Lacrosse County WI Archives Biographies.....Kennett, William Lush December 19, 1827 - 
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WILLIAM LUSH KENNETT, M. D., S. P., R. S., 32 degree, office and residence No. 
90 south side of State street, between Seventh and Eighth streets; was born at 
Newport, Campbell Co., Ky., Dec. 19, 1827. His paternal grandparents belong to 
the old Maryland stock. His maternal grandparents belong to the old Virginia 
stock of Daniels and Mayfields of North Carolina. His grandfather Kennett, was 
a fur trader with the Indians, of what was then known as the Northwestern 
Territory, or that portion of it now known as the State of Ohio. His father, 
Dr. Press Grave Kennett, was a native of Chillicothe, Ohio. His mother, Mary 
M. Daniels, was a native of Eatonton, N. C. She removed with her parents to 
what was then known as Campbell Co., Ky., now known as Boone Co., Ky. Dr. P. 
G. Kennett removed with his parents to Falmouth, Ky., and was a clerk in his 
father's dry goods and general supplies store, where he formed the 
acquaintance of Mary M. Daniels, to whom he was married at Falmouth, Ky., 
1819. William L., the subject of this sketch, was the third child in a family 
of eight children, and the third son. He removed, during the first year of his 
life, with his parents to Portsmouth, Ohio, and thence to Louisville, Ky. His 
first remembrance of time, place or scenes, was here; he remembers carrying a 
newspaper published by his father, but does not remember the name of the 
paper; he also remembers to have witnessed the commencement of the Louisville 
Canal, around the falls of the Ohio River at Louisville. Here it was he was 
taught to read, but does not know who his teacher was. Here his father lost 
all of his property, twenty-seven houses and lots and his printing office, by 
signing paper for a friend in the mercantile business. His father studied 
medicine at the Transylvania University of Lexington, Ky., and after losing 
his property, attempted to remove with his family to St. Louis, Mo., on the 
steamer, Lake Superior. We mention the boat because of her peculiarity of 
build. She had three propelling wheels, one on either side and one at her 
stern. She was not destined to reach her destination that season. The river 
became so full of ice, that she laid up at the mouth of the Tennessee River, 
at the then thriving village of Paducah, Ky. Being unable to proceed further, 
his father determined to commence practice here. He formed a co-partnership 
with one Joseph Merrill, in the practice of medicine and the drug and dry 
goods and general assortment of goods. It was a part of their plan to fit out 
trading boats, in the spring, with what remained of the fall and winter stock, 
put them in charge of a clerk and start them on their way down the Ohio and 
Mississippi Rivers. This was in the latter part of the summer or autumn of 
1837. They failed to get any returns from one of their boats (they had started 
five). His father went in search of the boat, and while he was absent, his 
copartner, Merrill, sent his wife to her parents, loaded the entire stock of 
goods then on hand, on a large keel-boat, and started for New Orleans, then to 
Texas. As the telegraph was then unknown for the transmission of news, his 
mother had to wait the slow process of the mails, by the then slow steamers, 
to communicate to her husband the departure of Merrill, with another woman, 
not his wife, and the entire remaining stock of goods; destination not 
certainly known, but supposed to be Texas, via. New Orleans. His father was on 
his return to Paducah, after having partially accomplished his object, when 
the news of Merrell's procedure reached him; he immediately started in pursuit 
of Merrill, by returning to New Orleans by steamer, expecting to head Merrill 
off there; but Merrill took some other route, and after weary weeks of 
waiting, his father, being sick, started on his return home, a few days after 
notifying his wife of his intention; but he was destined never to reach 
Paducah again, as he was taken sick on his return trip, and put ashore in an 
unconcious state at Helena, Ark. After two months had passed, his mother 
received intelligence of her husband's illness, and convalescence, and that he 
had news of Merrill in Texas, and would start on horseback, as soon as he was 
able to ride, in pursuit of Merrill. His mother, thinking she might possibly 
reach Helena before her husband started again in pursuit of his rascally co-
partner, started on the first steamboat bound down the river with the family 
for Helena, where she and her family arrived, after two weeks had passed, to 
learn that her husband had started for Texas. She remained at Helena thirteen 
months, without receiving any direct news from her husband. William, the only 
boy at home (his two older brothers having been sent to Florence to school), 
went to learn the bakery business, and was at the wharf-boat with bread for 
the steamboat, when he discovered his father, who was then on his way to 
Paducah, not knowing that his family were then in Helena. His father left the 
boat, and was re-united to his family, at the hotel where thirteen months 
before he had left his trunks and effects to be shipped to Paducah. Having 
failed to secure any of his property from Merrill, who had disposed of it all 
on the route and in Texas, his father, with aid received from his elder 
brother at St. Louis, Mo., the Hon. Luther M. Kennett, decided to establish 
himself at Helena, Ark. He again started in the drug business and the practice 
of medicine. William was taken out of the bakery shop and placed under the 
care of a private tutor, under whose instruction he continued for fifteen 
months, when he was sent to a select school, where he remained until his 
father's death in 1840. The two older brothers were now called home. William, 
with his oldest brother, Peter David, purchased a farm and commenced raising 
cotton. Neither of them being familiar with farm work, depended on hired help, 
and such instructions and assistance as their neighbor planters were willing 
to accord to them. William continued his studies at such moments as he could 
spare from the farm work. Being a sickly and feeble boy, farm work was 
unsuited to him, and his mother decided to remove to Ohio with those left 
living of the family, three sisters having died at Helena before his father. 
