Monroe Co., TN

	Kinser, Kinzer, Kincer, Kinsar, Kinsor Kintzer, Künzer, Kuentzer, Küntzer One Immigrant Family

The Kinsers of Monroe County, Tennessee

      Many of the Monroe County Kinsers are descendants of John Kinser,(16) born 1793 in Virginia and Susannah Messimer born 1792 in Pennsylvania. 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.
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.
      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 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.