ALEXANDER KENNEDY

Alexander Kennedy was born in northern Ireland in 1818. He first arrived in the Islands on November 29, 1858, aboard the bark, "Glimpse", from San Francisco. His obituary (Pacific Commercial Advertiser November 20, 1885), which is the source of almost all of the information about the doctor both before and after his years in Hawaii, states that he came to Hawaii from Pennsylvania. On his first visit he apparently remained in Honolulu for a little more than a year and a half.

In September, 1865, Dr. Kennedy returned to Honolulu, reputedly to establish a coffee plantation. It would seem that he soon abandoned the plan for the following business card appeared in the "Pacific Commercial Advertiser" on February 24, 1866:

Doctor Kennedy
Physician, Surgeon, and Accoucheur
Fort Street, next house below the Government Offices

In 1868 the doctor appeared before the Board of Health to present his claims for curing leprosy, which he believed to be syphilitic in origin. While the president of the Board of Health was far from convinced that he could effect any real cures, he was given permission to try his treatment. On Dr. Kennedy's statement that to be effective his treatment would have to be continued from nine to eighteen months, he was assured he could have as long as he wished, and on January 1, 1869, five patients were assigned to him. One, being in the advanced stages of the disease. died almost immediately. The other four were doing well, according to the doctor, when, without any notice, they were removed from his care and sent to Molokai. Dr. Kennedy in a letter describing the entire affair and published in the "Pacific Commercial Advertiser" for June 19, 1869, attributed the removal of his patients to the fact that the visiting physician (unnamed) feared the patients would be cured and, consequently, he would lose his job.

On April 30, 1870, Dr. Kennedy left for San Francisco aboard the "Ethan Allen" but returned in December of that year aboard the "Moses Taylor" and for the first time is listed on the ship's manifest as being accompanied by a wife, whose age is given as 27. The doctor, his wife, and a child went back to California on the "Mohongo" in the summer of 1872. However, when Dr. Kennedy came back to Honolulu aboard the "Zealandia" on September 20, 1877, he seems to have been alone and nothing further is known about his family.

In February, 1881, Dr. Kennedy was hired by the Board of Health as physician for the Koolau district of Oahu. A smallpox epidemic that Spring kept him busy vaccinating the people of that area. In September, 1881, he left the Islands for the last time. Soon after reaching the mainland he returned to Ireland.

Dr. Kennedy died at Cooleen House, Shandtown, Belfast, Ireland, on October 6, 1885, at the age of 67.

The one brief glimpse we are given into the doctor's early life -- again from his obituary -- disclosed that as a young man he studied for the ministry and took a M.A. degree but abandoned the idea "not having a good delivery".

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