The Clendenning family came to America from Ireland around 1800. After some time in Washington County, Pennsylvania, and Jefferson County, Ohio, they settled in Harrison County, Ohio, in 1844. James Clendenning, born in 1834, married Arminda Holliday around 1859. Arminda Holliday was the daughter of Robert and Elizabeth White Holliday; their daughter Anne married David Winder in 1846. Arminda and James Clendenning were the parents of six children: Charles, John, Thomas, William Frederick, Herbert, and Fanny. James Clendenning and his brother John (1839-1919) were engaged in a mercantile business in Freeport, Ohio, from 1863 until 1869, when John retired because of ill health. James died soon after, in 1871. Charles Hill Clendenning, born in 1860 to Arminda and James Clendenning, attended public schools in Harrison County and graduated from Mount Union College at Alliance, Ohio. He first married Josephine Worbs; Robert, Marie, and Sara Clendenning were born of this union. In 1905 he married Delia Leonard, mother of Thomas, Elizabeth, Eleanor, and Catherine Clendenning. An employee of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, Charles Clendenning lived first in Wheeling, West Virginia, then in Huntington, West Virginia, where he died in 1937. Robert J. Clendenning, grandson of Arminda and James Clendenning and son of Charles and Josephine Clendenning, was born in Dennison, Ohio, in 1892. He joined the American Edpeditionary Forces in France in 1918 and was honorably discharged after an assignment in Occupied Germany.
From the description of The Clendenning Family Papers, 1850-1946. (Marshall University). WorldCat record id: 731025734
