Dallas Co TX - JAMES M. KENNEDY

Submitted By: Sadie Kennedy <bluffroad618@sbcglobal.net
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Dallas Morning News 18 Dec 1900

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.



Note: Article has picture