John K. Kane

Born on May 16, 1795, in Albany, New York,[1] Kane graduated from Yale University in 1814 and read law in 1817.[1] He entered private practice in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 1817 to 1824.[1] He was a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 1824 to 1825.[1] He was an attorney and board member of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal Company starting in 1825.[1] He was city solicitor for Philadelphia from 1828 to 1830, and in 1832.[1] He was a United States Commissioner to settle claims with France from 1832 to 1836.[1] He resumed private practice in Philadelphia from 1836 to 1845.[1] He was the 21st Attorney General of Pennsylvania from 1845 to 1846.[1]

Kane was nominated by President James K. Polk on June 11, 1846, to a seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania vacated by Judge Archibald Randall.[1] He was confirmed by the United States Senate on June 17, 1846, and received his commission the same day.[1] His service terminated on February 21, 1858, due to his death in Philadelphia.[1] He is interred in the family mausoleum at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, Section P, Lot 100.[2]

John Neagle, John Kintzing Kane, 1828, Princeton University Art Museum

Kane was the son of Elisha Kane and Alida (née Van Rensselaer), daughter of Brigadier General Robert Van Rensselaer and Cornelia Rutsen.[3] When his mother Alida died in 1799, Elisha married Elizabeth Kintzing, and it was she who raised John and his siblings.[3] In 1819, Kane was married to Jane Duval Leiper (1796–1866), the daughter of Thomas Leiper (1745–1825).[4] Together, they had seven children, including one that died in infancy.[4] Two sons became well known as adults:

• Elisha Kent Kane (1820–1857), who was a United States naval officer, physician and explorer. He was a member of two Arctic expeditions that tried to rescue the explorer Sir John Franklin and his team.
• Thomas Leiper Kane (1822–1883), who was an attorney, abolitionist and military officer, who was influential in the western migration of the Latter-day Saints movement and served as a Union colonel and general of volunteers in the American Civil War.
• Elizabeth Kane (1830–1869), who married Charles Woodruff Shields (1825–1904) in 1861.

• Kevin R. Chaney. "Kane, John Kintzing"; American National Biography Online Feb. 2000. Accessed October 2006 (subscription required).
• King, Moses. Philadelphia and Notable Philadelphians. New York: 1901.
• John Kintzing Kane at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.
• Biographical and genealogical history of the state of Delaware (Volume 2) Brief bio of son Dr John Kintzing Kane
• Matthew J. Grow (2009). Liberty to the Downtrodden: Thomas L. Kane, Romantic Reformer. Yale University Press.

• The Liberation of Jane Johnson -- an account of the Wheeler-Williamson case