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 “Simcoe's raid,” 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 “Letters from Geneva” (2 vols., Boston), and a “Eulogy on George Washington, Esq.” (Georgetown, 1800; reprinted privately, New York, 1847). — 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 “Charleston Medical Journal.”
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 “The Sonship
of Christ”; “A Display of Scripture Prophecies”
(1813); “Explanation of the Types, Prophecies,
Revelation, etc.” (1814); and “An Essay on
the New Heaven and Earth” (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 “an
ingenious neighbor.” 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 “The
Philadelphia experiments” 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 “magical
picture” referred to by the Abbé Nollet, and
produced the ringing of chimes of bells. In 1751
he began delivering lectures on “The Newly
Discovered Electrical Fire” — the first of the kind in
America or Europe. His advertisement in the
“Pennsylvania Gazette” of 11 April, 1751, is as
follows: “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.” 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 “were
pleasing to all sorts of people and were very
curious.” 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
