Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 06.djvu/233

 KENNA

KENNEDY

KENNA, John Edward, senator, was born in ValcouUui, Va., April lU, 1H48; son of Edward and Margery (Lewis) Kenna ; grandson of John Lewis, of Virginia, and a descendant of Governor Andrew Lewia. In 1856, on the death of his father, who was a lawyer, he removed with his mother and sisters to ^lissouri, where he received a meagre education and was early oblig- ed to aid in the sup- port of the family. He entered the Con- federate army from ^lissouri in 1864, be- ing then sixteen years old. He was wounded in the service and sur- rendered at Shreve- port, La., in 18G5. He returned to Virginia and worked as a clerk in a general merchandise store mitil, through the interest of Bishop Whelan, he was able to enter St. Vincent's college. Wheeling, W. Va., where he remained for two years and a half. He then studied law with Miller & Quarrier at Charleston, W. Va., and was admitted to the bar, June 20, 1870. He was prosecuting attorney for Kanawha county, W. Va., 1872-77, and in 1875 he was elected by the bar in the respective counties, under statutory provision, to hold the circuit courts of Lincoln and Wayne. He was a Demo- cratic representative from the third West Vir- ginia district in the 45th, 46th, and 47th con- gresses, 1877-83. He was re-elected to the 48th congress in 1882, but was also elected to the U.S. senate and served, 1883-93. He died in Washington, D.C., Jan. 11, 1893.

KENNAN, George, author, was born at Nor- walk, Ohio, Feb. 16, 1845 ; son of John and Mary Ann (Morse) Kennan ; of Scotch-Irish ancestry. He attended the public schools of his native town and at the age of twelve found employment in a telegraph office. He attended the high school at Columbus, Ohio, in 1862, and worked at night as a telegraph operator, becoming first assistant, then chief operator and manager of the telegraph office in Cincinnati, 1863-64. He went to north- east Siberia as an explorer and telegraph engi- neer in 1865, and was superintendent of the con- struction of the middle division of the Russian- American Telegraph company, 1866-68. He explored the mountains of the Eastern Caucasus and Daghestan, 1870-71, and on returning to the United States became a newspaper writer and lecturer, and was night manager of the As- sociated Press at Washington, 1877-85. In 1885-

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86, in company with George A. Frost, an artist, he made a journey of 15,000 miles through Russia and Siberia, visiting all the convict prisons and mines for the purpose of investigating the Russian exile sys- tem, and in 1889-90 embodied his obser- vations and conclu- sions in a series of articles published in the Century Maga- zine. From 1886 his time was occupied in lecturing in the Unit- ed States and Great Britain on his Sibe- rian experiences. He went to Cuba in May, 1898, with the Ameri- can National Red Cross society and was a special commissioner for the Outlook magazine. He is the author of : Tent Life in Siberia (1870) ; Si- beria aiid the Exile System (2 vols., 1891) ; Campaigning in Cuba (1899), and contributions to the leading magazines.

KENNEDY, Alfred L., educator, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., Oct. 25, 1818. He was educated in the public schools of Philadelphia and became a chemist. He was assistant professor of chem- istry in the Pennsylvania Medical college in 1839 ; lecturer on chemical physics in 1840 ; on gen- eral and medical botany, and medical jurispru- dence and toxicology in 1842, and lecturer on medical chemistry in the Philadelpliia School of Medicine in 1843. He was graduated from the medical department of the University of Penn- sylvania in 1848, and studied physiology and physiological chemistry in Paris and Leipzig, and geologj' and botany in Paris. He was lecturer on industrial botany in the Franklin institute, Philadelphia, 1849 ; professor of medical chemis- try in the Philadelphia College of Medicine, 1849- 52 ; lecturer on agricultural chemistry in the Franklin institute, 1852, and a practising phy- sician in Philadelphia, 1853-65. In 1853 the Philadelphia School of Chemistry, which he had organized and of which he had been the head from 1842, became the Polytechnic College of the State of Pennsylvania, and he was its presi- dent, 1853-95. He was a volunteer siu-geon in the 2d army corps at the Gettysburg hospital, 1861-63, and colonel of volunteer engineers, 1863-65. He retired from practice in 1865. He was vice-presi- dent of the American Agricultural congress, and of the Pennsylvania Agricultural society in 1876. He is the author of : Practical Chemistry a Branch of Medical Education (1852). He died in PhUadelphia, Pa., Jan. 30, 1896.