Old Missoula

Mrs. Elizabeth (Swaney) and William Kennedy – Missoula Pioneers

 

Mrs. Kennedy Dies At Her Home In City

A Beloved Pioneer Woman Completes Long Life Of Rich Experience

Mrs. William Kennedy, a beloved pioneer of Missoula and the first white woman ever to traverse the upper Missouri in a mackinaw boat, passed away early yesterday at her home on East Front street. Mrs. Kennedy had been very ill for some weeks and the end was not unexpected.

Mrs. Kennedy was born in August of 1843 in Columbiana county, Ohio, her maiden name being Elizabeth Swaney. She was married December 14, 1862, to William Kennedy in Richland county, Ohio, and came with him to their ranch home in Prickly Pear valley near Helena, which is still called the Kennedy ranch. Among the many thrilling experiences of pioneer life, Mrs. Kennedy knew the horrors of capture by Indians. She was traveling with her husband and eldest son, John, then a baby, in 1867 from Fort Benton to the Prickly Pear valley. They were captured by Indians near the Dearborn river. After holding a conference, the Indians decided to take a vote as to whether the prisoners should be massacred or given their liberty. The vote resulted in a tie and the half-breed guide of the Kennedys was given a vote, breaking the tie and assuring safety to the party. On the following day, the same band of Indians captured and murdered a lone white man. In 1871, Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy came to make their home in Missoula, engaging first in a restaurant business and later taking up a ranch two miles from the city.

Mr. Kennedy died in 1904 and is buried in Missoula cemetery. Surviving members of the family of immediate connection are William W. Kennedy, Louis Kennedy and Hugh Kennedy, residing in this city; Lynn A. Kennedy of Colorado and John Kennedy, all sons. Three nieces reside in Kalispell, Mrs. Macdonald, Mrs. Fisher and Mrs. Stannard. Four nephews are Walter and Alfred Henke of Indian Valley, Idaho, and Andrew and James Swaney of Kalispell. Two grandchildren, Zetta Kennedy and Griffet Kennedy, live in Missoula.

The funeral will be held this afternoon at 2 o’clock, services to be at the Presbyterian church. Rev. J. N. Maclean will officiate. The body is at the residence on East Front street.

The active pallbearers will be Kenneth Ross, J. H. T. Ryman, T. B. Thompson, C. E. Johnson, Andrew Logan and F. T. Sterling. The honorary pallbearers, selected from Mrs. Kennedy’s pioneer friends, will be Fayette Harrington, John B. Catlin, F. H. Woody, G. A. Wolfe, Ferd Kennett, Henry Myers, Charles Winter and James Conlon.

Mrs. Kennedy, Mrs. W. H. H. Dickinson and Mrs. Frank H. Woody were intimate friends in the early ’70s, working for the upbuilding of Missoula in its educational and social development. Mrs. Kennedy helped to establish the First Methodist church in this city and later gave her heart and hand to the building of the Presbyterian church, being one of the charter members of each church.

She was a member of the Montana Society of Pioneers.

 

The above obituary appeared in The Missoulian on March 9, 1915.

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Noted Montana Pioneer Dead

Former Mayor of Missoula Succumbs To Long Suffering Through Dropsy.

Widow Has Extended Sympathy

United Workman Will Conduct the Service, Which Will Be According to the Presbyterian Church.

William Kennedy, 68 years old, one of the first pioneers of Western Montana, died at his home in the Coleman flats at 1:10 o’clock yesterday afternoon of dropsy, after a life of great usefulness spent in Missoula and its vicinity. He was mayor of Missoula in 1890-’91.

William Kennedy was born in Ohio, August 18, 1835, and was a son of James and Catharine Kennedy of that state. He was raised on a farm and worked in hotels in the Buckeye state until 1855, when he enlisted in the Tenth United States infantry and served five years. In 1860 he went to California and followed mining on the Feather river. In 1861 he went to Oro Fino mines in what was then known as the western territory, and in 1862 came through by the Elk City and Florence trails to Fort Benton, Mont., going back to the eastern states by way of Missouri. The following spring he returned to Fort Benton and shortly after started for Edmonton, then a fort, on a prospecting expedition, expecting to be gone only a few days. He took but ten days’ provisions, but made a journey of 400 miles and did not return to Fort Benton until the spring of 1865, having lived some five months on buffalo meat, and coming near to death by freezing.

