“Chester’s early 19th century was booming, Along with the cotton economy came a housing boom. The Kennedy – Coleman House was a major thwart to preservation of Chester’s important old homes.”
City Directories and History: 1908 – Catherine Coleman, 1940 – Charles E. Vaughn, 1958 – Polly T. Sanders, – 1978 – Vacant
Mr. John K. Coleman of Seattle writes: “the building was erected in the year 1828 by my great grandfather, Major John Kennedy, and given to my grandmother (Mary Ann Kennedy), wife of George Coleman, an attorney, together with the rectangular lot of approximately two acres upon which still stands several oak trees that remain of a virgin forest that
once flourished there… Uncle Willie Coleman traveled in Texas and brought back some pecan nuts from that the nut, and the big pecan neut tree that stands behind the old house on Saluda street grew from one of these nuts which Aunt Katie panted. Aunt Katie, Catherine Coleman, (known in Chester as Miss Taff), was the eldest daughter of Mary Ann and George Coleman. The old house used to be completely surrounded by a white square paling fence with two boxed posts between which hung an artistic gate. The house originally had green shutters and there was a glass greenhouse beside the west wall in which Aunt Katie used to cultivate cactus, orange, guava, banana and an Opoponax, the later being a very fragrant small tree which grew in an ornamental tub.”
The house is owned to day by the grandchild of Mary Ann Coleman, Mrs. Israel Hood’s book says, “Mary Anne Coleman, her sister Margaret Woods, and their mother, Mrs. John Kennedy, were always to be found where human beings needed any sort of aid.” In Sketches and Reminiscences by Judge Hudson, we find this: “Of these (the women of Chester) I cannot speak save in terms of admiration, for their superior in all the virtues that adorn the sex, I have never know. I must be pardoned however, if I make special mention of Mrs. John Kennedy and her two daughters then married – Mrs. Margaret Woods and Mrs. Mary Coleman. They were noted for kindness to the poor and fidelity to the church.”
Old Home of Chester, SC by Mrs. John G. White
Informative links: Kennedy Family
This house was perhaps Chester’s oldest home prior to it’s being demolished.
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