John P. Kennedy

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For other persons named John Kennedy, see John Kennedy (disambiguation).

John Pendleton Kennedy

21st United States Secretary of the Navy
In office July 26, 1852 – March 4, 1853
Preceded by	William A. Graham
Succeeded by	James C. Dobbin

Born	October 25, 1795 Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Died	August 18, 1870 (aged 74) Newport, Rhode Island, USA
Political party	Whig
Spouse	Elizabeth Gray Kennedy Margaret Hughes Kennedy
Profession	Politician, Lawyer, Writer
Religion	Episcopalian

John Pendleton Kennedy (October 25, 1795 – August 18, 1870) served as United States Secretary of the Navy from July 26, 1852 to March 4, 1853, during the administration of President Millard Fillmore, and as a Congressman from the fourth district of Maryland. He was the brother of senator Anthony Kennedy.

1 Early life
2 Literary life
3 Political life
4 Retirement and death
- 4.1 Posthumous request
5 Further reading
6 External links

[edit] Early life

Born in Baltimore, Maryland on October 25, 1795, the son of merchant John Kennedy and Nancy Pendleton. He graduated from Baltimore College in 1812 and fought in the Battles of Bladensburg and North Point in the War of 1812. Although admitted to the bar in 1816, he was much more interested in literature and politics than law. He published Swallow Barn in 1832 and Horse-Shoe Robinson in 1835 to win a permanent place of respect in the history of American fiction.

[edit] Literary life

Kennedy was a good friend of the infamous writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe and that while abroad he became a friend of William Makepeace Thackeray and wrote or outlined the fourth chapter of the second volume of The Virginians, a fact which accounts for the great accuracy of its scenic descriptions. Of his works Horse-Shoe Robinson is the best and ranks high in antebellum fiction. He sometimes used the pen name Mark Littleton. [1] Other works of Kennedy's include:

The Red Book (1818-19, two volumes)

John P. Kennedy
Swallow Barn (1832) §
Horse-Shoe Robinson (1835)
Rob of the Bowl (1838) §
Annals of Quodlibet (1840)
Memoirs of the Life of William Wirt (1849, two volumes)
The Border States (1861)
Mr. Ambrose's Letters on the Rebellion (1865)
Collected Works of John Pendleton Kennedy (1870-72, ten volumes)
At Home and Abroad: A Series of Essays: With a Journal in Europe in 1867-68 (1872, essays)
The Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology (1998, composure)

§ Under the name Mark Littleton.

[edit] Political life

Kennedy was an active Whig. He was appointed Secretary of the Legation in Chile on January 27, 1823, but did not proceed to his post and resigned on June 23 of the same year. He was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1820 and in 1838, he succeeded Isaac McKim in the U.S. House of Representatives, but was defeated in his bid for reelection in November of that year. He was re-elected to Congress in 1840 and 1842; but, because of his strong opposition to the annexation of Texas, he was defeated in 1844. His influence in Congress was largely responsible for the appropriation of $30,000 to test Samuel Morse's telegraph.

President Millard Fillmore appointed Kennedy to the post of Secretary of the Navy in July 1852. During Kennedy's tenure in office, the Navy organized four important naval expeditions including that which sent Commodore Matthew C. Perry to Japan and Lieutenant William Lewis Herndon and Lieutenant Lardner Gibbon to explore the Amazon .

[edit] Retirement and death

Kennedy retired from public life in March 1853 when President Fillmore left office, but he retained an active interest in politics and forcefully supported the Union. At the end of the American Civil War he advocated amnesty for the South. He died at Newport, Rhode Island in 1870, and is buried in Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland. The USS John P. Kennedy and USS Kennedy (DD-306) were named for him.

[edit] Posthumous request

In his will, Kennedy wrote the following:

It is my wish that the manuscript volumes containing my journals, my note or common-place books, and the several volumes of my own letters in press copy, as also all my other letters, such as may possess any interest or value (which I desire to be bound in volumes) that are now in lose sheets, shall be returned to my executors, who are requested to have the same packed away in a strong walnut box, closed and locked, and then delivered to the Peabody Institute, to be preserved by them unopened until the year 1900, when the same shall become the property of the Institute, to be kept among its books and records.[2]

[edit] Further reading

Collected works of Henry Theodore Tuckerman, tenth volume, (New York, 1870-72)
Tuckerman, Henry Theodore, The Life of John Pendleton Kennedy, (1871)
Gwathmey, Edward, John Pendleton Kennedy, (1931)
Bohner, Charles H., John Pendleton Kennedy, Gentleman from Baltimore, (1961)
Ridgely, J.V., John Pendleton Kennedy, (1966)

[edit] External links

Preceded by Isaac McKim	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Maryland's 4th congressional district April 25, 1838 – March 3, 1839	Succeeded by James Carroll
Preceded by James Carroll	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Maryland's 4th congressional district March 4, 1841 – March 3, 1845	Succeeded by William F. Giles
Preceded by William A. Graham	United States Secretary of the Navy July 26, 1852 – March 4, 1853	Succeeded by James C. Dobbin