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Asa Kinney put down his axe on a warm June day in 1834 with decision and entered the crudely constructed wooden dwelling on his frontier farm in western New York. Bending his tall
frame over the cradle, he stretched out a long arm deftly picking up his three month old daughter and gently patted her head. Turning to his only sister, two years younger than he, who was keeping house for her
brother and his two motherless little girls, he said, "Rachel, you have taken excellent care of Alura and Eunice Emily. They have become exceedingly fond of you. Never the less, I feel I should marry again for
I am too young to be without a wife." At twenty-four, he was a widower with two small children.
Six years before he had left Homer, New York to visit his grandfather in Connecticut. There he had met
Diana Tyler Spicer, fallen in love, married at the age of twenty, and had made his home at Preston until after the birth of his son, Asa Tyler. He was frugal, industrious and ambitious and the lack of opportunity in
Connecticut had convinced him that he should return to New York with his wife and son. There was still plenty of good farm land to be had in that state. He thought simple furniture from the forest trees could easily
be made and the trees could be used to establish a new home. Diana could cook as well by one fireplace as another. Neighbors would surely help make quilts and covers. He had been right, he reflected, as he glanced
about at the bed with its feather tick and homespun blankets and at the table and chairs. A huge kettle stood near the rough stone fireplace where two half-burned candles could be seen on the mantle.
With
singleness of purpose, determination and faith in a future elsewhere, Asa Kinney had disposed of his Preston possessions and with Diana and Little Asa, he started for Homer in central New York. After an uneventful
journey over the well torn trail, Asa reentered his native village. He felt as if he had never left Connecticut. There was the same town hall for local government, the same Congregational church, and the familiar
school house for Homer, New York was an extension of Connecticut's social, political and educational structure.
Asa's heritage was rich. His family often spoke of Sir Thomas Kinne who had been knighted by the
English government for services rendered it. Henry Kinne, Sir Thomas's son, was Asa Kinney's first paternal ancestor in America having come to Massachusetts at the age on thirty years and settled on a farm near
Salem in 1653. Subsequent generations had moved about, some to Connecticut where both Asa's grandfather, Abel Kinney, and grandfather, Peleg Randall, had seen service in the Revolutionary War.
Although Abel
Kinney was Commissary and aide to General Washington when Washington held New York, the tales of the exploits of Peleg Randall who, at the surrender of Burgoyne, had taken command of the company after the commander
was killed excited Asa's imagination more. He was so inspired he joined the New York militia at an early age. An expert marksman for he had shouldered a gun as soon as he was big enough, Asa adapted himself to
military life quickly. He made no compromise. Men soon learned the strong and keen eyed man demanded his orders be carried out at once. He was soon promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel in his regiment and for
the rest of his life, was addressed by the title of "Colonel."
The Colonel's father, Abel Kinney (named for Asa's Revolutionary grandfather) had come west in 1804 to settle at Homer, Cortland
County, New York. From the time Asa Kinney could remember, Deacon Kinney had been a man of character and force who had made his influence felt in the community. The Deacon continually reminded his sons that their
forebearers had been active in establishing government, schools and churches in the New England colonies and that they were destined to be leaders when grown. Asa Kinney recalled how proud his father had of the
esteem in which his sons were held. Dwarfed and bent, Abel Kinney had taught school before he was twenty, had established the Wednesday evening meetings for prayer and had become a professor of ancient languages at
the Cortland Academy. Asa Kinney had exhibited ease in committing to memory passages from the classics and famous orations. While in school, Asa had spent hours either alone or with other boys at the town library
and he once said in later life, "derived great benefit from it."
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