Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 06.djvu/285

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KINNEY


KINNEY


California: president of the Southern California Forest and Water society; a member of the Amer- ican Academy of Political and Social Science and proprietor and editor of the Saturday Post, Los Angeles, Cal. He was married, Nov. 18, 1884, to Margaret, daughter of James Dabney Thornton, justice of the supreme court of California. He is the author of: Conquest of Death (1893); Tasksby Twilight (1893); Eucalyptus (1895); Forest and Water fl900), and pamphlets on forestry and political economy.

KINNEY, Coates, poet, was born at Kinney 's- Corners. near Penn-Yan, Yates county, N.Y., Nov. 24, 1826; son of Giles and Myra (Cornell) Kinney, and grandson of Stephen and Rebecca (Coates) Kinney and of Samuel and Polly (Dar- row) Cornell. He removed with his parents to Ohio in 1840, and was a student at Antioch college. Yellow Springs, Ohio, but was not grad- uated. He was admitted to the Cincinnati bar in 1856. and practised until 1859, when he entered journalism, serving as editor of the Xenia Torch- light, the Cincinnati Daily Times, the Ohio State Journal, and the Springfield Daily Repuhlic. He was made paymaster in the U.S. volunteer army with the rank of major in 1861, and was mus- tered out with the commission of brevet lieuten- ant-colonel of volunteers in 1865. He was a del- egate to the Republican national convention in 1S68, and secretary of the Ohio delegation; and was senator in the Ohio legislature from the fifth district, 1882-83. He is the author of: Ke-ii-ka and Other Poems (18.55); Lyrics of the Ideal and the Real (1888); Mists of Fire and Some Eclogs ( is99). His best known poem is Rain on the Roof. KINNEY, John Fitch, jurist, was born at New Haven, Oswego county, N.Y., April 2, 1816; son of Dr. Stephen F. and Abby (Brock way) Kinney;

grandson of the Rev. Thomas and Eunice (Lathrop) Brockway, and a descendant of the Rev. John Lath- rop, the emigrant, and of Wolston Brockway, who came to Lyme, Conn., in 1660. He was educat- ed at the district scliool and at Rens- selaer Oswego acad- emy, studied law with Orville Robin- son, Mexico, N.Y., settled in Marysville, Ohio, in 1836, and was admitted to practice in 1837. He removed to Mount Vernon, Oliio, in 1840 and practised law there until 1844, when he settled in Lee countv, Iowa. He was sec-


retary of the legislative council for the terri- tory; prosecuting attorney for Lee county, and judge of the supreme court of the state, 184T-.54. In Januarj-, 1854, lie resigned to accept from President Pierce the chief justiceship of the supreme court of Utah Territory, serving 1854-57. He removed to Nebraska Territory in 1857 and practised law there until 1860, when he was again appointed chief jastice of Utah Territory and held that office under appointment of Presi- dent Buchanan. In 1862 he was the unsuccess- ful Democratic candidate for delegate from Ne- braska Territory to the 38th congress, and in 1863 he was elected the delegate from Utah Ter- ritorj- to the 38th congress, serving, 186.3-65. At the expiration of his term in congress he returned to Nebraska Citj- and in February, 1867, Presi- dent Johnson appointed him a member of the special Indian commission to visit the Sioux tribe and investigate the Fort Pliil Kearny massacre of December, 1866. He was the only member of the commission of six to make the journey from Fort Laramie to Fort Phil Kearny through the hostile country, 200 miles, and hold council with the Indians, and his report made at the time be- came a part of the policy thereafter adopted by the govern-ment in the management of Indian tribes. In July, 1884, he was appointed by Presi- dent Arthur agent of the Yankton Sioux Indians of Dakota and he resigned the agency in January, 1889, and returned to Nebraska City, wliere, on January 29, he celebrated the golden anniversary of his marriage to Hannah D., daughter of Col. Samuel and Hannah (Chapin) Hall. Judge Kinney's dissenting opinion that the constitution and laws of Iowa did not allow a majority of the voters to impose a tax upon the minority for speculative purposes, and " that the public credit could not be used for the benefit of private corporations," as proposed in bonding a county for the benefit of a railroad, was after many years adopted by the supreme court. Mr. Justice Miller of the U.S. supreme court in a case involv- ing the same question referred to Judge Kinney's opinion as a correct rendering of the law, and many of the western states incorporated the principle in their constitutions.

KINNEY, Thomas Tallmadge, journalist, was born at Newark, N.J.. Aug. 13, 1821; son of Wil- liam Burnet (q.v.) and Mary (Chandler) Kinney; grandson of Col. Abraham and Hannah (Bur- net) Kinney, and a descendant of Dr. William Burnet, who served in the Revolution as surgeon- general. Continental army; and of Sir Thomas Kinney, a mining engineer, who came from Eng- land to explore the mining resources of New Jersey before the Revolution. He was graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1841; studied law in the oflSce of Joseph P. Bradley; was admit-