Notes:

Note:
Dumfries "was the administrative seat of three of the old counties of southwestern Scotland, and the most important center of that entire region. It was very strongly, indeed almost exclusively, Presbyterian-Protestant. In the wake of the religious wars of the earlier part of the seventeenth century, this was a factor of great importance.

The town seems to have included no aristocratic or patrician families in the accepted European usage of those terms. Dominant in the town council of the early eighteenth century were the merchants, the local clergy, and the remaining members of the old medieval handicraft guilds. The leading officials were the burgess (the mayor), the "bailie" (or bailiff, who served as town executive and chief of police), and the magistrates of the local court, who presumably had primarily a juridical function. The burgesses, appointed by the Town Council, served for a term of only one year.

Our patriarchal James Kennan was plainly a prominent man about town. He served at one time or another both as burgess and as bailie. In the later years of his life he represented the town, and indeed the entire region, as commissioner to the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh. But beyond that, I know nothing of his person. He was referred to, in a history of Dumfries written in 1746, as "an old Cromwellian," which presumably meant that he had, in the confused religious wars of then recent memory, fought alongside the Cromwellian forces. But if he did, it is reasonable to suspect that it was for restricted and specifically Scottish goals rather than for those of the English Cromwell that he fought.

The "lawful son and heir" of James Kennan was one John of that name. He was born, we must assume, somewhere around 1670. He, too, seems to have had a prominent place in the Dumfries community, occupying at some point the position of bailie. And he seems to have had a number of sons, the first of whom, another James, dutifully named after his grandfather, was born in 1693, the remaining births stringing along until 1709. Is it permissible to suspect that this second James was the father of a third one who, born somewhere around the years 1715-1720, emigrated to New England and became the first of the American Kennans?"

Family/Spouse: Unknown. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Birth:
The "lawful son and heir" of James Kennan was one John of that name. He was born, we must assume, somewhere around 1670. He, too, seems to have had a prominent place in the Dumfries community, occupying at some point the position of bailie. And he seems to have had a number of sons, the first of whom, another James, dutifully named after his grandfather, was born in 1693, the remaining births stringing along until 1709. Is it permissible to suspect that this second James was the father of a third one who, born somewhere around the years 1715-1720, emigrated to New England and became the first of the American Kennans?"

Family/Spouse: Unknown. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Unknown. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Immigratn: Abt 1743
• Residence: 3 Sep 1767, Paxton, Worcester, MA
• Note: Abt 1771, Charlemont, Franklin, MA

Notes:

Immigratn:
"James MacKennan appears to have been the American ancestor of the Northern branch of the Kennan family. Little is known of him, except that he married at Rutland, Mass., May 25, 1744, Margaret Smith, of the town of Holden. The Kennans were all of Scotch descent, and were Protestants, and some of them, or perhaps most of them, were driven out of Scotland with thousands of others by religious persecution, and fled into the North of Ireland where many Scotch refugees located, mostly in the province of Ulster. This class of Scotch emigrants filled up that province after it had been emptied of its half barbarous native inhabitants. They there founded Londonderry, which soon became famous as the home of Scotch Presbyterians. A century later more than three thousand of the decendants of those refugees emigrated to America. The first boat landed at Boston on the 4th of August, 1718. Many of them located in Worcester County.."

Residence:
The town of Paxton was set off from Rutland on this date.

Note:
The James Kennon family moved to Charlemont, MA where they owned a farm of 51 acres, the southern border being formed by the Deerfield River.

James married Margaret SMITH on 31 May 1744 in Holden, Worcester, MA. Margaret (daughter of James SMITH and Margaret UNKNOWN) was born about 1717 in SCOTLAND. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]