[2] As a boy, he piloted Canada-bound fugitive slaves to his grandparents' home in Pennsylvania, where food, shelter, and aid were given to them.

[3] He attended the public schools and graduated from the law department of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1876.

[6] At the time that Kinkaid entered Congress, the 1862 Homestead Act allowed settlers to obtain a quarter-section (160 acres, or 65 ha) of government land for a nominal fee; the 1873 Timber Culture Act allowed them to claim an additional quarter-section.

[8] Instead, the pattern of development was one of large cattle ranches on federal land,[6] with the ranchers using the homestead laws to secure lakes and streams for their operations.

[8] In an effort to increase settlement in the northwestern portion of his state, Kinkaid sponsored and obtained passage of the Kinkaid Act, which amended the Homestead Act to enlarge the size of a homestead claim in certain arid regions of western Nebraska.

[4] The Act had its intended effect: immigration into the Sandhills increased, with nearly nine million new acres (3,600,000 ha) claimed in Nebraska.

[2] The Old Nebraska State Bank Building in O'Neill, in which Kinkaid had his law office from 1884 until his death, is now the Holt County Historical Museum.