Editing Talk:Obediah Kendall

From Louis A. Surette's  1859 Bylaws of Corinthian Lodge
1849—July 8. Bro. Obediah Kendall, initiate of
1819, died in Concord, aged 67.
Bro. Kendall was born in "Westmoreland, N. H., in
1782. He was for many years successfully engaged in the
great mail-coach line of stages between Boston, Burlington
and Montreal. From 1808 to 1814, the business of this
line was immense. During the war of 1812 he was in-
trusted with large sums in specie, which were transmitted
from Montreal to Boston to purchase cotton and provisions,
and afterwards it went back to buy government bills at 20
HISTORY OF CORINTHIAN LODGE. 169
per cent, discount. He accompanied the specie well armed,
and in all his engagements his conduct was governed by
discretion and integrity.
At the close of the war he had acquired a large property
(at least fifty thousand dollars) from his staging business
;
but success in New England in any pursuit is sure to raise
competition. So it was in the business in which his whole
property was invested. New companies were formed, who
had the audacity to run their coaches on a road which our
Bro. considered his own by right of possession. And now
a struggle commenced, thefares were reduced, .while the
expenses increased. The result was that the new pro-
prietors were driven from the line and ruined, while the
old proprietors came out of the contest victorious but much
disabled.
Bro. Kendall witnessed the rise of the stage coach busi-
ness from small beginnings to its full strength in 1834,
when many millions were invested in it. From that time
another opposition, more potent than opposition stages,
began to show itself, against which stage proprietors strug-
gled in vain. Railroads were built and old ways of trans-
portation were done away with. (A heavy loaded team or
stage coach on the line so long occupied by Bro. Kendall,
would now make people stare.) He viewed this great
change with sorrow. He seemed to look on the stage in-
terest as the great interest of the nation, without which the
government must fall. But he lived to see his favorite
occupation blotted out, and another tremendous rival usurp
its business and power, and yet the government stands, to
the great disappointment of all honest and patriotic stage
proprietors.
After the Fitehburg Railroad reached Concord,—June
17, 1844,—he was employed running a stage coach from
15
170 HISTORY OF CORINTHIAN LODGE.
the station to the village, but he evidently viewed this as a
descent from his former position.