January 2009 © Frank H. Jump
Cornelius Kenny left Ireland in 1849 during the famine as he could not collect rent from his starving tenants. He had been a prosperous farmer in Clare, living at Milford house near Milford. With him came his wife Ellen Sampson and his young family including his son Cornelius David Kenny the founder of C.D.Kenny. They moved to Rochester, Monroe County New York where they had cousins already established. In 1872 Cornelius D Kenny moved to Baltimore Maryland with his wife Clare Semmes Doyle Kenny and their daughters. He set up a highly successful business, a chain of 60 coffee shops all over the Southern states and also in Pennsylvania and Ohio and also a wholesale tea and coffee importers. He died in 1902 and received an obit in the New York Times. – Margaret Gallery (cousin of Kenny).
The C.D. Kenny Co. was founded by Rochester, N.Y., native C.D. Kenny, who arrived in Baltimore in 1872 and opened a coffee, tea and sugar store at Lexington and Greene streets. He later expanded the business to other local outlets and eventually to Washington, D.C., Richmond, Va., and most of the southern states as well as Pennsylvania and Ohio. – Baltimore Sun
UPDATED ON JULY 18, 2013
