Jump to content
 







Main menu
   


Navigation  



Main page
Contents
Current events
Random article
About Wikipedia
Contact us
Donate
 




Contribute  



Help
Learn to edit
Community portal
Recent changes
Upload file
 








Search  

































Create account

Log in
 









Create account
 Log in
 




Pages for logged out editors learn more  



Contributions
Talk
 



















Contents

   



(Top)
 


1 Biography  





2 See also  





3 References  





4 External links  














John E. Kenna






تۆرکجه
Deutsch
فارسی
Magyar
مصرى

Svenska
 

Edit links
 









Article
Talk
 

















Read
Edit
View history
 








Tools
   


Actions  



Read
Edit
View history
 




General  



What links here
Related changes
Upload file
Special pages
Permanent link
Page information
Cite this page
Get shortened URL
Download QR code
Wikidata item
 




Print/export  



Download as PDF
Printable version
 




In other projects  



Wikimedia Commons
Wikisource
 
















Appearance
   

 






From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 


John E. Kenna
United States Senator
from West Virginia
In office
March 4, 1883 – January 11, 1893
Preceded byHenry G. Davis
Succeeded byJohnson N. Camden
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from West Virginia's 3rd district
In office
March 4, 1877 – March 3, 1883
Preceded byFrank Hereford
Succeeded byCharles P. Snyder
Personal details
Born(1848-04-10)April 10, 1848
Kanawha County, Virginia (now West Virginia)
DiedJanuary 11, 1893(1893-01-11) (aged 44)
Washington, D.C.
Political partyDemocratic
Signature

John Edward Kenna (April 10, 1848 – January 11, 1893) was an American politician who was a Senator from West Virginia from 1883 until his death.

Biography[edit]

Kenna was born in Kanawha County, Virginia (now West Virginia, near the city of St. Albans) and lived his early life at Upper Falls, where his father was lockmaster and owned a sawmill.[1] He had little education, and at the age of 16 he served in the "Iron Brigade" with General Joseph O. Shelby in the Confederate States Army and was wounded. After returning home, he read law and was admitted to the bar in 1870. He became very active in the emerging Democratic Party of West Virginia.

He rose from prosecuting attorney of Kanawha County in 1872 to Justice pro tempore of the county circuit in 1875, and to the United States House of Representatives in 1876. While in the House he championed railroad legislation and crusaded for aid for slack-water navigation to help the coal, timber, and salt industries in his state. These activities earned him a seat in the United States Senate in 1883, where he continued fighting for his two causes.

Kenna became Democratic minority leader and emerged as a powerful and controversial speaker on the issue of the independence of the executive branch of the government. He forcefully defended President Grover Cleveland on several issues and indicted the Senate Republican majority for failure to pass tariff reforms. Kenna was a practicing Catholic and member of the congregation at St. Joseph's on Capitol HillinWashington, D.C.[2] In late April 1891, he successfully argued the Ball v. United States case before the U.S. Supreme Court, which spared the lives of two West Virginians accused of murder in Texas.[3][4]

Kenna died on January 11, 1893, at the age of 44.[5] He was still in office at the time of his death, and was succeeded by Johnson N. Camden. He had 6 children, including Ed Kenna.

Longtime Washington journalist Benjamin Perley Poore described Kenna as "a tall, thick-set man" who was "negligent in his dress and rather slow in the utterance of his sentences."[6]

Kenna is the namesake of the town of Kenna, West Virginia.[7] In 1901, the state of West Virginia donated a marble statue of Kenna to the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall Collection.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Courtesy of Dr. William H. Dean, Ph.D. From Coal, Steamboats, Timber and Trains: The Early Industrial History of St. Albans, West Virginia & The Coal River, 1850-1925. "History of Upper Falls, West Virginia | Upper Falls, WV". Archived from the original on April 26, 2012. Retrieved December 14, 2011. UpperFallsWV.blog.com
  • ^ Google Books Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 27, 1892
  • ^ ""A Celebrated Case"". Logan County Banner (Logan, WV). May 7, 1891. Retrieved September 22, 2023.
  • ^ "Ball v. United States (1891)". Justia: U.S. Supreme Court. Retrieved September 22, 2023.
  • ^ "Senator John E. Kenna Dies At Washington After A Long And Painful Illness". The Press Herald. Pine Grove, Pennsylvania. January 20, 1893. p. 1. Retrieved November 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com Open access icon.
  • ^ Poore, Ben. Perley, Perley's Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis, Vol.2, p.509 (1886).
  • ^ Kenny, Hamill (1945). West Virginia Place Names: Their Origin and Meaning, Including the Nomenclature of the Streams and Mountains. Piedmont, WV: The Place Name Press. p. 346.
  • External links[edit]

    U.S. House of Representatives
    Preceded by

    Frank Hereford

    U.S. Representative of West Virginia's 3rd Congressional District
    1877–1883
    Succeeded by

    Charles P. Snyder

    U.S. Senate
    Preceded by

    Henry G. Davis

    U.S. senator (Class 2) from West Virginia
    1883–1893
    Served alongside: Johnson N. Camden, Charles J. Faulkner
    Succeeded by

    Johnson N. Camden


    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_E._Kenna&oldid=1219813436"

    Categories: 
    1848 births
    1893 deaths
    19th-century American judges
    19th-century American lawyers
    19th-century American legislators
    19th-century Roman Catholics
    American lawyers admitted to the practice of law by reading law
    Catholics from West Virginia
    Confederate States Army personnel
    County prosecuting attorneys in West Virginia
    Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from West Virginia
    Democratic Party United States senators from West Virginia
    Lawyers from Charleston, West Virginia
    Military personnel from West Virginia
    People from St. Albans, West Virginia
    People of West Virginia in the American Civil War
    Politicians from Charleston, West Virginia
    West Virginia circuit court judges
    West Virginia lawyers
    19th-century West Virginia politicians
    Hidden categories: 
    Articles with short description
    Short description is different from Wikidata
    Use mdy dates from December 2020
    Commons category link is on Wikidata
    Articles with FAST identifiers
    Articles with VIAF identifiers
    Articles with WorldCat Entities identifiers
    Articles with LCCN identifiers
    Articles with PIC identifiers
    Articles with USCongress identifiers
    Articles with SNAC-ID identifiers
     



    This page was last edited on 20 April 2024, at 00:19 (UTC).

    Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.



    Privacy policy

    About Wikipedia

    Disclaimers

    Contact Wikipedia

    Code of Conduct

    Developers

    Statistics

    Cookie statement

    Mobile view



    Wikimedia Foundation
    Powered by MediaWiki