Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/586

550 KINLOCH, Francis, patriot, b. in Charleston, S. C., 7 March, 1755; d. there, 8 Feb., 1826. His father, Francis, was a member of his majesty's council for South Carolina from 1717 till 1757, and at one time its president, and his grandfather, James, came from England about 1700. The son was first educated in Charleston, but was sent to London in 1768, after his father's death, and placed at Eton. In 1774, after travelling through France, Italy, and Switzerland, he remained in Geneva with his friend, John von Muller, the Swiss historian. At first he sympathized with the Tories, but at the beginning of the Revolutionary war he returned to Charleston, received a captain's commission, and was on Gen. Isaac Huger's staff at the attack on Savannah in 1779, receiving a bullet wound. He then served on Gen. William Moultrie's staff until 1780, when he was sent to the Continental congress in Philadelphia for one year. While trying to escape from his house during &ldquo;Simcoe's raid,&rdquo; he was captured, but released on parole and returned home. After the war he was engaged, with his brother Cleland, in settling their desolated estates near Georgetown. For many years he served in the state house of representatives, and was a justice of the peace and of the quorum. He was a delegate to the convention of 1787, and voted there in favor of ratifying the constitution of the United States. He was a member of the legislative council in 1789, and in 1790 one of the convention that formed the constitution for South Carolina. In 1803 he went with his family to the south of France and Geneva, but about 1806 he returned to Charleston. He was the author of &ldquo;Letters from Geneva&rdquo; (2 vols., Boston), and a &ldquo;Eulogy on George Washington, Esq.&rdquo; (Georgetown, 1800; reprinted privately, New York, 1847). &mdash; His brother, Cleland, planter, b. in Charleston, S. C., in 1759; d. at Acton, S. C., 23 Sept., 1823, was educated at Eton and in Holland. He remained in Scotland during the Revolution, and on his return to Carolina in 1783 was amerced, but his property restored. He served frequently in the state legislature, was a delegate to the conventions of 1787 and 1790, also holding other offices. He was among the most successful rice-planters in the state, and one of the first to adopt the tide-water cultivation and the new pounding and threshing machinery, and to encourage inventions and improvement.

KINLOCH, Robert Alexander, physician, b. in Charleston, S. C.. 20 Feb., 1826. He was graduated at Charleston college in 1845, and at the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1848, and subsequently spent nearly two years in study abroad. He has since practised in Charleston, S. C., where he became the first surgeon of the Roper hospital. He was a surgeon in the Confederate army, serving as medical director in the Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, as medical inspector of hospitals, and as a member of the army examining boards in Richmond and Charleston. He has been president of the State medical association and vice-president of the American medical association, and since 1867 professor of surgery in the Medical college of South Carolina. In 1876 he was a delegate to the International medical congress. He has invented several surgical instruments and appliances, chiefly urethrotome stone pessaries. He was the first in the United States to reset the knee-joint for chronic disease. He is the first surgeon that ever performed laparotomy for gun-shot wound of the abdomen, without protrusion of viscera. He has contributed to medical periodicals, and at one time edited the &ldquo;Charleston Medical Journal.&rdquo;

KINNE, Aaron, clergyman, b. in Lisbon, Conn., in 1745; d. in Talmadge, Ohio, 9 July, 1824. He was graduated at Yale in 1765, ordained in October, 1770, and had charge of a Congregational church in Groton, Conn. He published &ldquo;The Sonship of Christ&rdquo;; &ldquo;A Display of Scripture Prophecies&rdquo; (1813); &ldquo;Explanation of the Types, Prophecies, Revelation, etc.&rdquo; (1814); and &ldquo;An Essay on the New Heaven and Earth&rdquo; (1821).

KINNERSLEY, Ebenezer, electrician, b. in Gloucester, England, 30 Nov., 1711; d. in Lower Dublin, Philadelphia, Pa., 4 July, 1778. He was a son of Rev. William Kinnersley, an assistant pastor of the Lower Dublin Baptist church, and came to this country with his parents in 1714. His early life was passed at Dublin, and then he went to Philadelphia, where he gave evidence of his genius as a scholar and mechanician. It is supposed that he taught a school there and associated with Benjamin Franklin, who soon learned to appreciate young Kinnersley, whom he designates as &ldquo;an ingenious neighbor.&rdquo; When Franklin saw Dr. Spence, a Scotchman in Boston, experiment with a glass tube and silk, and observed the effects that were produced, he communicated the fact to his associates in Philadelphia, and soon a hundred tubes were in use. Among those who devoted special attention to the subject were Franklin, Kinnersley, Philip Syng, and Thomas Hopkinson. Mr. Kinnersley, being out of business, devoted all his time to the subject, and in a couple of years the discoveries that were made were such as to astound the learned of Europe, to whom they were communicated by Franklin in his letters to the well-known Peter Collinson, of London, by whom they were published. It was thus that &ldquo;The Philadelphia experiments&rdquo; became known and the names of Franklin and Kinnersley were prominently associated with them and the discoveries that were made. The electric fire, as it was then termed, was a subject that engrossed scientific scholars in England and on the continent of Europe, but the Philadelphia philosophers appeared to surpass all in their discoveries. In 1748 Kinnersley demonstrated that the electric fluid actually passed through water, and proved it by a trough ten feet long full of water. He also invented the &ldquo;magical picture&rdquo; referred to by the Abbé Nollet, and produced the ringing of chimes of bells. In 1751 he began delivering lectures on &ldquo;The Newly Discovered Electrical Fire&rdquo; &mdash; the first of the kind in America or Europe. His advertisement in the &ldquo;Pennsylvania Gazette&rdquo; of 11 April, 1751, is as follows: &ldquo;Notice is hereby given to the Curious, that Wednesday next, Mr. Kinnersley proposes to begin a course of experiments on the newly discovered Electrical Fire, containing not only the most curious of those that have been made and published in Europe, but a considerable number of new ones lately made in this city, to be accompanied with methodical Lectures on the nature and properties of that wonderful element.&rdquo; These lectures proved a complete success, and were attended by persons of all classes. In September, 1751, he went to Boston with a letter from Franklin to Gov. James Bowdoin, and delivered his lectures in Faneuil hall. The governor said they &ldquo;were pleasing to all sorts of people and were very curious.&rdquo; While at Boston he continued his experiments and discovered the difference between the electricity that was produced by the glass and sulphur globes, which he at once communicated to Franklin at Philadelphia. Until then the theory of Du Fay as to the vitreous and resinous electricity was generally adopted, but now Kinnersley