(1826-4 June 1906), entrepreneur. Parents (whose farm was on Lot 2, of the 12th Concession of Indian Lands, GC): Donald Kennedy and Catherine McIntosh. Peter Kennedy farmed at Dominionville (postal address Notfield), on Lots 9 and 10 of the 16th Concession of Indian Lands. He had a blacksmith shop and carriage-making business (making buggies, wagons and sleighs) at this location. There was a cheese factory also on his land, and a tannery developed nearby. He was warden of SDG in 1871, and reeve of Kenyon in 1880 and 1881. Harkness notes it as exceptional that Kennedy attained the honour of the wardenship before he was a reeve. Kennedy was one of the men elected In Dec. 1871, and again in May 1872, as directors of the Montreal and City of Ottawa Junction Railway Company “for the ensuing year.” (Witness 11 Jan. & 10 May 1872) At the stormy public meeting at Kenyon Town Hall (i.e., township hall) in Dec. 1881 at which the explosive question of the Kenyon Township bonds for the financing of D. A. Macdonald’s Montreal and City of Ottawa Junction Railway was discussed, Kennedy, the retiring reeve, was flayed without mercy by the ferocious Dr (later Senator) Donald McMillan for his alleged subservience to Macdonald’s clique. (Cornwall Reporter 31 Dec. 1881; MacGillivray & Ross 149, 175, 280) It would be interesting to know a good deal more about Kennedy, for as the linking of his name with Macdonald suggests, he appears to have been one of GC’s Liberal Party activists.

     In the Purcell election trial of 1888 in Cornwall, inquiring into the notorious GC election of 1887, Peter Kennedy of Dominionville, ex-warden, was among those singled out for their involvement in buying votes for Purcell. Given the political practices of the time and the values that defended them, it is unlikely that Peter Kennedy’s friends and neighbours thought any the less of him because he helped his party in an election. At the trial, Kennedy was asked, “Have you taken a prominent part in the elections in the county of Glengarry for a long time?” and Kennedy answered, “I have for the last thirty or thirty-two years.” (trial transcript 93-94) He was presumably the Peter Kennedy who, with “other leading Liberals of Glengarry,” visited Alexandria one day in Aug. 1901 with what was thought to be the intention of replacing David M. (Cheese King) Macpherson with “a stronger man” as their party’s candidate for the next Ontario election. (Cornwall Standard 23 Aug. 1901) Called “one of the first citizens of the Township of Kenyon,” Peter Kennedy died after some years of major ill health. Burial was in Maxville cemetery. Presbyterian. He was married to his first cousin, Isabella Kennedy. (nine children) He was the brother of Alexander (Sandy) Kennedy of Apple Hill.

Glengarry News 8 June 1906 (QF) * Campbell (1986), 41, 44, 76-83 (portrait) * Harkness 237-240 (portrait) * historical note on Peter Kennedy, Winter GN 3 April 1996 * elected warden on 24 Jan., Witness 25 Jan. 1871 * visits Montreal in deputation relating to railway, Witness 6 March 1871 * transcript of election trial, as per notes to Purcell; this transcript has many refs. to Kennedy; see esp. Kennedy’s testimony under examination, and the judge’s decision * MacGillivray & Ross 186-187