Thomas Kennedy reportedly never actually met a Jew during his lifetime. But that still didn’t prevent him from doing what he felt was right.
Kennedy – who was born in Paisley, Scotland, in 1776 and died in Hagerstown in 1832 — might be the most important non-Jew in the annals of Maryland Jewry and religious liberty in the Old Line State.
An accomplished poet and co-founder of the Hagerstown Mail newspaper, Kennedy lived most of his adult life in Washington County and represented Hagerstown in the Maryland House of Delegates (and later in the state Senate)…