Digital Bob Archive

An Irish night watchman was the first pensioner of the City of Juneau, but that was not his only claim to fame. A street in the area of Juneau where he lived for many years was named for him, a son served in the Territorial Legislature and a granddaughter in the State Legislature, and some relatives by marriage were also in the Alaska government. Kennedy was the name but he was apparently unrelated to another political family.

Daniel Kennedy was born on July 4, 1832, in Bray Common, County Dublin. He went to sea at age eleven but jumped ship at Philadelphia and remained there for ten years. In the 1850s he went to California, then followed the gold trail to Oregon, Idaho, Washington, and British Columbia. He came north to the Cassiar, then to Sitka, where on Thanksgiving Day in 1878 he married Ekaterina (Katherine) Kvasnikov whose father was the Russian priest at Kenai. Sons John and Dan were born at Sitka.

Kennedy came to Juneau in December, 1880, with the first wave of prospectors after the gold discovery. He staked a couple of town lots-one of them is now occupied by the Behrends Building-and some mining claims, both placer and lode.
By the next summer he had settled his family here. Three more sons were born in Juneau, James, Edward and George. James, born on January 26, 1882, was said to have been the first white child born in Juneau. The claim has also been disputed.

In 1883 Kennedy was appointed night watchman and constable. A principal duty, in those days of wood fires and shingled roofs, was watching for roof fires, especially in the winter months. In the absence of any city government he was compensated by contributions from the residents. He was said also to have been appointed a policeman by one or two early Alaska governors.

In 1892 the Kennedy family moved to the Kenai Peninsula and took up a coal claim, but by 1894 they were back in Juneau and Dan was again the watchman. When he retired, in 1911, the City Council voted to give him half pay for the remainder of his life. He died on January 28, 1913.

All five Kennedy boys remained in Alaska. Edward was drowned at Juneau in 1909. Daniel operated pack trains in the Fairbanks area for some years, then at Mount McKinley. After that he was associated with his brothers in an Anchorage store. James married Mayme V. Grlser in Juneau and they had two daughters. Frances married James Truitt, Jr., long with the U.S. Engineers in Alaska. His father was territorial Attorney General in the 1930s. Daughter Kathryn married William M. Poland of Kodiak and was appointed to his seat in the State Senate in 1970 after he resigned following a heart attack. She was later elected to a full term. James Kennedy died in 1934 and his widow married Irwin L. Metcalfe who served in both the territorial and state Legislatures and the Constitutional Convention.

Juneau's own Kennedys made a considerable mark on Alaska.