John Kennedy

John Pendleton Kennedy was an American novelist, lawyer, and Whig politician who served as United States Secretary of the Navy from 1852 to 1853 and as a U.S. representative from Maryland. He is best known for his novels Swallow Barn (1832) and Horse-Shoe Robinson (1835), which earned him a lasting place in American fiction. Kennedy also advocated for the adoption of the telegraph by the U.S. government and was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1853.[2][4]