Anthony Kennedy

Who was Anthony Kennedy?

Anthony Kennedy was a United States Senator from Maryland, serving from 1857 to 1863. He was the brother of United States Secretary of the Navy John P. Kennedy.

Kennedy was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to merchant John Kennedy and Nancy Pendleton. His parents sent him to Charles Town, Virginia, in 1821, where he attended the Jefferson Academy. He studied law and also engaged in agricultural pursuits. He was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1839 to 1843 and a magistrate on the bench of the Jefferson County Court in Virginia for ten years.

Kennedy was an unsuccessful Whig candidate for election in 1844 to the Twenty-ninth Congress and declined the offer of President Millard Fillmore to be consul to Havana, Cuba, in 1850. He returned to Baltimore in 1851 and was elected as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates in 1856.

Kennedy was elected by the American Party to the United States Senate and served from 1857 to 1863. He served as a delegate to the State constitutional convention in 1867, afterwards retiring from active political life. Kennedy resided on his farm near Ellicott City, Maryland, and died in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1892.