In August 1897, Silas Kennedy established a congregation of the Christian Church at a community in the Chickasaw Nation known today as Davis in Murray County, Oklahoma. He served as one of the congregation's first elders and beginning in 1898, led the church to start construction of its first meeting house.[1] Kennedy took an active role in the civic life of early Davis. Beginning in 1900, when the growing town had ten doctors and three dentists, he served on the local Board of Health.[2]
Davis became home to the Kennedy family. Silas died there, at age 69, in the spring of 1918. He was still serving as minister and his funeral was held at the church he had established over twenty years before. His wife, Charlcy Dockary Kennedy survived until 1933. One of their three sons, Luke M. Kennedy, became a dentist and had practices in Davis and, later, Elk City, Oklahoma, where he died in 1943.[3] No fewer than eleven members of the extended family lie buried in a plot at the Greenhill Cemetery in Davis.
Notes
[1] Theresa Gabel, ed., Davis, Oklahoma (Davis, OK: Arbuckle Historical Society, 1981), 168. See also D. C. Gideon, Indian Territory (New York: Lewis Publishing Company, 1901), 197, which indicates the existence of a Christian Church at Davis around the turn of the century.
[2] Ibid., 192; R. W. Chadwick and Sharon Chadwick, “Davis,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=DA015.
[3] "Gone to His Reward. Rev. S. E. Kennedy," Davis News, April 25, 1918; "Mrs. S. E. Kennedy Buried Here Monday," Davis News, January 26, 1933; "Dr. L. M. Kennedy Buried Here Tuesday," Davis News, January 21, 1943.
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