Virtual Museum of Art | Virtual Museum of History | Virtual Public Library | Virtual Science Center | Virtual Museum of Natural History | Virtual War Museum
   You are in: Museum of History >> Hall of North and South Americans >> Ebenezer Kinnersley





The Seven Flags of the New Orleans Tri-Centennial 1718-2018

For more information go to New Orleans 300th Birthday

 

Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, edited by James Grant Wilson, John Fiske and Stanley L. Klos. Six volumes, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1887-1889 and 1999. Virtualology.com warns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors and bias. We rely on volunteers to edit the historic biographies on a continual basis. If you would like to edit this biography please submit a rewritten biography in text form . If acceptable, the new biography will be published above the 19th Century Appleton's Cyclopedia Biography citing the volunteer editor




Virtual American Biographies

Over 30,000 personalities with thousands of 19th Century illustrations, signatures, and exceptional life stories. Virtualology.com welcomes editing and additions to the biographies. To become this site's editor or a contributor Click Here or e-mail Virtualology here.



A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

 



Ebenezer Kinnersley

KINNERSLEY, Ebenezer, electrician, born in Gloucester, England, 30 November, 1711; died in Lower Dublin, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 4 July, 1778. He was a son of Reverend William Kinnersley, an assistant pastor of the Lower Dublin Baptist church, and came to this country with his parents in 1714. His early life was passed at Dublin, and then he went to Philadelphia, where he gave evidence of his genius as a scholar and mechanician. It is supposed that he taught a school there and associated with Benjamin Franklin, who soon learned to appreciate young Kinnersley, whom he designates as "an ingenious neighbor." When Franklin saw Dr. Spence, a Scotchman in Boston, experiment with a glass tube and silk, and observed the effects that were produced, he communicated the fact to his associates in Philadelphia, and soon a hundred tubes were in use. Among those who devoted special attention to the subject were Franklin, Kinnersley, Philip Syng, and Thomas Hopkinson. Mr. Kinnersley, being out of business, devoted all his time to the subject, and in a couple of years the discoveries that were made were such as to astound the learned of Europe, to whom they were communicated by Franklin in his letters to the well-known Peter Collinson, of London, by whom they were published. It was thus that "The Philadelphia experiments" became known and the names of Franklin and Kinnersley were prominently associated with them and the discoveries that were made. The electric fire, as it was then termed, was a subject that engrossed scientific scholars in England and on the continent of Europe, but the Philadelphia philosophers appeared to surpass all in their discoveries. In 1748 Kinnersley demonstrated that the electric fluid actually passed through water, and proved it by a trough ten feet long full of water. He also invented the " magical picture " referred to by the Abbe Nollet, and produced the ringing of chimes of bells. In 1751 he began delivering lectures on "The Newly Discovered Electrical Fire "--the first of the kind in America or Europe. His advertisement in the "Pennsylvania Gazette" of 11 April, 1751, is as follows: "Notice is hereby given to the Curious, that Wednesday next, Mr. Kinnersley proposes to begin a course of experiments on the newly discovered Electrical .Fire, containing not only the most curious of those that have been made and published in Europe, but a considerable number of new ones lately made in this city, to be accompanied with methodical Lectures on the nature and properties of that wonderful element." These lectures proved a complete success, and were attended by persons of all classes. In September, 1751, he went to Boston with a letter from Franklin to Governor James Bowdoin, and delivered his lectures in Faneuil hall. The governor said they "were pleasing to all sorts of people and were very curious." While at Boston he continued his experiments and discovered the difference between the electricity that was produced by the glass and sulphur globes, which he at once communicated to Franklin at Philadelphia. Until then the theory of Du Fay as to the vitreous and resinous electricity was generally adopted, but now Kinnersley showed beyond a doubt that the positive and negative theory was correct. From Boston he went to Newport, Rhode Island, and in March, 1752, repeated his lectures there and suggested how houses and barns might be protected from lightning. This was three months before the time that Franklin drew the electricity from the clouds. He then visited New York and lectured on the subject. In 1753 Mr. Kinnersley was elected chief master in the College of Philadelphia, and in 1755 he was appointed professor of English and oratory, holding the office until 1772, when, owing to failing health, he resigned. In 1757 Dr. Franklin went to London as agent for Pennsylvania. Mr. Kinnersley continued his experiments, invented an electrical thermometer, and proved that heat could be produced by electricity, which was not known before. In 1764 he published a syllabus of his lectures on electricity, a copy of which is in the Philadelphia library. This pamphlet gave in detail most of the experiments that he performed, among others an orrery propelled by electricity; and he suggested that perhaps the solar system might be sustained in the same way. In this country he was better known than Franklin, and even in Europe his name was very frequently mentioned, as may be seen in Dr. Joseph Priestley's "History of Electricity," and in a volume published by the Abbe Beccaria, of the University of Turin. Both have paid Professor Kinnersley high honor. He became a member of the Lower Dublin Baptist church while young, and in 1743 was ordained as a minister, but he never acted as a pastor. The American philosophical society chose him as a member, and the degree of M. A. was conferred upon him by the College of Philadelphia. There is a window in his memory at the University of Pennsylvania.

