Thomas McKennan had a short run.
For just 11 days during the summer of 1850, he served as our Secretary of the Interior in the Millard Fillmore administration.
He didn’t want the job, bowed to pressure, immediately regretted his decision and got out when the going was good. He never explained why. The closest he came to revealing any particulars was an oblique reference to what he referred to as his “peculiar nervous temperament.”
As best we can tell, the sparks for his depression were scraps with Secretary of State Daniel Webster and President Fillmore over political patronage. They argued about who to reward with job and make marshals, attorneys, bureau heads and clerks.
Like a courageous and principled ghost, Thomas McKennan left Washington after eleven days to go run a railroad.
But the ill-fated Hempfield Railroad never made a go of it and wound up swallowed into the Baltimore and Ohio.