His mother, the oldest and youngest brother, and the only living sister (next 
oldest brother deciding at the last moment to remain), removed to Hamilton 
Co., Ohio, and located on a farm, the property of her brother-in-law, within 
the distance of eight miles of the city of Cincinnati. William worked on his 
uncle's farm during the summers of 1842-43, studying all of his leisure hours, 
and in winter attending a select school. He received for two years' farm work, 
from this uncle by marriage, one pair of boots and 50 cents in money, on the 
4th of July, 1843. He now determined to manage for himself. He left his 
mother's home, before his 16th birthday, and was fortunate in securing a 
lucrative situation as a supercargo, to New Orleans, performing the service to 
the entire satisfaction of his employer. During this winter, he attended 
school at a private academy, at Florence, Boone Co., Ky., the following 
summer, going to Cincinnati and engaging with Hugh J. Brodie, a druggist, and 
continuing with him until the latter part of the summer of 1846, when he 
enlisted as a volunteer to fight the Mexicans (enlisted at Newtown, Hamilton 
Co., Ohio), and was elected Second Lieutenant of the company at Montgomery, 
Hamilton Co., and marched to Camp Washington. After drilling one month, at the 
earnest solicitation of Capt. Turpin, his mother and the Captain's mother, he 
resigned with his Captain, and returned to the drug store. During the autumn 
of this year, Brodie bought out a dispensing store and gave William full half 
interest to take charge and conduct the business. After six months' trial, he 
abandoned the store and commenced the study of medicine with Samuel Garwood 
Menzie, a former colleague and friend of his father's. To sustain himself, and 
acquire the
necessary means to enable him to attend medical lectures, he taught school in 
Boone Co., Ky., and in Clermont Co., Ohio. He continued to teach and study 
until 1853, when he matriculated as a medical student in Miami Medical 
College, of Cincinnati, Ohio. He attended medical lectures in this college 
until the spring of 1855, and during this spring he formed a copartnership in 
the practice of medicine, with Dr. Elgin, at New Burlington, Clinton Co., 
Ohio. Becoming dissatisfied with the practice in the country and village, he 
returned to Cincinnati in July of the same year. On his return, he received a 
proposition from his former preceptor, which he accepted and again entered 
Prof. Menzie's office, this time as an assistant. When not engaged in the 
practice of his profession, he attended lectures at the college and clinics at 
the hospitals, until June, 1856. Owing to the ill health of his wife, he left 
Cincinnati; accompanied by her, he landed at La Crosse on the 26th of the same 
month, where he devoted the most of his time to his wife, hunting, fishing and 
seeing patients for other physicians, and prescribing occasionally for the 
sick, not under the care of any physician, all of which service was rendered 
gratuitously. In the autumn of this year, to please his wife, he entered into 
a contract with Joshua Rogers, Clerk; A. T. Clinton, Treasurer and Elijah 
Whitelsey, Director of the public schools in the city, as Superintendent of 
the Public Schools. The system of gradation into primary, intermediate and 
grammar departments, was first introduced and adopted in the City Public 
Schools, under his superintendency. Having filled his contract with the School 
Board to their entire satisfaction, he resumed the active practice of his 
profession in the spring of 1857, in which he has continued up to the present 
time. In 1861, he was appointed Examining Surgeon with Drs. P. S. McArthur and 
Dugald D. Cameron, the latter as Surgeon in Chief. In the summer of 1864, he 
received from the Hon. James T. Lewis, Governor of Wisconsin, the appointment 
of Surgeon of the 25th, W. V. I., with orders to report at once at Atlanta, 
Ga. This appointment found him prostrated, with an illness from which he did 
not recover for six weeks, in consequence of which, he, with many regrets, 
telegraphed the Governor of his inability to accept the appointment. His 
mother is still living, now near Newport, Ky.; she is in her 85th year, and in 
good health. He was married (within three blocks of the house in which he was 
born), at Newport, Ky., May 8, 1854, to Miss Martha Jane McKee. She was born 
at Pleasant Ride, Hamilton Co., Ohio, Sept. 22, 1827; raised and educated in 
Cincinnati, Ohio, and at the time of her marriage was Principal of the Newport 
High School. They have been blessed with six children, four sons and two 
daughters. Only two children are living - William Warren and Albert McKee, who 
are attending college, in Cincinnati, Ohio. William Warren is also studying 
music at the Cincinnati College of Music. The Doctor is the oldest established 
resident physician now practicing here, except P. S. McArthur, M. D., who came 
in April. Both came in the same year, 1856. Dr. Kennett has devoted himself 
assiduously to his profession, and is one of the most learned and skillful 
physicians in the State, and, but for his great modesty, would be widely known 
as one of the leading minds in his profession. He is a man of studious habits, 
of positive conviction, and indomitable energy; and, for what he believes to 
be right, will stand against the world. He, with Dr. McArthur, and Dr. 
Cameron, and other medical gentlemen, organized the La Crosse County Medical 
Society in 1859. He is also one of the original charter members of the La 
Crosse Medical College.

Additional Comments:
From History of La Crosse County, Wisconsin, 1881, p. 765 - 767.

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