Beverley Kennon

Add links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Beverley Kennon
Captain (Actual)
Commodore (Customary)
Commands heldUSS Vandalia
USS Macedonian
Washington Navy Yard
Bureau of Construction and Repair
Battles/warsWar of 1812
Second Barbary War
Spouse(s)
Elizabeth Dandridge
​
(died 1832)​

Britania Peter
​
(m. 1842)​

Beverley Kennon (April 7, 1793 – February 28, 1844) was a career officer in the United States Navy who attained the rank of captain as head of the Bureau of Construction and Repair. He died as a result of the explosion aboard USS Princeton.

Biography

1820 likeness at National Portrait Gallery, owned by Tudor Place Foundation

Beverley Kennon was born in

State Senate.[1]

Beverley Kennon was educated in Mecklenburg County, and in 1809 was appointed a midshipman in the United States Navy.[1] He served in the War of 1812, including a posting to USS Superior on Lake Ontario.[2] In 1813, he received his commission as a lieutenant (junior grade), and he made the Navy his career.[1] During the Second Barbary War he served on USS Constellation (as did his brother George, the ship's surgeon), and he was involved in the capture of the Algerian ship Mashouda.[1]

Kennon was promoted to master commandant in 1828, and in 1830 he was assigned as commander of USS Vandalia.[1] He was promoted to captain in 1837;[1] he commanded USS Macedonian from 1838 to 1841, and the Washington Navy Yard from 1841 to 1843.[1] In March 1843, Kennon was assigned as head of the Navy's Bureau of Construction and Repair, and he served in this position until his death.[1] As a senior Navy captain, Kennon was permitted to use the title commodore, which is how he was frequently addressed.[3]

1844 Peacemaker accident

Currier & Ives
lithograph depicting the explosion

Kennon died aboard ship near

First Lady Dolley Madison, Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, and approximately four hundred guests.[4]

As part of the demonstration, Captain Robert F. Stockton decided to fire the larger of the ship's two new long guns, Peacemaker.[4] The gun was fired three times on the trip downriver and was loaded to fire a salute to George Washington as the ship passed Mount Vernon on the return trip.[4] The guests aboard ship observed the first set of firings and then retired below decks for lunch and refreshments.[5]

Afterwards, Thomas Walker Gilmer, the Secretary of the Navy and a lifelong friend of Kennon's, urged the guests to view the final shot of the Peacemaker.[4] When Captain Stockton pulled the firing lanyard, the gun burst. Its left side had failed, spraying hot metal across the deck and shrapnel into the crowd.[6] Instantly killed were: Kennon; Gilmer; the Secretary of State, Abel P. Upshur; Maryland attorney and politician Virgil Maxcy; David Gardiner, a New York lawyer and politician; and the President's valet, a black slave named Armistead.[7] Another sixteen to twenty people were injured, including several members of the ship's crew, Senator Benton, and Captain Stockton.[8][9] The President was below decks and not injured.[10]

The dead were accorded a state funeral in the East Room of the White House.[3] Kennon was first buried at Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C.,[3] and later re–interred In Lot 544 of Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington.[11]

Family

Tudor Place, 1874

Kennon's first wife was Elizabeth Dandridge of Virginia (1808–1832);[1] in 1842, he married Dandridge's distant relative, Britannia Peter (1815–1911) of Tudor Place in Georgetown;[1] she was the daughter of Martha Parke Custis Peter and Thomas Peter, and great-granddaughter of Martha Washington, and step-great-granddaughter of George Washington.[1]

With his first wife, Kennon's children were sons Beverley Kennon Jr. (1830–1890)[1] and William Dandridge Kennon (1832–1872).[12] Beverley Kennon Jr. served as an officer in the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War,[1] and later became a mercenary in Egypt.[13] William Kennon was a Confederate soldier in the Civil War, and served in the 4th Virginia Cavalry and Woolfolk's Battery of Alexander's Artillery Battalion.[14] In addition, William D. Kennon served aboard the ship Campbell as a member of the United States Revenue Cutter Service.[15]

With his second wife, Beverley Kennon was the father of a daughter, Martha Custis Kennon Peter (1843–1886).[13]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, pp. 552–553.
  2. ^ Congressional Record.
  3. ^ a b c "Funeral Obsequies", p. 1.
  4. ^ a b c d e Nester 2013, p. 212.
  5. ^ "Fatal Cruise of the Princeton".
  6. ^ The Princeton Disaster, pp. 148–149.
  7. ^ The Invisibles, pp. 175–178.
  8. ^ Accident on Steam-ship "Princeton".
  9. ^ Further Particulars of the Accident on Board the Princeton, p. 1.
  10. ^ A Country of Vast Designs, pp. 65–66.
  11. ^ "Oak Hill Cemetery".
  12. ^ Americans of Royal Descent, p. 234.
  13. ^ a b "Tudor Place Archive".
  14. ^ "4th Virginia Cavalry", p. 120.
  15. ^ "Jones Family Papers, 1808–1942".

Sources

Books

  • Browning, Charles Henry (1883). Americans of Royal Descent. Philadelphia, PA: Porter & Coates.
  • Holland, Jesse J. (2016). The Invisibles: The Untold Story of African American Slaves in the White House. Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press.
  • ISBN 978-0743297431
    .
  • Nester, William (2013). The Age of Jackson and the Art of American Power, 1815-1848. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books.
    ISBN 978-1-61234-605-2
    .
  • United States Congress (1844). Accident on Steam-ship "Princeton"...: Report [of] the Committee on Naval Affairs.
  • Stiles, Kenneth L. (1985). 4th Virginia Cavalry. Lynchburg, VA: H. E. Howard.
    ISBN 9780930919177
    .
  • United States Senate (1949). Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 81st Congress. Vol. 95, Part 16. Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office.
  • White, James T. (1897). The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Vol. IV. New York, NY: James T. White & Company.

Internet

Magazines

Newspapers

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Beverley Kennon.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Beverley_Kennon&oldid=1213916700"