James Powell Kernochan

James Powell Kernochan (October 22, 1831 – March 6, 1897)[1] was an American businessman and clubman who was prominent in New York society during the Gilded Age.

James Powell Kernochan
Born(1831-10-22)October 22, 1831
New York City, New York, U.S.
DiedMarch 6, 1897(1897-03-06) (aged 65)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Spouse(s)
Catherine Lorillard
​
​
(his death 1897)​
ChildrenKatherine Lorillard Kernochan
James Lorillard Kernochan
Parent(s)Joseph Kernochan
Margaret Eliza Seymour
RelativesJ. Frederic Kernochan (brother)
Herbert Pell, Jr. (grandson)

Early life

Kernochan was born on October 22, 1831 in New York City in a house at 8th Street and Second Avenue. He was the son of Joseph Kernochan (1789–1864) and Margaret Eliza (née Seymour) Kernochan (1804–1845). His siblings included William Seymour Kernochan, and Elizabeth Powell Kernochan Garr, John Adams Kernochan, Henry Parish Kernochan, Ann Adams Kernochan, Frank Edward Kernochan, and J. Frederic Kernochan.[2] His father, who was born in Scotland and came to America in 1790 as a baby, was a dry goods merchant and banker that was a founder of the University Club of New York.

His paternal grandparents were William and Esther Kernochan, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians who had a farm in Orange County, and his maternal grandparents were William Seymour and Eliza (née Powell) Seymour, an English family who lived in Brooklyn.[3]

Career

Along with Albon Man, a New York attorney, William E. Sawyer, an electrical engineer, Hugh McCulloch, and others, Kernochan was an initial investor-partner in Electro-Dynamic Light Company, a lighting and electrical distribution company organized in 1878.[4][5] Electro-Dynamic Light was the first company organized specifically to manufacture and sell incandescent electric light bulbs.[4]

Mainly, his business career consisted of managing his wife's and his own estate.[1] At the time of his death, was a trustee of the Lorillard, Spencer, and Marshall estates, as well as a director of the New York Life Insurance and Trust Company.[1]

Society life

In 1892, Kernochan and his wife Catherine were included in Ward McAllister's "Four Hundred", purported to be an index of New York's best families, published in The New York Times.[6][7] Conveniently, 400 was the number of people that could fit into Mrs. Astor's ballroom.[8]

He was a governor of the Metropolitan Club, the Union Club of the City of New York, the Tuxedo Park Club, and the Rockaway Hunting Club. Following Ward McAllister's death, served as one of the leads of the Patriarchs Ball alongside William Watts Sherman, George G. Haven, Charles Lanier, and William C. Whitney.[1]

Personal life

Kernochan was married to Catherine Lorillard (1835–1917), the daughter of Pierre Lorillard III, an inheritor of the Lorillard Tobacco Company fortune. Her siblings included Pierre Lorillard IV, Mary Lorillard Barbey, and George Lyndes Lorillard.[9] They owned a residence in New York City at 824 Fifth Avenue and a home in Newport, Rhode Island.[1] Together, James and Catherine were the parents of:[10]

  • Katherine Lorillard "Kitty" Kernochan (1858–1949),[11] who married Herbert Claiborne Pell (1853–1926),[12][13] one of the founders of Tuxedo Park, New York.[14]
  • James Lorillard Kernochan (1867–1903),[12] who married Eloise Stevenson (1872–1948), the daughter of Vernon King Stevenson, the first president of the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad, in 1891. After his death, she remarried to Alexander Butler Duncan.

Kernochan died on March 6, 1897 at his residence, 824 Fifth Avenue, in New York City from a concussion of the brain and cerebral meningitis which resulted from a fall after he had been struck by the shaft of a wagon at Fifth Avenue and 41st Street.[1] He was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.[1] His widow died in 1917.[15]

Descendants

Through his daughter Katherine, he was the grandfather of Herbert Claiborne Pell, Jr. (1884–1961),[11] a U.S. Representative from New York, U.S. Minister to Portugal, U.S. Minister to Hungary, and an instigator and member of the United Nations War Crimes Commission.[16] Herbert was the father of Claiborne de Borda Pell (1918–2009), a U.S. Senator from Rhode Island who served for 36 years from 1961 until 1997.[17]

References
  1. "JAMES P. KERNOCHAN DEAD; Well-Known Clubman Expires from the Effects of Being Knocked Down on Monday. CAUSE OF THE ACCIDENT. Archibald Pell Says He Knew Tuesday that Miss Baker, the Banker's Daughter, Drove the Wagon Which Ran Against His Father-in-Law" (PDF). The New York Times. 6 March 1897. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
  2. "J.F. KERNOCHAN, 86, DIES AFTER STROKE; Lawyer Was a Founder of the Bar Association of New York City. FATHER OF CHIEF JUSTICE He Had Practiced His Profession Here More Than 60 Years--His Funeral in Grace Church". The New York Times. August 18, 1929. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
  3. A History of the Class of 1863, Yale College: Being the Fourth of Those Printed by Order of the Class. Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Company. 1905. pp. 114–115. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
  4. Pope, Franklin Leonard (1894). Evolution of the Electric Incandescent Lamp. Boschen & Wefer.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  5. "Another Electric Lamp". Democrat and Chronicle. Rochester, New York. November 1, 1878 – via Newspapers.com .
  6. McAllister, Ward (16 February 1892). "THE ONLY FOUR HUNDRED | WARD M'ALLISTER GIVES OUT THE OFFICIAL LIST. HERE ARE THE NAMES, DON'T YOU KNOW, ON THE AUTHORITY OF THEIR GREAT LEADER, YOU UNDER- STAND, AND THEREFORE GENUINE, YOU SEE" (PDF). The New York Times. Retrieved 26 March 2017.
  7. Patterson, Jerry E. (2000). The First Four Hundred: Mrs. Astor's New York in the Gilded Age. Random House Incorporated. p. 217. ISBN 9780847822089. Retrieved 13 June 2018.
  8. Keister, Lisa A. (2005). Getting Rich: America's New Rich and How They Got That Way. Cambridge University Press. p. 36. ISBN 9780521536677. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
  9. The World Almanac and Encyclopedia. Press Publishing Company, (The New York World). 1905. p. 330. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
  10. Pell, Eve (2009). We Used to Own the Bronx: Memoirs of a Former Debutante. SUNY Press. p. 14. ISBN 9781438424972. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
  11. "Pell Had Hopewell Estate; Long-time Roosevelt Friend". Poughkeepsie Journal. July 18, 1961. p. 18. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
  12. "JAMES L. KERNOCHAN DEAD | Passes Away at His Home, The Meadows, in Hemstead, L.I. | Popular Clubman and Cross-Country Rider Loved All Animals by Detested Automobiles" (PDF). The New York Times. October 6, 1903. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
  13. "Herbert C. Pell, Sr. Dies". Hartford Courant. February 28, 1926. p. 25. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
  14. "Tuxedo Park Founder Dead". Bernardsville News. 11 Mar 1926. p. 1. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
  15. "Mrs. Catherine Lorillard Kernochan". The New York Times. 27 February 1917. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
  16. "HERBERT C. PELL, DIPLOMAT, DEAD; Father of Senator Served in Portugal and Hungary". The New York Times. 19 July 1961. Retrieved 7 May 2017.
  17. Honan, William H. (1 January 2009). "Claiborne Pell, Patrician Senator Behind College Grant Program, Dies at 90". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 May 2017.
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