American traveler and author, born at Norwalk, Huron County, OH, on the 16th of February 1845; was educated in the public schools, studied telegraphy, and in 1864 was commissioned by the Russo-American Telegraph Company to superintend the construction of lines in Siberia; spent three years in exploration, location of routes, and construction of a telegraph line between the Sea of Okhotsk and Bering Strait. He returned to America in 1868, and in 1885–86, accompanied by the artist George A. Frost, again journeyed through eastern Russia, exploring the region of the Altai, and visiting the convict prisons and mines of Siberia. His extensive observations were published in a journal of travel, Tent-Life in Siberia (1870), and more particularly in a series of illustrated articles in the Century Magazine (1887–90), afterward collected in book-form, Siberia and the Exile System (1891). Mr. Kennan’s graphic narrative created a profound impression throughout Christendom, his startling revelations of misery and the brutality of Russian officials causing the proscription of the above magazine in the empire and the blacklisting of foreign journals commenting upon the subject. See also “A Visit to Count Tolstoi.”
