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Many of the Monroe County Kinsers are descendants of John Kinser(#16) born 1793 in Virginia and Susannah
Messimer(#17) born 1792 in Pennsylvania.
William Theodore Kinser(#1788), fifth
child of Rufus Abraham Kinser moved to Richmond, Virginia as a Lutheran
minister.
John Robert Kinser(#2725) sixth child of
Rufus Abraham Kinser moved to California.
Between 1910 and 1914 Charles Landon Kinser (#1777) and his wife moved to Texas for his rheumatism. They settled in Fowlertown, Texas a new town and established there the first hotel in town, the Kinser Hotel. Some members of this family returned to Tennessee in 1914. Charles Landon Kinser was the son of Rufus Abraham Kinser(#263) and a grandson of John Kinser, Sr.
The Kinser families seem to have been
concentrated at first in one community, Liberality, in Greene County. The
area is now part of Monroe County. Three small streams flowing through
several Kinser farms combined into a small creek was called Kinser Creek.
These farms also bordered on Dancing Creek, so called because the Cherokee
Indians held ceremonial dances on a flat topped hill near the creek. There
is also a Kinser Creek in Wythe County, Virginia.
Monroe and McMinn Counties were formed
from Greene County in 1819. A group of citizens of the area
presented a petition to the General Assembly of the state of Tennessee in
1837 requesting that a new county be formed form portions of Bradley,
Monroe, and McMinn Counties. The reason cited was that they had to travel
over forty miles to their respective county seats As a result of this
petition Polk County was formed in 1839. Among the signatures on the
petition are Peter Kincer and William Kincer.
A deed dated March 29, 1849,
transfers 114 acres of land in Monroe County, Tennessee from John Kinser
Sr. to John Kinser Jr. for the sum of $500. One of the witnesses is Jacob
Kinser.
John Kinser, Sr.(#16)and
Sussanah Mesimer had twelve children, Mary, Peter, Henry, Sussanah, John Jr.,
George, Lydia, Easter, Jacob, Sarah Ann, Catharine, and Francis Marion.
A cedar chest that belonged to Sussannah Mesimer Kinser(#17) is still in the family. The owner remembers it setting in the upstairs hall of the Kinser family home near
Madisonville, Tennessee and being told it belonged to John Solomon
Kinser's great-grandmother.
The
Kinsers and other devout Lutherans established a church called St. Mary's
near Madisonville, Tennessee. In 1879 John Kinser, Jr.(#618) donated an acre of land for a site to
build the building, now known as St. Mary's
Methodist Church. This church maintained a German speaking pastor into
the late 1800s. The original church was built from logs but has now been
replaced with a concrete block building. John and Sussanah and several
other Kinsers are buried in the cemetery adjacent to the church.
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