Founding Families · KinnelonThe Kinney Family

Francis S. Kinney's mountain estate — and the family that gave the borough its name and its first mayor.

In the 1880s a New York cigarette magnate began buying up these mountains a parcel at a time. The estate Francis S. Kinney assembled would give its name to a whole borough — and, after his sons, become Smoke Rise.

1880s–1920s

Documented

The estate on the mountain

Francis S. Kinney, the New York cigarette magnate, began in the 1880s to assemble a mountain estate of roughly 5,000 acres around Stickle Pond, which he renamed Lake Kinnelon. On an island in that lake he raised the 1886–1889 St. Hubert's Chapel, later recognized as Louis Comfort Tiffany's first liturgical commission. The estate ran as a self-contained mountain village, down to a dairy herd and horses bred on the grounds.

Local history

Local history records the estate as 45 separate parcels of ten to six hundred acres, acquired between 1885 and 1920 per a 1920 Newell Harrison survey. A once-published claim that Kinney bought the land from Hubbard Stickle was publicly retracted for lack of any record, and is not asserted here.

1922–1945

Documented

The name that became a borough

When the Kinnelon section broke away from Pequannock Township in 1922, the new borough took the family's name. Francis's son Warren Kinney became its first mayor; his son Morris Kinney held the estate until his death in 1945, when he left it to his friend John Talbot Sr. — and from there it became the Smoke Rise community. Francis's brother and partner Abbot Kinney, meanwhile, had taken his own tobacco fortune west and founded Venice, California.

The family record

1880s–1945Documented

The Kinney family

  • tobacco manufacturer
  • estate owner

The Sweet Caporal tobacco magnate whose mountain estate gave both Smoke Rise and the borough its name.

Francis S. Kinney, the Sweet Caporal cigarette magnate, assembled the roughly 5,000-acre estate he called “Kinney-lawn” on Stickle Pond; the borough drew its name from it in 1922. The estate ran as a self-contained village, with a Brown Swiss dairy herd and horses bred on the grounds. His devout wife Mary is the reason St. Hubert's Chapel was built. Son Warren Kinney became Kinnelon's first mayor; son Morris held the estate until his death in 1945, after which it passed toward what became the Smoke Rise Club. Francis's brother and partner Abbot Kinney took his own tobacco fortune west and founded Venice, California.

Trades & products

  • Sweet Caporal & other cigarettes
  • dairy cattle
  • horses

Homestead & site

The estate centered on Lake Kinnelon & St. Hubert's Chapel

Exact locationView on Google Maps

Connections

  • The Talbot family — Morris Kinney left the estate to his friend John Alden Talbot in 1945.
  • Smoke Rise — The estate became the Smoke Rise Club — and the community of Smoke Rise.

From the community

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Sources

Compiled from publicly available sources; where accounts differ, the most widely documented version is used. Community corrections welcome.

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