Claims
To Fame
Claims
To FameChemist who participated in the discovery of calcium carbide and its use in the production of the gas, acetylene.
Industrialist who traveled worldwide building carbide plants and forming manufacturing operations.
Instrumental in the formation and/or management of major Florida developments including the Florida East Coast Railway, Hotels, Electric Companies, and Banking operations.
Philanthropist who provided major funding to the University of North Carolina and several Lockport charities and public benefit organizations.
Pioneer Scientific Farmer specializing in dairy farming and diary operation.
Financier who was President of numerous manufacturing
companies and on the board of banks and major corporations.
William R. Kenan, Jr. was born (1872) and raised in North Carolina. He attended a military school there and went on to major in chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There he participated with his chemistry professor in the discovery calcium carbide which was to lead to world wide travel participating in the set-up and operation of carbide and acetylene plants. Those travels brought him to Niagara Falls to work at what was to become the Union Carbide Corporation. While working in Niagara Falls, he chose to live in Lockport. Lockport was to remain his principal home throughout the rest of his life. He married, died (1965), and was buried here. His mansion at 433 Locust Street is now a center for Lockport arts and community life (The Kenan Center).
The view below, captured by artist Kathleen Giles for the Lockport Rotary Club 2001 calendar, shows the Kenan Home at 433 Locust Street as many of us wish to remember it. Such could have been the scene when the mansion, Mr. & Mrs. Kenan, and Lockport, were near their apex in the early 1940's.
Visit The Kenan Mansion In Lockport
The Kenan Center consists of about 25-acres with a main entry at 433 Locust Street. On the cultural and recreational complex is the Kenan Mansion which fronts on Locust. This restored 1859 Victorian mansion now mainly houses an art gallery and offices for the Kenan Center. It is usually open Sunday through Friday, 2 P.M. to 5 P.M. with admission by donation most of the time. When special events are held, there are admission fees. Little remains of the mansion furnishings or the "look" it had when Mr. Kenan had his home there since its use today is primarily for an art gallery. Nearby on the property is the Taylor Theatre, a small public performing arts center which was the former carriage house on the property. Outside and open to the public during daylight hours are the formal gardens. To the rear of the mansion is the newly constructed Kenan Arena which houses various community events. For information call (716) 433-2617.
1892-93. Participated in the discovery of Calcium Carbide and its conversion to acetylene while his chemistry professor, Dr. F. P. Venable was engaged by a Mr. Thomas L. Willson on a project to find a cheap way to make aluminum. With Dr. Venable, found a way to mix acetylene with air to produce hot flame and "remarkable" light. The two proved the formula for calcium carbide and the process for its conversion to acetylene. Gave his notebook on the discoveries to Mr. Willson, who, as is often the case in life, applied for a patent for the process in his own name and sold manufacturing rights worldwide. Willson who had set out to manufacture aluminum then became known as Thomas "Carbide" Willson. Still a student while working with Willson, the older man had taken advantage of the young chemist and his chemistry professor. That wouldn't be repeated too often in Kenan's adult life. The site of the discovery has been designated the 16th "National Historic Chemical Landmark." Little remains there today. The site, at the Spray Cotton Mills in Eden, NC is marked by a plaque on a stone wall.
1893. While still a student, accepted into the American Chemical Society. He would remain a member throughout his life. He was a Charter Member of the Western New York Section of the Society.
1894. Graduated from the University of North Carolina with a degree in Chemistry. He also had Electrical Engineering as a minor.
1895. Employed by General Electric Company in Schenectady.
1896. Came to Niagara Falls in the employ of Carbide Manufacturing Company as Chemical Superintendent to build their carbide plant and helped in start-up operations. The company evolved into Acetylene Light Heat and Power Company, ElectroGas, and finally the Union Carbide Corporation.
1896. First visit to Lockport in April when he installed an electric furnace at Cowles Aluminum Company along the 18-mile Creek in Lowertown. This is the same site where Charles Martin Hall had produced the first pure commercial aluminum (The Hall Process) in 1887.
