Learn About the Grove's Founders

This Sunday at 2 PM at the Hibbard Library, Elizabeth Kopp will discuss the Kennicotts, the Grove and their contributions to our country. Afterwards, the Glenview History Center will host a tour of their historic farmhouse. Find more information here!

Dr. Kennicott & the National Agricultural Hall of Fame

Dr. John Kennicott was inducted into the National Agricultural Hall of Fame last month. Read about the induction here. If you want to learn more about Dr. Kennicott's life and agricultural achievements, check out this biography written by Elizabeth Kopp of the Grove. We also have the Kennicott family papers available on microfilm.

The Redfield Estate at the Grove

The Redfield Estate at the Grove was built in the 1920s by descendants of the Kennicott family. Glenview Television produced a short documentary on the architecture of the estate and the history of Bertha Redfield's family.  

The library owns several of Donald Culross Peattie's books many of which were written at the Redfield Estate. And visit the Genealogy & Local History Room for more information on the Kennicotts and the Grove.

Kennicott Exhibit at The Gove

A new exhibit at The Grove focuses on the life Dr. John A. Kennicott.

An excerpt from a recent Chicago Tribune article:

This is the first exhibit at The Grove to focus on Kennicott, the patriarch of the family. His son, Robert, had been The Grove's focus for many years, Swanson said, having founded the Chicago Academy of Sciences, served as a Smithsonian scientist and been the first naturalist for the state of Illinois. He was also one of four principal people to purchase Alaska from Russia.  

"Dr. Kennicott has really been kind of eclipsed by him," said Swanson. "But we decided we really wanted to look at Dr. Kennicott's life and all his achievements."  

Kennicott, who was born in 1802 in New York, became one of the area's first physicians when he came to Glenview, then called West Northfield, in 1836. He started The Grove Nursery & Garden in 1842 and called for the first Illinois State Fair in 1853.  

Kennicott also had national reach. He lobbied for a federal agricultural bureau, now the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and went to Washington to petition for the Land Grant College Act. 

He helped draft a bill in the state legislature to create an "Illinois university."  

"If you got to any of the A&M universities, those are agricultural and mechanical universities, they're a direct result of the Land Grant College Act and he was the principal person that moved that act forward and was passed by U.S. House of Representatives and Senate," Swanson said.

Learn more at the Tribune and The Grove National Historic Landmark.

Dinner with the Kennicotts

For an evening of dinner and outdoor theater, the Glenview Park District is inviting the public to learn more about the area’s most prominent, historical family.

 Dinner with the Kennicotts is Sept. 6 at The Grove nature and education center, 1421 Milwaukee Ave., where park district employees will perform a 40-minute play portraying the Kennicott family in the pavilion. 

The dinner includes starters and beverages in the Kennicott house, a buffet dinner at the Redfield Estate and interaction with the actors.

Horticulturalist and medical doctor John Kennicott brought his family to Glenview from New Orleans in 1836. They lived in a log cabin until he built his home in 1856 for his family. Kennicott’s son, Robert, was a noted naturalist and explorer who founded the Chicago Society Academy of Science in 1956 and served on the Illinois Natural History Society.

Read more at the Glenview Announcements.

Dinner with the Kennicotts is 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Sept. 6 at The Grove. For ticket information, call (847) 299-6096 or register at Park Center, 2400 Chestnut Ave., Glenview.

If you want more information about the Kennicotts, the Glenview Public Library has the Kennicott family papers on microfilm in the Genealogy & Local History Room.