Patrick Kennedy Launched an American Political Dynasty

Shown here, Patrick J. Kennedy lost his father at age four, was forced to end his schooling at 14, and went to worked on the docks of Boston. Bolstered by two strong women, he became a well known saloonkeeper and liquor dealer, political leader and businessman.”PJ,” as he was called, is best remembered, however, as the patriarch of arguably the most prominent American political family of the Twentieth Century:  The Kennedys.

Patrick was born in January 1858 in East Boston, the youngest of five children of Bridget Murphy and Patrick Kennedy, Irish Catholic immigrants both from New Ross, County Wexford.  Ten months after his birth his father died of cholera, as that plague infested their lower class neighborhood.  His mother, Bridget, a woman of uncommon strength and intelligence, was able to keep the family of five children together and see to a good elementary education for Patrick.  She purchased an East Boston stationary and notions store, staffed it with her children, and later expanded into groceries and liquor sales.

As Bridget’s talents as a Boston business owner began to be appreciated, she was hailed as “a strong, cheerful woman, liked and respected.”  While appreciated for her generosity, she also was known as a “a determined woman…with a deep natural shrewdness.”  Her son later would be seen with similar qualities.

At the age of 14 Patrick left school.  To help support the family, he took a job as a stevedore on the Boston docks.  Tiring of the backbreaking toil there, he found employment as a brass finisher in a machine shop.  When factory work also proved unsatisfying, Patrick turned to a trade in which his mother already was engaged:  Selling liquor.  With financial help from Bridget, in 1879 for $3,000 he bought a bar called Haywards at Boston’s Haymarket Square, shown here, and soon found that running a saloon was a natural fit for him.

Meeting with success at the liquor trade, young Patrick went looking for other investments. With personal knowledge of the strong thirsts of longshoremen, he found a location near the East Boston docks, shown here, and bought a saloon there.  The profits from his two drinking establishments allowed him to go upscale, opening a third “watering hole” at the posh Maverick House Hotel, below.  With  the profits from his saloons, Patrick, still not 30 years old, purchased a liquor wholesale-retail liquor business and a mansion home in East Boston.

Patrick also plunged wholeheartedly into politics, beginning at the neighborhood level as Democratic precinct captain, moving quickly to ward chair, and eventually to secretary of the Suffolk County Democratic Party.  As Author Neal Thompson put it:  “The Irish gift for gab turned out to be a powerful political asset.So did a saloon.  By 1885, P.J.’s political patrons decided that their loyal, well-connected soldier was ready.”   Still only 27 years old, Patrick was encouraged to run for the Massachusetts House of Representatives.  In his first try at public office, he triumphed over both Republican and Prohibition candidates.  Running again the following year Patrick was re-elected by a substantial margin and was on his way to five straight terms as a state representative and later as a Massachusetts state senator

Mass. Legislature

Seemingly happy living the bachelor’s life, Patrick had caught the attention of Mary Augusta Hickey, also in her late twenties who may have been thought destined for  spinsterhood.  Shown here, Mary was simply choosey.  Seeing Patrick frequently walk past her East Boston home on his way to the legislature, she decided he was the man to marry and actively pursued the up-and-coming legislator.  They were wed in November 1887.  As Mother Bridget’s health faltered, Mary became his strong helpmate, actively participating in Patrick’s business and political affairs.  Called “very firm and very severe,” by a granddaughter, Mary rapidly gained a reputation as “the power behind the throne.”

Their first child of four, a son, was born nine months after their honeymoon .  While Patrick reputedly might have wanted a “Junior,” Mary preferred a less Irish-sounding name and so the boy became Joseph, himself later a figure in American history as ambassador to the United Kingdom and father of what became known as “The Kennedy Clan.”

Now firmly a family man, Patrick continued to push forward on both the political and business fronts.  A light drinker himself he used his position as a saloonkeeper to political advantage, becoming the acknowledged Democratic boss for Boston’s heavily Irish Ward Two.  As did others in his trade, Patrick loaned money, went bail for jailed constituents, and donated booze for weddings and other special occasions.  Increasingly becoming recognized as a “comer” in Democratic Party circles, despite being a mediocre speaker, Patrick was chosen to give a seconding speech for Grover Cleveland at the 1888 Democratic Convention in St. Louis.  (Cleveland went on to win the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College.)

Patrick also was pushing forward in  the liquor trade, apparently discovering that doing business as a liquor importer and wholesaler was more profitable than selling it drink by drink over the bar.  Shown above is a P. J. Kennedy & Co. letterhead from 1909 in which he advertised a proprietary brand, “Kennedy Malt Whiskey,” likely “rectified” (blended) on premises to achieve a desired color, taste, smoothness and alcohol content.  He also advertised well-known imported and domestic brands of whiskey, like “Ramsay Scotch” and Kentucky-made “Van Hook Whiskey.”

This “whiskey man” cum political boss, was also enjoying family life.  A fascinating photo exists of the Kennedys of an evening playing cards in their highly decorated “lace curtain” home with eight friends and two onlookers, some of the men likely political cronies.  Patrick is seated second from left while Mary sits like a “guardian angel” higher and to her husband’s right.  It is a picture of domestic tranquility in an affluent Boston Irish home of the early 1900s.

The future, however, would bring setbacks.  The coming of National Prohibition in 1920 meant that Patrick was forced to shut down his saloons and liquor wholesale operation.  By that time 62 years old, he had diversified his holdings and was a part owner of a coal company and large stockholder in a bank, the Columbia Trust Company.  A bigger blow was to come three years later with the death of Mary, his strong companion of 46 years.  Patrick’s solace likely was in the large and growing family of grandchildren that their son, Joseph and his wife Rose were producing.

In his later years Patrick developed a degenerative liver disease. He was admitted to Boston’s Deaconess Hospital  in April 1929 and died there on May 21. A funeral Mass, attended by many Boston dignitaries, was held at St. John the Evangelist Church in Winthrop, Massachusetts.  According to the Boston press, hundreds of mourners lined the streets as his funeral cortege passed by on its way to Holy Cross Cemetery in nearby Malden.  Some businesses closed for the day in his honor.  Patrick was buried next to Mary, their monument bearing a simple cross. 

The family patriarch was never to know that his grandsons would become three of the most important political figures of post-World War II American history:  President John F. Kennedy; Attorney General, Senator and Presidential Candidate Robert Kennedy, and Senator and Presidential Candidate Theodore “Teddy” Kennedy.  As one observer has noted wryly about the heritage received from Grandfather Patrick:  Thus, the Kennedy dynasty, it could be said, was born in a bar.”

Notes:  A number of Internet references to Patrick J. Kennedy exist on line, but one that particularly emphasizes the influence of Patrick’s mother and later his wife is an article by Neal Thompson from Town and Country magazine adapted from his 2022 book, “The First Kennedys:  The Humble Roots of an American Dynasty.”