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This article is from the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, 6 volumes, edited by William S. Powell. Copyright ©1979-1996 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher.

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Kenan, William Rand

by Thomas S. Kenan III, 1988

4 Aug. 1845–14 Apr. 1903

House Built for William Rand Kenan, Sr. Image courtesy of New Hanover County Public Library Digital Archives.William R. Kenan. William Rand Kenan, merchant and port collector, was born in Kenansville, the son of Own Rand Kenan and Sarah Rebecca Graham Kenan. After attending Grove Academy, he entered The University of North Carolina in 1860 at age fifteen. In 1863 he withdrew from the university to enlist as a private in the Duplin Rifles of the Forty-third North Carolina Regiment, rising to the rank of captain. He subsequently moved to Wilmington and became a life insurance agent and later a wholesale merchant. Kenan was collector of the port of Wilmington under President Grover Cleveland. He served as treasurer of the Presbyterian Church and was ordained first a deacon and then a ruling elder. In February 1903 he was appointed a trustee of The University of North Carolina, two months before his death in Wilmington where he was buried in Oakdale Cemetery.

Kenan married Mary Hargrave of Chapel Hill in 1864, and they had four children: Mary Lily, Jessie Hargrave, William Rand, Jr., and Sarah Graham. A portrait of William Rand Kenan is in the possession of his daughter Sarah's nephew, James Graham Kenan of Atlanta, Ga. In his memory, his children established the Kenan Professor Trust Fund at The University of North Carolina and donated the funds for Kenan Memorial Stadium, also in Chapel Hill.

References:

Kenan family records in the author's possession.

W. R. Kenan, Jr., ed., Incidents by the Way (1946).

Alvaretta Kenan Register, ed., The Kenan Family (1967).

Additional Resources:

Kenan Family Papers, 1748-1996 (collection no. 04225). The Southern Historical Collection. Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/k/Kenan_Family.html (accessed February 14, 2013).

Finding Aid for the Russell Autograph Book, 1861 - 1863, State Archives of North Carolina: http://ead.archives.ncdcr.gov/PC_1877_Russell_Autograph_Book.html  

Image Credits:

House Built for William Rand Kenan, Sr. Image courtesy of New Hanover County Public Library Digital Archives. Available from http://cdm16072.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15169coll2/id/182/rec/2 (accessed February 15, 2013).

Clark, Walter. Histories of the several regiments and battalions from North Carolina, in the great war 1861-'65. Raleigh, E.M. Uzzell, printer. 1901. https://archive.org/details/historiesofsever03clar (accessed May 21, 2013).

Subjects: 
Biographies
Religious Leaders and Clergy
Military personnel
Philanthropy
Authors: 
Kenan, Thomas S., III
From: 
Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, University of North Carolina Press.

1 January 1988 | Kenan, Thomas S., III