Alpheus Burdick Kenyon descended from a long line of Kenyons of Hopkinton, Rhode Island. He was the son of Edwin Orsando and Cordelia (Burdick) Kenyon. This was a Seventh Day Baptist family with strong ties, both by intermarriage and by religious persuasion, with many of the shipbuilding families of Mystic and Westerly.

Edwin O. Kenyon worked for William E. Maxson in the Maxson and Fish Shipyard at West Mystic from 1861 until at least 1866, and the family of Mr. and Mrs. Kenyon, Alpheus and his younger brother, Myron, lived on the shipyard grounds in the two-family house that Mr. Maxson built for his workers in West Mystic.

Alpheus worked in the Maxson shipyard from April to late October each of the three years covered by the diaries, starting when he was 13. At age 16 he was earning a dollar a day. He attended school first at West Mystic and then, in 1866, at Mystic Academy, during the winter and early spring months. He was a good student, and apparently his parents were willing to have him continue his education because he went to Alfred (NY) University, graduating with a B. S. in 1874, and earning his Master's degree in 1877 and his Doctorate in 1905. He was a Professor of Mathematics from 1874, and Dean of the University from 1908, until his retirement in 1920. He was President of the Seventh Day Baptist Conference from 1914, and a Trustee of the University from 1920 until his death in 1931.

In 1873 Alpheus married at Alfred, Mary Veola Babcock, and they had three girls: Grace who died young; Dora, born in 1877, and Agnes born in 1887.