From collection Member List
Education: Brother Kennon entered The University of Georgia in 1883 as a freshman; he joined the Demosthenian Society in 1883. In 1887, Kennon was vice president of the Engineering Society.
From “History of the University of Georgia,” by Thomas Walter Reed; Chapter IX: The Administration of Chancellor Patrick H. Mell, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, ca. 1949, p. 1281 of the original typed manuscript:
“WILLIAM A. KENNON, of Waycross, Ga., was born in Georgia in 1868. He was one of the quietest, most gentlemanly boys I ever knew. A year or two after graduation, he was married to Miss Mattie Grady, sister of Henry W. Grady, who died when they lived in Brunswick, Ga. I have never seen him since and there is no information in the office of the Alumni Secretary concerning him. He has probably passed on ... While in college, Kennon was a Demosthenian and a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity.”
Brother Kennon was a son of Mary Rachel Crawford and Captain Henry Thomas Kennon (one of 12 children of John William Kennon and Sarah Cobb Moore.)
Brother Kennon married Martha (Mattie) Nicholson Grady on June 25, 1891 at the bride’s home in Athens, Clarke County, Georgia, his first marriage. She was a sister of the famous Southern newspaper man Henry Woodfin Grady. Mattie and Willie Kennon had been married only 16 months when she died at their home on October 21, 1892 at Brunswick, Glynn County, Georgia.
The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia, Thursday, October 20, 1892, p. 4: “Mrs. W. A. Kennon is lying at the point of death at her home in Brunswick. There is perhaps no woman in Georgia who is more universally beloved than Mrs. Kennon ...” She was buried in the Oconee Hill Cemetery, Athens, Georgia.
Will Kennon married second Margaret Amanda (Pearl) Marshall on May 23, 1894 at Waycross, Ware County, Georgia, daughter of The Rev. John Metcalfe Marshall.
He was initiated into the Kappa Deuteron Chapter of the Phi Gamma Delta at least by 1885. Kennon graduated from The University of Georgia in 1888 with a Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering. His uncle, Benning Moore Kennon, Class of 1884, was also a member of the Georgia chapter of Phi Gamma Delta.
After the death of his wife, Mattie (Grady) Kennon, Brother Kennon was appointed postmaster for Berrien, Georgia on February 16, 1898. By 1900, he was employed as a “lumber inspector” in Jacksonville, Florida. Around 1904, he was the chief engineer for the Atlantic and Birmingham Railway in Brunswick, Georgia (which was chartered in 1887 as the Waycross Air Line Railroad) when the A&B acquired the Brunswick & Birmingham. He moved to St. Louis, Missouri before in the 1920s and became an engineer and roadmaster (or territorial supervisor) for the Missouri Pacific Railroad at St. Louis, and in Kansas and Nebraska. A son, Henry Marshall Kennon, was the bird curator at the St. Louis Zoo.
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INTER-RELATED FAMILIES OF KAPPA DEUTERON CHAPTER:
KENNONS AND OTHERS
The story of the Kappa Deuteron Chapter of Phi Gamma is one of brotherhood and FAMILY, with many Brothers sharing near and proximate familial relations among COMMON ANCESTRAL LANDS. The KENNON family, for example, produced numerous Brothers related by blood and marriage.
Every named member of the Kennon family included in this history of the Kappa Deuteron Chapter descends from Col. William Kennon, who was born on October 9, 1713 in Henrico County, Virginia and who died about 1759 in Chesterfield County, Virginia, according to “Lewis of Warner Hall: The History of A Family,” by Merrow Egerton Sorley, 1935, Genealogical Publishing Company, Baltimore, Maryland, p. 393 and other sources, and who was a substantial land owner in that part of Virginia.
As noted before, early Kappa Deuteron Brother Benning Moore Kennon was the uncle of Brother William Augustus Kennon; the latter’s father - Henry Thomas Kennon - a biological brother of Benning Moore Kennon.
John William Kennon, the father of Benning Moore Kennon and Henry Thomas Kennon, married Sarah Cobb Moore, who was a daughter of Thomas T. Moore, Jr. and Martha Susannah Benning. A sister of Sarah Cobb (Moore) Kennon, Fannie Thweatt Moore, married John Ross Crane, and they were the parents of Phi Gamma Delta’s William Moore Crane.
