#Harriett Kinloch Middleton

[john-laurens]

I've come across several accounts of Francis Kinloch being described as tall:

"tall & slender with delicate features, black hair & eyes, and a most agreeable expression of countenance" - an account from Kinloch's granddaughter Sarah Lewis Lesesne in the collection "Biographical and genealogical research on Francis J. Kinloch" from the South Carolina Historical Society Archives

"The tall olive-coloured savage [Kinloch] and the young delicate Swiss historian [Johannes von Müller] send their friendly greetings." - Johannes von Müller to his family, in a letter dated June 6, 1775

"it was here, that after a very scrutinizing examination of our persons, they gave us passports in which we saw ourselves very particularly described; me, they represented as tall and thin, with some grey hairs, a pointed nose, and a forked chin" - Francis Kinloch in a letter to his daughter Eliza Nelson, as collected in Letters from Geneva and France

Given that the average male height in the 18th century was somewhere around five and a half feet tall, it's safe to assume Kinloch was taller than that. Given how often people remarked that he was tall, I figured that he must have been noticeably taller than five and a half feet - perhaps closer to six feet tall.

My assumptions have been confirmed. In the "Kinloch family history and genealogy research files" from the South Carolina Historical Society Archives, there is an account from Harriett Middleton (née Kinloch). She was the daughter of Cleland Kinloch and the niece of Francis Kinloch. This account is not directly written by her but was likely collected by someone in the family. Harriet reportedly described her uncle Francis as "tall, six feet, & handsome, dark with the complexion of his French descent."

Bonus fact: In the same account, Cleland Kinloch is described as having "blue eyes & lighter hair."