"Portland The Rose City, Pictorial and Biographical." A compilation of work by a
number of writers.  The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, Philadelphia,
Portland, 1911.  Vol. 2, p. 481.
 
MARSHALL J. KINNEY

     Honored and respected by all, there is no man who occupies a more enviable
position in commercial circles of Portland and the northwest than Marshall J.
Kinney, one of the foremost representatives of the salmon canning industry and
of the lumber interests of the Pacific coast. His prominent position is due not
alone to the success he has attained but also to the straightforward business
principles which he has ever followed÷principles which have never sought nor
required disguise, and which are based upon a recognition of the rights of
others. In the course of his advancement he has followed only constructive
measures, never sacrificing the interests of others to his own progress but
rather securing his success along lines which have proved of benefit to his
fellowmen as well as to himself. For more than six decades the name of Kinney
has been an honored one in commercial circles in this part of the country.
     Marshall J. Kinney was brought to Oregon in his infancy by his parents,
Robert C. and Eliza (Bigelow) Kinney. The former was a son of Samuel Kinney and
a nephew of Governor William Kinney, of Illinois. His birth occurred at
Belleville, St. Clair county, that state, in 1813, while his parents were
natives of Kentucky. In his early manhood he preempted a tract of land on the
western bank of the Mississippi river, laid out a town, built a hotel and wharf
and thus became the founder of Muscatine, Iowa, between which point and St.
Louis he ran a boat. He was also identified with the milling interests of that
place, operating both a flour and saw mill.  He also read law for a time under
Judge Hastings, and though he never engaged in practice his knowledge of the law
proved a valuable element in his commercial career. A study of the country and
its natural resources led him to the opinion that splendid opportunities were
offered in the northwest and in 1847 he started with his family by way of the
Platte road and over the Oregon trail to the Pacific coast. After weary months
of travel he took up a donation claim near LaFayette, Oregon, but later joined
in the rush to the gold fields of California, where he spent portions of the
years 1848 and 1849. He did not realize the fortune which report had said could
be secured there in an almost increditably short space of time, and, returning
to Oregon, he again took up his abode upon his farm, devoting a number of years
to its development and improvement.  He again became identified with milling
interests in 1859, when he purchased the McMinville mills, which he conducted
with profit, and further extended his efforts in that direction by the purchase,
in 1875, of the flour mills in Salem, to which place he removed his family. The
substantial growth of the business and the expansion of his trade connections
led to the establishment of branch offices in Portland, San Francisco and in
Liverpool, England. The Salem Milling Company chartered the first vessel for the
shipment of flour from Portland to Liverpool, China, Hindoostan and other points
in the Orient, and to Montevideo, South America. With the development of the
business Mr. Kinney took his sons into partnership and the operations of the
firm became among the most extensive in their line in the northwest. At the same
time Mr. Kinney took an active and helpful part in affairs of public moment and
was elected as a delegate to the convention which framed the first constitution
for Oregon.
     Robert C. Kinney married Elizabeth Bigelow, a native of Nova Scotia and a
daughter of Daniel Bigelow, who removed from Canada to Illinois and thence to
Wisconsin, where he conducted a sawmill. This became the nucleus of a little
village which he called Milwaukee. Unto Mr. and Mrs. Robert C. Kinney there were
born eight children who reached adult age÷Mrs. Mary Jane Smith, the eldest, is a
resident of Astoria, where her two sons, Senator J. H. Smith and A. M. Smith,
are prominent attorneys. Albert W. Kinney was associated with his father in the
milling business at Salem until his death in 1882. William S. Kinney was the
president and manager of the Clatsop Saw Mill Company until his death in 1899
and was in partnership with his father and brothers, Albert W. and M. J. Kinney,
in their extensive operations in the northwest.  Augustus C. Kinney, a physician
of Astoria, gained distinction as a specalist on tuberculosis, being among the
first advocates of the germ theory of the origin of this disease. He had come to
be recognized in America as an authority upon the subject before the
demonstration of Koch, of Germany, removed the doubt by the discovery of the
tubercular bacillus. Dr. Kinney has been a liberal contributor to medical
journals and is regarded as one of the eminent members of the profession. Dr.
