granted that he must endure, suffer, and make the most of them. His career as a student and teacher, soldier and merchant, has been creditable in every way, and when he is called to give an account of the deeds done in the body, he hopes he will not be required to make any apologies, but that his record will commend itself.
From "History of Adams County, Ohio from its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time"- by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers - West Union, Ohio - Published by E. B. Stivers - 1900