I recently ran across an interesting story about the town of Kinney, Minnesota, which prompted me to write this post about the town’s namesake, Orrin Day Kinney.

Orrin Day Kinney was born in Sheshequin in 1845.  He was a great-grandson of Joseph Kinney, the Baptist who, along with the Rev. Moses Park, was famously converted to Universalism by the Rev. Noah Murray in 1793.  Kinney probably attended the Sheshequin Universalist church as a boy and young man.  His signature, dated May 1865, is on the wall of the room above the foyer.

He married Alice Kingsbury, a granddaughter of another prominent Sheshequin Universalist, Joseph Kingsbury.

O. D. Kinney had a store in Sheshequin in the late 1860s and later studied law in Towanda.  He was admitted to the Bradford county bar in 1875 and practiced law in Towanda until 1882, when he moved to Minneapolis, MN.

Kinney initially practiced law in Minnesota, but he soon expanded into the real estate, banking, and investment businesses.  In the late 1880s he moved to the Mesabi Range (about sixty miles north of Duluth), where iron ore mining was beginning to be developed.  He established several banks in the region.  One of the mines, the Kinney mine, was named after him, as was the town of Kinney.

About 1905 Kinney retired from business and returned to Bradford county.  He purchased the “palatial and historic” home known as “Clover Croft” at 615 S. Main St. in Athens.

While he probably didn’t attend the Sheshequin church after he left his home town in the 1860s, the church was always near to his heart.  He made several donations toward improvements and maintenance of the meeting house, including two $500 bonds in 1909.

Orrin Day Kinney died at his home in Athens in 1911.  He was buried in the Sheshequin church cemetery.

Now for the story about the town of Kinney, Minnesota:

Once a thriving mining town, Kinney’s population had dwindled to about 300 by the 1970s.  In 1977, the city’s water system was failing and needed repairs costing $186,000.  After numerous unsuccessful attempts to secure funding from government agencies, someone suggested to the city council that they could receive foreign aid from the U. S. if they seceded from the Union, declared war, and lost immediately.  The city council sent a secession letter to U. S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance on July 13, 1977.  Vance never responded, but the secession became a national sensation in February, 1978, when it was featured on the NBC Nightly News.

A businessman from Duluth offered “foreign aid” in the form of a police squad car.  The car was painted with a “Republic of Kinney” shield on the driver’s side.  The Republic created and sold over 1,600 passports between March and April, 1978, at $1.00 apiece.

In November, 1978, thanks largely to the publicity stunt, the city of Kinney was finally awarded a grant to repair its water system.  But the playful spirit of the “Republic of Kinney” remained.  Buttons and T-shirts were sold, and an annual summer festival called “Secession Days,” was initiated in 1987 and continued for at least twenty years.

You can read more about the Republic of Kinney at these sites:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinney,_Minnesota

https://www.health.state.mn.us/communities/environment/water/waterline/featurestories/kinney.html