The mother of Martha Susannah Benning, Sarah Cobb, was married to John Benning. A sister of Martha Susannah, Sarah Cobb Benning married Peter Lamar, related to the Lamar family that produced Kappa Deuteron’s Lavoisier Ledran Lamar. A daughter of Peter Lamar and Sarah Cobb Benning, Sarah Benning Lamar, married Porter Fleming (his second marriage,) business partner of Kappa Deuteron Brother Frederick Ball Pope; Brother Barry Abbott Fleming, initiated into the third-iteration of Kappa Deuteron in 1985, is related to this Fleming family; the compiler is not - jtf]
Another Kennon, Xenophon Kennon, married Nancy Warren Carr, who after his death, married Eli Goree, the father of Kappa Deuteron’s Churchill Pomeroy Goree. Xenophon Kennon’s sister, Emma Kennon, married into the Dearing family of Phi Gamma Delta brothers at The University of Georgia, Alfred Long Dearing, Jr. and Llewellyn Spotswood Dearing.
Kappa Deuteron’s Henry Bradford Walker married Virginia Mamie Kennon, a granddaughter of William Warner Kennon; she was a brother of Warner Lewis Kennon, grandfather of Benning Moore Kennon and great-grandfather of William Augustus Kennon, both members of Phi Gamma Delta at The University of Georgia. Benning Moore Kennon married Dollie Walker, who lived to 104 years and died at Telfair, Georgia in 1971, possibly a descendant of Elisha Walker, Revolutionary War soldier, or one of his brothers who settled in Georgia about 1770. And there are also ties between the Barnett and Redd families as well (see Osborne Stone Barnett and William Anderson Redd.)
And there are numerous examples of the intersection of other families and the fraternity in the halls of the Kappa Deuteron Chapter: Charles Edward Harman, one of the original “Five Founders” of the chapter in 1871, and his grandson, Charles Edward Harman III, one of the 12 charter members of the chapter when it was recolonized in 1968, for instance. Our Harman Brothers can claim kinship to Kappa Deuteron’s Wade brothers, Peyton, Eugene, and Ingersoll.
Andrew Jackson Moye II, grandson of Andrew Jackson Moye who was the father of Kappa Deuteron Brothers Robert Leiden Moye and Allen Pettit Moye, claims in his application to the Sons of the American Revolution to be a descendant of Col. William Kennon, Jr., a son of Col. Kennon referenced above, through his maternal grandmother, Laura Jane (West) Moye.
Still another Kappa Deuteron connection of pioneer Georgia families include the Crittendens and Reids of Brother Zack Crittenden and his first cousin Hiram Crittenden and the family of Brothers Lon Reid and Dennis Reid, his first cousin-once removed.
From “History of the University of Georgia,” by Thomas Walter Reed; Chapter IX: The Administration of Chancellor Patrick H. Mell, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, ca. 1949, p. 1281 of the original typed manuscript:
“WILLIAM A. KENNON, of Waycross, Ga., was born in Georgia in 1868. He was one of the quietest, most gentlemanly boys I ever knew. A year or two after graduation, he was married to Miss Mattie Grady, sister of Henry W. Grady, who died when they lived in Brunswick, Ga. I have never seen him since and there is no information in the office of the Alumni Secretary concerning him. He has probably passed on ... While in college, Kennon was a Demosthenian and a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity.”
Brother Kennon was a son of Mary Rachel Crawford and Captain Henry Thomas Kennon (one of 12 children of John William Kennon and Sarah Cobb Moore.)
Brother Kennon married Martha (Mattie) Nicholson Grady on June 25, 1891 at the bride’s home in Athens, Clarke County, Georgia, his first marriage. She was a sister of the famous Southern newspaper man Henry Woodfin Grady. Mattie and Willie Kennon had been married only 16 months when she died at their home on October 21, 1892 at Brunswick, Glynn County, Georgia.
The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia, Thursday, October 20, 1892, p. 4: “Mrs. W. A. Kennon is lying at the point of death at her home in Brunswick. There is perhaps no woman in Georgia who is more universally beloved than Mrs. Kennon ...” She was buried in the Oconee Hill Cemetery, Athens, Georgia.
Will Kennon married second Margaret Amanda (Pearl) Marshall on May 23, 1894 at Waycross, Ware County, Georgia, daughter of The Rev. John Metcalfe Marshall.
He was initiated into the Kappa Deuteron Chapter of the Phi Gamma Delta at least by 1885. Kennon graduated from The University of Georgia in 1888 with a Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering. His uncle, Benning Moore Kennon, Class of 1884, was also a member of the Georgia chapter of Phi Gamma Delta.