1896. Starts world travels to build acetylene plants. First sent to Australia to build a plant, then in 1897 to Berlin, Germany.
1900. Assisted in building the Traders Paper Company in Lockport including 30-ton sulfite mill and 5-ton ground wood mill.
1900. Established his home in Lockport. First, lived in an apartment at the corner of Cottage and Genesee Streets. In 1912, Kenan purchased the estate at 422 Locust Street where he would live out his life. The mansion was extensively remodeled and additional property to the rear of the main house was later purchased to expand the estate all the way to Beattie Avenue.
1902. Established the Western Block Company at Lockport. Served as president.
1913. Assumed control of the financial empire of Henry M. Flagler (born in Western New York) upon Flager's death. Flager had married Mr. Kenan's sister, Mary Lily Kenan in 1901. Mr. Kenan, already successful on his own, became a multi-millionaire. Flagler had controlling interests in railroads (including the Florida East Coast Railroad), hotels (including The Breakers), and electric companies in Florida.
1921. Purchased 475-acre farm about 3 miles east of Lockport along Chestnut Ridge. In 1922 began development of it into one of the world's first scientific dairy farms. Randleigh Farms became a center for annual scientific farming conferences. At the front of the farm, Kenan opened "The Dairy Inn" a retail ice cream and milk operation which became a Lockport landmark producing the best ice cream (15-20% fat content) in the area. The farm was closed and sold upon Kenan's death. The prize dairy herd was relocated (as was the name Randleigh Farms) to North Carolina.
1925. Purchased land on Lake Ontario at Barker and paid for the construction of all buildings of a new YMCA summer camp for boys to be called Camp Kenan. The facility remains in operation to this day.
1925. Began the reconstruction at Palm Beach, FL of The Breakers, sparing no expense to make it into the most luxurious hotel of its time (and still one of the world's great hotels today).
1944. Awarded Honorary Doctor of Laws degree at the 50th reunion of his class at the University of North Carolina.
1947. Alice Kenan, his wife, dies in February at age 82 in the Ponce de Leon Hotel at St. Augustine, FL, one of the couple's winter homes.
During the spring and summer of 1892, while a student at the University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill, I had been working off and on, with frequent interruptions for classes and other engagements, studying the composition and properties of some aluminum carbide and some hard crystalline mass, which disintegrated and crumbled on exposure to the air and gave rise to a violent evolution of gas when brought in contact with water. This gas was inflammable, burning with a very smoky flame.
Dr. F. P. Venable, Professor in Chemistry, had obtained his matter while on a visit to the little Village of (Spray), Rockingham County, North Carolina, near the junction of the Smith and Dan Rivers, where Major J. Turner Morehead had a cotton mill and a hydroelectric plant with a surplus amount of water. Maj. Moorehead had employed T. L. Willson to experiment with an electric furnace for a cheap process of making aluminum. Mr. Willson was not making much progress and Dr. Venable was called in as a consultant.
Among other plans tried to liberate aluminum from the oxide, some more positive element like calcium was sought and, in the effort to produce calcium, lime was mixed with tar and other forms of carbon and treated in this furnace, and when cleaning out the furnace, this crystalline mass had been discarded, as there was no very evident mode of utilizing it in the manufacture of aluminum.
This dark colored, spongy mass containing a large amount of graphite had been wheeled out on the dump, and when rained on, gave off a small amount of gas with a considerable noxious odor. This is what Dr. Venable had instructed me to investigate and find out of what it was composed.
It was easy to recognize we were dealing with a carbide of calcium. The analyses were satisfactory on account of the presence of graphite particles and of the partial decomposition of the specimens.
A more important question was to settle was the nature of the gas evolved. That it must be a hydrocarbon was a conclusion easily reached and the smoky flame with which it burned pointed to a very large portion of carbon. When the strong smell was taken into consideration the choice among the known gaseous hydrocarbons was very limited. I passed some of this gas through an ammoniacal copper solution and immediately a copious precipitate was produced which was recognized without difficulty as copper acetylide.
