26 Rhodora [FEBRUARY 
one son, the subject of this memoir, and four daughters. In 1843, 
Donald bought a small farm in Roxbury and established himself in 
the comfortable house on Warren Street which remained the family 
homestead until his death. The fields and pastures adjoining this 
farm have long ago been cut up into building lots which are now well 
covered with houses and stores, and it is difficult to realize that less 
than fifty years ago this was open country. 
The son, George G. Kennedy, attended the Roxbury Latin School 
then under the able direction of Augustus H. Buck. In 1860 he en- 
tered Harvard College, graduated in 1864 with the degree of A. B. 
and in 1867, having completed the courses of the Harvard Medical 
School, he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine. 
After practising his profession for only a short time, he retired and 
found ample occupation in managing his father's business and in the 
care and administration of a growing estate. He was now able also 
to devote a large part of his time to those scientific and literary pur- 
suits which had taken.a strong hold on his nature while he was yet a 
student at Harvard. While there he attended the courses in botany 
given by Dr. Asa Gray and the enthusiasm for nature, and particu- 
larly for plant life, which was Dr. Kennedy's ruling passion, was 
undoubtedly developed and nurtured by the inspiration of sitting in 
the classes of this gifted man. The earliest specimen in Dr. Kennedy's 
herbarium which he started while yet at college, is dated 1862. His 
herbarium remained during his life the object of his constant solicitude 
and attention. On January 21, 1864, Dr. Asa Gray writes to Charles 
Wright then in Cuba, “ By the steamer of Saturday, which takes this, 
a good young fellow, Mr. Kennedy, a member of our Senior class, 
goes to Cuba to look after business of his father, and, when he can, to 
botanize, only four or five weeks. "That is, in vacation. He is very 
fond of botany, and. bids fair to be a botanist some day, if he does not 
take to money making instead." ! Young Kennedy made money 
but he, nevertheless, became a botanist. ` 
On February 28, 1865, Dr. Kennedy was married by the Rev. 
James Reed, pastor of the Bowdoin Street Church in Boston, to Har- 
riet White Harris, daughter of Benjamin Clark Harris and Harriet 
(White) Harris. Their children were Edith Golding, Donald, who 
died in infancy, Harris, Sinclair and Mildred. 
Mrs. Kennedy was a very remarkable woman. She combined in 
1 Letters of Asa Gray, edited by Jane Loring Gray. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1893, Vol. 2, 
page 517. 
