William Kenner

William Kenner (June 4, 1774 – May 10, 1824) was an American shipping magnate, slave trader, and cotton broker in territorial Mississippi and New Orleans, Louisiana in the United States. He also owned large sugar plantations along the Mississippi River that were worked by an enslaved labor force. Kenner is remembered as an "influential spokesman for the mercantile community throughout the region."

Biography Born on June 4, 1774, in Caroline County, Virginia, William Kenner settled in the Natchez District in the 1790s. (Some sources suggest his birth year was 1776; this article sources the 1774 birth year from the Dictionary of Louisiana Biography.) The Kenner & Henderson partnership dissolved in 1811. In 1812 the first steamboat to ever arrive in New Orleans contained a consignment for Kenner. After Kenner and Henderson parted ways, Kenner started William Kenner & Co. with Richard Clague, later joined by John Oldham. One of his plantations was called Somerset. He owned sugar plantations called Oakland and Linwood. Theophilus Minor was part owner of Linwood Plantation in Ascension Parish. Kenner also owned part and then all of a riverfront plantation at Cannes Brûlées (meaning burnt cane, describing the many canebrakes in the Lower Mississippi). Oakwood in Jefferson Parish seems to have been the "home" plantation as his wife kept her flower garden there. Oakwood was also home to 63 enslaved people, eight of whom were house servants. There were 148 enslaved people attached to Linwood.

As of April 1815, William Kenner & Co. sold sugar, flour, saltpeter, gunpowder, cotton cards, cotton bagging, bale rope, sewing twine, porcelain dinnerware, weeding hoes, and "8 casks fine strained spermecita oil." At the end of year Kenner announced that the "staunch brig" Archimedes was sailing for New York and would accept passengers or freight by application to the ship's master. During the summer of 1816 he has 2500 gallons of whiskey for sale. In 1817 he posted notice in the newspaper that Ruth & Mary, and Isabella, would both be sailing soon for Philadelphia. In 1819 he was involved in an interstate slave trade between Abner Robinson of Baltimore and Joseph Erwin of Iberville Parish. In 1820, William Kenner offered for sale sugar, molasses, cheese, and "prime beef." In 1821 a newspaper ad announced "WANTED FOR CHARLESTON...vessel to carry 180 Hhds sugar," and that from Liverpool on the ship Otho had arrived 605 sacks of salt, along with another 130 tons loose salt.

Old Families of Louisiana, published in 1831, over 100 years after the fact, states, "About the year 1820 reverses came to the hitherto wealthy merchant, and his prosperity began to decline. His partner, Oldham, in whom he reposed the greatest confidence, absconded with a large part of the partnership's assets, and obligations falling due that could not be met, bankruptcy was the consequence." During this period, Kenner may have also served as cotton factor for former Mississippi Territorial governor Winthrop Sargeant. Kenner died at his Royal Street home in New Orleans on May 10, 1824. He left an estate valued at .

Clague and Oldham "apparently continued [William Kenner & Co.] in operation for several years under Clague's management."

Personal life In November 1801, he married Mary Minor, daughter of wealthy local planter Stephen Minor. Stephen Minor, sometimes called Estevan Minor in documents, had been the last Spanish governor of Natchez. Frances remarried George Currie Duncan "of Liverpool" in 1825; they lived in New Orleans, he died in 1870, and she died in 1875.

Historiography

The Special Collections department of Louisiana State University Library holds William Kenner's papers. The New Orleans city archive has a William Kenner & Co. letterbook with business correspondence from 1822 to 1823. Portraits of William Kenner and Mary Minor Kenner were donated to the city of Kenner, Louisiana by descendant Minor Kenner Jr. in 1955, on the occasion of the city centennial. The portrait of William Kenner was attributed to Gilbert Stuart; the portrait of Mary Minor Kenner was painted by Jose deSalazar. The paintings were restored and unveiled at Kenner City Hall in 1958.