Kinser Personalities

The first Michael Kinser's (#2641) house, this Michael's grandfather, was built on land that was once part of a one hundred thousand acre grant from King George III, to Col. Patton who formed the Royal Land Company. The Montgomery Co Deed book D;, p 11. shows Michael purchased 263 acres including a mill from a John McDonald in 1803. He later purchased many other tracts in Tom's Creek neighborhood.

The house is off Glade Road, near the city limits of Blacksburg, Virginia. and has been continuously occupied from about 1780 to the present. It is still occupied although it is no longer in the family. The house is of mud brick made at Tom's Creek. It has been coated with a preservative in "Revere Green." The brick is said to be five rows thick.

Michael built his number one still house in front of his house, which faced a colonial road approx. one hundred feet away. It was directly in front of his bedroom/sitting room window according to the present owner.

The house has two front doors that are four feet apart. One goes into the sitting room, the other goes into the dining room and the hallway between the two doors must be accessed from either room. Both doors have limestone sills. There is a brick on the left side of the house that has "KINZER" carved into it.

In addition to the still house that was to the right of the front porch, he had an 80 gal. still, a 75 gal still, and a 60 gal. still. According to the Confederate Engineer's Map of 1863, Kinser's Mill is located approx. one quarter of a mile from the house on Tom's Creek, The mill later became Kanode's Mill.

Michael Kinser's Bible is hand written in German (Nurnberg 1765). It is 10x16x6. There are no family records in it other than "MICHAEL KINSER HIS BOOK JUNE 1810."

Michael's grandson Thomas' memoirs say that Michael owned the first carding machine that ever rolled wool from the sheep's back this side of the Alleghenies. He hauled it by team and wagon from Richmond taking a month to do so. With this machine he went into the wool business on Toms Creek near Blacksburg.

Michael literally saved his own bacon from army scavengers by placing the bacon between the bed-ticks beneath his pretended sick wife where the scavengers did not search.

John Kinser, Sr. (#0016)
John Kinser, born 1793 married Sussanah Mesimer(messimore). John and Sussannah were the parents of most of the East Tennessee Kinser families. The idenity of John Kinser's father was long in doubt.. Most researchers said Jacob Kinser based on preponderance of evidence. Recent DNA testing of close descendents have proved this to be true. Some researchers also use the middle initial 'W" in John's name. but there is no physical record of a middle initial.

John was in Liberality, Tennessee for an estate sale for another Sussanah Mesimer in 1813, along with Peter and Walter Kinser.

These Kinsers settled in the Liberality community along two main streams of water, Dancing Branch and Kinser Branch, which traverse the community:.  Dancing Branch so named from Cherokee Indians who held ceremonial dances in flat meadows along the stream or later from settlers who liked to square dance here.

The head of Kinser Branch named for Kinsers who settled along banks, was at a big spring on a farm owned by a Joseph Brown. Other springs were on the Millard Kinser farm, Marion Kinser farm and John Kinser farm, all these had big springs which flowed into Kinser branch. Dancing Branch and Kinser branch flow together and form Middle Creek of Chestuee Creek as it flows further on into McMinn county.  John Kinser, Sr., had mill on Kinser branch where they ground corn and wheat. George Lerned in 1880's had another mill located between Rufus Kinser farm and James Franklin Magill farm.

The old home of John Kinser, Sr. constructed of logs, was on Kinser branch near St. Mary's Lutheran Church, also constructed of logs, and located in Liberality community on an acre of land donated by John Kinser, Jr.

St Mary's Church sermons were still preached in German until near the turn of the century. Several Kinser families were active in the church as Deacons and Elders well into the nineteen hundreds