Alfred Kinney is also a successful practitioner of Astoria. The daughters are
Mrs. Josephine Walker, of San Francisco, and Mrs. Eliza Peyton, the wife of Dr.
J. E. Peyton, of Redlands, California.
     Marshall J. Kinney, the fourth son, supplemented his public-school course
by study in the McMinnville Academy and then joined his father in business, to
which he closely applied himself, bending every energy toward the task of
gaining definite and comprehensive understanding of the business both in
principle and detail.  Such was the progress he made that in 1867, when but
twenty-one years of age, his father sent him to San Francisco to assume the
supervision of a branch office there, the business at that point reaching
hundreds of thousands of dollars per annum and extending from ocean to ocean. He
so capably controlled the interests of the firm at that point as to awaken the
wonderment, admiration and regard of all who knew him. His father died in 1875
and his brother Albert in 1882. This was followed by the sale of the mills at
Salem and Marshall J. Kinney therefore returned to Oregon and became interested,
in 1876, in the salmon industry at Astoria. He bent his energies toward the
development of the trade as well as to the conduct of the plant and in a short
time was at the head of the largest salmon cannery in the world. Moreover, he
closely studied the opportunities and possibilities of the business, introduced
improved machinery and methods and otherwise promoted the trade interests until
the name of Kinney became a synonym for fair dealing in connection with the
salmon trade of the country as well as a synonym for excellence of product.
Extending his efforts as his Astoria business proved the profits that could
accrue, he became the owner of canneries at Chilcoot and Cape Fox in Alaska and
also established a cannery at Fair Haven, Washington, owned by a company of
which he is still the president. Recognizing the possibilities for activity and
success in the field of lumber operations, he has also been identified with the
manufacture of lumber in this section of the country for almost three decades.
He is associated with his brother William in the ownership of the Clatsop Mills
which utilize Oregon timber in the manufacture of lumber. The company now owns
valuable tracts of timber land on the Columbia river and in the coast countries.
Since 1899 he has been a resident of Portland and from this place superintends
his mammoth business interests.      
	Mr. Kinney has been married twice. While in San Francisco he wedded Margaret
Morgan, who spent her entire life in that city and at her death left a daughter,
Harriet M. In 1888 Mr. Kinney was united in marriage to Miss Narcissa White, a
lady of national reputation in connection with her work in the temperance
movement  She was born in Grove City, Pennsylvania, in 1854, and was the sixth
daughter of George W. and Susanna Kerr (Wallace) White. She was descended in
both the paternal and maternal lines from Scotch ancestry, although the families
were residents of northern Ireland for several generations. Her mother was a
direct descendant of Adam Wallace, who was burned at the stake in Scotland
because of his religious belief, the record thereof being found in Fox's Book of
Martyrs. His sons, David and Moses Wallace, then fled to the north of Ireland,
whence Hugh Wallace came to America in 1796, settling in western Pennsylvania.
He was the father of Susanna K. Wallace. Walter White, an ancestor of Mrs.
Kinney in the paternal line, was one of the Christian martyrs of the reign of
Queen Mary and four of the different ancestors of Mrs Kinney were soldiers at
the battle of the Boyne. Her father, George W. White, was a man of broad
scholarship, well versed in history, literature and in biblical knowledge. He
was killed in a railroad accident near his home in 1883 when eighty years of
age. He married Susanna K. Wallace, who when a young lady of eighteen years came
from her native country of Ireland to America. Like her husband her life was
permeated by her Christian faith and their children a son and seven daughters,
were reared in a religious atmosphere and were liberally educated, the parents
recognizing the fact that they could give to them no better legacy than a
liberal education. The youngest daughter, Maria, from her early childhood longed
to become a missionary in foreign fields and at length, gaining her parents'
consent, began preparation for the work of a medical missionary. After
graduating from a medical school in New York city she spent a year in work in
the slums of the metropolis and in 1886 sailed for India, beginning work in
Sialkote under the board of the United Presbyterian church. In a few years she
had raised funds sufficient to found a medical hospital there, the work of which
in its physical and moral phase, being of incalculable benefit to the people of
that district. After several years Dr. White returned to America with health
greatly impaired but in 1902 again sailed for India.
