Ohio History Journal

224     Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

in Civil War time, for he says that "soon a hundred

thousand men were singing 'And his soul goes marching

on.'"

It was the singing of this song by thousands of the

boys in blue that inspired Julia Ward Howe, the wife

of Samuel G. Howe, the financial supporter of John

Brown, to write The Battle Hymn of the Republic,

a poem that still has its appeal to those who have not

come completely under the spell of "the new literature."

The world seems to be finding it difficult to forget

John Brown. As trains approach Harper's Ferry the

passengers begin to talk about the famous raid and the

old man who led it. He is the subject of more dis-

cussions than the sanity of Hamlet, but his name seems

destined to endure while the Blue Ridge Mountains

stand and the Potomac rolls through them to the sea.

 

GEORGE KENNAN

We regret to chronicle the death of an Ohioan who

had attained an enviable reputation as traveler, author,

lecturer and newspaper correspondent. George Kennan

was born at Norwalk, Ohio, February 16, 1845. He was

the son of John and Mary Ann (Morse) Kennan. He

was educated in the public schools of his native town,

early manifested interest in telegraphy and became an

operator before he reached his majority. In 1865 he

went to northeastern Siberia as an explorer and tele-

graph engineer where later he superintended the con-

struction of a portion of the Russo-American telegraph

line. In 1870 he began the exploration of the mountain

region of eastern Caucasus and Daghestan. Here he

spent almost two years after which he returned to

America and devoted himself to journalism and the

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Reviews, Notes and Comments       225

lecture platform until 1877 when he became night man-

ager of the Associated Press at Washington, D. C. In

this position he continued eight years.

In 1885 accompanied by G. A. Frost, an artist, he

started on a journey through Russia and Siberia to

investigate the Russian exile system. He visited all the

mines and prisons "between the Ural Mountains and

the headwaters of the Amur." He traveled 15,000

miles and published in 1891 as a result of his observa-

tions the work that made him famous, Siberia and the

Exile System. This had appeared serially in the Cen-

tury Magazine, 1889-1890. He lectured frequently on

the exile system in Great Britain and the United States.

The results of his contributions on this subject went

far toward creating a pronounced public opinion op-

posed to the government of the Czar and especially to

the exile system.

In 1898 during the war with Spain he visited

Cuba and contributed interesting articles to the Out-

look of New York.

In 1901 he went to Russia to visit Count Tolstoy.

He was arrested by the Minister of the Interior in

Russia and deported from the empire.

In 1902 he accompanied some American scientists

and explored Mount Pelee, on the Island of Martinique,

after the eruption of that volcano. In 1904 he was

correspondent of the Outlook in the Far East through

the Russo-Japanese War including the siege of Port

Arthur which he personally observed with the Japanese

Army. After the close of the war he remained about

two years in the Far East traveling through Japan,

China, Manchuria and Korea. In 1906-1907 he was

Vol. XXXIII--15.

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226      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications in California as correspondent for McClure's Magazine. In 1908 he went to England and translated from the original Russian manuscript General Kuropatkin's History of the Japanese War. Following is a list of his works that have appeared in book form: Siberia and the Exile System (1891); Campaigning in Cuba (1899); The Tragedy of Pelee (1902); Folk Tales of Napoleon (1902); Tent Life in Siberia (1910); A Russian Comedy of Errors (1915); The Chicago and Alton Case (1916); The Sal- ton Sea (1917); E. H. Harriman -- A Biography (1922). On September 25, 1879, Mr. Kennan married Em- maline Rathbone Weld of Medina, New York. He died at his home in Medina, New York, May 10, 1924.

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