Life History

Other facts

Notes

• Charles was the son of Edmond Kendall, whose familiy moved to Arkansas from North Carolina in 1855.
  
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  Here's Edmond Kendall's account of the move to Arkansas in 1855 as retold by his son, Benjamin Franklin "Frank" Kendall sometime about 1945. His niece, Anna Kendall Watts Moore wrote it down in a notebook. Anna was my maternal grandmother's sister.
  
  Several months after Reuben Kendall’s death in 1855, his sons, Alexander Franklin and Edmond, took their inheritance and moved their families to what is now Cleveland County, Arkansas. Edmond told his children that the move from North Carolina to Arkansas was quite an endeavor:
  
  "Alexander and Edmond Kendall with their families came to Arkansas in 1855, leaving Stanly County, North Carolina on October 15th. As each owned ten or fifteen slaves and as they brought most of their household goods, it took quite an outfit. I remember Father said each of them had two ox teams of two yokes, one mule team, and a team of horses to pull the family carriage, and he and Uncle Frank [A. F. Kendall] rode horseback. After being on the road two days, little Willie was taken seriously ill and died. Father and Mother had to turn back and take Willie back to the old home for burial and then rejoin the others on the road. No other bad luck happened on the trip and after fourteen weeks on the road, they reached Pine Bluff. [They would have actually arrived, then some time in January or possibly February 1856.]
  
  After resting a few days, they decided to rent homes for that year. This gave them time to select permanent homes. They soon found two farms for rent within six miles of each other. They would visit each other once or twice a week and on the way home would kill a deer or two and maybe a turkey, thus providing meat for their tables for both their families and their slaves. He and his brother killed over 300 deer that year but didn’t keep a count of the turkeys. 1856 was a year they never forgot as crops were very short on account of a killing frost every month-a thing unheard of before or since. The next year, each purchased a farm. Father bought near Kedron about eighteen miles south of Pine Bluff; his brother bought a farm five miles from his.
  
  All went well for a few years. In the election of 1860, Alexander Kendall was elected sheriff of Jefferson County and served all during the Civil War. Father did not join the army being rejected three times on account of his health, but he joined the home guards and at times acted as scout for southern troops whenever any were in the area.
  
  Edmond’s wife, Emmeline, died on 1 April 1866 and was buried at Mt. Zion near their home. Uncle Frank Kendall [Alexander F. Kendall] persuaded father to bring his four children to his home instead of taking us to North Carolina to one of his sisters to raise. Then in August, Uncle Frank was returning home from Pine Bluff and was waylaid and shot to death by a man whom he had put in jail, leaving a wife and six children. Father then sold his farm and bought half interest in his brother’s farm, agreeing with his brother’s wife to look after the farm if she would take care of the ten children-her six and his four. So the two families remained together until all were grown just like one big family. Edmond was elected sheriff and served from 1874 to 1876. He died on 1 April 1866 at 4 p.m.-the same day and the same time as his wife died twenty-five years before."
  --  Lea Harville Morgan, Ancestry Messaging to Orville Boyd Jenkins, 17 April 2016
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  Edmond Kendall
  Birth unknown
  Death Apr 1, 1891
  Spouse Emmeline O Watkins Kendall (1830 - 1866)
  Children:
  Charles Edgar Kendall (1858 - 1915)
  Benjamin Franklin Kendall (1862 - 1945)
  Rosa Lee Kendall Lockhart (1864 - 1923)
  Burial Mount Zion Cemetery Rison, Cleveland County, Arkansas
  Created by mac Dec 22, 2010
  --  Find A Grave Memorial #63233335, http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=63233335

Sources

• 1. Find a Grave Memorial Registry
• 2. Benjamin Franklin Kendall
• 3. 1900 Federal Census, Cleveland County, Arkansas
  • 13 June, Niven Township, District 38, page 10B, Hse #184, Fam #185