With this comparatively cheap and convenient method of making acetylene in any desired quantities and the possibility of its use as an illuminant, the first thought was to overcome the smokiness by mixing with a large proportion of air. On trying a mixture of one part acetylene with four or five parts of air, using an ordinary bat-wing burner, the wonderful brilliance and beauty of this really remarkable light was revealed for the first time in the country in the late fall of 1892.
Mr. Kenan went on to describe experiments for better ways of burning, how Willliam Walker (an agent for Major Morehead) and Mr. Willson witnessed the light at Chapel Hill and were informed of our discovery that acetylene was the gas evolved from the waste product of their furnace.
Mr. Kenan said he gave Mr. Willson his notebook covering the work done and that Mr. Willson applied for a patent in his own name and sold the rights covering different districts in the nation.
A Widow's Recollection
The controversy over credit for the discovery of calcium carbide has been a continuing one. Union Carbide Company representatives have indicated that Kenan's professor, Dr. Venable, was only used to "confirm" a discovery that Thomas L. Willson had made. Carbide's early position on this served to back up the patents they now controlled including those dealing with the use of acetylene from carbide. However, Mrs. Francis Venable's recollection is quite different. On April 21, 1941 she signed an affidavit which said: This is to certify that I was present and recall definitely when Mr. Walker, representing Major Morehead, and Mr. Willson came to Chapel Hill on March 27, 1893, to see the wonderful light produced there by Dr. Venable from calcium carbide. Further, it was agreed that Dr. Venable was to profit by this discovery, but the fact is and the result was he never received anything. (As reproduced in Kenan's autobiography, Incidents By The Way)
"Education is not a static thing. It is not a culture which a man puts on as he would a suit of clothes. It is a dynamic thing. Education should concern itsefl with the whole personality, not the brain alone."
"Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts."
"Results are determined not so much by the number of hours man puts in, rather by what the man puts into the hours."
"No one perhaps ever reaches his goal, but that is not failure. Real success comes from steady pursuit of what your are trying to accomplish."
"What you think determines what you are---we are no larger than our thoughts. It is not by man's purse, but by his character, that he is rich or poor. No feeling of satisfaction quite equals that of having done a difficult job extremely well."
"Brilliancy has its place, but it cannot be substituted for honesty, industry or character."
"If all men could know that death is only an incident, and that life is to continue for good or ill right on, and if they could know that under the working of the law of cause and effect they are making that future life day by day; that its condition is to be determined thus, and not by creed or belief or ritual or worship as such, but by character,is it not plain that this would become the mightiest of all possible motives. If it can be attained, here is a power able to lift and transform the world."
William Rand Kenan Jr. deserved better. The hardback 400-page biography of Lockport's famous chemist, philanthropist, scientific dairy farmer, industrialist, and one of the world's richest men is available for limited sale. It's a pity none of the outlets in Lockport carry it (the Library has "reference" copies in the History Room). I bought my copy of Across Fortune's Tracks by Walter E. Campbell from Amazon.com. It was published in late 1996. It's also a shame the University of North Carolina, Kenan's alma mater and target of most of his donated millions, couldn't have come up with an author who would give Mr. Kenan a better "spin." Campbell was paid to write the book by The William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust, essentially administered by those connected with University of North Carolina. The problem is that Mr. Campbell seems to have his own agenda which frequently seems to get in the way of the story he attempts to tell of Kenan. Details of Kenan's life in Lockport are largely lacking. One noteable exception is a report of how then Lockport Mayor Frank Moyer and the local Masons found a way to offend Mr. Kenan. The result was that the philanthropist was moved to send most of his money to charities and destinations outside of Lockport. Even with all the details it lacks about Kenan's life in Lockport, it is an interesting and most informative account.