HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY                              199

was published in the Los Angeles papers and several magazines from
1891 until the time of his accidental death, the day after Thanksgiving,
1898, when he fell from a windmill tower, crushing his head, survived by
his wife and two daughters.
    To Francis M. Townsend and wife have been born a son and two
daughters.
    Sarah C. Townsend, the sister, now the wife of Myron Gee, Los
Angeles, has been closely identified with and in the practice of Christian
Science for more than ten years past. She organized the first church of
this cult at Pasadena, California.
    Mention having been made of the wife of Dr. John H. Hawkins as
the sister of James M. Townsend, another sister was Margaret Eaglesfield,
wife of William Eaglesfield, and mother of the wife of Major Roswell S.
Hill, of Brazil.
    Of the Somers family, James R. Townsend says: “My mother,
daughter of Robert and Sarah (Rockwell) Somers, is a native of New
England, born July 1, 1825, at Barnett, Vermont, on the Connecticut
river, the family coming to Clay county, Indiana, in 1838, locating near
Williamstown, within a half mile of what was afterward known as
Highland, now Staunton. She is now past 83 years of age, but active
and in full possession of all her faculties, and still assists in my cffice, as
she has done for many years. She spends her time just as she desires to
do. She with two brothers and one sister, are the four survivors of the
five children.
    Isaac Somers, the youngest brother, died at Staunton in 1879. He
and Joseph Somers were associated in the coal business there for many
years. William Francis Somers has been in California since 1850, resid-
ing now on his ranch at Moneta. Adeline, who is also in California, has
never married.”

    Silas S. Kennedy, native of Indiana, eldest son of Martin H. and
Susan (Rawlins) Kennedy, born in Parke county, January 6, 1837, the
parents moving to Clay county in his infancy, locating on ground now
within the plat of the town of Center Point. November 25, 1858, he
married Miss Sarah J. Hays, of this county, and continued to live at
Center Point for five years, having, meanwhile been engaged in the
flouring-mill at that place. In the fall of 1863 he located at Terre Haute,
where, in company with his brothers, Lemuel and Porter A. Kennedy, he
built the Vigo woolen mills, which he operated until the spring of 1871,
when he moved to Colorado and built the Greely flouring-mills within
the same year, which he conducted until the year 1879, when he disposed
of all his holdings at Greely for $40,000 and moved to Denver, where
he built the Crescent fiouring mills, then the largest mill of its kind in the
State of Colorado. For the past twenty years or more he has given his
time and attention, in the main, to mining, having been interested in
several noted properties in this industry, among them “Smuggler” and
the “Golden Fleece,” which produced their millions.
    For six years Mr. Kennedy was a member of the Denver School
Board, having been president for two years of the time, when the school
population of the city numbered forty-five thousand.
    In this interesting family are six children—four sons and two
daughters, all of whom are liberally educated and occupy positions of