| Mifflin Kenedy was
born in 1818 in Dowingtown, Chester County, Pennsylvania,
and educated in a Quaker school. At the age of 25,
he became the master of the steamboat Champion on
which he traversed the Apalachicola and Chattahoochee
Rivers in Florida.
Kenedy came to Texas in 1846
to serve as a steamboat captain with the U.S.
Army during the War with Mexico. As master of
the steamer Corvette, he ferried troops and supplies
up and down the Rio Grande. When hostilities ceased
in 1848, he recognized the opportunity on the
new frontier and decided to stay. For the next
two decades, M. Kenedy & Company dominated
steamboat trade on the Rio Grande.
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John Gregory
Kenedy, Sr. and
wife Marie Stella Turcotte Kenedy. |
The Kenedy
Children, John Jr. and Sarita with their
cousin George (center) and their nanny.
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During this time, Kenedy
married Petra Vela de Vidal, the young widow
of a Mexican soldier. Already the mother
of eight, all of whom Mifflin adopted, Petra
bore him six more children. Petra was a
woman of the frontier, as her father, Don
Gregorio Vela, had settled on two leagues
in the Santa Teresa grant, north of the
Rio Grande.
When Mifflin Kenedy
died in 1895 without leaving a will, his
only surviving son, John Gregory, or Don
Gregorio as he was known locally, bought
out the other heirs’ interest in the
vast Kenedy ranch, La Parra. There, he and
his wife, Marie Stella, raised their two
children, John Jr. and Sarita, in the Big
House.
The third generation
of Kenedys would be the last. With the death
of Sarita in 1961, the Kenedy name remained
only as an important part of South Texas
history.
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