Capt. (CSA), William Rand "Buck" Kenan

https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/kenan-william-rand

William Rand Kenan, merchant and port collector, was born in Kenansville, the son of Own Rand Kenan and Sarah Rebecca Graham Kenan. After attending Grove Academy, he entered The University of North Carolina in 1860 at age fifteen. In 1863 he withdrew from the university to enlist as a private in the Duplin Rifles of the Forty-third North Carolina Regiment, rising to the rank of captain. He subsequently moved to Wilmington and became a life insurance agent and later a wholesale merchant. Kenan was collector of the port of Wilmington under President Grover Cleveland. He served as treasurer of the Presbyterian Church and was ordained first a deacon and then a ruling elder. In February 1903 he was appointed a trustee of The University of North Carolina, two months before his death in Wilmington where he was buried in Oakdale Cemetery.

Kenan married Mary Hargrave of Chapel Hill in 1864, and they had four children: Mary Lily, Jessie Hargrave, William Rand, Jr., and Sarah Graham. A portrait of William Rand Kenan is in the possession of his daughter Sarah's nephew, James Graham Kenan of Atlanta, Ga. In his memory, his children established the Kenan Professor Trust Fund at The University of North Carolina and donated the funds for Kenan Memorial Stadium, also in Chapel Hill.