Cleland Kinloch was an American planter and politician. He served in the state legislature from 1791 to 1793.
Background
Cleland Kinloch was born in 1760 in Charleston, South Carolina, United States. His parents, Anne Isabella (Cleland) and Francis Kinloch, of "New Gilmerton, " "Wehaw, " "Kensington, " and "Rice Hope" plantations, were both of Scotch ancestry and of families prominent in South Carolina. His great-grandfather was Sir Francis Kinloch of Gilmerton, Scotland, whose second son, James, came to the province in 1703, prospered, and acquired "New Gilmerton" on Goose Creek. Upon his father's death, he was left at the age of seven to the guardianship of Governor Thomas Boone.
Education
About 1772 Kinloch was enrolled in Eton College in England, where his exercises were frequently "sent up to the Doctor for being particular good ones. " His "long & pretty" letters gave pleasant pictures of schooldays and visits to cousins at Gilmerton House. Wishing to be a merchant, he later went to Holland for his commercial education. The American Revolution delayed his homecoming until after the South Carolina Confiscation Act of 1782, which lists him to be amerced.
Career
Kinloch inherited his father’s Weehaw Plantation in 1784 and energetically began its restoration. He is said to have been relieved from amercement, yet as late as 1790 his factor, John White, was trustee for his 300 slaves. He was a member of the convention which ratified the Federal Constitution. His votes on the Constitution and in the South Carolina convention of 1790, as well as in the legislature, 1791-1793, suggest that he was in harmony with his class and probably a Federalist.
He enlarged "Wehaw" to some 5, 000 acres, using many oxen and animals for its operation, and imported a Scotch gardener for the grounds. He also began embankments on new lands along the Wateree. For several years they summered at Newport, Rhode Island, and in 1804 he returned to Europe; but in 1807, he bought 611 acres in the High Hills of Santee and erected a three-story summer residence, surmounted by a rotunda, which he named "Acton. " Industrious and economical, he prospered until in the great storm of 1822 his tidewater plantations suffered damages estimated at $30, 000. The year following this disaster, he died at "Acton" and was buried in the Episcopal churchyard at Statesburg, South Carolina.
Achievements
Cleland Kinloch became one of the most recognized planters in South Carolina. He was one of the first to adopt Gideon Dupont's system of flooding river rice-fields by tide movement, using trunks and floodgates similar to those he had seen in Holland. On the plans of Jonathan Lucas, he erected and improved one of the first tidal rice-pounding mills, operated like those of Bordeaux and Holland by the rise and fall of the tide.
Personality
Kinloch was benevolent and genial in his manners. He was popular with his neighbors and enjoyed conversing upon "the inexhaustible subjects of winter-grass, English & Latin prosody, the properties of the lever & the law of Nations. " He was a handsome man, with blond coloring, regular features, and tall, robust figure.
Connections
On April 15, 1786, Kinloch, married Harriott, daughter of Ebenezer Simmons of Charleston.
