Kendall, Nathan R.

Members of two Massachusetts families who married in 1857 and raised a family of four sons, first in Indiana and later in Illinois.

Born in 1827 of Stephen and Jerusha Moore Reed, Abby J. Reed taught school in New England prior to her 1857 marriage and move to La Porte, Indiana. Her husband, Nathan R. Kendall, born in 1824 to Jane and Paul R. Kendall, served as principal of academies in New England, Kentucky, and Ohio, before becoming a civil engineer in 1853. While residing in La Porte, Indiana, during the 1850's, he superintended the Cincinnati, Peru and Chicago Railway and owned a lumber mill. Kendall also acquired considerable agricultural land, including farms near Kankakee, Illinois, and Goodland, Indiana. Chronically ill with lung disease, Nathan Kendall died at age 47. Abby Kendall lived to be 85.

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