Francis Kinloch, Continental Congress

Francis Kinloch, American patriot, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, 7 March, 1755 and died. there, 8 Feb., 1826.

His father, Francis, was a member of his majesty's council for South Carolina from 1717 till 1757, and at one time its president, and his grandfather, James, came from England about 1700. The son was first educated in Charleston, but was sent to London in 1768, after his father's death, and placed at Eton.

In 1774, after travelling through France, Italy, and Switzerland, he remained in Geneva with his friend, John von Muller, the Swiss historian. At first he sympathized with the Tories, but at the beginning of the Revolutionary war he returned to Charleston, received a captain's commission, and was on Gen. Isaac Huger's staff at the attack on Savannah in 1779, receiving a bullet wound. He then served on Gen. William Moultrie's staff until 1780, when he was sent to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia for one year. While trying to escape from his house during “Simcoe's raid,” he was captured, but released on parole and returned home.

After the war he was engaged, with his brother Cleland, in settling their desolated estates near Georgetown. For many years he served in the state house of representatives, and was a justice of the peace and of the quorum. He was a delegate to the convention of 1787, and voted there in favor of ratifying the constitution of the United States. He was a member of the legislative council in 1789, and in 1790 one of the convention that formed the constitution for South Carolina.

In 1803 he went with his family to the south of France and Geneva, but about 1806 he returned to Charleston. He was the author of “Letters from Geneva” (2 vols., Boston), and a “Eulogy on George Washington, Esq.” (Georgetown, 1800; reprinted privately, New York, 1847).