Edited Appletons Encyclopedia, Copyright © 2001 VirtualologyTM

Start your search on Ebenezer Kinnersley.


 

 


 


Unauthorized Site: This site and its contents are not affiliated, connected, associated with or authorized by the individual, family, friends, or trademarked entities utilizing any part or the subject's entire name. Any official or affiliated sites that are related to this subject will be hyper linked below upon submission and Evisum, Inc. review.

Copyright© 2000 by Evisum Inc.TM. All rights reserved.
Evisum Inc.TM Privacy Policy

Search:

About Us

 

 

Image Use

Please join us in our mission to incorporate The Congressional Evolution of the United States of America discovery-based curriculum into the classroom of every primary and secondary school in the United States of America by July 2, 2026, the nation’s 250th birthday. , the United States of America: We The People Click Here

 

Historic Documents

Articles of Association

Articles of Confederation 1775

Articles of Confederation

Article the First

Coin Act

Declaration of Independence

Declaration of Independence

Emancipation Proclamation

Gettysburg Address

Monroe Doctrine

Northwest Ordinance

No Taxation Without Representation

Thanksgiving Proclamations

Mayflower Compact

Treaty of Paris 1763

Treaty of Paris 1783

Treaty of Versailles

United Nations Charter

United States In Congress Assembled

US Bill of Rights

United States Constitution

US Continental Congress

US Constitution of 1777

US Constitution of 1787

Virginia Declaration of Rights

 

Historic Events

Battle of New Orleans

Battle of Yorktown

Cabinet Room

Civil Rights Movement

Federalist Papers

Fort Duquesne

Fort Necessity

Fort Pitt

French and Indian War

Jumonville Glen

Manhattan Project

Stamp Act Congress

Underground Railroad

US Hospitality

US Presidency

Vietnam War

War of 1812

West Virginia Statehood

Woman Suffrage

World War I

World War II

 

Is it Real?



Declaration of
Independence

Digital Authentication
Click Here

 

America’s Four Republics
The More or Less United States

 
Continental Congress
U.C. Presidents

Peyton Randolph

Henry Middleton

Peyton Randolph

John Hancock

  

Continental Congress
U.S. Presidents

John Hancock

Henry Laurens

John Jay

Samuel Huntington

  

Constitution of 1777
U.S. Presidents

Samuel Huntington

Samuel Johnston
Elected but declined the office

Thomas McKean

John Hanson

Elias Boudinot

Thomas Mifflin

Richard Henry Lee

John Hancock
[
Chairman David Ramsay]

Nathaniel Gorham

Arthur St. Clair

Cyrus Griffin

  

Constitution of 1787
U.S. Presidents

George Washington 

John Adams
Federalist Party


Thomas Jefferson
Republican* Party

James Madison 
Republican* Party

James Monroe
Republican* Party

John Quincy Adams
Republican* Party
Whig Party

Andrew Jackson
Republican* Party
Democratic Party


Martin Van Buren
Democratic Party

William H. Harrison
Whig Party

John Tyler
Whig Party

James K. Polk
Democratic Party

David Atchison**
Democratic Party

Zachary Taylor
Whig Party

Millard Fillmore
Whig Party

Franklin Pierce
Democratic Party

James Buchanan
Democratic Party


Abraham Lincoln 
Republican Party

Jefferson Davis***
Democratic Party

Andrew Johnson
Republican Party

Ulysses S. Grant 
Republican Party

Rutherford B. Hayes
Republican Party

James A. Garfield
Republican Party

Chester Arthur 
Republican Party

Grover Cleveland
Democratic Party

Benjamin Harrison
Republican Party

Grover Cleveland 
Democratic Party

William McKinley
Republican Party

Theodore Roosevelt
Republican Party

William H. Taft 
Republican Party

Woodrow Wilson
Democratic Party

Warren G. Harding 
Republican Party

Calvin Coolidge
Republican Party

Herbert C. Hoover
Republican Party

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Democratic Party

Harry S. Truman
Democratic Party

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Republican Party

John F. Kennedy
Democratic Party

Lyndon B. Johnson 
Democratic Party 

Richard M. Nixon 
Republican Party

Gerald R. Ford 
Republican Party

James Earl Carter, Jr. 
Democratic Party

Ronald Wilson Reagan 
Republican Party

George H. W. Bush
Republican Party 

William Jefferson Clinton
Democratic Party

George W. Bush 
Republican Party

Barack H. Obama
Democratic Party

Please Visit

Forgotten Founders
Norwich, CT

Annapolis Continental
Congress Society


U.S. Presidency
& Hospitality

© Stan Klos

 

 

 

 


Virtual Museum of Art | Virtual Museum of History | Virtual Public Library | Virtual Science Center | Virtual Museum of Natural History | Virtual War Museum