Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Kinney, Coates

KINNEY, Coates, poet, b. near Penn Yan, Yates co., N. Y., 24 Nov., 1826. He was partly educated at Antioch college, Yellow Springs, Ohio, studied law with Thomas Corwin, and was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati. After practising about three years he engaged in journalism, editing the daily Cincinnati “Times” and the “Ohio State Journal.” He was a paymaster in the U. S. army from June, 1861, till November, 1865, and was mustered out with the commission of brevet lieutenant-colonel of volunteers. He was a delegate to the convention that nominated Gen. Grant for the presidency in 1868, and its Ohio secretary. In 1882-'3 he was senator from the 5th district in the Ohio legislature, and delivered a speech against “The Official Railroad Pass.” He has published “Ke-u-ka and Other Poems” (Cincinnati, 1855), and has written several minor lyrics, of which “The Rain on the Roof,” which has been set to music, is the most popular.