Stephen B. Kendall

Quick Facts

Significance:

Boston Vigilance Committee member

Place of Birth:

Athol, Massachusetts

Date of Birth:

September 13, 1807

Place of Death:

Chattanooga, Tennessee

Date of Death:

April 24, 1865

Place of Burial:

Stow, Massachusetts

Cemetery Name:

Lower Village Cemetery

Born in Athol, Massachusetts, on September 13, 1807, Stephen Batchelor Kendall found employment in Boston as a stage agent for local railroads such as the Fitchburg Express. In 1850, he opened and operated a boarding house called the Suffolk House.¹

While in Boston, Kendall participated in the local anti-slavery movement. He attended New England Anti-Slavery Conventions and donated to the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. In addition, according to the membership roster in Austin Bearse’s Reminiscences of the Fugitive Slave Law Days in Boston, Stephen B. Kendall participated as a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee.²

Bostonians founded this iteration of the Vigilance Committee in 1850 in response to the passage of the new Fugitive Slave Law, which empowered enslavers and their agents to capture and return freedom seekers to bondage with the full backing of the federal government. The Vigilance Committee provided funds, shelter, transportation, medical attention, and other assistance to freedom seekers escaping enslavement on the Underground Railroad. While Kendall served as a member, his direct contributions to the Committee remain unknown.

Kendall died on April 25, 1865, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, at 58 years old. His remains are interred in the Lower Village Cemetery in Stow, Massachusetts.³

If you are a researcher or descendent of Stephen B. Kendall or can provide any further details of a different Stephen B. Kendall who participated in the Vigilance Committee, please e-mail us.

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Footnotes

1. Kendall's location on the map is located at 10 Morton Place, the former location of the Suffolk House boarding house that he ran. No location is given for him on the Vigilance Committee broadside. “Stephen Batchelor Kendall,” Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 201, https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2495/records/71263474?tid=26571948&pid=402208130117&ssrc=pt; “Stephen B. Kendall,” Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 201, https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2469/records/458571632.; Boston Evening Transcript, May 10, 1850, 3; The Recorder, June 25, 1839, 3; Boston Evening Transcript, November 9, 1854, 4.
2. Liberator, June 8, 1838, 2; Liberator, June 13, 1851, 3; Liberator, October 25, 1839, 3.
3. Boston Evening Transcript, May 16, 1865, 3; “Stephen Batchelor Kendall,” Find A Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/143024989/stephen-b.-kendall; Irma A. Rich, Kendall Genealogy, (Boston: C. E. Goodspeed & Co., 1920), 33, https://dn790004.ca.archive.org/0/items/kendallgenealogy00rich/kendallgenealogy00rich.pdf.