his retirement from the newspaper field, his honesty and faithfulness were publicly rewarded with several county offices of a financial character and the aldermanic chair. He died

in Chicago on February 20, 1859, and will be known in history, not for any brilliant work he did, but for being the city's first editor.

H. G. CUTLER.

THE Kennicott family was one of the notable accessions to the population of Chicago and its adjacent territory in the very early years of its history. It was notable for the reason that it brought to the country a family of eight brothers, each of whom afterwards assumed a more or less conspicuous position among the pioneers of this portion of Illinois, and several of whom became widely known in the scientific and literary world. They were all men of culture and intelligence, who had a fancy for combining agricultural and horticultural with scientific and professional pursuits, a characteristic which appears to have been handed down to the family through several generations.

Jonathan Kennicott, the father of this remarkable family of sons, was a civil engineer by profession; but for many years prior to his coming to Illinois he had devoted the major part of his time to the management of a large farm in New York State, and was always an ardent lover of agricultural pursuits.

The family is of Scotch descent, and comes of the same stock which gave to England the noted Greek scholar and author, Dr. Robert Kennicott, of London, and also Benjamin Kennicott, at one time a professor in Oxford University.

The first of the family to become identified with Chicago was Dr. William Henry Kennicott, the pioneer dentist of the city. He was born in Little Valley, Cattaraugus county, N. Y., February 16th, 1808, and received a liberal-that is to say, a thorough-academic education. Having completed his preliminary education, he studied medicine and graduated from Fairfield Medical College. He soon afterwards joined an elder brother, then located in New Orleans, and there took up and completed the study of dentistry.

About the time he found himself ready to begin the practice of the latter profession, which was more to his taste than the practice of medicine, his attention was attracted to Chicago, through an advertisement of some sort which came under his no

tice, and he embraced an early opportunity to visit the place for the purpose of learning something of its resources and prospects. The result of this visit was that he decided to locate, if not in the town of Chicago, in this part of Illinois, and he was joined not long afterwards by two of his brothers.

In 1832, his father with the remaining members of the family removed. from New York State to Illinois, coming by way of the lakes in a sailing vessel which landed them at Chicago. The elder Kennicott, who appears to have been a man of keen foresight, was strongly inclined to purchase lands adjoining the hamlet which he found here at that time, believing, as he expressed himself, that one of the great cities of the United States would grow up here. At the solicitation, however, of two of his sons who had selected a location, he moved on to a place called Me-ta-wa, half way between Chicago and Waukegan. There the family purchased a considerable body of land and established their western homestead. In 1834, Dr. Kennicott located in Chicago and established the first dental office in the town.

Within two or three years after he began the practice of his profession in Chicago, he formed the acquaintance of Miss Caroline P. Chapman, a young lady whose home was at Troy, N. Y., but who was at that time visiting her brother, a noted old-time lake captain. In 1838 they were married

and resided in Chicago until 1853, when Dr. Kennicott concluded to establish himself in a country home. He accordingly erected a handsome residence sixteen miles from the city, on the edge of one of those beautiful groves which dot the prairie here and there, and at this place he lived up to the time of his death, which occurred October 22, 1862.

While living at "The Grove," as his country home was called, he continued the practice of dentistry in Chicago, and was recognized as one of the leading members of his profession in the west.

In those days dental science had not reached the degree of perfection which it has since attained; but Dr. Kennicott possessed that kind of constructive and inventive genius which kept him in advance of the rank and file of his profession. He suggested and brought into use many improvements on the methods of practice of that day, and invented various appliances which added materially to the dentist's resources, as well as to the ability to benefit his patrons.

As a citizen, he was one of the most active of the early settlers of Chicago in the promotion of various enterprises calculated to advance the culture and intelligence of the masses in the rapidly growing western town, and to keep them as nearly as possible in line with the people of the older and more favored eastern cities. In 1839 he was interested, with others, in the organization of the

Mechanics' Institute, which, at a later date, became a chartered organization, and for twenty years or more was one of the most important educational agencies of the city. The object of the institute was to provide for regular courses of lectures on scientific and other subjects; to establish schools for the benefit of the children of mechanics, and a library for the use of its members and others who might desire to avail themselves. of its privileges.

Under the auspices of this association, which became prosperous at an early period of the city's history, industrial fairs were held at regular intervals; as was also the first general agricultural and mechanical fair ever held in the State of Illinois. A library of several thousand volumes was gathered together by the institute; and the children of many of the mechanics of the city received the major part of their education in the night schools conducted under its management. Arrangements had been made for the founding of a museum and a general extension of its usefulness, when the corporation became involved in financial difficulties during the memorable panic of 1857, and was thus prevented from becoming one of the permanent institutions of the city. For several years Dr. Kennicott was one of the principal officers of the institute, and during the whole period of its existence was one of its most active friends and supporters.

Another movement of importance in the early history of the city with which he was conspicuously identified, was that to improve its sanitary condition by means of proper sewerage and an adequate supply of pure water. In 1848, when it had been fully demonstrated that the system of supplying water then in operation was fraught with danger to the public health, in addition to being wholly unsatisfactory, an agitation of the question of building an entirely new system of water works was set on foot, which resulted in the selection of a committee of three prominent citizens of Chicago to devise a plan for securing water from the lake.

Dr. Kennicott, who had given much time and attention to the study of this matter, was appointed a member of the committee, and in connection with his two confreres, made an exhaustive report, accompanied by a diagram. showing that the pure lake water could without difficulty be supplied to all parts of the city. Although the plan proposed at that time was not adopted or the suggestions of the committee acted upon at once, they furnished the basis for the more extensive system of later years, which is just now being vastly improved.

In a political way, he was active mainly in his opposition to slavery, and any movement calculated to restrict what he looked upon as the greatest evil of the age, received his active sympathy and unqualified endorsement. When the abolitionists