Ventriloquism.org

Ventriloquist & Songwriter

Harry Kennedy

He wrote the songs Brooklyn hummed on picnics, ran three theaters, and for fourteen years after he died, the trade still measured new acts against him.

  • 1855–1894
Cover of Harry Kennedy's 1882 booklet How to Become a Ventriloquist, showing a caricature portrait of Kennedy with his figures and dog
The cover of his own how-to booklet, 1882 printing: Kennedy, his dog, and the two puppets who lived in his trunk. Photo via an Invaluable-indexed auction listing.

Here's a name that used to mean something all by itself. Ask a variety-house act in 1890 who set the bar, and more than a few of them said Harry Kennedy without blinking. He wrote something like two hundred songs. He ran three theaters. He got measured against for fourteen years after he was already in the ground. And then, for the better part of six decades, the trade's own record book had his death wrong by nine months and his age wrong by thirty-seven years. Pull up a chair. This one needs straightening out, and lucky for us, the newspapers that actually watched him die got it right the first time.[1]

A schoolboy in Manchester who got dared into a trade

He was christened William Henry Kennedy, born in Manchester, England, on January 8, 1855.[1] Harry was the stage shortening. Henry was what his family, and his very first playbill, actually called him.[2] He went to school in Manchester and studied at Owens College to train as a teacher, taking prizes in writing and political economy along the way. By his own account he never had a single music lesson in his life.[3] Remember that. The man about to write America's most-hummed sentimental ballads was a prize student who couldn't read a note.

What actually got him started was a boy's novel and a dare. He read Valentine Vox and it "made me a ventriloquist," he said, the way it started a lot of other boys down the same road.[4] Around a Manchester penny-reading hall, he watched a traveling professional chalk his own hand and knuckles to fake an old man's profile, working the "talking hand" trick right there in a public hall, no shop, no head, no capital.[4] Kennedy, thirteen years old, talked his way backstage by offering himself up as an elocutionist and reciting "The Death of Marmion," then wouldn't leave the man alone until he got a private demonstration. The professional finally cut him off: "Now, young man, I've told you all I intend to. If you can learn the trick, come to me in six months and tell me so." Six months later the kid came back and did it, "not so well as he did it, but well enough to merit his praise."[5] He also learned the trick had a cost. Once he finally cornered a professional for real answers, he found out ventriloquism "was no longer an occult art. It was simply a vocal delusion."[4] The magic novel sold him the mystery. The trade sold him the method, and it wasn't magic at all.

A shipwreck, a benefit concert, and the first bill with his name on it

Before he was fourteen he left home and started walking toward Birmingham. On the road he fell in with what he called "a professional tramp, a courteous, educated Irish gentleman whose fondness for liquor had sent him adrift in the world." Kennedy threw his voice into a copse twice and got away with it, tried it a third time, and got caught. The tramp saw the business in it immediately. That evening, at a roadside inn with the tap room full, the man introduced him "with melting eloquence," Kennedy performed, and the tramp passed the hat: four shillings sixpence, handed straight to the boy who'd earned it. "He was my first partner," Kennedy said, and he kept none of it for himself.[6]

Not long after, he shipped out of Liverpool as an office boy on the freight steamer Magdalla, working up to chief steward by the third voyage after the ship's own steward died. Then the Magdalla wrecked off Boulmer Point, on the coast of Northumberland. The ship's officers were suspended by the company, and Kennedy, barely into his teens, was left in charge of the salvage for five weeks.[5] That same gale wrecked a local fishing fleet, and the benefit Kennedy is remembered for was for those fishermen's widows and orphans, not for himself.[5] It went over well enough that they repeated it under the patronage of the Duchess of Northumberland at Alnwick. The bill read: "Mr. Henry Kennedy of the steamship Magdalla, now wrecked at Boulmer Point." Notice what it doesn't say. No mention of ventriloquism. He was sold on the shipwreck, not the art.[7] By his own arithmetic, "I was 14 years old then," which puts it around 1869. That charity bill at Alnwick was the first time his name was ever printed anywhere.[7]

The ghost in the hold

A few years on, at seventeen, he was third officer on a steamer running twenty-six days between Liverpool and Montreal, a long haul with a hold full of railroad iron. One day, bored and on good terms with the crew, he threw his voice down into the fore hold and faked the groaning of a man in distress. The crew swore a stowaway was starving under the iron they couldn't possibly clear. They called down. He kept groaning. They fetched the second officer, then the captain, and Kennedy had, in his words, "the pleasure of fooling the passengers, the officers and the crew."[8] It's the one first-person account in the whole record that costs him something to tell, an officer confessing to terrifying his own ship, and that's exactly why it reads as true.

