My Genealogy Hound

Prof. Michael Shelby Kennard is principal of the Collegiate Institute at La Crosse, Ark., an institution established by him in 1808, which has become noted as an excellent business training school, and is largely patronized by the best youth of which the State of Arkansas can boast. Prof. Kennard was born in Sumter County, Ala., in 1833, and is the son of George W. Kennard, who was born in Williamson County, Term., in 1801, which State he made his home until 1821, at which time he emigrated to Alabama. Up to this date, owing to his services being required on his father’s farm, he had received a limited education, but in 1843 he began studying for the Baptist ministry in his adopted State, was ordained in 1847, and in 1852 emigrated to Arkansas, and located in Batesville, where he continued to reside until his death, which occurred in May, 1864. He was an earnest and faithful minister of the Gospel, and his influence in the Baptist denomination was widely felt. He was a member of the Masonic order for some thirty-five years. He was married in Perry County, Ala., in 1828, to Eliza Hopson, a daughter of Bluford and Nancy Hopson, whose death occurred in Batesville, Ark., in 1860. They had two children: Octavia C. and Michael S. The latter, the subject of this sketch, had the best advantages in obtaining an education that his native State afforded. He graduated with honor at the University of Alabama, in 1852, at the age of nineteen, and some years after received from that institution the degree of A. M. In September, 1852, he was married, in Sumner County, Tenn., to Mary E. Saunders, daughter of Joseph P. and Ellen D. Saunders, of that county. In 1852-53 he was engaged in teaching in Louisiana and Mississippi, part of the time as private tutor in the family of Gen. Minor, of Natchez, Miss. In 1854 he removed from Mississippi to Arkansas and settled at Batesville, where he spent two years in teaching, in the meantime pursuing the study of law. He was admitted to the bar in 1856, but soon abandoned the law to engage in the newspaper business. From 1857 to 1861 he was the editor and proprietor of the Independent Balance, a newspaper published at Batesville. When the war broke out he joined Sweet’s Cavalry regiment, and served as adjutant, with the rank of major, and participated in many skirmishes, until January, 1863, when he was severely wounded in the head by a fragment of a shell, at the battle of Arkansas Post, and was made a prisoner of war. At the close of the war he determined to devote the remainder of his life to teaching, and engaged in the work of that profession again, at Batesville, but in 1868 he moved to La Crosse, where, as stated above, he established the Collegiate Institute. He has been principal of the same since that time, with the exception of five years, spent in Bradley County, Ark. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, in which order he has advanced to the Council, and has filled the offices of Worshipful Master and High Priest of the Royal Arch Chapter. In earlier days he was a follower of the Whig party, but since the disruption of that party has been a stanch Democrat. His children are as follows: Mary E., wife of T. B. Childress, of La Crosse, Ark.; George S., who was first married to Miss Maud Cunningham, a daughter of Hon. J. F. Cunningham, but after her death, in 1884, he married Miss Annie Collins, of Van Buren, Ark.; he is a graduate of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, at Louisville, Ky., and is now pastor of the Baptist Church at Bentonville; John F., who married Miss Mary Watkins, a daughter of Dr. O. T. Watkins, is engaged in the mercantile business at Fort Smith, Ark.; Ralph E., who married Miss Henry Lee Powell, a daughter of Judge R. H. Powell, of the Fourteenth judicial district, is a druggist at LaCrosse; Joseph A. married Miss Carrie W. Hunt, a daughter of Dr. O. T. Hunt, of La Crosse, and Edward L., Ruth and Robert S. are still unmarried.