McKinney, Mordecai

Life Span
to
Dickinson Connection
Class of 1814
    Full name
    Mordecai McKinney
    Place of Birth
    Birth Date Certainty
    Estimated
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    White
    Sectional choice
    North
    Origins
    Free State
    No. of Spouses
    1
    Family
    Mordecai McKinney (father), Mary (Molly) Chambers McKinney (mother), Rachel Graydon (wife)
    Education
    Dickinson (Carlisle College)
    Occupation
    Attorney or Judge
    Relation to Slavery
    White non-slaveholder
    Church or Religious Denomination
    Presbyterian
    Political Parties
    Liberty
    Other Affiliations
    Abolitionists (Anti-Slavery Society)
    Government
    Local government
    Marital status in 1860
    Widowed

    Mordecai McKinney (Dickinson Chronicles)

    Scholarship
    Mordecai McKinney was born in Middletown in central Pennsylvania in 1796.  His parents, Mordecai and Mary (Molly) Chambers McKinney, who owned a store in the town, sent him to Dickinson College in Carlisle where he graduated with the class of 1814.  He then studied law under Stephen Duncan of Carlisle, the father of his classmate Robert Duncan, and was admitted to the Dauphin County bar in Harrisburg in May 1817.

    He served as district attorney of Union County between 1821 and 1824; he was then clerk of the Dauphin County commissioners from 1824 until October 23, 1827, when he was appointed an associate judge of the county court.  Seen by most as honest and modest, McKinney did not acquire more than a comfortable income but poured his attentions into the study of the law.  He published profusely on the subject, including the well known McKinney's Digest of the Laws of Pennsylvania as well as The Pennsylvania Justice of the Peace in two volumes in 1839 and The American Magistrate and Civil Officer in 1850, among others.

    As the son of slaveholders on both sides of his parentage, and as a man who married a daughter of a slave holding family, McKinney's main legacy may have been his extensive legal and cultural work with both the African-American population of Harrisburg and the escaped families of the underground railroad that came through the city. He had developed strong anti-slavery views and had been active in the Liberty Party in 1847, serving on the central committee of the party's convention held in Harrisburg. Before and after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, he represented many local African-Americans and runaways from the south in the significantly hostile legal atmosphere of the Pennsylvania capital. He also aided in other ways, helping to found the African-American Second Prebyterian Church on Walnut Street.

    He married Rachel Graydon who died on April 12, 1856.  Judge McKinney himself died in Harrisburg on December 17, 1867 after having been struck down by a city streetcar three days before.  He was buried in the Harrisburg Cemetery. Mordecai McKinney was seventy-one years old.
    John Osborne and James W. Gerencser, eds., “Mordecai McKinney,”  Dickinson Chronicles,  http://chronicles.dickinson.edu/encyclo/m/ed_mckinneyM.html.

    Mordecai McKinney (Mealy, 2007)

    Scholarship
    [U.S. Slave Commissioner Richard] McAllister had two stanch enemies in Harrisburg.  They were local abolitionists that also worked in Dauphin County’s legal department. Antislavery lawyer Mordecai McKinney and antislavery judge John Pearson took on the personal campaign of taking down the slave commissioner.

    Almost immediately McKinney, a fellow Dickinson College alumni of his rival McAllister, established a stake out arrangement with members of the Harrisburg Anti-Slavery Society (HAS) outside of the slave commissioner’s house. As the leader of this HAS committee, McKinney became the “antislavery mayor” of Harrisburg. The committee was responsible for setting up a neighborhood watch program to track the activities of his younger nemesis. All of the information gathered bout McAllister was relayed back both HAS  and Judge Pearson so that they could be prepared to take legal action against the slave commissioner.
    Todd Mealy, Biography of an Antislavery City: Antislavery Advocates, Abolitionists, and Underground Railroad Activists in Harrisburg, PA (Baltimore: PublishAmerica, 2007), 145-146.

    Mordecai McKinney (Appleton’s)

    Reference
    McKINNEY, Mordecai, lawyer, b. near Carlisle, Pa., about 1796; d. in Harrisburg. Pa., 17 Dec., 1867. He was graduated at Dickinson college in 1814, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1817, and practiced in Harrisburg. In 1821 he was appointed deputy attorney-general for Miami county, and in 1827 he became associate judge of Dauphin county. He afterward gave his attention to the compilation of works on law, and published “The Pennsylvania Justice of the Peace” (2 vols., Harrisburg, 1839); “The United States Constitutional Manual” (1845); "Our Government: A Manual for Popular Use” (Philadelphia, 1866); “The American Magistrate and Civil Officer” (1850); “Pennsylvania Tax Laws” (Harrisburg, 1850); and “A Digest of the Laws of Pennsylvania relative to Banks and Bankers” (1854).
    James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, eds., “McKinney, Mordecai,” Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1900), 4: 137.