The prank got him caught eventually, and word of it reached Signor Bosco, a magician and mesmerist, who talked him off the sea entirely. In three months Kennedy could do all of Bosco's illusions, and then he struck out on his own.[9] By the early 1870s he'd made it to New York, working the same variety bills as Tony Pastor, P.T. Barnum, and Haverly's Minstrels, and made his stage debut at Jake Aberle's Theatre on Eighth Street.[10][11]

"They cannot tell by their own ears whether the sound comes from the figure or the man." Kennedy said the quiet part out loud, in 1890. That's the whole trick, folks.

The songwriter the ventriloquist worked for

Here's the part almost nobody remembers about him now, and it's the part every single newspaper in 1894 led with. Every obituary, coast to coast, calls him "the noted song writer and ventriloquist," in that order.[12][13] By 1876, a Boston music publisher was already billing sheet music "words and music by Harry Kennedy, the great ventriloquist," five years after his stage debut.[14] "Cradle's Empty, Baby's Gone" was his first great success, and "A Flower From Mother's Grave" ran it a close second. In 1881 a reporter watched both songs sweep the country at once: heard "at the minstrels and variety theatres and on steamboats, excursions and picnics."[15] Kennedy's own assessment of his work was plain and a little defiant: "I know I'm not a great musician or a great poet, and I never pretend to be. But I do believe that even if they are popular they are not vulgar."[15]

He wrote well past sentiment, too. Nine of his songs turn up named in a single obituary, and four of them are Irish-dialect comic numbers: "I Owe Ten Dollars to O'Grady," "Is Maud In?", "I Had Fifteen Dollars in Me Inside Pocket," and "McNulty, You're a Daisy."[12] That's the same register his figures worked in on stage. Over two hundred songs published across a career, by the count on his own memorial.[1] A prize student who never had a music lesson built a whole second career on the strength of a melody and a punchline.

The trunk, the parlor, and the honest engineer's answer

A long 1890 newspaper interview lays his act out in full, and it's a small mechanical theater, not a knee act. A parlor scene with three life-size dummy figures: an old Irishman, an old woman, and an exaggerated "dude," seated around a table and at an organ. A trunk in the corner holding two more puppets, Pete and Joe, the stock ethnic types of the era's variety stage, a Black character and an Irishman. A stuffed dog by the footlights.[9] The show opened with the two figures in the trunk making their presence, and their discomfort, known, getting released, then sitting on Kennedy's lap facing him. It's a dated, described instance of what the trade came to call the suitcase bit, the same bit Dan Harrington was still asking after in the pages of The Oracle in 1957, when he wondered who did it first in America.[16]

What I love most is how plainly Kennedy explained his own engineering. He used to carry "an expensive apparatus by which the dude was actually made to play the organ," a real, working mechanism. He threw it out. In its place he put an organette playing behind the scenes at the right moment, because the audience couldn't tell the difference and the real machine cost money and had to be hauled around.[9] He even named the principle: a man blindfolded in a ring of a dozen bell-ringers can't tell you which bell just rang. Take away a figure's ability to be located by ear, and the audience can't tell whether a voice came from the wood or the man holding it.[9] He didn't treat the props as decoration either. His own words: "these accessories are necessary." The illusion needed the theater around it as much as it needed the trick itself.

Brooklyn: the saloon, the theaters, the lodge

Off stage, Kennedy built a Brooklyn life with a businessman's range. He ran his own saloon there by 1886. In 1890 he opened Harry Kennedy's Theatre near Cooper Union, then the Alhambra out in Coney Island, and by the autumn of 1893 he'd taken over management of the brand-new Bijou Theatre.[17][18] He was Past Exalted Ruler of Brooklyn Lodge No. 22, B.P.O. Elks, meaning he'd once run the very lodge that would go on to bury him, and he also belonged to the Catholic Benevolent Legion's Madison Council, a mutual-aid society that kept its own books on its own members.[18]

For his last five years he lived with his elderly father, Joseph Kennedy, and five children under one Brooklyn roof.[12] In May 1893 his five-year-old daughter Irene had a close call with a trolley car on Smith and Schermerhorn Streets. Her grandfather Joseph jumped clear just in time to pull her out of its path.[19] One of his daughters went on the stage herself in 1902, remembered in print simply as the child of "Harry Kennedy, well remembered as ventriloquist in the '70s and '80s," and billed as a singer.[20] The songwriting followed the family down a generation, even after the man who wrote the songs was gone.

