WILLIAM JOHN KENDRICK, SR.

June 13, 1889

Born in Washington County, Virginia, October 13, 1804 died in Wayne County, Kentucky, June 10, 1889. Such is the record upon the tablets of "Old Mortality", of the beginning and end of the earthly career of one of the most remarkable men who ever figured in the annals of our county.

About the year 1822, when about eighteen years of age, with but a limited education, no capital but his native talents and strong right arm, and no guarantee of success but his indomitable will, energy, and habits of industry, he came to this, then, newly settled part of Kentucky to seek his fortune.

The first business in which he was engaged was as a clerk in the store of Ambrose Bramlette in Clinton County, where he remained about two years, when he was recalled to Virginia by the death of his stepfather. He remained in Virginia for three years, taking care of his mother and other members of the family, and managing the farm. He came to Wayne County about the year 1828 and resided near Monticello from that time until his death, a period of more than three score years. The first business in which he engaged, after returning to Kentucky, was making rails on the present John E. Oatts and Brothers farm at 25 cents per hundred, and working on the farm eight months for Oatts, after which he carried on a blacksmith shop in which he for some time labored at the bellows and wielded the sledge. He was afterwards engaged as clerk in the store of his uncles William and Samuel Summers, in Monticello, Kentucky.

He was twice married, first about 1836 to Miss Catherine Buster, daughter of General Joshua Buster, and second, about 1851 to Mrs. Abbie Rachael Coffey, widow of Cullom Coffey. He had six children by his first wife and five by his last.

Somewhere in the thirties, in partnership with Granville Cecil, he embarked in merchandising. The firm of Cecil and Kendrick did a large and prosperous business in merchandise and extended its operations to trading largely in cattle and other farm stock, which they marketed in
Virginia and the cotton states at a large profit, up to the dissolution of the firm in 1847, when Cecil removed to Boyle County.

In the meantime, Mr, Kendrick had bought the Albert Epperson and Charles Mills farms which he united into one and farmed and raised stock on a large scale on his own account.

After the dissolution of the firm of Cecil and Kendrick he continued merchandising on his own account until the outbreak of the war. On the organization of the branch of the Commercial Bank of Kentucky at Monticello, he took stock in it to a considerable amount and was its president during its continuance in business. During the fifties and after the war in the sixties, and for some time in the seventies, he turned his attention to the investment of his means into land. He also made considerable investments in Government and County and City bonds. On the organization of the National Bank of Monticello, he took a large amount of stock in it and was its president from its organization to 1877 when it went into liquidation. During part of 1877 and 1878, he carried on a private bank, under the style of Kendrick, Sallee & Company. He was the founder of the Kendrick Institution and its largest stockholder, and president from its institution in 1866 to the time it was unfortunately burned in 1872. He was the largest stockholder and for many years the president of the Monticello and Burnside Turnpike Company, and subsequently its treasurer to time of his death. Besides an active participation in all these things, though far advanced in years, he personally superintended extensive farming operations on several large farms, even down to the smallest details.

Possessed of a powerful frame and vigorous constitution, unimpaired almost to the last, he seemed to go everywhere and to attend to everything on his extensive possessions that required attention. His capacity for business during at least fifty years of his life among us was truly wonderful. During that time he transacted more business, it is safe to say, than any other ten men that ever lived in the county during the same time. His sound judgment and sagacity in business was proverbial, and while connected with a vast amount of business affairs of his own, he was consulted by nearly all the citizens of the county on embarking in, or conducting enterprises of their own.

He was a man of the strictest integrity in all his dealings with his fellow men, and his long and honorable career found its just reward, not only in the accumulation of a considerable fortune, but in securing for himself the most implicit and abiding confidence and esteem of all who knew him.

No man who ever lived in the county dispensed charity more liberally or with less ostentation. Besides that, he was ever the helper of poor young men struggling for a start in life. In addition to lending a helping hand to hundreds who needed help in business; he furnished money to more than a score of young men to aid them in qualifying themselves for professions, never asking security and trusting to their honor and his judgment of their merits and prospects of successful repayment. He has often remarked with gratification that he was never deceived in any of them, or never lost anything in helping them, except perhaps a very trivial balance that one or two of them failed to pay, owing to misfortune, and for which he attached no blame.

Some years ago, he attached himself to the Christian Church, since which he has lived and died an exemplary and consistent member of that fold. His many good traits and deeds would fill a volume, but circumstances prevent a more extended narrative at this time. "Taken all in all, we shall never see his like again." -- The Monticello Signal --.

NOTE: William J Kindrick had 2 daughters, both by the name of Julia E Kindrick. One by each of his wives. The second Julia was born just 2 years after his first daughter Julia had passed at the age of 17.