Thomas L. Kane - Biography

Biography

Kane was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to John Kintzing Kane, a U.S. district judge, and Jane Duval Leiper. His brother was naval officer, physician, and explorer Elisha Kent Kane. Kane was described as being of small stature, or "jockey-like," and food was always marginal. In correspondence, he referred to himself as an invalid. After receiving an American education, he went abroad to both study in Great Britain and France and to build up his constitution. During several years in Paris, he became proficient in the language and contributed articles to several French magazines.

Upon returning home, the younger Kane decided to study law and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1846. As a young man, he expressed interest in a political career and made an effort to obtain an appointment in the government of California when it came into U.S. possession. However, he was disappointed. He briefly clerked for his father, and then obtained a position as a Clerk of the District Court in eastern Pennsylvania. An abolitionist, Kane was distressed at the passage of the Compromise of 1850, which increased his legal responsibility to return fleeing slaves to southern territories under the Fugitive Slave Act. He almost immediately tendered his resignation to his father, who had the younger Kane jailed for contempt of court. The U.S. Supreme Court overruled this arrest.

After his release, Kane became increasingly active in the abolitionist movement. He maintained a correspondence with Horace Greeley and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and wrote newspaper articles on abolition and social issues. After the Civil War, General Kane and his wife moved to the frontier in western Pennsylvania, eventually owning over 100,000 acres (400 km2) of timberland on which oil and gas were later discovered. Kane, whose father had been the attorney who incorporated the Pennsylvania Railroad, laid out railroad routes in that area and located the low summit over which the Philadelphia and Erie Railroad crosses the Alleghenies.

Kane married his British born cousin Elizabeth Dennistown (or Dennistoun) Wood on April 21, 1853. Elizabeth Wood Kane completed a medical degree from the Women's Medical College in Philadelphia in 1883 and practiced until May 25, 1909. Two of the Kanes' sons, Evan and William (later known as Thomas L., Jr.), and their daughter Harriet, became physicians, while their older son Elisha became a civil engineer. After his death, she built the home Anoatok at Kane.

After his Civil War service, Kane was involved in founding the community of Kane, Pennsylvania. Kane acted as a director of the Sunbury and Erie Railroad. He had served as secretary at the United States legation in Paris in 1842-3. He was the first president of the Board of State Charities, and a member of the American Philosophical, American Geographical and Pennsylvania Historical Societies. He was a Free-Mason. His later years were spent in charitable work and writing. He died of pneumonia in Philadelphia and is buried in Kane, Pennsylvania.