The Kennedy family papers consist of seven letters. The earliest (1817) was written by a young woman describing a mid-winter journey home through western New York by wagon sleigh. Five letters in the collection were written by Frederick A. Kennedy to this wife Caroline while he was serving in the Michigan State legislature in Detroit in 1846. Kennedy discusses current actions of the legislature, including the passage of a bill to pay legislators $3.00 per day; and the initial defeat and final passage of a controversial bill for the sale of the Central Railroad. The final letter in the collection was written by Kennedy's son, J. Benton ("Bent"), a Captain in the First Michigan Infantry during the Civil War. The letter, written in a camp near Sharpsburg, Maryland in October 1862, discusses the relative fighting merits of eastern "city" troops and western men in the Union Army. (Capt. Kennedy died a few months later of wounds received in action at Fredricksburg, Virginia). This letter has been transcribed, scanned and placed online at http://civilwar.archives.msu.edu/collection/7-1C-2B/kennedy/.