Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 06.djvu/284

 KINNARD

KINNEY

John Graves Simcoe, but was released on parole. He was a representative in the South Carolina leg- islature for several years; was justice of the peace and a delegate to the convention of 1787, where he favored the adoption of the federal constitution. He was a member of the legislative council in 1789 and of the state constitutional convention of 1790. He assisted liis brother Cleland in re- storing their rice plantations, destroyed during the war. He resided in France and Switzerland with his family, 1803-06. He is the author of: Eulogy on George Washington, Esq. (1800); Letters from Geneva and Finance (3 vols., 1819.) He died in Charleston, S.C. Feb. 8, 1826.

KINNARD, George L., representative, was born in Pennsylvania in 1803. He early removed with his widowed mother to Tennessee, where he was educated and where he learned the printer's trade. He settled in Indianapolis, Ind., about 1823, where he was employed for a short time in a printing office. He was next employed as a school-teacher in Marion county, and engaged in surveying. He was elected captain of one of the first military companies formed in Marion county, was admitted to the Indianapolis bar, repre- sented Marion county in the Indiana legislature, served as state auditor and afterward commanded a regiment of state militia. He was a Democratic representative from Indiana in the 23d and 24th congresses, serving from Dec. 2, 1833, to Nov. 16, 1836, when he was seriously injured in the boiler explosion on the steamer Flora, while on his way to Philadelphia to be married. He died of his injuries near Cincinnati, Ohio, Nov. 26, 1836.

KINNE, La Vega George, jurist, was born in Syracuse, N.Y., Nov. 5, 1846; son of ^sop and Mary (Beebe) Kinne, and grandson of Zachariah Kinne. He was graduated at the Syracuse public school and in 1865 moved to Mendota, 111. He was graduated at the University of Michigan, LL.B., 1868, was admitted to the bar of La Salle county, 111., in 1867, and practised at Mendota, 1868-69, and at Toledo, Iowa, 1869-87. He was married, Nov. 23, 1869, to Mary E., daughter of Nathaniel J. Abrams, of Peru, 111. He was judge for the 17th judicial district, 1887-91; a judge of the supreme court of Iowa from Jan. 1, 1892, to Dec. 31, 1897, and an unsuccessful candidate for circuit judge in 1872, for district attorney in 1874 and for governor in 1881 and 1883. In 1884 he was appointed a member of the commission on uniformity of laws; in 1896 was elected president of the Iowa State Bar association, and in 1898 be- came a member of the board of control of state institutions, and chairman of the board.

KINNERSLEY, Ebenezer, electrician, was born in Gloucester, England, Nov. 30, 1711; son of the Rev. William Kinnersley, who immigrated to America with his family in 1714 and founded

at Lower Dublin the first Baptist church organ- ized in Pennsylvania. Ebenezer was instructed by his father, and taught school in Philadelphia, Pa, He was married in 1739 to Sarah Duffield. He was ordained a minister of the Baptist church in 1743 and was connected as pastor with Baptist churches in Philadelphia and vicinity, 1743-54. His opposition to Whitefield, the evangelist, dis- pleased the Baptists and he withdrew from the pulpit. In 1746 he became connected with Ben- jamin Franklin, Edward Duffield, Philip Syng and Thomas Hopkins, in making experiments with electrical fire, and in April, 1751, he began to lecture in Philadelphia on the wonders of electri- city, illustrating his talks by practical experi- ments. In September, 1751, he delivered in Faneuil Hall, Boston, Mass., the first recorded experi- mental lectures on electricity. While in Boston he discovered the difference between electricity that was produced by the glass and by sulphur globes, and his experiments proved the truth of the positive and negative theory. In March, 1752, in lectures given at Newport, R.I., he claimed that buildings might be protected from lightning, and two months later Benjamin Frank- lin drew electricity from the clouds. He was chief master of the English department and pro- fessor of English literature and oratory in the College of Philadelphia, 1753-73. During his life he was more prominently known in connection with the science of electricity than was Franklin. In 1757 he invented an electrical thermometer and also proved for the first time that electricity gen- erated heat. He was a member of the American Philosophical society, 1768-78; received the hon- orary degree of A.M. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1757, and was further honored by the trustees of the university by the erection of a memorial window. He died in Lower Dublin, Philadelphia, Pa., July 4, 1778.

KINNEY, Abbot, author, was born at Brook- side, N.J.,Nov. 16, 1850; son of Franklin Sher- wood and Mary (Cogswell) Kinney; grandson of Dr. Perley and Elizabeth (Sherwood) Kinney and of the Rev. Jonathan and Mary (Abbot) Cogs- well; and a descendant of Joseph Kinne, who came to Rhode Island in 1646. Abbot Kinney engaged in fruit farming in California. He was chairman of the California state board of fores- try; special commissioner, with Helen Hunt Jackson, to the Mission Indians; an officer in Egypt on the U.S. geological survey in 1873, and major in the California national guards, 1883. He was made chairman of the state commission to manage the Yosemite valley in 1897; presi- dent of the Southern California Academy of Sciences, 1898 and 1899; president of the South- ern California Pomological society and vice- president of the American Forestry association of