Wilson S. Kennon

Wilson Shannon Kennon (born May 15, 1826 in St. Clairsville , Ohio , † June 18, 1895 ibid) was an American lawyer , officer and politician . He sat in the Ohio House of Representatives and was Secretary of State of Ohio from 1862 to 1863 . The Congressman William Kennon was his uncle and the same Congressman William Kennon junior his father.

Career

Wilson Shannon Kennon was born and raised in Belmont County in 1826 . He attended the St. Clairsville Institute. Then he went to Bethany College in West Virginia (then still part of Virginia ). Kennon studied law in his father's law firm. In 1850 he was admitted to the bar.

In 1861 he was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives for Belmont County. He took his seat in the Ohio General Assembly on January 6, 1862. Before the civil war he was a member of the Democratic Party . But he was nominated for the House of Representatives by the Unconditional Union Party of Belmont County. In May 1862, Benjamin R. Cowen resigned as Secretary of State after a few months to go to war. Governor David Tod then appointed Kennon Secretary of State. The election of the Secretary of State was then postponed to even-numbered years. The Republican Party then nominated Kennon in their second round of voting for the 1862 election. Kennon, however, lost the election to Democrat William W. Armstrong . In that election, soldiers were not allowed to vote who were outside the state. After his tenure, Kennon became a paymaster in the United States Army and served until the end of the war. He achieved the rank of major .

After the end of the war, he ran a law firm in Cincinnati . He was a partner with Milton Sayler and John W. Okey for five years . After his father was paralyzed , he moved back to Belmont County. Kennon was a prosecuting attorney in Belmont County for six years . He died on June 18, 1895 at his home in St. Clairsville. He was the Mayor of St. Clairsville at the time.

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Biographical notices of the members of the fifty-fifth General Assembly of the state of Ohio , John Wallace, 1862, p. 72f
2. ^ Manual of Legislative Practice in the General Assembly of Ohio , Westbote Company, 1917, p. 282
3. ^ ^{A b} Smith, Joseph Patterson: History of the Republican Party in Ohio , Volume 1, Lewis Publishing Company, 1898, pp. 148–151
4. ^ ^{A b} Laning, J. Ford : Ohio Legal News , Volume 2, The Laning Printing Company, 1895, p. 573
5. ^ History of the Upper Ohio Valley, Volume 2, 1890, p. 647