BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, BELMONT COUNTY, OHIO

"History of the Upper Ohio Valley" Vol. II, 1890.

Presented by Linda Fluharty from hard copies provided
by Mary Staley & Phyllis Slater.


Pages 645-646.

WILLIAM KENNON

William Kennon, LL. D., born in Fayette county, Penn., May 15, 1793,
died at St. Clairsville, November 2, 1881, was a jurist and a legislator,
whose fine attainments adorned the legal profession of Ohio and the law-
making bodies of the state and nation. He came to Ohio in 1804 with his
parents, who settled on a farm near Barnesville. There he attended the
common schools, and by further private study prepared himself to take
up the profession which he had chosen. After attending Franklin college
two years he entered the law office of William B. Hubbard, then the
ablest practitioner at St. Clairsville, where he studied until 1824,
when he was admitted to the bar at Chillicothe. He then formed a
partnership with Mr. Hubbard, and rapidly acquired a lucrative practice
and an enviable reputation for ability and manly honor. So rapid was
this advancement that in 1828 he was nominated by the democratic party,
of which he was a member, to congress. He was elected, and in 1830 re-
elected, and though defeated in 1832, by James M. Bell, was again
elected in 1834, serving until 1837. HIs service in this capacity was
brilliant and valuable, and he took an active part in the discussion
of the important questions of the day. In 1842 he went upon the bench,
having been elected judge of the common pleas court of the district
comprising Monroe, Belmont, Guernsey, Jefferson and Harrison counties.
To this position his habits of mind and fairness and decision of character
peculiarly adapted him, and during his service as judge, which covered
seven years, he had no judgments reversed by higher courts. Among his
most notable public services was that as a member of the constitutional
convention of 1850, to which he was elected a delegate of Belmont and
Guernsey counties. He served as chairman of the judiciary committee, and
was a member of the commission appointed to frame a code of civil
procedure, the work of which was ratified by the legislature without
amendment. In 1854 Judge Kennon was appointed by Gov. William Medill
to the supreme court to fill the unexpired term of William B. Caldwell.
He held the office under that appointment one year, and was then elected
to the office of supreme judge, but he resigned the place two years later
and resumed his practice at St. Clairsville. In 1870 he was retained by
the contestants in the celebrated contest over the will of Alexander
Campbell, deceased, in the circuit court of Brooke county, W. Va., in
which Judge Jeremiah Black and James A. Garfield, were counsel opposing
him. The venerable Judge Kennon made special preparation for this case,
making greater effort than he could then endure, and during the
excitement incidental to a proposition by Judge Black to adjourn the
case, he was stricken with paralysis, a blow from which he never fully
recovered. Judge Kennon was, prior to the civil war, in politics a
democrat, and also a strenuous advocated of the preservation of the
Union; after the war he remained with the republican party during his
life. For a quarter of a century he was a devoted member of the Methodist
Episcopal church, to which also belonged his wife. She, Mary Ellis by
maiden name, is still living in November, 1889, at an advanced age.