     Narcissa White was educated in the public schools of Grove City,
Pennsylvania, and in the State Normal School, from which she was graduated with
high honors. She was then elected principal of the training school in Edinboro,
Pennsylvania, and later was sent out through the state to organize county
institutes, in which she gave instruction in chart work and in elocution. Her
close application and zeal undermined her health and she entered upon an
enforced rest of two years. During that time her deep interest became aroused in
the temperance crusade which resulted in the organization of the Woman's
Christian Temperance Union. She studied the movement, its aims and its methods,
and at length entered heart and soul into the work, at first concentrating her
energies upon the Grove City Union, of which she was an active president.  Later
she became county president, then state superintendent of scientific temperance
instruction and in that connection visited county institutes, where she gave
instruction in scientific teaching of the effects of alcoholics and narcotics
upon the human system in such a logical way as to elicit warm commendation from
educators generally. In 1880 she was chosen national lecturer and organizer and
in that capacity visited every state and territory in the Union, also in Canada
and British Columbia. Gifted by nature with a keen mind and ready sympathy, she
made wonderful progress and development in the years of her public work. One of
her biographers has said: "She possessed a keen, logical mind, a most persuasive
manner, a quick, sparkling wit and a charming personality. Her face was handsome
and expressive, one that would attract attention among the crowds. She had a
lofty, graceful bearing and a fine physique.  Her address was dignified, without
a suggestion of haughtiness. She was gracious to everyone, yet without a trace
of superiority. Her success as a platform orator was remarkable. She had
developed into one of the most brilliant speakers in the entire coterie engaged
in reform and educational work and was sought far and near and everywhere hailed
with delight. Her presence was magnetic; her voice, which she had carefully
cultivated, was clear and penetrating, so flexible and sympathetic that she
swayed her audience at her will. She brought to the platform such intense
enthusiasm that it was contagious and impelled her hearers to give assent to her
earnest pleadings. As a champion of truth and righteousness and in shaping and
carrying forward the great reforms of her day, she had no mean part. Her great
heart was stirred to its very depths by the wrongs inflicted upon defenseless
women and children by the liquor traffic, and her deep sense of right and
justice was outraged by the protection the traffic received from our national
and civic government, so she threw her whole soul into the battle for
prohibition and her strong personality and burning eloquence left their impress
upon every community she visited in our great commonwealth.
     While visiting the Pacific coast in connection with her temperance work she
formed the acquaintance of Marshall J. Kinney, who sought her hand in marriage,
and in 1888 they established their home at Astoria. Leaving the lecture field,
Mrs. Kinney took up various lines of philanthropic, charitable and educational
work, including the task of elevating and Christianizing the hundreds of
fishermen in the employ of her husband, who was in full sympathy with her in
this movement. Her work there was of incalculable benefit. Formerly a member of
the United Presbyterian church, she became a member of the Presbyterian church
in Oregon but her Christianity was above all creeds or sectarian bias. Her
great, warm heart reached out in an effort to uplift all humanity, using the
agencies of education, of temperance reform and of biblical instruction as well
as of ready sympathy and material assistance to benefit man-kind. In 1894 she
was elected president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Oregon, only
resigning the work when compelled to do so by ill health. In the autumn of 1899
Mr. and Mrs. Kinney removed to Portland, where she was again making her talents
felt in a field of great usefulness when she was called from this life. Her
teachings and her influence remain as a beautiful benediction in the life of all
with whom she came in contact and her memory is enshrined in the hearts of all
who knew her. Who can tell where the seeds that she sowed fell in good ground
and are bringing forth fruit an hundredfold?
     While Mr. Kinney has never enrered actively into philanthropic and
charitable work to which his wife devoted so much of her life, he was in hearty
sympathy therewith and has been a generous contributor to various benevolences
and philanthropic movements. His talents, however, fitted him for activity in
other directions. He has been deeply interested in historic research and is a
member of the Oregon Pioneer Association and of the Oregon Historical Society.
He is likewise a life member of the Occidental Lodge of Masons in San Francisco.
His strength and talents, however, have been chiefly directed into channels of
business wherein he has become one of the prominent upbuilders of the northwest,
promoting, encouraging and managing productive and manufacturing industries
which have been most important factors in the upbuilding and growth of this
section of the country.
 
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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in January 2008 by Diana Smith.  Submitter
has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.