Fourteen years in the ground, and still the standard

The clearest measure of how far Kennedy's name traveled isn't anything he said about himself. It's what other papers said about somebody else. In 1908, The Freeman, reviewing a rising young act, wrote that the performer's signature bit was "way beyond anything that the great Kennedy ever did," a full fourteen years after Kennedy was dead. That same paper had run the identical move five years earlier, in 1903, saying another young performer "outstrips" the man it called, misspelling him slightly, "Harry Kendall, who has been conceded the best in the business."[16] Twice, nearly a decade and a half apart, the paper that covered Black vaudeville reached for Kennedy's name as the yardstick. That's not a nickname. That's a trade still doing the arithmetic against a dead man, because nobody better had shown up yet.

A second surviving copy of Harry Kennedy's How to Become a Ventriloquist booklet

The booklet, a second copy

A different surviving copy of the same how-to booklet, crossing the block decades later. Cheap to print, cheap to buy, and it's outlasted the theaters he built.

Photo via Potter & Potter Auctions
The Kennedy family grave marker, photographed for Find a Grave

What's left standing

The Kennedy family stone, still standing in a Brooklyn cemetery. No mention of songs, theaters, or the trunk act. Just the name.

Photo: Susan S, via Find a Grave

The obituary that got him wrong for sixty years, and the papers that had it right the first time

Kennedy caught a bad cold in late December 1893, and it turned serious fast. His physician, Dr. Fitzsimmons, examined him and found Bright's disease, well advanced.[21] He died at his home, 288 State Street, Brooklyn, at midnight on the night of Wednesday, January 3, into Thursday, January 4, 1894, at thirty-nine years old.[21][12] The funeral was set for two o'clock the following Sunday, from the house, with Brooklyn Lodge No. 22 of the Elks conducting the service and the Metropolitan Quartet singing "Nearer, My God, to Thee" and "Abide With Me."[22] Contemporary papers say he was buried in Flatbush Cemetery.[12]

Here's the part I can't resist telling, because it's a real lesson about how a legend gets handled after everybody who knew him is gone. A trade necrology written in 1953, fifty-nine years after the fact, recorded Kennedy dying in October of 1894 at age seventy-six. Every contemporary source disagrees. The two New York papers that had his body in their own city agree with each other down to the day. His own life story, told twice in his own words years before he died, puts his birth in 1855. And a records check of every Library of Congress newspaper page that mentions a Kennedy death that year turned up sixty-nine candidates and not one of them in October.[23] Watch what happened to his age the further a report traveled from his own front stoop, too: the Brooklyn papers that had known him for twenty years said thirty-nine, the national wire that repeated it secondhand said forty-five, and the compiler working six decades later said seventy-six. The closer you were to Harry Kennedy, the younger he stayed.

He was thirty-nine. He wrote the songs. He ran the rooms. And for a decade and a half after they buried him from that house on State Street, the people who did what he did were still being measured against him.

Freddy Fiddlesticks, the Ventriloquism.org spokesdummy

Two hundred songs, three theaters, and the record book still managed to get his death date wrong for sixty years. Meanwhile the two puppets in his trunk never once misfiled a fact, they just didn't get asked.— Freddy Fiddlesticks, spokesdummy

Sightings in the newspapers

433 dated notices between 1874 and 1909, sampled evenly across the career to show 60 here. Each links to the scanned page at the Library of Congress. Browse all Career Snippets

