OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (KENDALL LALOR.) 



01 n 



piration of his term as consul he again settled 

 in Alexandria and became part owner and editor 

 of the Alexandria Times. 



Kendall, Ezra Otis, educator, born in Wil- 

 mington, -Mass., May 15, 1810; died in Phila- 

 delphia, Pa., Jan. 5, 1899. He went to Phila- 

 delphia in 1835, after receiving his early edu- 

 cation in Woburn, placed himself under the in- 

 struction of his half-brother, Sears C. Walker, a 

 noted mathematician, and was appointed Pro- 

 fessor of Theoretical Astronomy and Mathematics 

 in the public high school of that city in 1838. 

 He organized and equipped an astronomical ob- 

 servatory, in which for many years he passed 

 the greater part of the nighttime. The first re- 

 sults of his observations and studies appeared in 

 his Uranography, which was accomplished by an 

 original atlas of the constellations. His work 

 attracted the attention of scientists in the em- 

 ployment of the Federal Government, and on 

 their recommendation he was employed several 

 years in making observations for longitudes for 

 use in the United States Coast Survey. In 1851 

 he received an appointment on the United States 

 Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac, and he had 

 much to do with the compilation of that work 

 till 1882. He edited scientific books and con- 

 tributed frequently to technical periodicals on 

 astronomical topics. In 1855 he was elected Pro- 

 fessor of Mathematics and Astronomy in the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania, and there he labored 

 without interruption thirty-five years, retiring as 

 professor emeritus in 1890. For seven years prior 

 to his retirement he was vice-provost of the uni- 

 versity, and for several he was dean of the faculty. 

 He received the degree of LL. D. from the uni- 

 versity in 1888. 



Kerrigan, James E., politician, born in New 

 York city, Dec. 25, 1828; died in Brooklyn, N. Y., 

 Nov. 1, 1899. In his boyhood he was a leader of 

 the Bowery youth and a member of No. 14 Hose 

 of the old volunteer fire department, of which 

 Harry Howard was foreman. At the age of 

 seventeen he ran away from Fordham College 

 and enlisted for .service in the Mexican War. 

 After the fall of the city of Mexico he joined 

 Gen. Walker's filibustering expedition to Nica- 

 ragua as a captain. On his return to New York 

 city he became the leader of the Bowery element 

 of Tammany Hall. He was elected alderman from 

 the 6th Ward, and served a term as clerk of the 

 old Tombs police court. At the beginning of the 

 civil war he organized the 25th New York Volun- 

 teers and became its colonel. He was dismissed 

 from the service on account of having had inter- 

 course with the enemy just before the advance 

 on Miner's Hill in September, 1861. In 1862 he 

 was elected to Congress, where he served one 

 term. He next became an enthusiastic Irish Na- 

 tionalist, and when the invasion of Canada was 

 planned in 1866 he led a company across the bor- 

 der. In the spring of 1899 he went to the Klon- 

 dike, looking for adventure. 



Keyser, John H., philanthropist, born in West- 

 port, Conn., in 1819; died in East Norwalk, Conn., 

 Aug. 20, 1899. For forty years he manufactured 

 stoves and furnaces in New York city, and had 

 extensive business interests elsewhere, including a 

 large foundry at Greenpoint, N. Y. He received 32 

 patents for original inventions, and made and 

 lost several fortunes. While the Tweed ring was 

 under investigation he was accused of having 

 been a partner of Tweed and of having received 

 large sums of money from the city because of 

 this connection. He denied the charges, and made 

 an assignment to Jackson S. Schultz, of the Citi- 

 zen's Committee, of property of an estimated 



value of $000,000 to " repay out of the proceeds 

 of it all sums of money which lie may have im- 

 properly received from the city or county of New 

 York." The committee fully exonerated him from 

 all charges of corruption. In IHO.'i Mr. Keyser 

 did much to protect the colored people of tin- 

 city from the fury of the draft rioters. In 1808 

 he built the Strangers' Rest at a cost of $2r>,000, 

 and in it sheltered and fed annually about 9,000 

 homeless men and women, at an expense* of $12,- 

 000 per annum, for five years. Two years later 

 he bought and rebuilt property on Tenth Street 

 at a cost of $80,000, and conducted a free Stran- 

 gers' Hospital for three years. In the panic of 

 1873, when his residence was besieged by the 

 hungry and homeless, he converted his back yard 

 into a dining room, and for several weeks gave 

 two meals daily to an average of 1,000 persons. 

 In 1888 also he established a free eating house 

 on Washington Square, in which 2,000 persons 

 received two meals daily. Again, during the 

 severe .winter of 1894, he undertook to aid the 

 homeless, and it was largely through his efforts 

 that 1,200 homeless men were nightly sheltered. 



Kreusi, John, engineer, born in Switzerland 

 in 1843; died in Schenectady, N. Y., Feb. 22, 1899. 

 He received his professional education in his na- 

 tive country, and in 1870 came to the United 

 States and was employed by the Singer Sewing 

 Machine Company at Elizabethport, N. J. Two 

 years later he went to work with Thomas A. 

 Edison, who was then making stock exchange 

 telegraph instruments. He soon became Mr. Edi- 

 son's most confidential associate, and was in- 

 trusted with the development of many of his 

 electrical and mechanical ideas. After Mr. Edison 

 had conceived the idea of the phonograph he 

 placed in Mr. Kreusi's hands a rough drawing 

 of the projected instrument and some hastily 

 fashioned parts, and asked him to perfect the 

 apparatus. This Mr. Kreusi did, and the first 

 words spoken into the first phonograph were by 

 Mr. Edison, and comprised the verse beginning 

 with " Mary had a little lamb." Subsequently 

 Mr. Kreusi invented and perfected the under- 

 ground tubing system now in general use. At 

 the time of his death he was the chief mechan- 

 ical engineer of the General Electric Company, ' 

 much of whose apparatus was of his invention. 



Kynett, Alpha Jefferson, clergyman, born in 

 Adams County, Pennsylvania, Aug. 12, 1829; died 

 in Harrisburg, Pa., Feb. 23, 1899. He received 

 as good an education as was possible to pioneer 

 families in Iowa, was licensed to preach in 1850, 

 and \vas admitted into the Iowa Methodist Con- 

 ference in 1851. He became a presiding elder in 

 1860, and corresponding secretary of the Church 

 Extension Society of the Upper Iowa Conference 

 in 1864. In the last year he presented the plan 

 and- scope of the Church Extension Society before 

 the General Conference, by which it was adopted. 

 In 1867 Dr. Kynett was elected corresponding 

 secretary of the General Church Extension Soci- 

 ety, and he was re-elected at each quadrennial 

 General Conference thereafter. Under his direc- 

 tion the society collected and disbursed more than 

 $4,000,000 in 'the first twenty-five years. Dur- 

 ing the civil war Dr. Kynett served on the staff 

 of Gov. Kirkwood, of Iowa, aided in recruiting 

 several regiments, and organized the Iowa branch 

 of the Sanitary Commission. He received the 

 degree of D. D. in 1807 and of LL. D. in 1887. He 

 published Laws and Forms concerning Churches. 

 Lalor, John J., author, died in Washington, 

 D. C., June 10, 1899. He taught in the East Side 

 High School, Milwaukee, in 1885, and later went 

 into the publishing business. He translated 



