The Secretive Life of a Wealthy Pioneer

J. Gardner Kenyon, an old Coast pioneer and one of Seattle’s wealthy men, died at 7 o’clock last evening at the Rochester house, on Pike street, aged 55 years. Death resulted from diabetes. Mr. Kenyon came to the Coast sometime between 1850 and 1876, and worked among the mines in California. He learned ventriloquism, and for about ten years traveled through the country districts of California giving exhibitions in country school houses. He accumulated some money, and finally settled in Humboldt county, taking up timber land. Shortly afterward he made a trip to Seattle and invested in some property here, buying it very cheaply. The property at the corner of Front and Madison streets, on which he recently erected a brick building, he purchased for $125. He was never married and his ambition seemed to be to amass wealth. He was industrious and economical, though not stingy. He was a man of great secretiveness, and but very few in this city knew much about his affairs. The old man possessed an inventive turn of mind and secured a patent on what he called an independent-wheel wagon, from which he expected to reap a fortune. The body was taken to Bonney Stewart’s undertaking rooms, and will be buried under the auspices of the lodge of Knights Templar.