After the death of his wife, Mattie (Grady) Kennon, Brother Kennon was appointed postmaster for Berrien, Georgia on February 16, 1898. By 1900, he was employed as a “lumber inspector” in Jacksonville, Florida. Around 1904, he was the chief engineer for the Atlantic and Birmingham Railway in Brunswick, Georgia (which was chartered in 1887 as the Waycross Air Line Railroad) when the A&B acquired the Brunswick & Birmingham. He moved to St. Louis, Missouri before in the 1920s and became an engineer and roadmaster (or territorial supervisor) for the Missouri Pacific Railroad at St. Louis, and in Kansas and Nebraska. A son, Henry Marshall Kennon, was the bird curator at the St. Louis Zoo.
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INTER-RELATED FAMILIES OF KAPPA DEUTERON CHAPTER:
KENNONS AND OTHERS
The story of the Kappa Deuteron Chapter of Phi Gamma is one of brotherhood and FAMILY, with many Brothers sharing near and proximate familial relations among COMMON ANCESTRAL LANDS. The KENNON family, for example, produced numerous Brothers related by blood and marriage.
Every named member of the Kennon family included in this history of the Kappa Deuteron Chapter descends from Col. William Kennon, who was born on October 9, 1713 in Henrico County, Virginia and who died about 1759 in Chesterfield County, Virginia, according to “Lewis of Warner Hall: The History of A Family,” by Merrow Egerton Sorley, 1935, Genealogical Publishing Company, Baltimore, Maryland, p. 393 and other sources, and who was a substantial land owner in that part of Virginia.
As noted before, early Kappa Deuteron Brother Benning Moore Kennon was the uncle of Brother William Augustus Kennon; the latter’s father - Henry Thomas Kennon - a biological brother of Benning Moore Kennon.
John William Kennon, the father of Benning Moore Kennon and Henry Thomas Kennon, married Sarah Cobb Moore, who was a daughter of Thomas T. Moore, Jr. and Martha Susannah Benning. A sister of Sarah Cobb (Moore) Kennon, Fannie Thweatt Moore, married John Ross Crane, and they were the parents of Phi Gamma Delta’s William Moore Crane.
The mother of Martha Susannah Benning, Sarah Cobb, was married to John Benning. A sister of Martha Susannah, Sarah Cobb Benning married Peter Lamar, related to the Lamar family that produced Kappa Deuteron’s Lavoisier Ledran Lamar. A daughter of Peter Lamar and Sarah Cobb Benning, Sarah Benning Lamar, married Porter Fleming (his second marriage,) business partner of Kappa Deuteron Brother Frederick Ball Pope; Brother Barry Abbott Fleming, initiated into the third-iteration of Kappa Deuteron in 1985, is related to this Fleming family; the compiler is not - jtf]
Another Kennon, Xenophon Kennon, married Nancy Warren Carr, who after his death, married Eli Goree, the father of Kappa Deuteron’s Churchill Pomeroy Goree. Xenophon Kennon’s sister, Emma Kennon, married into the Dearing family of Phi Gamma Delta brothers at The University of Georgia, Alfred Long Dearing, Jr. and Llewellyn Spotswood Dearing.
Kappa Deuteron’s Henry Bradford Walker married Virginia Mamie Kennon, a granddaughter of William Warner Kennon; she was a brother of Warner Lewis Kennon, grandfather of Benning Moore Kennon and great-grandfather of William Augustus Kennon, both members of Phi Gamma Delta at The University of Georgia. Benning Moore Kennon married Dollie Walker, who lived to 104 years and died at Telfair, Georgia in 1971, possibly a descendant of Elisha Walker, Revolutionary War soldier, or one of his brothers who settled in Georgia about 1770. And there are also ties between the Barnett and Redd families as well (see Osborne Stone Barnett and William Anderson Redd.)
And there are numerous examples of the intersection of other families and the fraternity in the halls of the Kappa Deuteron Chapter: Charles Edward Harman, one of the original “Five Founders” of the chapter in 1871, and his grandson, Charles Edward Harman III, one of the 12 charter members of the chapter when it was recolonized in 1968, for instance. Our Harman Brothers can claim kinship to Kappa Deuteron’s Wade brothers, Peyton, Eugene, and Ingersoll.
Andrew Jackson Moye II, grandson of Andrew Jackson Moye who was the father of Kappa Deuteron Brothers Robert Leiden Moye and Allen Pettit Moye, claims in his application to the Sons of the American Revolution to be a descendant of Col. William Kennon, Jr., a son of Col. Kennon referenced above, through his maternal grandmother, Laura Jane (West) Moye.
Still another Kappa Deuteron connection of pioneer Georgia families include the Crittendens and Reids of Brother Zack Crittenden and his first cousin Hiram Crittenden and the family of Brothers Lon Reid and Dennis Reid, his first cousin-once removed.
