Thomas Kinsley

Born in Ireland, he was living with his family in the "Irish Settlement" (now Stowell) in Wyoming County, PA by the time he was about 4 years old, in 1848. At the start of the war he was a 16 year old farmer in Dushore, PA. Giving his age as 18, he enlisted there on 17 December 1861 and mustered into service as Private, Company C, 107th Pennsylvania Infantry on 25 January 1862 in Harrisburg.

He was wounded by a gunshot to the upper part of his left arm near the elbow, his humerus fractured, in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862.

He was admitted to US Army General Hospital #1 in Frederick, MD on 25 September 1862 and about three and a half inches of the broken bone was removed the next day. By December he was thought to be mostly recovered, but he was transferred to the Broad and Cherry Streets Hospital in Philadelphia on 18 April 1863, to the Turner Lane Hospital on 22 June, and to the Haddington Hospital on 12 August 1863. He was transferred to the Veteran Reserve Corps on 3 May 1864 and discharged on 26 October 1864. He was granted a pension for disability.

At an examination in Tunkhannock, PA in 1867 his doctor noted there was extensive scarring, his wounds were still painful, and he had "no use of the forearm. He can produce very slight flexion of the elbow; no use of the muscles of the wrist or fingers." In 1873, more than 10 years after he was wounded, a doctor in Williamsport noted his wounds were healed but likely to open at anytime and "[h]is arm hangs at his side entirely useless."

By 1880 he was a painter in Asylum Township in Bradford County.

Service information from Bates,1 who says he was discharged 29 October 1862, and the Register,2 which says he died on 29 October; both have him as Thomas Kinsly. Wound and hospital details from the Patient List 3 and the MSHWR.4 Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1880. His gravesite is on Findagrave, which, like some genealogists, has his birth on 6 October 1842.

He married Sarah Ellen Emery (1844-1908) in 1868, her second marriage, and they had 4 children; daughters Dora and Margret and twin sons Wilson and William.

See more about the Irish Settlement from an article in the newsletter of the Wyoming County Historical Society.

c. 1845; County Wexford, IRELAND

12/05/1893; Towanda, PA; burial in Oak Hill Cemetery, Towanda, PA