{{Short description|American businessman and clubman}} {{infobox person | name = James Powell Kernochan | image = James Powell Kernochan, merchant, capitalist.jpg | birth_date = {{birth date|1831|10|22}} | birth_place = New York City, New York, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1897|03|06|1831|10|22}} | death_place = New York City, New York, U.S. | education = | alma_mater = | parents = Joseph Kernochan<br>Margaret Eliza Seymour | spouse = Catherine Lorillard | children = Katherine Lorillard Kernochan<br>James Lorillard Kernochan | relatives = J. Frederic Kernochan (brother)<br>Herbert Pell, Jr. (grandson) }} '''James Powell Kernochan''' (October 22, 1831 – March 6, 1897)<ref name="JPKObit1897"/> was an American businessman and clubman who was prominent in New York society during the Gilded Age.
==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.<ref name="JFKObit1929">{{cite news |title=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. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1929/08/18/archives/jf-kernochan-86-dies-after-stroke-lawyer-was-a-founder-of-the-bar-a.html |access-date=22 June 2018 |work=The New York Times |date=August 18, 1929 |language=en}}</ref> His father, who was born in Scotland and came to America in 1790 as a baby, was a dry goods merchant and banker and 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.<ref name="Yale1905">{{cite book |title=A History of the Class of 1863, Yale College: Being the Fourth of Those Printed by Order of the Class |date=1905 |publisher=Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Company |pages=114–115 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NQviAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA114 |access-date=22 June 2018 |language=en}}</ref>
==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.<ref name="Pope">{{cite book|last=Pope|first=Franklin Leonard|title=Evolution of the Electric Incandescent Lamp|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kbEOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR10|year=1894|publisher=Boschen & Wefer}}</ref><ref name=1878lamp>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Another Electric Lamp |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/5042574// |newspaper=Democrat and Chronicle |location=Rochester, New York |date=November 1, 1878 |via=Newspapers.com {{open access}} }}</ref> Electro-Dynamic Light was the first company organized specifically to manufacture and sell incandescent electric light bulbs.<ref name="Pope"/>
Mainly, his business career consisted of managing his wife's and his own estate.<ref name="JPKObit1897"/> 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.<ref name="JPKObit1897"/>
===Society life=== Catherine Lorillard Kernochen|thumb|right 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''.<ref name="McAllister1892">{{cite news|last1=McAllister|first1=Ward|title=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.|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1892/02/16/108210917.pdf|access-date=26 March 2017|work=The New York Times|date=16 February 1892|language=en}}</ref><ref name="Patterson2000">{{cite book |last1=Patterson |first1=Jerry E. |title=The First Four Hundred: Mrs. Astor's New York in the Gilded Age |date=2000 |publisher=Random House Incorporated |isbn=9780847822089 |page=217 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZLwMAAAAYAAJ |access-date=13 June 2018 |language=en}}</ref> Conveniently, 400 was the number of people that could fit into Mrs. Astor's ballroom.<ref name="Keister2005">{{cite book|last1=Keister|first1=Lisa A.|title=Getting Rich: America's New Rich and How They Got That Way|date=2005|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521536677|page=36|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5dAtJf1hmAUC&pg=PA36|access-date=20 October 2017|language=en}}</ref>
He was a governor of the Metropolitan Club, the Union Club of the City of New York, the Tuxedo 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.<ref name="JPKObit1897"/>
==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.<ref name="Almanac1905">{{cite book|title=The World Almanac and Encyclopedia|date=1905|publisher=Press Publishing Company, (The New York World)|page=330|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KDEfAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA330|access-date=17 November 2017|language=en}}</ref> They owned a residence in New York City at 824 Fifth Avenue and a home in Newport, Rhode Island.<ref name="JPKObit1897"/> Together, James and Catherine were the parents of:<ref name="Pell2009">{{cite book|last1=Pell|first1=Eve|title=We Used to Own the Bronx: Memoirs of a Former Debutante|date=2009|publisher=SUNY Press|isbn=9781438424972|page=14|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-lSta9o6UW8C&pg=PA14|access-date=17 November 2017|language=en}}</ref>
* Katherine Lorillard "Kitty" Kernochan (1858–1949),<ref name="Pell1961">{{cite news |title=Pell Had Hopewell Estate; Long-time Roosevelt Friend |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/114146226/?terms=Katherine%2BKernochan%2BPell |access-date=22 June 2018 |work=Poughkeepsie Journal |date=July 18, 1961 |page=18 |language=en}}</ref> who married Herbert Claiborne Pell (1853–1926),<ref name="JLKObit1903"/><ref name="HCPObit1926">{{cite news |title=Herbert C. Pell, Sr. Dies |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/369433239/?terms=Herbert%2BC.%2BPell |access-date=22 June 2018 |work=Hartford Courant |date=February 28, 1926 |page=25 |language=en}}</ref> one of the founders of Tuxedo Park, New York.<ref name="Tuxedo1926">{{cite news |title=Tuxedo Park Founder Dead. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/95685518/?terms=Herbert%2BC.%2BPell |access-date=22 June 2018 |work=Bernardsville News |date=11 Mar 1926 |page=1 |language=en}}</ref> * James Lorillard Kernochan (1867–1903),<ref name="JLKObit1903">{{cite news |title=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 |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1903/10/06/105061949.pdf |access-date=22 June 2018 |work=The New York Times |date=October 6, 1903}}</ref> 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.<ref name="JPKObit1897"/> He was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.<ref name="JPKObit1897">{{cite news|title=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.|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1897/03/06/117898340.pdf|access-date=17 November 2017|work=The New York Times|date=6 March 1897}}</ref> His widow died in 1917.<ref name="CLKObit1917">{{cite news|title=Mrs. Catherine Lorillard Kernochan|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C00EFDD123BEE3ABC4F51DFB466838C609EDE&legacy=true|access-date=17 November 2017|work=The New York Times|date=27 February 1917|language=en}}</ref>
===Descendants=== Through his daughter Katherine, he was the grandfather of Herbert Claiborne Pell Jr. (1884–1961),<ref name="Pell1961"/> 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.<ref name="HCPObit1961">{{cite news|title=HERBERT C. PELL, DIPLOMAT, DEAD; Father of Senator Served in Portugal and Hungary|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F01E0DE113DE733A2575AC1A9619C946091D6CF&legacy=true|access-date=7 May 2017|work=The New York Times|date=19 July 1961}}</ref> 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.<ref name="CPObit2009">{{cite news|last1=Honan|first1=William H.|author-link=William H. Honan|title=Claiborne Pell, Patrician Senator Behind College Grant Program, Dies at 90|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/us/politics/02pell.html|access-date=7 May 2017|work=The New York Times|date=1 January 2009}}</ref>
== References == {{Reflist|30em}}
== External links == * {{find a Grave|93988742}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kernochan, James Powell}} Category:1831 births Category:1897 deaths Category:Burials at Green-Wood Cemetery