Coates Kinney

Who was Coates Kinney?

Coates Kinney was a lawyer, journalist and poet from the United States.

He was partly educated at Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio, studied law with Thomas Corwin, and was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati in 1856. After practising law about three years, he became a journalist, and worked on papers in Cincinnati, Xenia, Springfield, Illinois and elsewhere, among them the daily Cincinnati Times and the Ohio State Journal.

He was a paymaster in the U. S. Army from June 1861 until November 1865, and was mustered out with the commission of brevet lieutenant-colonel of volunteers. He was a delegate to the convention that nominated Ulysses S. Grant for the presidency in 1868, and its Ohio secretary. He was senator from the 5th district in the Ohio legislature 1882-1883, and delivered a speech against “The Official Railroad Pass.”

He wrote poetry, and his verses were collected in Ke-u-ka and Other Poems and Lyrics of the Ideal and the Real. Of his verses, “The Rain on the Roof,” which was set to music, was the most popular.