Edward G. Kennedy, born December 17, 1844, in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, was a distinguished citizen of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, serving as the U.S. Marshal for the district. A Civil War veteran, Kennedy enlisted in the Union Army in 1862, participating in significant battles, including Antietam, and served until the war’s end in 1865. After the war, he worked in Pittsburgh before moving to Dakota Territory in 1889, where he engaged in the cattle and grain business. Appointed U.S. Marshal by President McKinley in 1897, Kennedy was reappointed by President Roosevelt in 1902, serving with distinction. He married Mary B. Brundage in 1891, with whom he had two children. Mary passed away in 1900.
Edward G. Kennedy is a representative and highly esteemed citizen of Sioux Falls and is incumbent of the responsible office of United States marshal for the district of South Dakota, in which capacity he has rendered most able service. His is the distinction of being a veteran of the great war of the Rebellion, in which he made an honorable record as a loyal and valiant son of the republic, while in the “piping times of peace” he has shown the same integrity of purpose and devotion to the right as he manifested when following the stars and stripes on the sanguinary battlefields of the south.
Mr. Kennedy is a native of the Keystone state of the Union, having been born in Hollidaysburg, Blair County, Pennsylvania, on the 17th of December, 1844, a son of Samuel and Rebecca (Hayes) Kennedy, both of whom were born and reared in that state, where they passed their entire lives, the father having been a school teacher by vocation during the major portion of his active career. He passed to his reward in 1884 and his cherished and devoted wife was summoned into eternal rest in 1898. They became the parents of five children, of whom three are living at the present time. Both were members of the Presbyterian church, and in politics Samuel Kennedy was a supporter of the principles of the Republican party from the time of its organization until his death.
The subject of this review secured his early education in the common schools of the various localities in Pennsylvania in which his parents resided during his youthful days, and he supplemented this discipline by a course of study in Eldersridge Academy, in Indiana County, that state. After leaving school, at the age of seventeen years, he gave distinctive evidence of his intrinsic patriotism by tendering his services in defense of the Union, then in jeopardy through armed rebellion. In August 1862, he enlisted as a private in Company C, One Hundred and Thirty-ninth Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, which he continued to serve until the close of the war, receiving his honorable discharge, in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in July 1865. He was an active participant in the battle of Antietam and in all the engagements in which the First Brigade of the Second Division, Sixth Army Corps, took part, his regiment having been attached to this brigade during the greater part of its term. At the close of the war, he secured a clerical position in Pittsburgh and was thus employed in that city and Allegheny until 1889, when he determined to cast in his lot with the new territory of Dakota. He first located in Potter County, where he engaged in the cattle business, in partnership with his brother, F. H. Kennedy, later removing to Walworth County, where he continued in the same line of enterprise until 1898, when he located in Eureka, McPherson County, where he established himself in the grain and agricultural implement business, and continued operations in the line until 1902, when he closed out his interests in order to devote his undivided attention to his official duties. In 1897, President McKinley appointed Mr. Kennedy to the office of United States marshal for the district of South Dakota, and he has served in this capacity continuously since, being on the 12th day of January 1902, reappointed to the office, by President Roosevelt. He is a man of resourcefulness and mature judgment and has given a most creditable and satisfactory administration of his official duties, while he is recognized as one of the stalwart and uncompromising representatives of the Republican party in the state, having been an active worker in its cause and having been identified with the party from the time of attaining his legal majority and the concomitant right of franchise.
On the 15th of December, 1891, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Kennedy to Miss Mary B. Brundage, of Bismarck, North Dakota, and they became the parents of two children, Ruth and Donald B. Mrs. Kennedy died on the 5th of April, 1900.
Source: Robinson, Doane, History of South Dakota: together with mention of Citizens of South Dakota, [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen, 1904.