At the Naval Hospital, Island of Salmandina, aged about 53, of yellow fever, on the 27th ultimo, after a few days' illness, Dr. John A. Kearney, Fleet surgeon of the squadron in the Gulf of Mexico, a native of Ireland, and long a resident of this District and Maryland.
By the Navy Register it appears that he first entered the service as a surgeon's mate on the 3d of March, 1809; and, from the same source, it appears his present commission bears date July 24, 1813. During the last war with Great Britain he was surgeon of the Constitution at the time of her successful engagement with the Cyane and the Levant; and during the same war he was surgeon of the flotilla of gun boats in the harbor of Newport, (R.I.) under the command of Com. O.H. Perry, so eminently distinguished on Lake Erie. His high grade of professional attainments gave him a claim to the distinguished post he occupied at the time of his death, and his intrepidity during the War of 1812 against our former foes on the deep, was only equalled by the devotion he showed since the fall of Vera Cruz to lend a helping hand in preserving the lives of our countrymen blockading a coast most deleterious to the health of our naval marine.
In this grievous affliction of Providence, words are vain to assuage the sorrow of his family, consisting of a wife and several children; yet it should be a source of consolation to them, in the changing scenes of earth, to know that he died in the discharge of his duty, and if professional skill could have been exerted successfully his valuable life would have been extended.
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