BIO: John Christian KUNKEL, Dauphin County, PA

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Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of Dauphin County, 
Containing Sketches of Representative Citizens, and Many of the 
Early Scotch-Irish and German Settlers.  Chambersburg, Pa.: 
J. M. Runk & Company, 1896, pages 237-238.
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  KUNKEL, JOHN CHRISTIAN, son of George Kunkel, was born September 18, 
1816, in Harrisburg, Pa.; died October 14, 1870, in Harrisburg, Pa.  He 
received a liberal scientific and classical education in the schools at 
Gettysburg and at Jefferson College, Cannonsburg, at which latter 
institution he graduated.  After leaving college he entered the 
Carlisle law school under Judge Read, subsequently reading law with 
James McCormick, and admitted to the Dauphin county bar.  After his 
admission to the bar he remained several years in the office with Mr. 
McCormick.  He rapidly gained a large practice and a reputation which 
few members of the bar enjoy.  He also became active in politics, and, 
in the earnest and exciting campaign of 1844, when the young men of the 
Nation had made Henry Clay, then in the zenith of his career, their 
standard-bearer, the best talent and most brilliant eloquence that ever 
graced the American rostrum was called into requisition.  Amid all the 
magnificent display and power of logic, that of the orator of 
Pennsylvania, as Mr. Kunkel was recognized, was conspicuous as well for 
force of argument as for grace of delivery.  The same year he was 
elected to the Legislature, re-elected in 1845, and again in 1850.  In 
1851 he was elected to the State Senate, and was chosen speaker of that 
body at the close of the first session of his term.  As a legislator 
Mr. Kunkel was prominent for the wisdom of his counsel as well as for 
the power of his eloquence.  His services at the capital added greatly 
to his already wide reputation as a pure statesman and accomplished 
scholar.  In 1854 and again in 1856 he was elected to the United States 
Congress.  During the four years he spent in Washington city, he was 
regarded throughout the country as one of the ablest statesmen at the 
national capital.  In 1858 he retired from public life, and gave his 
exclusive attention to the practice of his profession, varying the 
course of his life by occasionally helping a friend in a political 
canvass, and, wherever he went he was always the favorite of the 
people.  In 1868 he was stricken down with paralysis, and never fully 
regained his health, dying as previously stated.  Perchance the loss of 
no member of the Dauphin county bar was so severely felt as that of Mr. 
Kunkel, if we are to judge of the glowing, sincere and fraternal 
tributes paid to his memory by his brethren in the profession at the 
time of his death.  Mr. Kunkel married, October 20, 1857, Elizabeth 
Cram Rutherford, daughter of Dr. William Wilson Rutherford and Eleanor 
Crain; she resided at Harrisburg, Pa.