  1. 1874Dec 12 First week of Harry Kennedy, Ventriloquist, billed alongside the return of Harrigan and Hart (performing new sketches including 'Real Estate Vs. Life Insurance' and 'The Skidmores') and John Williams, with a new Negro sketch by Wild and White titled 'Alas', starting Monday, December 14 (per this Dec. 12, 1874 notice). page
  2. 1875Jan 26 Harry Kennedy, billed as 'the youngest Ventriloquist in the world,' appeared at the Metropolitan Theatre, 585 Broadway, New York, managed by John Le Favre Manning, alongside the Jacklity Family, McVicker and Sully, James Welch and Maud Le Moine, and others. Metropolitan Theatre page
  3. 1875Apr 18 Harry Kennedy, billed as 'the Champion Ventriloquist,' performed at the Bowery Opera House, No. 201 Bowery, New York, on the bill dated April 18, 1875. Bowery Opera House page
  4. 1875Sep 24 At Theatre Comique, a good audience attended and 'the science of ventriloquism is well illustrated by Harry Kennedy, and receives great commendation' (per the newspaper, 1875-09-24). At Theatre page
  5. 1876Feb 18 Harry Kennedy, described as 'the great ventriloquist,' was credited with the words and music of the song 'Out in the Starlight,' published by G. D. Russell & Co., Boston, as noted in a newspaper dated 1876-02-18. page
  6. 1876Nov 15 Harry Kennedy, the ventriloquist, performed with the Howard Athenaeum Troupe at Music Hall, drawing a packed house; the show opened with the Irish drama 'Arrah-na-Pogue' and closed with the burlesque pantomime 'Sinbad the Sailor.' Howard Athenaeum page
  7. 1877Mar 27 Harry Kennedy, ventriloquist, appeared by permission of Manager Hopkins at the benefit of Opera House treasurer David Black on Wednesday evening, giving his 'interlocution' at the Opera House between the first and second acts and then taking part in the performance at the Comique. Opera House page
  8. 1878Feb 17 Harry Kennedy was billed as 'The great Ventriloquist' on a variety bill alongside Cherry Chapman, George Garland, Kate and Fanny M'Dowell, Carrie Lewis, Amy Carroll, and Tony Pastor's troupe. page
  9. 1878Apr 20 Harry Kennedy, billed as 'Premier Ventriloquist,' appeared with Tony Pastor's troupe at the Grand Opera House on Saturday evening, April 20, 1878. Grand Opera House page
  10. 1878Jul 6 Harry Kennedy was billed as 'Premier Ventriloquist' performing with Tony Pastor and his entire troupe at Piper's New Opera House in Virginia City/Silver City, Nevada, commencing Monday, July 1, 1878, for one week with an extra matinee July 4th. Piper's New Opera House page
  11. 1878Aug 14 Harry Kennedy performed alongside Watson and Ellis, Rogers and Vickers, Miss Kitty O'Neil, the Fontainebleaus, the Irwin Sisters, Harry and John Kernell, Billy Barry, Bryant and Hoey, Emerson and Clark, the Daly Brothers, Frank Girard, and Tony Pastor himself in this touring show. page
  12. 1878Aug 17 Harry Kennedy performed as a ventriloquist with wooden-headed figures on a variety bill that also included the Irwin Sisters, Bryant, Iloey, and Barry, reviewed in a newspaper dated 1878-08-17. page
  13. 1878Oct 14 Billed as 'The funny Ventriloquist' in Tony Pastor's variety troupe, appearing alongside acts including Harry and John Kernell, Wilson and Ellis, Billy Barry, Charley Benedict, Kitty O'Neil, Charles S. Rogers, Mattie Vickers, Marinez Sisters, Bryant and Hoey, French Twin Sisters, Emerson and Clark, Frank Girard, and Tony Pastor himself; matinee performances Tuesday and Friday (Tony Pastor's Theatre, per newspaper dated 1878-10-14). Tony Pastor's Theatre page
  14. 1878Dec 30 Mr. Harry Kennedy appeared in blackface performing 'a very telling ventriloquial scene' as part of a theater entertainment reviewed in this Dec. 30, 1878 newspaper, alongside comic singers Pete Mack, Billy Rice, John Styles, and Barry Maxwell. page
  15. 1879Apr 25 During a tour with Tony Pastor's troupe, while in a Western city, Harry Kennedy the ventriloquist attended a demonstration of Professor Edison's phonograph and secretly disabled the machine, then used ventriloquism to fake it answering questions (e.g., claiming it spoke German and crying out that the exhibitor was torturing it), fooling the crowd until someone recognized 'Ventriloquist' and realized the trick. page
  16. 1880Jun 8 Harry Kennedy performed his ventriloquism act as part of the olio in a variety show, alongside Billy Emerson, Billy Rice, Tom Sadler, Parker and his performing dogs, and a burlesque titled 'Royal Biddy'. page
