Columbia Expedition

John Kendrick (born John Kenrick, c. 1740–1794) was an American sea captain, both during the American Revolutionary War and the exploration and maritime fur trading of the Pacific Northwest alongside his subordinate Robert Gray.

Kendrick was born about 1740 in what was then part of the Town of Harwich, Massachusetts (now Orleans, Massachusetts), according to official town records in Orleans, his last name was originally Kenrick, but later adopted the "d". John Kendrick came from a long family line of seamen. Solomon Kenrick, his father, was a humble seaman and this fact gave young John the ambition of becoming a sea captain. He had a common education, like most people at the time. At the age of 20 he joined a whaling crew, working on a schooner owned by Captain Bangs.

John Kendrick later joined Captain Jabez Snow's company during the French and Indian War in 1762. Like most Cape Codders of the time, he served for only eight months and did not re-enlist. All that is known about him between 1762 and the 1770s is that he owned a few merchant ships and married Huldah Pease of Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard.

Kendrick was reputed to have participated in the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773. He was an ardent Patriot, going on to serve as commander of the privateer Fanny, the first ship of what became the Continental Navy during the American Revolution. He was commissioned May 26, 1777.

The Fanny had 18 guns and a crew of 100 as she captured a few British ships, gaining some money on the side and taking possession of items needed by the Americans defending themselves from the British. Some items also helped build Kendrick's house in Wareham, Massachusetts. HMS Brutus and HMS Little Brutus captured Kendrick in November, 1779. He was soon traded in a prisoner exchange. Upon release, he commanded a sixteen-gun-armed, hundred-man-crewed brigantine named the Count d’Estang in 1780. Then, he commanded another brigantine called the Marianne later that same year.

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