1920 Moran and Sewell

Tom Moran and Tom Sewell Fantasy by the Sea Peace Press: Culver City, CA, 1980 (1979) (Originally published by Beyond Baroque Foundation with a grant from the Visual Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts), 1920, 1900s

Abbot Kinney

     "Abbot Kinney was the founder of Venice . . .

     "He was born in 1850 to an influential New Jersey family that claimed kinship with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes and William Henry Harrison. The young Kinney worked for an uncle, Senator James Dixon of Connecticut, and then traveled abroad to complete his education in France, Switzerland, and at Heidelberg University in Germany.

     "President Ulysses S. Grant employed the youth on his personal staff. Kinney left that post to speculate in the stock market. Poor investments in a rigged market left him penniless and he had to take a clerking job at a Baltimore dry goods store.

     "Kinney's brothers formed a tobacco manufacturing company and Abbot joined the family firm. He traveled throughout the Middle East as a buyer of tobacco in quantity. The cigarette was a relatively new product for smokers but it was cutting into the traditional cigar-dominated smoking market. The Kinney firm blended Virginia "bright" tobacco with imported Turkish varieties. The products they marketed, Egyptian, Cleopatra, Flowers and Sweet Caporal cigarettes were commercially successful and the Kinneys became wealthy men.

[p. 8 photo of Kinneloa, courtesy Helen Kinney Boyle]

     "Abbot Kinney suffered ill health and an almost constant state of insomnia . . .

     " . . . He arrived by steamer in San Francisco's harbor in 1880 . . .

     " . . . he decided to visit a Southern California resort noted for its therapeutic qualities, the Sierra Madre Inn in the foothills east of Los Angeles.

     "Intent on playing billiards to wile the night away, Kinney tired and fell asleep on the game table . . .

     "He . . . purchased sufficient land to build a wood-frame house, and plant a citrus orchard . . . which he named "Kinneloa" . . .

     "Kinney took an active interest in Southern California affairs. He invested in business property in downtown Los Angeles and subdivided real estate on the east side of the city. He was instrumental in forming a free library in Pasadena . . .

     "He helped form the American Pomological Society, headed the California Academy of Sciences and was an active fighter against the California "fruit trust" involvement in the citrus marketplace.

     "Politically he was a Democrat and an avid follower of William Jennings Bryan's precepts. He ran, unsuccessfully, for a seat in the California state assembly, and he was appointed to the California Forestry Board, the Yosemite Valley Commission and the Los Angeles County Road Commission.

     "He authored numeous books and pamphlets on political, social and scientific tops and published a weekly newspaper, The Los Angeles Post.

     "Kinney joined the California National Guard and was awarded the rank of major.

     "With author Helen Hunt Jackson, Kinney undertook a government-sponsored study of California Mission Indians and the two co-authored a report recommending a number of reforms needed in the treatment of the native American."

     " . . . "

Death of Kinney

     Thornton Kinney was in Venice; Innes came from the ranch at Kinneloa; Carleton came from his Paso Robles almond farm, November 14, 1920, Abbott Kinney died of cancer . . .  Abbot Kinney was buried beside his wife Margaret, who had died in 1911, and four Kinnney children who had died prematurely."

     "He was a man of splendid brain, wonderful ability and great accomplishment," said California Governor Stephens . . ."The state lost a great man," echoed Venice's Mayor A.E. Coles.

     "Controlling interest in the Abbot Kinney Company was willed to Kinney's second wife, Winnifred Harwell Kinney . . .

Fire

     The Venice Pier burnt December 21, 1920.

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 Kelyn Roberts 2017