  17. 1881Jan 27 Advertised as 'the great ventriloquist' performing with the San Francisco Minstrels, with a matinee Saturday at 2 (newspaper dated 1881-01-27). page
  18. 1882Nov 1 Harry Kennedy, the ventriloquist, who is with the San Francisco Minstrels, receives $85 a week, as reported in this Nov. 1, 1882 newspaper item on performer salaries. page
  19. 1883Feb 1 Harry Kennedy, described as 'the ventriloquist,' was with the San Francisco Minstrels according to this 1883 salary list. page
  20. 1888Sep 13 Harry Kennedy, billed as 'the unrivaled ventriloquist,' performed with his 'autometon family' as part of Shaffer & Blakely's Specialty Co. at the Central Theatre, week of Sept 13, 1888, on a bill with Marie Gilchrist, Sheridan and Flynn, Fonte Boni brothers, Senora Nannie Totall, Dan Reagan (comic banjoist), Griffin and Marks (Chinese acrobats), Emilie Pearse, and Adams, Casey and Howard (musical mokes). Central Theatre page
  21. 1888Nov 23 Harry Kennedy performed with his 'life-sized automatons' as a ventriloquist act at a special matinee for public school children at Dockstader's theater, held the day after the article's date (Nov 23, 1888). page
  22. 1889Aug 1 Harry Kennedy, the ventriloquist, made a trip from New York to San Francisco and back in one day less than a month, and played two weeks in San Francisco (reported 1889-08-01). page
  23. 1889Aug 14 Harry Kennedy, the ventriloquist, made a fast round trip from New York to San Francisco and back in one day less than a month, playing two weeks in San Francisco, as reported in an 1889 newspaper item. page
  24. 1889Aug 31 Harry Kennedy, the ventriloquist, made a trip from New York to San Francisco and back in one month less a day, and played two weeks in San Francisco, as reported in 1889. page
  25. 1889Nov 21 Harry Kennedy, the ventriloquist, performed with the Two Macs' Company at the Haymarket (Chicago) 'last week', as reported in the Chicago Herald. Chicago Herald page
  26. 1890Aug 12 This performance at Tony Pastor's was Harry Kennedy's first appearance since he became a manager, and he was warmly greeted. page
  27. 1890Aug 26 On a Friday night during his ventriloquial performance at the Chestnut with Herrmann's 'Transatlantiques,' Harry Kennedy learned his wife was dying via telegram but still performed his act with his dummy figures to audience applause. page
  28. 1890Sep 6 Kennedy said years of ventriloquism had changed his throat: his Adam's apple became round instead of pointed and his vocal chords were greatly enlarged, and Dr. Titus, a noted throat physician, wanted to photograph the inside of his throat for scientific purposes as unique in the country. page
  29. 1890Sep 6 Kennedy's stage act included a ventriloquial dialogue with two boy figures called 'Pete' and 'Joe' seated on his lap, a barking dog effect, a song 'sung' by a dummy called 'the dude' with its back to the audience, and use of an organette played offstage as part of the illusion. page
  30. 1890Sep 7 While serving as a sailor, Kennedy once made the crew of a ship (27 days sailing from Boston to Montreal with a cargo of railroad iron) believe there was a ghost in the hold, causing them to hire other help to unload the cargo. page
  31. 1890Sep 7 Harry Kennedy said reading the book 'Valentine Vox' as a boy in England inspired him to become a ventriloquist, and that he later got private tips from a traveling 'professor of ventriloquism' who performed at penny readings. page
  32. 1890Oct 19 Kennedy said he was fascinated as a boy by a traveling 'Professor of ventriloquism' who performed at penny readings in a public hall, doing a chalked-hand 'talking hand' trick. page
  33. 1890Oct 19 Kennedy demonstrated ventriloquism to the reporter using a chained dog whose barking and howling he produced himself, and described making a puppet ('dude') appear to sing while its back was turned to the audience with orchestral accompaniment. page
  34. 1890Oct 30 Harry Kennedy, described as 'the well known ventriloquist,' performed in a Boston variety show reviewed October 30, 1890, alongside Les Trois Washington, Josephine Henley, Herr Tholen and his singing dog, George Holloway, and the Glinseretti troupe of acrobats. page
  35. 1891Feb 12 Harry Kennedy performed a ventriloquist act with Sam Devere's big company at Hyde & Behman's Theatre in Brooklyn, as noted in a Feb. 12, 1891 review of Brooklyn theatres. Behman's Theatre page
  36. 1892Mar 19 Harry Kenned(y), described as 'the amusing ventriloquist,' was billed as one of next week's features alongside the Spanish Students, Le Clair and Leslie, and the three Judges (venue appears to be the New Park Theatre, per surrounding text) - name is OCR-garbled and uncertain. New Park Theatre page
