KEN'DALL, AMOS (1789-1869 ). An Ameri can politician, born at Dunstable, Alass. Ile was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1811, taught school and studied law at Groton, Alass.; re moved to Washington. D. C., in 1814, and thence went. to Kentucky, where he became a tutor in the family of Henry Clay. In October of that year he was admitted to the Kentucky bar, and in the following year he beeame editor of a at Georgetown, Ky. In September, 1816, he be came editor of the Frankfort Argus, which was later one of the principal Jackson organs in the State. He was one of ,Jackson's chief advisers, and when the latter became President. in 1329 he took Kendall with him to Washing ton, appointing him Fourth Auditor of the Treas ury. At Washington Kendall came to occupy a unique position. The foremost figure in Jack son's famous 'Kitchen Cabinet' (q.v.), "he proved more and more." says W. G. Sumner. in his Life of -Jackson. "the masterful spirit of the Administration." .Jackson made him Postmas
ter-General in 1835. and be continued in that office (luring a greater part of Van Buren's term, administering the office with skill and integTity, and introducing many improvements in the ser vice, of which the money-order system was the most important. After his retirement from of fice, he edited newspapers for several years. and in 1845 became interested with Samuel Ir. B. Morse in the development of telegraph patents, a connection which continued until ISGO and made Kendall's fortune. Toward the end of his life he gave freely to various educational and charitable institutions, founding the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, and violently opposed secession. supporting Lincoln throughout the war, although still calling himself a 'Jack sonian Democrat.' He published a Life of Jack son (1843), and his Autobiography was pub lished after ris death (1S72).