Mr. Kennedy next went to Silver City, prospecting, and thence to Virginia City, where he outfitted and went to Omaha for his family. Returning to Helena with them in 1865, he took up a ranch on the Prickly Pear, which is still known as Kennedy’s ranch. In August, 1866, he sold out on time and went to Fort Benton a third time, where he went into the hotel and restaurant business. The ranch not having been paid for, however, he came back and again took possession of it in 1867, disposing of his business in the north in order to give it his whole attention. He returned to Prickly Pear accompanied by his wife, one child, a white man and a breed Indian.

As the homesteaders reached the top of a hill near the Dearborn they were surprised and captured by a party of sixteen Indians, who took a vote as to whether they should kill them or set them free. The result of the balloting was a tie. They then allowed the breed a vote and he cleared his friends. The settlers were given liberty, but were afraid to leave for fear some of the hostile Indians would follow and massacre them, it being 9 o’clock at night before they were freed. Mr. Kennedy, however, sent the breed Indian to the chief, who ordered two Indians to get the oxen and attach them to the wagon, informing Mr. Kennedy through the breed that his safest plan was to go on. This he did, arriving with his family at their former home, unmolested. The same band murdered a white man at the same place the following day and cut off his scalp.

The pioneer remained on the ranch until 1869, when the Indians became so troublesome that he took his family to Corinne and sent them back east to the states, himself returning to Helena. Soon after this, he went to the Yellowstone country, then to Bozeman and back again to Helena, where he purchased a stock of goods and followed the Cedar creek stampede.

In 1871, Mr. Kennedy first visited Missoula, where for a number of years until shortly before his death he was either directly or indirectly connected with several hotel ventures, his latest being a partnership in Hotel Missoula. Just about the beginning of 1872, Mr. Kennedy opened a restaurant where Marsh’s livery stable now stands, continuing there for several months, taking charge the same year of what was then known as the Stevens house, opposite his restaurant, the site of which is now marked by the vacant lot south of the Hotel Missoula. William Stevens was the builder of this hostelry, and soon after his purchase, Mr. Kennedy disposed of the property to W. H. Rogers, who changed the name to the Rogers house. This man came to Missoula from Virginia City, Rogers however, didn’t succeed in the hotel business as well as he had anticipated, so Mr. Kennedy took it back and was still its owner when it was destroyed by fire in August, 1892. Prior to the fire, Mr. Kennedy and Samuel Mitchell had begun the construction of the present Hotel Missoula, in 1890, and it was running when the Rodgers house burned. Though still retaining an interest in his restaurant and hotel ventures, Mr. Kennedy, soon after coming to the Garden City, removed to his ranch again, taking his family with him, but leaving his son Louis in charge of the restaurant.

J. C. Lehson, who later bought the old Kennedy ranch, which was also known as the Minesinger ranch, conducts it now. It lies two and one-half miles west of the city. Mr. Kennedy afterwards purchased the Davis ranch, on the Lo Lo, ten miles from Missoula and it has been conducted to the present time by himself and his son Louis.

Mr. Kennedy was married in Ohio, in Richland county, December 14, 1863, Miss Lizzie Sweeney being his bride. She was the first white woman to traverse the upper Missouri river in a mackinaw, making the trip late in the summer of 1866 from the mouth of the Prickly Pear to Fort Benton.

There have been seven children by this marriage: John T. Kennedy, eldest, whose present address in unknown; William W. Kennedy, now connected with the Rankin hotel; Mary C. Kennedy, deceased; Homer S. Kennedy, deceased; Louis Kennedy, until recently connected with William in the restaurant business, but now conducting the farm; Albert Kennedy, depot agent of the Northern Pacific Express company and Hugh Kennedy, deputy county treasurer.

Mrs. Kennedy, the widow, is prostrated with grief, and is being given every attention by her children.

The funeral will be held from the house Wednesday, at 2 p. m. with burial in Missoula cemetery. Rev. Walter Hays, pastor of the Presbyterian church, will officiate, but there will be no service in the church. Judge Frank Woody, also a pioneer and a personal friend of the deceased for many years, will deliver an eulogy; and following these obsequies the A.O.U.W., of which he was a member, will hold a brief fraternal service.

 

The above obituary appeared in The Daily Missoulian on January 19, 1904.

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