Thomas H. Kennedy
by John Boh for Kenton County Historical Society
Covington pioneer Thomas Kennedy (1741- 1821), the son of a Scots-Irish Presbyterian from Northern Ireland, was born in Chester County Pennsylvania. In 1767 he married a widow from Philadelphia, Dinah Davis Piersel. In 1789, to confirm a business opportunity, Thomas Kennedy sent his oldest son Joseph to scout the area of “The Point” at the Licking and Ohio Rivers. In 1789 he acquired 150 acres there. Soon Thomas and Dinah arrived from Pennsylvania by flatboat with three children from her first marriage and younger son Samuel and daughter Hannah. They erected a log cabin and commenced farming. In 1791 Thomas Kennedy began constructing a stone house on the site. Kennedy also started a ferry with Francis Kennedy on the north shore of the Ohio at the same time that Ft. Washington was established opposite the mouth of the Licking River. In 1812 Thomas Kennedy publicly offered his farm for “sale or rent.” In 1814 he sold his farm to investors in the “Covington Company” which in 1815 established the town of Covington. In 1816 Thomas, Dinah and family moved to their new home at the northwest corner of Sixth and Greenup streets. Considered by some the oldest house in Covington except for their stone house, Thomas and Dinah’s last residence was razed in 1904. In 1796 Robert Kyle who married Sallie Piersel from Dinah’s first marriage, purchased 100 acres adjoining the land of Thomas Kennedy and in 1806, 50 more acres adjoining Thomas Kennedy and others. Robert and Sallie Kyle’s home once stood near the present corner of Pike and Madison streets. A country lane serving as the public road passed nearby connecting The Point with the Banklick Road to Lexington. During the War of 1812 oldest son Joseph saw military duty and the Kennedy Ferry did a heavy business transporting soldiers from Ft. Washington.
Joseph’s son Thomas D. Kennedy (1795-1869) was a Covington city engineer until 1855, as was his own son Thomas Howell Kennedy (1833-1914) who served terms until 1901. A Confederate sympathizer, Thomas Howell was greatly offended when “10,000 Federal troops were encamped” on the family farm at Ft. Mitchell in 1862. Samuel Kennedy resided in the stone house for a number of years. He oversaw the property that the family had been retained in 1814 along the riverfront including the ferry franchise. Nancy Kennedy (1811-1904), one of twelve children of Samuel and Jane Richardson Kennedy, grew up in the stone house. In 1848 she moved next door into a new brick house on Garrard Street, known as the Kennedy-Southgate House. When “Aunt Nancy” Kennedy, age 93, died in 1904, her obituary listed her survivors and many descendants of her grandparents Thomas and Dinah Kennedy. Not long before her demise Aunt Nancy had celebrated Thanksgiving at the home of her grandniece Dr. Louise Southgate, a pioneering female physician. Razed in 1909 the Kennedy stone house stood in the rear of what became George Rogers Clark Park. First interred in the city’s pioneer “burying ground” beyond the original town limits at present-day Sixth and Craig streets, Thomas and Dinah Kennedy were later removed to Covington’s Linden Grove Cemetery.
See: E. Polk Johnson, A History of Kentucky and Kentuckians (3 vols.), New York: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1912, vol. 2, pages 908-911, vol. 3, pages 1369-70; Allen Webb Smith, Beginning at "the Point," a Documented History of Northern Kentucky and Environs, the Town of Covington in Particular, 1751-1834, Park Hills, Kentucky, 1977; O. J. Wiggins, “History of Covington,” The Daily Commonwealth (series of 25 articles, 5 April to 20 December, 1884), April 15, 1884; “‘Aunt Nancy’ Passes Away,” The Kentucky Post, 13 December 1904, page 1; “Thomas Howell Kennedy--Kennedy Funeral Takes Place Tuesday,” The Kentucky Times Star, 16 March 1914, page 12; Deed Book G, 28 May 1828, page 329; Deed Book H, 22 October 1830, page 245, Campbell County Courthouse, Alexandria.