Coates kinney biography

of Kinney's Corners

by

Herbert A. Wisbey, Jr.

The region around Keuka Lake has produced a number of native sons and daughters who have had distinguished careers in other parts of the country but were not forgotten in the land of their birth. One such person is Coates Kinney, although his name may not be familiar even to the local people who pass the monument in his memory, located on a triangle of land in front of the Merry-Go-Round convenience store at Kinney's Corners about half way between Penn Yan and Branchport.

The monument is a granite boulder with a bronze plaque that reads:

-
NEAR THIS SPOT WAS BORN
COATES KINNEY
SOLDIER, STATESMAN, POET
ERECTED BY GU-YA-N-GA CHAPTER
D.A.R. PENN YAN, N.Y.
AND THE STATE OF NEW YORK

Coates Kinney was born on November 24, , at Kinney's Corners, Yates County, and named after his grandfather, Stephen, and his father, Giles Kinney, who ran a tavern there. Although he left New York State for Ohio with his family in at the age of fourteen and never returned to live in Yates County, his boyhood years near Keuka Lake provided material for many of the poems for which he became well known.

In Ohio he studied and became a one-room country school teacher for a while; then read law and was admitted to the Ohio bar. He always wanted to be a writer and achieved sudden fame in with the publication of what became his most famous poem, "Rain on the Roof." Today the poem is most noteworthy as an example of popular verse of the period, but for the rest of his life he was known as the author of this poem.

Rain on the Roof

by Coates Kinney

When the humid shadows hover
Over all the starry spheres
And the melancholy darkness
Gently weeps in rainy tears,
What a bliss to press the pillow
Of a cottage-chamber bed
And lie listening to the patter
Of the soft rain overhead!

Every tinkle on the shingles
Has an echo in the heart;
And a thousand dreamy fancies
Into busy being start,
And a thousand r

American politician and poet

Coates Kinney (November 24, – January 25, ) was an American lawyer, politician, journalist and poet who wrote Rain On The Roof.

Biography

Coates Kinney was born in near Penn Yan, New York. He was partly educated at Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio, and was accompanied by Thomas Corwin, a former US secretary of the Treasury, while he studied law. He was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati in , and was considered a fine lawyer. He became a journalist, and worked on papers in Cincinnati, Xenia, and Springfield, Illinois.

Works

• Keeuka ()
• Lyrics of the Ideal and the Real ()
• Rain On The Roof (lyrical poem)

References

Sources

• Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (). "Kinney, Coates"&#;. New International Encyclopedia (1st&#;ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.
• Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (). "Kinney, Coates"&#;. Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.

External links

Coates Kinney (November 24, - January 25, ) was a lawyer, politician, journalist, and poet from the United States.

Biography[]

Coates Kinney was born in near Penn Yan, New York. He was partly educated at Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio,and studied law with Thomas Corwin. He was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati in Hi He became a journalist, and worked on papers in Cincinnati, Xenia, Springfield, Illinois .

He was a paymaster in the U. S. Army from June until November , and was mustered out with the commission of brevet lieutenant-colonel of volunteers. He was a delegate to the convention that nominated Ulysses S. Grant for the presidency in , and its Ohio secretary. He was senator from the 5th district in the Ohio legislature , and delivered a speech against "The Official Railroad Pass".

He wrote poetry, and his verses were collected in Keeuka and Other Poems (Cincinnati, ) and Lyrics of the Ideal and the Real (). Of his verses, "The Rain on the Roof", which was set to music, was the most popular. He died in Ohio in

Works[]

• Keeuka ().
• Lyrics of the Ideal and the Real ().
• Mists of Fire: A Trilogy and Some Eclogs ().

Notes[]

References[]

• &#;"Kinney, Coates". New International Encyclopedia. &#;
• &#;Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John, eds. () "Kinney, Coates" Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography New York: D. Appleton&#;

External links[]