Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 06.djvu/235

 KENNEDY

KENNEDY

1846, and in 1852 was appointed secretary of the navy by President Fillmore, in which capacity he fitted out Commodore Perry's Japan expedition and Dr. Kane's second arctic expedition. He was U.S. commissioner to the Paris exposition in 1867 and was a patron of the Peabody Institute of Baltimore, bequeathing his library and papers to that institution. Harvard conferred on him the

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honorary degree of LL.D. in 1863. He pub- lished in 1818-19, with Peter Hoffman Cruse, The Red Book, a satirical periodical. He is the author of •• Sioalloio Barn ; or, A Sojourn in the Old Dominion (3 vols., 1832); Horse-Shoe Robinson; a Tale of the Tory Ascendancy (2 vols., 1835) ; Rob of the Bold: a Legend of St. Inigoes (2 vols., 1838) ; QuodUbet (1840) ; Memoirs of the Life of William Wirt (2 vols., 1849) ; The Blackwater Chronicle (1853); Narrative of an Expedition of Five Americans into a Land of Wild Animals (1854) ; Mr. Ambrose's Letters on the Rebellion (1865) ; besides many lectures, essays and speeches. His entire works in a uniform edition wei^e pub- lished (10 vols., 1870). He died in Newport, R.I., Aug. 18. 1870.

KENNEDY, John Stewart, philanthropist, was born near Glasgow, Scotland, Jan. 4, 1830 ; son of John and Isabella (Stewart) Kennedy. In 1843 he entered a shipping office in Glasgow, and in 1847 became clerk for a coal and iron company. In 1850 he was sent to America in the interest of a firm engaged in the iron trade in London, and after visiting the principal trade centres of Canada and the United States, he re- turned to Scotland in 1852, and took charge of the business of the house in Glasgow, Scotland. In 1856 he settled in New York city and engaged in the iron trade with Morris K. Jesup. In July, 1867, he retired from the firms of M. K. Jesup & Co., New York city, and Jesup, Kennedy & Co., Chicago, 111., which latter firm he had established in 1861 ; visited Europe, and returning to New York in 1868, established the firm of J. S. Ken- nedy & Co. This was dissolved Dec. 1, 1883, w-hen he retired from active business, but continued as a director and officer in various banking and trust

companies, public institutions, railroad enter- prises, and as president of the Presbyterian hos- pital, of the Lenox library, of the United Chari- ties, of the board of trustees of the American Bible house, and of Robert college at Constantinople ; vice-president of the New York Historical society, and of the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations ; trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and of the Theologi- cal seminary, Princeton, N.J. ; one of the manag- ers of the Board of Home Missions of the Presby- terian Church in the United States, and for six years president of the St. Andrew's society of the state of New York. He jmrchased from Dr. Em- met his entire library of books, manuscripts, etc., at a cost of fully $150,000, and presented it in 1896 to the New York Public library, and in 1897 he purchased for $16,100 the painting by Leutze, "Washington Crossing the Delaware," and pre- sented it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He purchased the land and erected the United Charities building on Fourth avenue and Twenty- second street. New York city, at a cost of $600,000, and presented it to the United Charities associa- tion in 1893, and at various times made large gifts to the Presbyterian hospital, Robett college and various other charitable, benevolent and educa- tional institutions, amounting in the aggregate to many hundreds of tliousands of dollars.

KENNEDY, Joseph Camp Griffith, statisti- cian, was born in Meadville, Pa., April 1, 1813; son of Dr. Samuel Kennedy. His maternal grandfather, Andrew Ellicott(q. v.), surveyed and planned the national capital in 1791. His father was a surgeon in the Revolutionary war, on the staff of General Washington. Joseph was edu- cated at Allegheny college, studied law and was admitted to the bar. He established and was editor of the Crawford, Pa., Messenger and the Venango, Pa., Intelligencer. His public career began in 1849, when he was appointed by Presi- dent Taylor secretary of the U.S. census board. He drafted the bill that created the census bureau, and was its superintendent in 1850 and 1860. He visited Europe in 1851, with a view of securing a uniform cheap postage, and also on business connected with the census. He was active in organizing the first statistical congress, which met in Brussels in 1853 ; was secretary of the International exhibition at London in 1851 ; a member of the statistical congresses of 1855 and 1860 ; commissioner to the world's fair held at London in 1862, and examiner of national banks, 1865-66. During the latter part of his life he practised law and was a real estate agent in Washington, D.C. A gold medal was presented to him by King Christian IX. of Denmark in recognition of his valuable services as a statisti- cian. Mr. Kennedy was a member of numerous