Amos Kendall House
Frankfort, Franklin County, Kentucky
Marker Inscription
Amos Kendall (1789-1869). This noted journalist-politician lived here. A Massachusetts native, he migrated to Kentucky in 1814 and spent one year with the family of Henry Clay as tutor. From 1816-28, Kendall resided in Frankfort as editor of the Argus of Western America. First a supporter of Henry Clay, he later promoted Andrew Jackson and helped carry Kentucky for him in 1828. See over. (Reverse) Amos Kendall - Amos Kendall moved to Washington with Jackson administration, 1829. Joined group of close presidential advisors known as "Kitchen Cabinet" and served five years as postmaster general. He gained wealth as business agent for Samuel F. B. Morse, 1845-1869; his generous donations helped to found school for deaf and mute, later Gallaudet College in Washington, D. C. Over.
Erected by Kentucky Historical Society
The Story
Massachusetts native Amos Kendall (1789–1869) migrated to Kentucky in 1814, tutored in Henry Clay's household, and edited Frankfort's Argus of Western America. Turning from Clay to Andrew Jackson, he helped carry Kentucky in 1828, followed Jackson to Washington as a trusted "Kitchen Cabinet" adviser and postmaster general, then grew wealthy as Samuel F. B. Morse's telegraph agent and helped found the school that became Gallaudet College.
Why it matters
Kendall bridged Jacksonian politics, the telegraph revolution, and the founding of deaf education, shaping national life far beyond Kentucky.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Amos Kendall's Frankfort years unfolded during one of the most electric stretches of American political history. When he settled in as a newspaper editor, the young Republic was still working out what its politics would even look like — who could vote, how power would pass, and what role the press would play in shaping opinion.
Frankfort, the Kentucky capital, was a natural place for an ambitious man of words. From here Kendall edited the Argus of Western America through the 1820s, a decade when a partisan newspaper was a genuine engine of political power. The editor's desk was a lever on the national mood.
By the time his life ran its full course, from 1789 to 1869, the country had transformed around him — from a frontier republic into a nation stitched together by telegraph wires and shaken by civil war. Few Americans lived through more change, or did more to drive it.
People & events
Kendall's story is one of loyalties made and remade. A Massachusetts native, he came to Kentucky in 1814 and spent a year tutoring in the household of Henry Clay — an intimate start to a life spent close to power. He began as a supporter of Clay, then turned toward Andrew Jackson, and his editorial work helped carry Kentucky for Jackson in 1828.
That pivot changed his life. Following Jackson to Washington in 1829, Kendall became one of the president's most trusted advisers — part of the informal circle that critics dubbed the "Kitchen Cabinet" — and served for years as postmaster general, running one of the era's largest arms of government.
His later chapter was just as remarkable. As business agent for Samuel F. B. Morse, Kendall grew wealthy from the telegraph, and he directed some of that fortune toward founding a school for deaf students in Washington — the institution that would grow into Gallaudet College.
Its place in the American story
Look at the arc of Kendall's life and you see three great currents of the American nineteenth century running through a single man. He helped build the machinery of Jacksonian democracy, the rough-and-tumble party politics that pulled ordinary voters into national life as never before.
He then stood at the birth of the communications revolution. The telegraph collapsed distance and remade commerce, journalism, and government, and Kendall's role as Morse's agent placed him at the center of that transformation as it reached across the country.
And finally, through his support of deaf education, he helped open a door that had long been closed. The school he helped found became a lasting American institution for the education of the deaf — proof that his influence reached beyond politics and profit into the enduring work of expanding who gets a chance to learn.
If you visit
Standing at this Frankfort home, remember that you're at a hinge point of one man's extraordinary journey — the place where a New England transplant became a Kentucky editor, and where a Kentucky editor became a national force.
Let the quiet of the residential setting sharpen the contrast with the life that began here. From this ordinary house, Kendall's path ran all the way to the president's inner circle, to the wires of the telegraph, and to a landmark of American education.
Make it a stop on a walk through historic Frankfort, where the state's early political world is compressed into a walkable few blocks. Bring the long view with you: few addresses in America connect so directly to politics, technology, and education all at once.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Amos Kendall
- · Andrew Jackson
- · Henry Clay
- · Samuel F. B. Morse
Themes & tags
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