Robert Kirkland Kernighan (25 April 1854 – 3 November 1926) was a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

, and farmer

Farmer

A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...

.

Born at Rushdale Farm, Rockton, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, he apprenticed as a journalist on the Hamilton Spectator staff. In about 1876 the paper printed his first poetry. Kernighan lived in Western Canada for a while working for the Winnipeg Sun

Winnipeg Sun

The Winnipeg Sun is a daily tabloid-sized newspaper in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.It is owned by Sun Media, a subsidiary of Quebecor Media, and shares many characteristics typical of Sun Media tabloids, including an emphasis on local news stories, extensive sports coverage, a Canadian conservatism...

. Short thereafter returned to Hamilton

Hamilton, Ontario

Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...

 to farm. He worked exclusively for many years for the Toronto Telegram

Toronto Telegram

The Toronto Evening Telegram was a conservative, broadsheet afternoon newspaper published in Toronto from 1876 to 1971. It had a reputation for supporting the Conservative Party at both the federal and provincial level. The paper competed with the liberal Toronto Star...

writing a column titled, "The Khan's Corner." The nickname "Khan" was given to him by a young French-Canadian woman who could not pronounce his name.

It was the opinion of Sir John A. Macdonald that if Canada ever went to war the soldiers would march to battle singing Kernighan's poem "The Men of the Northern Zone".

In an article reviewing personalities from Hamilton history, Kernighan was praised as a "...poet and humourist with a rare gift of sympathetic portrayal of rural Canadian life."

The Khan appeared in Toronto at old Albert Hall on October 20th, 1885 to a packed house. Toronto's Daily Amusement Record reported: "Albert Hall was jammed to the door, and many had to stand. This, more than anything else, is a substantial compliment to Mr. Kernighan, as the people of Toronto are not in the habit of throwing away fifty-cent pieces 'just for fun'." Kernighan's lecture was attended by notable local personalities who were described in the Amusement Record as the "Fourth Estate". The reviewer concluded: "The lecture was a masterpiece of native eloquence, humour and pathos, and the only fault found was that it was too short."

"The Khan's Canticles", a hardcover book containing his poetry, was published by the Hamilton Spectator Printing Company in 1896. "The Khan's Book of Verse" was published in 1925.

Tribute

The Kernaghan neighbourhood on the Hamilton, Ontario Mountain was named after him. It is bounded by the Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway

Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway

The Lincoln Alexander Parkway, officially nicknamed "The Linc", is a municipal expressway in the Canadian city of Hamilton, Ontario. Located on the Hamilton mountain, atop the Niagara Escarpment...

 (north), Stone Church Road West

Stone Church Road (Hamilton, Ontario)

Stone Church Road, is a two-way Upper City east-west arterial road in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. It starts at Golf Links Road, just east of Meadowlands, and goes across the Escarpment and ends at Upper Mount Albion Road....

 (south), West 5th Street

West 5th Street (Hamilton, Ontario)

West 5th Street is an Upper City arterial road in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. It starts off in the north at James Mountain Road, a mountain-access road, and extends southward past Rymal Road where it ends just south of Christopher Drive...

 (west) and Upper James Street

Upper James Street (Hamilton, Ontario)

Upper James Street, is an Upper City arterial road in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. It starts at the Claremont Access, a mountain-access road in the north, and extends southward towards the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport where it then changes its name to the Hamilton Port Dover Plain...

 (east). Landmarks in this neighbourhood include Yuk Yuk's Comedy Club and Kernighan Park, also named after him.