  37. 1892Apr 18 Harry Kennedy worked as a ventriloquist in the Transatlantic Vaudeville Company, employed by Alexander Herrmann. page
  38. 1892Sep 22 Harry Kennedy's wages were 'seldom under $150 a week,' with songs protected by royalties adding to his income, per the 1892-09-22 newspaper. page
  39. 1893Feb 12 Harry Kennedy performed ventriloquism as part of a vaudeville bill (with acts including Minnie Idnwoml in Hungarian dances, William Jerome in topical songs, and others) reported in a paper dated 1893-02-12. page
  40. 1893Jun 3 At the 1893-06-03 P. O. Elks benefit performance, Harry Kennedy appeared alongside John W. Kelly, Miss Marion Chase, Griffin and Marks, James F. Hoey, The Julians, Miss Bebe Keil, George Carr and Tillie Jardyne, Miss Lizzie Derious-Daly, Joe Byrun and May Blanche, Julius P. Whittmark, Rosina, Daisy Norwood, The Goudlers, Florence French, George Earle and Billy Magonlarlo, The Elks Quartette, Frank Girard, and Prof. Wagner's enlarged orchestra. page
  41. 1893Sep 10 Harry Kennedy is noted as author of the popular song 'Molly and I' and had a new song entitled 'When Peggy and I Are Wed'. page
  42. 1893Oct 21 Harry Kennedy said his stage act lasted twenty-three minutes and that the letter 'm' was the hardest to enunciate without moving his lips, especially during his recitation piece 'O, Listen to the Watermill.' page
  43. 1894Jan 4 Harry Kennedy was a sailor in early life, becoming master of a vessel sailing between Liverpool and Montreal; at age thirteen he mastered the art of ventriloquism. page
  44. 1894Jan 4 He was christened William Henry Kennedy and was born in Manchester, England. Manchester, England page
  45. 1894Jan 4 Harry Kennedy, described as a famous song writer, ventriloquist, and theatrical manager, died at his home at 288 State street, Brooklyn, at midnight. page
  46. 1894Jan 4 In 1871, at age twenty-five, Harry Kennedy made his stage debut at Jake Wiberle's old theatre on Eighth Street, where he appeared for a year, also beginning his career as a song writer at that time. page
  47. 1894Jan 4 Before becoming a ventriloquist, Harry Kennedy was a sailor and became master of a vessel sailing between Liverpool and Montreal; he mastered the art of ventriloquism at age thirteen. page
  48. 1894Jan 5 Harry Kennedy, described as a famous song writer, ventriloquist, and theatrical manager, died at his home in Brooklyn on Wednesday night (reported in a newspaper dated 1894-01-05). page
  49. 1894Jan 6 Harry Kennedy, described as a noted song writer and ventriloquist, died at Brooklyn, N.Y., aged 45 (reported in a Jan. 6, 1894 newspaper). page
  50. 1894Jan 8 Harry Kennedy, described as a noted song writer and ventriloquist, is reported dead in a news brief dated 1894-01-08. page
  51. 1894Jan 11 Harry Kennedy was known throughout the country as a ventriloquist. page
  52. 1894Jan 11 Kennedy mastered the art of ventriloquism at age 13. page
  53. 1894Jan 11 Henry Kennedy composed popular songs including 'Cradle's Empty, Baby's Gone,' 'The Old Fashioned Photograph,' 'A Flower From Mother's Grave,' 'America's Emblem, the Violet,' 'Molly and I and the Baby,' 'I Owe Ten Dollars to O'Grady,' 'Is Maud In?,' 'I Had Fifteen Dollars in Me Inside Pocket,' and 'McNulty, You're a Daisy.' page
  54. 1894Jan 11 Harry Kennedy, 'the well-known ventriloquist,' died at midnight of the 2d (reported January 11, 1894) at his home in Brooklyn. page
  55. 1894Jan 12 Harry Kennedy, described as a famous song writer and ventriloquist, died at his home in Brooklyn, N.Y. (reported in a January 12, 1894 newspaper item). page
  56. 1894Jan 13 Harry Kennedy, described as 'the noted song writer and ventriloquist,' is reported dead in this January 13, 1894 newspaper item. page
  57. 1894Jan 13 Harry Kennedy, the well-known ventriloquist, died at midnight of the 2d [January 1894] at his home in Brooklyn. page
  58. 1894Mar 22 Harry Kennedy wrote stories with titles such as 'A Life in the Circus' and 'Brothers of the Ring.' page
  59. 1895Oct 24 An 1895 newspaper article on ventriloquism history states that no performer in this line has been safe from a French rival's superiority 'since Harry Kennedy...several years ago.' page
  60. 1902Aug 9 Harry Kennedy was well remembered as a ventriloquist in the 1870s and 1880s; as of this 1902 clipping, his daughter has gone on the stage as a singer. page

