P.J.
Kennedy
BackGround
Patrick Joseph “P.J.” Kennedy was the father of Joe P. Kennedy and the paternal grandfather of Ted, Robert, and John F. Kennedy. Although the youngest of five children, he was the first from what would become the Kennedy dynasty to be born in the United States; his parents were both Irish immigrants. His father died of cholera when PJ was young, forcing him to quit school and take up a job as a longshoreman at the age of 14. His mother, a savvy businesswoman herself, owned and operated a stationary store that eventually grew to sell groceries and liquor. With the money saved from his dockyard days, PJ opened a saloon in Haymarket Square. By the time he was 30, PJ Kennedy was an up and coming businessman, owning three bars and a whiskey-importing company. By the time of his death in 1929, PJ owned multiple businesses and held a significant amount of stock in coal companies and the Columbia Trust Company bank.
Laying the Foundations
PJ got his start in politics in 1884, when he turned his popularity amongst the poor Irish community into five one-year terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and two two-year terms in the Massachusetts Senate. PJ preferred the backdoor machinations and dealmaking of politics over the campaigning, speechmaking, and legislative maneuvering. Following his second term in the Massachusetts Senate in 1894, PJ stepped back from the spotlight and elected positions, and instead became an appointed officer for many departments and commissions throughout the city.
question that PJ Kennedy’s wealth and political machinations earned him the friends and favors that would cement his family’s place in Boston politics for decades, if not centuries, to come.
PJ, to put it simply, was corrupt, as was almost every other politician in the Gilded Era. It is no