    Mordecai McKinney (Notable Americans)

    Reference
    McKINNEY, Mordecai, lawyer, was born near Carlisle, Pa., in 1796, son of Mordecai and Mary (Chambers) McKinney, and a grandson of Col. William Chambers. He was graduated from Dickinson college, Pa., in 1814, studied law with Judge Duncan of Carlisle, was admitted to the Dauphin county bar in May, 1817, and settled in practice in Harrisburg, Pa. He was district attorney of Union county. Pa., 1821-24; clerk to the county commissioners of Dauphin county, Pa., 1824-27, and was appointed associate judge of Dauphin county by Governor Shulze, Oct. 23, 1827. He subsequently turned his attention to the compilation and publication of law books. He was married to Rachel, daughter of William Graydon, of Harrisburg, Pa. He is the author of: The Pennsylvania Justice of the Peace (2 vols., 1839); A Digest of the Acts of Assembly of Pennsylvania from 1700 to 1840 (1841); The United States Constitutional Manual (1845); The American Magistrate and Civil Officer (1850, new ed., 2 vols., 1853); Pennsylvania Tax Laws (1850); A Digest of the Laws of Pennsylvania relative to Banks and Bankers (1854); and Our Government: A Manual for Popular Use (1856). He died at Harrisburg, Pa., Dec. 17, 1867.
    Rossiter Johnson, ed., "McKinney, Mordecai," The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, vol. 7 (Boston: The Biographical Society, 1904).

    Mordecai McKinney (Centennial Memorial)

    Reference

    MORDECAI McKINNEY.
    Born -----, 1796.
    Died December 17, 1867.

        Mordecai McKinney, son of Mordecai McKinney and Mary Chambers, daughter of Colonel William Chambers, was born near Carlisle, Pennsylvania. His parents resided on a farm and were of that numerous body of Scotch-Irish who were the first settlers of Cumberland Valley. His early studies were pursued at Dickinson College, where he spent six years, graduating while quite a youth. He began the study of law in the office of Judge Duncan, of Carlisle, and after his removal to Harrisburg, completed his studies, in the office of Hon. Amos Ellmaker, Attorney General of the State, and was admitted to the bar in May, 1817. In 1821 he was appointed District Attorney of Union county, and October 12, 1827, Governor Shultze appointed him one of the associate judges of Dauphin county, Pa. He served five years. Subsequently Judge McKinney turned his attention to the compilation of law books and published "McKinney's Pennsylvania Tax Laws,” and other works of value to the profession. Later still in life he published a volume of labor, research and worth, entitled, "Our Government," an explanatory statement of the system of government in this country in its various departments of the State and the Nation. He was a man of extended and accurate knowledge in his profession, an honest and conscientious [counselor], but so modest and retiring that he shrank from the public contests of the bar.
        Mr. McKinney married Rachel Graydon, daughter of William Graydon. Her death occurred at Harrisburg, April 12, 1856. Mr. McKinney principally wrought his mission in the world by his Christian life and character. His life as a man and a citizen was completely transfused by his religion, sanctified and elevated by it. He was one of the most guileless of men, a man of sterling honesty and conscientiousness, and was remarkably free from selfishness and pride, spending all his years in comparative poverty, no more contented, trusting and happy man walked the streets of the city. He was a friend to all that was venerable and good, a defender of law, and a supporter of all that promised to promote the welfare of society.
        Though he could give but little he was distinguished as a philanthropist, giving what is often far better than money, time and attention and his most hearty sympathy. A true-hearted man, he "counted nothing foreign to him that was human," giving in genuine unselfishness a faithful and earnest devotion to the outcasts and Pariahs of society. He knew no ambition beyond the simple doing of right, and though so lowly and unassuming in all things else, in this he was as brave a man as ever faced an enemy. No notions of policy or of expediency ever swerved him from his course. He was the friend of the slave, of the poor, of the despised, and his loyalty to their rights and wants merited universal admiration. And touching as was the tribute to his worth when on the day of his burial, the officers of the court and members of the bar at their head, the president judge passed beside his coffin, taking their last and silent look and giving their unspoken farewell to their old friend and associate who died as poor in worldly goods as he was morally great, it was by no means so noble and so impressive a testimony to his goodness and worth as when the long procession of parents and children from the colored population of this city passed, and with the touching eloquence of sobs and tears told all, that they had lost their best earthly friend.
         It is, however, as a devout Christian that Mr. McKinney will chiefly and permanently live in the history of the Church. For half a century he was an active member of its communion, for fourteen years a member of its Board of Trustees, and for thirteen years a Ruling Elder. The Presbyterian Church was his by descent, by education, by love of its doctrines and order. It was a pride and a pleasure to him to sit, as he was permitted to do, in her various courts, the Presbytery,
    the Synod and the General Assembly.
        Judge McKinney was a great student of the Bible. His brethren of the bar were wont to find open on the table where lay his commentaries on human law, the volume of Divine Law, and with its contents he was more familiar than with any work of human origin. He was a theologian of the Scriptures.
         For many years most of his active Christian labors were given freely, and as the chief reward the pleasure of doing good, to the colored people of the city. He sought no public notice. He was ever at his post. His life was a life with God. A life of kind thoughts, pious deeds, charity toward men and of trust toward God. It was closed by a calm and quiet death of entire trust in the Great Redeemer, for whose speedy second coming he had longingly waited. His death was the result of injuries from a street car, and when he was told by his pastor that in a few hours he would stand amid the scenes of eternity, he heard the announcement with all the composure and calmness of one who hears of the most common event of life. The half a century of prayers, labors, counsels and godly living that Judge McKinney gave to this Church are of inestimable worth.

    George B. Stewart, ed., Centennial Memorial: English Presbyterian Congregation, Harrisburg, PA (Harrisburg, PA: Harrisburg Publishing Co., 1894), 394-396.
    How to Cite This Page: "McKinney, Mordecai," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/index.php/node/6235.