Sources

  1. Find a Grave memorial 24593980, William Henry "Harry" Kennedy
  2. "Ventriloquism As Cultivated By Harry Kennedy," Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Sept. 6, 1890 — Library of Congress, Chronicling America
  3. "Two Popular Songs," The Sun (New York), July 17, 1881, p.5 — Library of Congress, Chronicling America
  4. Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Sept. 6, 1890 — the Valentine Vox and talking-hand passages, Library of Congress, Chronicling America
  5. Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Sept. 6, 1890 — the six-month dare and the Boulmer Point wreck, Library of Congress, Chronicling America
  6. Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Sept. 6, 1890 — the road to Birmingham and the first four shillings sixpence, Library of Congress, Chronicling America
  7. Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Sept. 6, 1890 — the Alnwick benefit and his first playbill, corroborated by the same syndicated interview reprinted in the Sacramento Daily Record-Union, Oct. 19, 1890, Library of Congress, Chronicling America
  8. The Sun (New York), July 17, 1881, p.5 — the stowaway prank on the Atlantic, Library of Congress, Chronicling America
  9. Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Sept. 6, 1890 — Signor Bosco, the act description, and the organette, Library of Congress, Chronicling America
  10. Trav S.D., "Harry Kennedy, The Irish Ventriloquist," Travalanche, March 17, 2013, https://travsd.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/harry-kennedy/
  11. "Song Writer Dead," San Antonio Daily Light, Jan. 11, 1894, p.3 — Library of Congress, Chronicling America
  12. "Song Writer Dead," San Antonio Daily Light, Jan. 11, 1894, p.3 — the obituary, family, burial, and christened name, Library of Congress, Chronicling America
  13. Perrysburg Journal (Ohio), Jan. 13, 1894, p.2 — Library of Congress, Chronicling America
  14. "New Music," Bellows Falls Times (Vermont), Feb. 18, 1876, p.2 — Library of Congress, Chronicling America
  15. The Sun (New York), July 17, 1881, p.5 — Library of Congress, Chronicling America
  16. The Freeman, Sept. 12, 1908, p.5 (citing its own item of Oct. 3, 1903) — Library of Congress, Chronicling America
  17. Trav S.D., "Harry Kennedy, The Irish Ventriloquist," Travalanche, March 17, 2013, https://travsd.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/harry-kennedy/
  18. San Antonio Daily Light, Jan. 11, 1894, p.3 — the lodges and the household, Library of Congress, Chronicling America
  19. "Ventriloquist Kennedy's Father Injured," The Sun (New York), May 28, 1893, p.3 — Library of Congress, Chronicling America
  20. The Butte Inter Mountain (Montana), Aug. 9, 1902, evening ed., p.15 — Library of Congress, Chronicling America
  21. "Harry Kennedy Is Dead," The Evening World (New York), Jan. 4, 1894 — Library of Congress, Chronicling America
  22. "Harry Kennedy's Funeral," The Evening World (New York), Jan. 6, 1894 — Library of Congress, Chronicling America
  23. Corpus death-date review, 2026, cross-checking the International Brotherhood of Ventriloquists' 1953 necrology (W.S. Berger) against 69 candidate Library of Congress newspaper pages, none of which place the death in October 1894