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James M. Kennedy
Carrollton &
Farmers Branch
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| OBITUARY
James M. KENNEDY
A DALLAS COUNTY PIONEER. Frontiersman JAMES M. KENNEDY Was Called To His
Reward Friday.
STIRRING SCENES AND ADVENTURES . Fight With the Last Band of Marauding
Comanche and Kiowas in Dallas County.
James M. Kennedy, a Dallas County pioneer, who had witnessed and taken part
in the stirring scenes and dangers of the frontier as it was half a century
ago, died of heart failure last Friday at his home, fifteen miles north-
west of the city near Carrollton. Mr. Kennedy was born in the Fairfield
district of South Carolina in 1829 and traced his lineage to the sturdy
Irish settlers who reclaimed that country. When he was 8 years old his
parents moved to Tallapoosa County, Alabama, where his father died two years
later. In 1843 the family moved to Arkansas. In 1845 they again changed
their location, moving to Texas and locating at a place fifteen miles north
of the present city of Dallas. At that time he was 16 years old. The country
was wild. Buffalo roamed the prairie in herds. The cedar brakes and thickets
along the Trinity were the habitation of bear, panthers and numbers of
wolves. The settlers were in constant dread of raids by the murderous
Comanches and Kiowas and were frequently called upon to protect their lives
and their horses and cattle from them. Mr. Kennedy commanded a company of
frontiersmen who chased one of the last bands of marauders out of Dallas
County. The Indians were overtaken on the banks of Denton Creek, in Denton
County, where a skirmish ensued in which they were defeated and their chief
mortally wounded and captured. Among the articles taken with the chief was a
shield, decorated with hair from 160 scalps which represented the number of
people he had killed. When Mr. Kennedy first visited Dallas it consisted of
only one house on the bank of the river. In 1860 at the outbreak of the war
between the States he enlisted in the Confederate army from Dallas County,
joining Darnell's regiment and being commissioned First Lieutenant of
Jackson's company. He served the four years of war and at its end returned
to his home, where he has lived quietly since. Up to the hour of his death
he enjoyed good health and was in good spirits. He was a member of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and was also a prominent Mason. He had
been a subscriber to the Dallas News since its establishment. A wife and
seven grown children survive him. The interment took place at
Webb's Chapel on
Farmers Branch with Masonic honors.
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JAMES M. KENNEDY
BORN: MAR 17, 1829
DIED: DEC 14, 1900
CHARLOTTE D. KENNEDY
BORN: SEPT 17, 1839
DIED: NOV 13, 1915
Webb
Chapel Cemetery, Farmers Branch, Dallas County, Texas
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