John Kendrick was born about 1740 in Harwich, Massachusetts, United States. He was the son of Solomon and Elizabeth (Atkins) Kenwrick and the grandson of Edward Kenwrick, who by 1704 had settled in Harwich on the southern shore of Cape Cod.
Kendrick early took to the sea and at twenty went a-whaling to the St. Lawrence. His adventurous spirit led him into the French and Indian War, but after one campaign he returned to the sea and entered the coasting trade. During the Revolutionary War he commanded privateers: in 1777, the Fanny; in 1778, the Count D'Estaing; and in 1780, the Marianne. He commanded the expedition of the Columbia and the Washington (or Lady Washington) which left Boston in September 1787 and arrived at Nootka a year later. There his diplomatic skill saved his vessels from seizure by the Spaniards.
In July 1789 he transferred the Columbia to his associate, Captain Robert Gray, and traded in the little sloop, Washington, along the coast from Nootka to Queen Charlotte Islands. In the autumn of 1789 he sailed for China, by way of the Hawaiian Islands, and while there had a vision of opening a trade in pearls and sandalwood. For that purpose he left three men to collect these commodities, but the effort proved a failure as the men tired of the task. Arriving in China Kendrick spent fourteen months in disposing of his cargo and in rerigging the Washington as a brig. In March 1791 he sailed thence for the Northwest Coast.
On his way he visited Japan--the first to fly the stars and stripes in Nippon--but the country offered no market for sea-otter skins. At Queen Charlotte Islands--then a fur trader's paradise--the Indians attempted to capture the Washington. Kendrick's courage enheartened his crew who drove the assailants off with heavy loss. During this voyage he purchased large areas of land from the natives of Vancouver Island, but the speculation was a complete failure.
In the spring of 1793 he sailed again from China and traded on the Northwest Coast in the seasons of 1793 and 1794. Late in 1794 on his route to China, he revisited the Hawaiian Islands and took part in an inter-island war. His faction being successful, he, while at anchor in Honolulu Harbor, in December 1794, requested a fellow trader, Captain Brown of the Jackal, to salute him. By some negligence one of the guns had not been unshotted. Its ball pierced the side of the Washington, killing him as he sat at his table.
Kendrick was a man of large stature, great strength, and unbounded courage. He could see possibilities of riches in untried schemes, but he lacked the perseverance necessary to transmute dreams into realities.
In December 1767 Kendrick married Huldah Pease of Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard.
