John I. Kinsey
Compiled from various sources by J. McVey
John I. Kinsey was one of a number of machinist apprentices trained by Hopkin Thomas at the Lehigh Crane Iron Co. who went on to become very successful. Kinsey was born ca. 1827 and would have been at the Crane in the 1853 – 1856 time period. He entered the service of the Lehigh Valley R. R. in 18561. In 1860, a large complex of shops were built at South Easton, Pa. for the manufacture and repair of locomotive engines and Kinsey was assigned a position at this facility2.
Kinsey rose to the position of Master Mechanic at the South Easton complex, which employed about 200 hands. In addition to locomotives and cars, switches, frogs and various pieces of road equipment were manufactured. Kinsey patented a form of turntable used at the shop. Kinsey held the position of Master Mechanic at South Easton for over 40 years.
In 1867, the L. V. R. R. began the practice of building their own locomotives in the various shops – Delano, Weatherly, Wilkes-Barre, Sayre and South Easton. Each shop had a Master Mechanic responsible for that shopÕs design. Thus there were Hoffecker engines, Campbell engines, Mitchell engines, Clark engines, and Kinsey engines, all differing from each other4. KinseyÕs were known for speed. No drawing of a Kinsey engine has been located.
John Kinsey died at the age of 83 on April 28, 1910 at Easton, Pa.
Residence of John I. Kinsey, Paxinosa Ave., College
Hill, Easton, Pa.5
Sources:
- Railway Age Gazette, May 1910.
- Guidebook
of the LVRR.
- Scientific American, Vol. 13, 1865, p. 377
- Sinclair, Angus, Development
of the Locomotive Engine,
Sinclair Publishing Co., New York, 1907
- The Forks of the Delaware, Illustrated – Lehigh U. Digital Library
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