David Kendlehart

"DAVID KENDLEHART, retired merchant, Gettysburg. It is the purpose of this personal sketch to note the prominent characteristics of the individual to whom reference is made, and to hand down to posterity and to the future one who stands prominent as a citizen of Adams County and as a representative man. To describe the character of the individual whose name heads this sketch the first impress is set forth briefly in three words, to-wit: An honest man. He was born December 30, 1813, in Gettysburg, to John L. and Elizabeth (Flentgen) Kendlehart, natives of Germany, from whence come those citizens to whom the United States is as much indebted for her most industrious, substantial, wealthy and intelligent elements as to any other nationality on the globe. The father was a shoemaker by trade, and settled in Baltimore, Md., in 1804, and between 1806 and 1810 removed to Gettysburg where he spent the remainder of his days in honest toil, for the support of his six children, of whom David is the fourth. He, at the early age of twelve years, was apprenticed to the shoe-maker’s trade, and has continued the same even to the present, and in connection with this he carried on a general boot and shoe store, giving his personal attention to manufacture and sale, for a period of over forty years. He found time, however, to attend to some of the city affairs, where his work required no pay. He was president of the city council when Gen. Early, the Confederate commander, June 26, 1863, made a requisition to the borough authorities for 60 barrels of flour, 7,000 pounds of pork or bacon, 1,200 pounds of sugar, 600 pounds of coffee, 1,000 pounds of salt, 40 bushels of onions, 1,000 pairs of shoes, 500 hats, or $5,000 in money. This was the first sight of an army that had come to destroy and subdue, and no one but those who were here enjoying the fruits of their hard labors, can express the prevalent feeling when asked to surrender their own to the would-be destroyers of our Government; indeed, it must have looked like immediate suicide to refuse such a hostile, hungry army, but Mr. Kendlehart, in the absence of the burgess, responded as follows:

            Gettysburg, June 26, 1863.

Gen. Early,
   Sir:-The authorities of the borough of Gettysburg, in answer to the demand made upon the same borough and county by you, say their authority extends but to the borough; that the requisition asked for can not be given, because it is utterly impossible to comply. The quantities required are far beyond that in our possession. In compliance, however, to the demand, we will request the stores to be opened and the citizens to furnish whatever they can of such provisions, etc., as may be asked. Further we can not promise. By authority of the council of the borough of Gettysburg, I hereunto, as president of said board, attach my name.

                  D. Kendlehart.

Early in the morning of July 4, 1863, in company with George Arnold, Esq., of Gettysburg, and his two sons, he succeeded with great difficulty in getting through the Union lines, and reaching the headquarters of Gen. Meade, giving him the first information he had of the rebel retreat. Our subject has served his native city as burgess in a creditable manner. He naturally followed his father’s political proclivities, that of a Democrat, but was strongly in sympathy with the abolitionists, and was out-spoken against the cause of slavery. During the operations of the fugitive slave law, Mr. Kendlehart was in front of his residence one morning, when a man by the name of Hartman drove up, and inquired for a justice of the peace. Mr. Kendlehart directed him to the office of D. A. Buehler, and while the stranger was performing his business there, our subject learned of the colored woman who was in custody of Mr. Hartman, that she and her husband were fugitives and were being taken back to their owner; that her husband had jumped from the vehicle a short distance from Gettysburg, pursued by a constable. Mr. Kendlehart insisted on her escape during her captor’s temporary absence, which she did, and on Hartman’s return to the buggy, he was wrongly informed of the whereabouts of the poor colored woman by Mr. Kendlehart, who had wanted her to make good her escape. It was subsequently learned that she met her husband a few days later, and they finally broke their chain of slavery. In 1841, Mr. Kendlehart was married to Eliza, a daughter of James Bowen, and has a family of five children: Mary C., Sarah L., Margaretta B. (the wife of William P. McCartney); John L. (an attorney in Philadelphia), and J. William (a clerk in the Gettysburg National Bank). Mr. Kendlehart is a member of the I.O.O.F. By hard labor, strict economy and frugality he has placed himself in his declining years in affluent circumstances, thus enabling him to live a somewhat retired life. "