John P . Kennedy John Pendleton Kennedy ( October 25 , 1795 – August 18 , 1870 ) was an American novelist and Whig politician who served as United States Secretary of the Navy from July 26 , 1852 to March 4 , 1853 , during the administration of President Millard Fillmore , and as a U . S . Representative from the Maryland ' s 4th congressional district . He was the brother of U . S . Senator Anthony Kennedy . Biography . John Pendleton Kennedy born in Baltimore , Maryland , on October 25 , 1795 , the son of merchant John Kennedy and Nancy Pendleton . Poor investments resulted in his father declaring bankruptcy in 1809 . He graduated from Baltimore College in 1812 and fought in the Battles of Bladensburg and North Point in the War of 1812 . Although admitted to the bar in 1816 , he was much more interested in literature and politics than law . Literary life . Kennedy ' s first literary attempt was a fortnightly periodical called the " Red Book " , publishing anonymously with his roommate Peter Hoffman Cruse from 1819 – 1820 . Kennedy published " Swallow Barn , or A Sojourn in the Old Dominion " in 1832 , which would become his best - known work . " Horse - Shoe Robinson " was published in 1835 to win a permanent place of respect in the history of American fiction . While sitting round a back parlor table at the home of noted Baltimore literarist , civic leader and friend John H . B . Latrobe at 11 West Mulberry Street , across from the old Baltimore Cathedral in the Mount Vernon - Belvedere Mount Vernon , Baltimore neighborhood in October 1833 , imbibing in some spirits and genial conversation with other friend James H . Miller , they together judged the draft of " MS . Found in a Bottle " from a then unknown aspiring writer Edgar Allan Poe to be worthy of publishing in the Baltimore Sunday Visitor because of its dark and macabre atmosphere and awarded a prize giving the young future author / poet his first publication . Also in 1835 , he helped later introduce Edgar Allan Poe to Thomas Willis White , editor of the " Southern Literary Messenger " . While abroad Kennedy became a friend of William Makepeace Thackeray and wrote or outlined the fourth chapter of the second volume of " The Virginians " , a fact which accounts for the great accuracy of its scenic descriptions . Of his works " Horse - Shoe Robinson " is the best and ranks high in antebellum fiction . Washington Irving read an advance copy of it and reported he was " so tickled with some parts of it " that he read it aloud to his friends . Kennedy sometimes wrote under the pen name " Mark Littleton " , especially in his political satires . Political life . Kennedy was an active Whig . He was appointed Secretary of the Legation in Chile on January 27 , 1823 , but did not proceed to his post and resigned on June 23 of the same year . He was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1820 and in 1838 , he succeeded Isaac McKim in the U . S . House of Representatives , but was defeated in his bid for reelection in November of that year . He was re - elected to Congress in 1840 and 1842 ; but , because of his strong opposition to the annexation of Texas , he was defeated in 1844 . His influence in Congress was largely responsible for the appropriation of $ 30 , 000 to test Samuel Morse ' s telegraph . President Millard Fillmore appointed Kennedy to the post of Secretary of the Navy in July 1852 . During Kennedy ' s tenure in office , the Navy organized four important naval expeditions including that which sent Commodore Matthew C . Perry to Japan and Lieutenant William Lewis Herndon and Lieutenant Lardner Gibbon to explore the Amazon . Retirement and death . Kennedy retired from public life in March 1853 when President Fillmore left office , but he retained an active interest in politics , supporting Fillmore in 1856 , when Fillmore won Maryland ' s electoral votes and Kennedy ' s brother Anthony won a U . S . Senate seat . His name was mentioned as one of the vice - presidential prospects on the Republican ticket in 1860 ( meaning that Abraham Lincoln might have been paired with a man named " John Kennedy " ) . At the end of the American Civil War — during which he forcefully supported the Union — he advocated amnesty for the South . He died at Newport , Rhode Island on August 18 , 1870 , and is buried in Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore , Maryland . The USS " John P . Kennedy " and USS " Kennedy " ( DD - 306 ) were named for him . He lived in a summer home overlooking the south branch of the Patapsco River upstream near Orange Grove - Avalon - Ilchester off the main western line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad now in the area of Patapsco Valley State Park which was devastated by a disastrous flood in 1868 . In his will , Kennedy wrote the following : It is my wish that the manuscript volumes containing my journals , my note or common - place books , and the several volumes of my own letters in press copy , as also all my other letters , such as may possess any interest or value ( which I desire to be bound in volumes ) that are now in lose sheets , shall be returned to my executors , who are requested to have the same packed away in a strong walnut box , closed and locked , and then delivered to the Peabody Institute , to be preserved by them unopened until the year 1900 , when the same shall become the property of the Institute , to be kept among its books and records . Writings . § Under the name " Mark Littleton " .