Dr. Samuel Kennedy and Sarah Ruston

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Husband Dr. Samuel Kennedy ¹

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           Born: Abt 1730
     Christened: 
           Died: 17 Jun 1778 1
         Buried: 

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         Father: David Kennedy (      -      ) 1
         Mother: 

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       Marriage: 

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Wife Sarah Ruston ¹

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           Born: 
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         Father: Job Ruston (      -1785) 2 3 4
         Mother: Mary Ruston (Abt 1718-1757) 2

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Children

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1 M Dr. Thomas Ruston Kennedy ^{5 6}

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           Born: 1763 - Chester Co, PA 5
     Christened: 
           Died: 24 Mar 1813 - Meadville, Crawford Co, PA 5 7
         Buried: 

         Spouse: Jane Judith Ellicott (1778-1845) 8

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2 M John Kennedy ⁵

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3 F Mary Kennedy ⁵

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         Spouse: [Unk] Kinnard (      -      ) 5

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4 F Sarah Kennedy ⁵

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         Spouse: [Unk] Robinson (      -      ) 5

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General Notes: Husband - Dr. Samuel Kennedy

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In the possession of a competence, he was patriotic from conviction, and was among the first to proffer services in the cause of liberty. Six months prior to the Declaration of Independence he addressed the Continental Congress as follows:
"To the Honourable the Continental Congress.
"The Petition of Samuel Kennedy most respectfully showeth: That your petitioner has been in the practice of physic and surgery upwards of twenty years with reputation, and would cheerfully serve his Country in the most acceptable manner his capacity and ability will admit of. Therefore prays that your Honors would be pleased to appoint him Surgeon to one of the Battallions now about to be raised.
"SAML. KENNEDY.
"PHILADA, Jan. 3, 1776."
On Jan. 19, 1776, in Committee of Safety, George Clymer, President, it was "Resolved, That Doctor Samuel Kennedy be appointed Surgeon to the Fourth Battalion Pennsylvania Troops in the service of the United Colonies." In May, 1777, he was appointed "Senior Surgeon in the Military Hospitals." In November, 1777, he was appointed "Senior Surgeon and Physician in the General Hospital of the Middle Department." These commissions were later in possession of his grandson, Joseph C. G. Kennedy. The general hospital, under his charge at his death, had been erected on the property of Dr. Kennedy, at the Yellow Springs, a large structure, later occupied by the State for its wards, the orphan children of soldiers of the Rebellion, as was also the old mansion. The American army was for a time quartered on the Yellow Springs property, while the British occupied his homestead farm in the Great Valley, both equally destructive. Dr. Kennedy accompanied Wayne's army to Long Island, where he was retained with the main army as senior surgeon, at Ticonderoga, and in the battles fought on the borders of Canada. Returning with the army, he was at the battle of Brandywine, the Valley Forge, the affair at Paoli, and at the battle of Germantown, and superintended the hospital at Bethlehem. For his services he neither asked nor received a dollar from the public treasury. His letters to his wife from Long Island, Ticonderoga, and other points, in possession of his grandson, bespeak the character of a Christian patriot, fond husband, and affectionate parent. Dr. John Brown Cutting, of the Revolutionary army, in a letter to John Kennedy, of Tennessee, a son of the doctor, then a lawyer of prominence, wrote of his personal knowledge of the doctor's services in the army, and in conclusion says, "I am bound conscientiously to declare that a more useful, skillful, and humane public service has seldom been executed. While in the zealous performance of his medical duties he imbibed a contagious hospital malady, which in two days carried him off, June 28, [sic, the 17th,] 1778, to the unspeakable grief of family and friends. The melancholy duty devolved upon me of committing to paper and witnessing his last will, and of closing the eyes of one of the noblest surgeons and most meritorious patriots that benefited and adorned the late Revolutionary army."
In his will Dr. Kennedy bequeathed a sum of money to be expended in building a stone wall around the graveyard of Charlestown meeting-house, where a neat monument indicates the place of his burial, with the following inscription:
"In memory of Doctor Samuel Kennedy, Physician of the General Hospital, who departed this life June 17, A.D. 1778, in the 48th year of his age.
"In him the Patriot, Scholar, Christian, Friend,
Harmonious met 'till Death his life did end:
The Church's Pupil, and the State his care,
A Physician skilful, and a Whig sincere,
Beneath this Tomb now sleeps his precious dust,
Till the last Trump reanimates the just."

1 J. Smith Futhey & Gilbert Cope, History of Chester County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA: Louis H. Everts, 1881), Pg 619.

2 J. Smith Futhey & Gilbert Cope, History of Chester County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA: Louis H. Everts, 1881), Pg 717.

3 Charles A. Hanna, Ohio Valley Genealogies (New York, 1900), Pg 36.

4 John W. Jordan, LL.D., Genealogical and Personal History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1912), Pg 325.

5 J. Smith Futhey & Gilbert Cope, History of Chester County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA: Louis H. Everts, 1881), Pg 620.

6 —, The History of Crawford County, Pennsylvania (Chicago, IL: Warner Beers & Co., 1885), Pg 303, 379, 761.

7 —, The History of Crawford County, Pennsylvania (Chicago, IL: Warner Beers & Co., 1885), Pg 379.

8 Samuel P. Bates, LL.D., Our County and Its People, A Historical and Memorial Record of Crawford County, Pennsylvania (W. A. Fergusson & Co., 1899), Pg 715.