Delvin man and ‘pioneer’ of the American northwest died 100 years ago

One hundred years ago last week, the Westmeath Examiner published an obituary of one of the most notable residents of the district of Walla Walla in Washington state, on the northwest coast of the United States.

In November 1921, Mr Theodore J Lukinbil, friend of the deceased and fellow ‘Walla Wallan’, 89-year-old Michael Kenny, sent a letter complete with copies of informative articles to John P Hayden, editor and proprietor of the Westmeath Examiner.

Mr Lukinbil wrote: “Please accept for publication news of the death of old Mike Kenny, one of our best respectable men, and a native of Old Erin. If I remember rightly it was in Delvin he first saw daylight.

“In his younger days there was not one man in this State could box or wrestle with him. He was the most thought of man in our town.

“It is hard to bleed Ireland of such a good type of citizen, but if you have any more we are always in the market. May God rest his soul, and give peace and prosperity to Ireland.” Michael ‘Mike’ Kenny, according to Lukinbil’s account, was born in Ireland in 1832 and emigrated to the United States after the Famine, arriving at Ellis Island in New York shortly before his 21st birthday. A 1918 book by William Dennison Lyman entitled Lyman’s History of old Walla Walla County, which includes a feature on Kenny, describes him as one of seven children, and “the only survivor” of a family headed by Patrick and Sophia (née Cody) Kenny – “also natives of the Emerald Isle, where they spent their entire lives, having long since passed away”.

Lyman identifies Kenny as one of the “pioneers of the northwest” and puts his date of birth at September 21, 1832.

He continues: “[Kenny] was reared and educated in Ireland and was less than twenty-one years of age when he bade adieu to friends and native land and sailed for the United States. He landed in New York, where he remained for about a year, and in 1854 he joined the regular army at Governor’s Island for five years’ service. He was then sent to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, where he was stationed for a short time, after which he was transferred to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, remaining there for two months.”

In June 1854, Kenny joined the First Dragoon Cavalry under Brevet Lt Col Edward Jenner Steptoe, a veteran of the Mexican-American War who had been sent west by the United States War Department to investigate the massacre of an expedition team led by Captain John W Gunnison, who had been exploring lands to the west as part of a survey for a Pacific railroad route. Near Sevier Lake in Utah, Gunnison and his men were ambushed by a band of Ute tribesmen and subjected to horrific deaths.

When Steptoe, Kenny and their 100-strong US Army company arrived in Utah, there was a suspicion that the Mormon community had colluded with the Ute to kill Gunnison and his men.

In a 1907 edition of the Washington-based journal Up-To-The-Times, Michael Kenny gave his memories of spending Christmas Day in Salt Lake City, Utah, a “beautiful and imposing city” where “Mormonism had absolute control of the city and its chief apostle, Brigham Young, who I saw not infrequently on the streets, was the big mogul who ruled its affairs with an iron hand”.

“I was not in Salt Lake City very long before I found out that its affairs were conducted in such a way that the few gentiles [i.e., non-Mormons] who resided in the city generally slept with one eye open for reasons best known to themselves,” Kenny continued.

“In our company, all told, there were about 100 men, only half of whom had mounts. Those of us who had mounts took occasional rides together about the city; the others did not wander far away from their quarters. For some reason or other Uncle Sam’s fighting men were none too popular in the Mormon city and on Christmas Day an ugly time was narrowly averted.”

The Gunnison enquiry produced no proof of Mormon-Ute collusion, and Steptoe and his men, Kenny included, headed to Oregon and were later posted to Fort Walla Walla in Washington. There, Kenny settled down and spent the rest of his days, but not without experiencing his fair share of trouble first.

In May 1858, Lt Col Steptoe and his men became involved an engagement with members of the Coeur d’Alene, Spokane and Palouse tribes at a place called Pine Creek, near Rosalia, Washington. He angered the Coeur d’Alene tribe by crossing into their territory on May 15, and explained that his business was to mediate in a dispute between miners and the tribes. Steptoe sought the tribe’s assistance to cross the Spokane River; he was refused.

On May 17, warriors from the three tribes attacked Steptoe’s unit as he attempted to withdraw from the area. Some 164 US soldiers were outnumbered by nearly a thousand Native Americans and forced into a chaotic retreat.

Kenny’s recollections of the battle were reproduced in his Westmeath Examiner obituary in 1921. On the eve of the engagement, he recalled a Captain Taylor, one of the US soldiers who died on May 17, being spat at in the face by one of hundreds of “[n]aked Indians in war paint, on horses having a coat of paint... giving the war whoop”.

Kenny, who held the rank of sergeant at the time of the battle, said that members of the Nez Perce tribe performed an act of kindness for Steptoe’s men as they retreated.

“At a camp on Alpowa Creek... we had our first meal,” he recalled. “Each of us was given a quart of flour. On pieces of canvas and flat stones we mixed some water with this and baked it on stones around the camp fire; some twisted the dough around dry twigs and cooked it before the fire.

“It had no salt or baking powder, but it tasted as good to me as any meal I ever ate,” added Kenny, stating that without the support of the Nez Perce, Steptoe’s survivors would never have reached safety.

After spending five years taking part in quelling Native American opposition to US westward expansion, Kenny was honourably discharged from the army in 1859 and appears to have taken no part in the American Civil War between 1861 and 1865.

He became involved in agriculture, and ran a pack train between his home at Walla Walla and Orofino, Idaho. In 1865, Kenny’s past rough dealings with Native Americans came back to haunt him when members of a tribe near Boise, Idaho hijacked his train and took all animals on board.

Although temporarily ruined, Kenny was resilient and returned to Walla Walla to become involved in the saloon business for a seven-year period. He sold this interest on and briefly packed for the US government before joining the police force in Walla Walla at the age of 46, in 1878. He spent 10 years in that line of work.

Michael Kenny married Jennie Johnston, a native of Glasgow, Scotland in 1875. Johnston’s parents brought her to America when she was a baby, and settled in Connecticut, and eventually moved to Walla Walla via Illinois. The Kennys lived at 7 North Sixth Street, building a home on a site which, according to his Examiner obituary, he acquired by trading in his rifle. Devout Catholics, the Kennys were heavily involved in religious and business life in Walla Walla.

By 1914, as the world descended into war, Kenny was one of only two or three veterans of the 1858 battle at Pine Creek, and his memories were frequently tapped by newspapers and for commemorative events.

Lyman stated that Kenny was a follower of the US Democratic Party, espousing the sort of ‘northern Democrat’ politics characterised by two-term US president Grover Cleveland. He had voted for the party ever since becoming a naturalised American citizen.

“He can remember the time,” Lyman continued, “when the Indians were more numerous than the white settlers, when the great forests stood in their primeval strength, for the work of cutting the timber had not then been begun.

“Streams were unbridged and on the sites of many of the most prosperous and progressive cities of the northwest there were found few if any buildings.

“Mr. Kenny has lived to see remarkable changes, has borne his part in the work of development and his memory forms a connecting link between the primitive past and the progressive present.”

Michael ‘Mike’ Kenny died on Friday October 28, 1921, and his native Westmeath heard of his passing in the November 26, 1921 edition of the Examiner. By the time of his death, he was the last surviving member of the Steptoe expedition; another veteran, Thomas Beall, died a week before him.

Today, Walla Walla is a small but bustling city with a thriving wine industry. Its natives include the late Adam West, who was best known for playing Batman in the 1960s television series.