Francis Kernan (1816 – 1892) was a student at Georgetown College, a lawyer, and politician.1 He graduated from Georgetown in 1836 and was elected the first vice president of the Alumni Association during its first election in 1881.2
Kernan was born in Tyrone, New York on January 14, 1816 to an Irish father, General William Kernan. General Kernan had named the town of Tyrone after his home in County Tyrone, Ireland.
Francis Kernan was a student at Georgetown from 1833 to 1836 but did not graduate from the college. He then moved to Utica, New York where he studied law with Edward Quin and was admitted to the bar in 1840. A Democrat, he was a United States Congressman from 1863 to 1865 and a U.S. Senator for one term beginning in 1875.3 He ran unsuccessfully for Governor of New York in 1872.4
In 1880 a meeting at Kernan's home in Washington discussed the first formal organization of the Alumni Association. Also present were University president Rev. Patrick F. Healy, S.J. and alumni William W. Corcoran, Hon. S. Champan Neale, Dr. Johnson Eliot, Dr. J.M. Toner, F.P.B. Sands, John F. Hanna, G. Ernest Hamilton, and William F. Smith.5
He received an honorary LL. D. degree in 1880 from Georgetown. He died in Utica on September 8, 1892.6
His son, William J. Kernan, was also a Georgetown alumnus, graduating in 1880.7
- 1James S. Easby-Smith, Georgetown University in the District of Columbia, 1789-1907, its founders, benefactors, officers, instructors and alumni. Vol. 2, New York: Lewis, 1907, p. 137. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433076015860?urlappend=%3Bseq=153
- 2"The Alumni Meeting," Georgetown College Journal, July 1881, Vol. IX No. 10, p. 110. http://hdl.handle.net/10822/1044342
- 3James S. Easby-Smith, Georgetown University in the District of Columbia, 1789-1907, its founders, benefactors, officers, instructors and alumni. Vol. 2, New York: Lewis, 1907, pp. 137 - 138. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433076015860?urlappend=%3Bseq=153
- 4"Obituary, Ex-Senator Francis Kernan," Georgetown College Journal, October 1892, p. 6. http://hdl.handle.net/10822/1044453
- 5"The Alumni Association," Georgetown College Journal, June 1880, Vol. 8 No. 8, p. 88. http://hdl.handle.net/10822/1044331
- 6James S. Easby-Smith, Georgetown University in the District of Columbia, 1789-1907, its founders, benefactors, officers, instructors and alumni. Vol. 2, New York: Lewis, 1907, pp. 137 - 138. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433076015860?urlappend=%3Bseq=153
- 7James S. Easby-Smith, Georgetown University in the District of Columbia, 1789-1907, its founders, benefactors, officers, instructors and alumni. Vol. 2, New York: Lewis, 1907, p. 221. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433076015860?urlappend=%3Bseq=237
