Lyman Walter Vere KENNON
Admitted September 17, 1894 - Died September 9, 1918. Brigadier-General, U.S. Army. Great-grandson of Asaph HALL; First Lieutenant Fourth Connecticut Infantry, 1775; Member of Connecticut Legislature and of the Constitutional Convention.

The century-old Kennon Road, the most scenic, oldest and shortest if rock slide-prone route to Baguio was formally recognized by the city council as an integral part of the city’s history yesterday. 

In a resolution authored by Councilor Elmer Datuin, the council urged the President and Public Works Secretary Bayani Fernando to help preserve the road, which is the gateway to Benguet province and the Cordillera Region. 

Kennon Road “signifies the hardship and sacrifices…and indigenous ingenuity of the workers when they carved the road out of rocky mountainside using crude tools,” Nevada said. 

Baguio old timer Narciso Padilla said they would establish a marker honoring US Army engineer Colonel Lyman Kennon, the man who supervised the road’s construction, as part of the 58th anniversary of the liberation of Baguio. 

More than 2,300 foreign and local workers worked on the road. The foreigners came from 36 countries but most of them were Japanese. Hundreds of them died of malaria while more plunged to their deaths while building the road. Less than half survived. Some settled for good in Baguio City. 

Descendants of the Japanese workers who built the road celebrated the centenary of the road last February by inaugurating a Friendship Park honoring the feat of their ancestors at the turn of the century.

Did you know that the old Benguet Road, now known as Kennon Road, was named after a bemedalled infantry officer of the United States Army who completed it in 1905? His name is Lyman Walter Vere Kennon of Rhode Island, who entered the US Military Academy on June 14, 1876.

Kennon became Second Lieutenant of the U.S. Infantry in 1881, First Lieutenant in July 1889, and Captain in 1897. He was a Major and Assistant Adjutant General of the U.S. Volunteers in November 1898. He became Colonel in the volunteer infantry the following year, but was honorably discharged in April 1901.

He was appointed Major in the 10th U.S. Infantry in May 1902, at the time when work at the Benguet road was in earnest. He died in September 9, 1918 with the rank of Brigadier General and is buried at the Arlington National Cemetery.

General Kennon was also a writer, having won essay contests as a young Lieutenant, and authored an army manual during his time. Researche shows that he had a residence at the old Benguet road, where he reportedly accommodated Architect Daniel Hudson Burnham when the latter visited Baguio City in the Christmas of 1904.

KENNON, ANNE B RICE W/O LYMAN W V
DATE OF DEATH: 08/05/1945
BURIED AT: SECTION SOUTH  SITE 2010
ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY

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