Like the Rev. Noah Murray, Joseph Kinney – one of Murray’s first converts in Sheshequin – also had a descendant who became a Universalist minister – two, in fact. They were a grandson, Joseph Kinney, and a great-great-granddaughter, Alice Kinney Tripp.

The Rev. Joseph Kinney, the oldest son of Charles Kinney and his wife Amanda Carrier, was born in 1822 or 1823, probably in Litchfield, Bradford county. In 1848 he married Charlotte White, a native of nearby Windham. He first appears in denominational clergy records in 1856, when he was still in Litchfield. Where or if he preached, I have not been able to discover. From 1858 to 1860 his address was Sherman, N. Y., which is about 25 miles east of Erie. From there he went to Meadville, Pa., where he attended the Universalist theological school, graduating in 1862.

Kinney enlisted in the army and served three years in the Civil War. His wife may have returned to Bradford county during the war; their fourth child was born there in 1863. In 1865 the Kinneys moved to Iowa City, Iowa, where Joseph served the local congregation. His obituary states:

“Laboring unceasingly, he built up the waste places that years of neglect had caused in the church; those who knew him so well, and confided so thoroughly in his constant efforts, viewed with pride the success which crowned his thorough and unselfish devotion to his work.”

Sadly his life and ministry were cut short by tuberculosis. He died in Iowa City in 1868.

The Rev. Alice Kinney Tripp was a granddaughter of George Wayne Kinney, who was a grandson of the elder Joseph Kinney and a brother of the poet Julia Kinney Scott. She was born in 1870 in Sheshequin. She and her first husband, the Rev. Alfred Ellsworth Wright, attended the Universalist seminary in Canton, N. Y. (St. Lawrence University). They were both licensed to preach in 1891 and ordained in 1893. In 1894 they were installed as co-pastors of the Third Universalist Church of Reconciliation in Brooklyn, N. Y.

The Wrights served churches in Brooklyn until 1903, when the couple divorced. Alice left the ministry shortly afterward and lived briefly in Syracuse, N. Y. She married Lt. Col. Charles Hinman Graves in 1905. He was the U. S. Ambassador to Norway from 1905 to 1913.

Alice Kinney Tripp Wright Graves spent the last years of her life in Santa Barbara, California, where she died in 1920. She is buried in Tioga Point Cemetery in Athens.