George W. Kendall Chapter
Boerne, Kendall County, Texas

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Born: August 22, 1809 in Mount Vernon, New Hampshire.
Son of: Thaddeus and Abigail Wilkins, both of early English pioneer families.
Married: 1849 to Adeline Suzanne de Valcourt (1830-1924).
Children: Georgina de Valcourt (1850-1947), George William (1852-1876), Louisa Caroline (1853 – 1899), and Henry Fletcher (1855 – 1913)
Died: October 21, 1867 at his Post Oak Ranch, in the county that honored him as its namesake, Kendall County, Texas.
Buried: The cemetery in the county seat, Boerne, Texas.

George Wilkins Kendall (as he always signed his name) grew up with his parents until he was seven, at which time, he went to live with his Wilkins grandparents in Amherst, New Hampshire. At age seventeen, he set out to pursue his ambition to be a printer and writer. In 1837 he and a partner ran the first issue of “The Picayune of New Orleans”. It was described as a “saucy little sheet which sold for its namesake, a picayune, a Spanish coin worth 6 ¼ cents. The paper was noted for its witty, cheerful tone, its political independence, spirit of good will, and emphasis on local news.”

Work in the New Orleans office kept George Kendall busy until 1841, when he served as an observer and reporter on the Texas Santa Fe Expedition into New Mexico. As they approached Santa Fe, they were captured by Mexican authorities and were forced to march on foot to Mexico City, where they were imprisoned. The release of George Kendall came about a year later. His reports, written from memory, were published by The Picayune in a series, and later in a two-volume book set, which sold 40,000 copies.

Kendall earned his renown as “the first modern war correspondent” during the Mexican-American War. In 1846 – 1847 he covered the battles in Monterrey and Saltillo, then Vera Cruz through to the victory in Mexico City. His reports reached The Picayune much faster that military dispatches reached headquarters, because of his own courier system of horsemen, ships and telegraphs. After the war, he and a French artist, Carl Nebel, jointly produced the outstanding book The War between the United States and Mexico, Illustrated. The manuscript for his full account of the war was never quite finished.

Following the Mexican War, Kendall traveled to Europe with the idea to recuperate, see the world, and acquaint himself with the sheep industry. While in Paris, he met Adeline de Valcourt, a beautiful nineteen year old. They were married in France in 1849, where they made their home and had four children. In 1855, he brought his family to Texas and his ranch near New Braunfels. In 1861, they moved to Post Oak Ranch just outside of Boerne, Texas.

The greatest innovation Kendall gave the sheep industry was crossbreeding the Mexican Churro ewes with the fine fleeced Merino rams, producing a new strain with the stamina needed for the Texas Hill Country and with the fine wool of the Merinos. The new strain of sheep was not only prolific in breeding, but their wool production was dramatically increased. He found the local Germans made excellent shepherds. He paid the men with sheep and taught them the skills of sheep ranching. Thus, they built the sheep industry to its present day huge proportions in the area.

Geo. Wilkins Kendall died of pneumonia in 1867. His dear friend and associate in the sheep industry, Henry S. Randall, said in his obituary, “He loved Texas with an absolute devotion. He never was tired of writing or speaking in its praise. He loved its vast expanses of solitude, its majestic plains, its noble rivers, the green hills of the country named after him, and its masculine energetic population. George Wilkins Kendall earned his place as the ‘father of the Texas sheep industry’ through hard work and energetic promotion of that industry. He did Texas and the sheep industry a great service. He fully deserves the tribute cut into his tombstone: ‘Printer, Journalist, Author, Farmer, Eminent in All.’ Texas will deeply miss and mourn him. Perhaps she has no citizen which she could so ill afford to spare. She certainly has none who can entirely fill his place.”

Bibliography:
Brown, Henry James, “Letters from a Texas Sheep Ranch”
Copeland, Fayette, “Kendall of the Picayune”
Contents of the Vertical File on Geo. W. Kendall at the Boerne Public Library
1942 Letter from Georgina Kendall Fellows published by the Boerne Star, May 5, 1949
The Times-Picayune Internet page of History and Trivia, dated 6/6/2000
Reminiscences and documents from Marilyn Vogt, descendant of Adolph Ammann Photographs of George W. Kendall as a young man and as a mature man are from the Special Collection Division, University of Texas at Arlington Libraries.