after the battle of Lexington. The lovers had already been joined in wedlock. They escaped together from Boston when it was occupied by the British, and Mrs. Knox followed her husband through all the campaigns. Her spirit and gayety encouraged the soldiers to endure hardships that they saw her bear with patience. Not only her husband, but Gen. Washington, relied on her judgment in affairs of moment, while in social and ceremonial matters she was the arbiter in the army, and afterward the chief adviser of Mrs. Washington in New York and Philadelphia. She grew corpulent, like her husband, but her activity never abated, and her conversational talents and power of management gave her great influence in social and political circles. After her husband had retired to private life Madame Knox, as she was usually called, continued to exercise a lavish hospitality, frequently entertaining a hundred guests in their mansion, which was built near the head of St. George's river on an estate skirting Penobscot bay that she inherited from her maternal grandfather, Gen. Samuel Waldo.
KNOX, Hugh, clergyman, b. in Ireland about 1733; d. in Santa Cruz, W. I., in October, 1790. He emigrated to this country in 1751, and found employment as assistant teacher under the Rev. John Rodgers at Middletown, Del. He fell in with frivolous companions, and on one occasion entertained them with an imitation of Dr. Rodgers's preaching. Overcome with remorse for this act of irreverence, he went to Princeton and applied for admission to the college, with the intention of devoting himself to the Christian ministry. He was graduated in 1754, and, after studying theology a year longer, was ordained, and went to Saba in the West Indies as pastor of the Reformed Dutch church on that island. In 1772 he resigned his charge in order to become pastor of the Presbyterians who had settled on the Danish island of Santa Cruz. Alexander Hamilton was placed under Mr. Knox's instruction in boyhood, and remained his life-long friend. He received the degree of D. D. from Glasgow university, and published two volumes of sermons (Glasgow, 1772).
KNOX, James, pioneer hunter. He was a resident of western Virginia, and in 1769 was the leader of forty-two men from southwest Virginia and North Carolina who met at Reedy creek in June and crossed through Cumberland gap westward for the purpose of hunting and trapping. Each had one or more horses, with arms and camp equipage. Fording the south fork of Cumberland river, they halted at what is since known as Price's meadow, near a flowing spring, six miles from Monticello, Wayne co., Ky., and there made a permanent camp for their supplies and skins, for deposit every five weeks. They hunted during the year over the country of Upper Green and Barren rivers, and found much of it open prairie covered with high grass. In October, 1769, Col. Knox with nine men sought fresher hunting-grounds northward. They met a party of friendly Cherokee Indians, whose leader, Captain Dick, directed them to the blue-grass region on the south side of Kentucky river. Following this direction, they came to a stream in the midst of this fertile region, and found game so abundant that they gave it the name of Dick's river, which it bears to the present day. Here they were on the borders of the country that was ranged over by Daniel Boone and his companions for the same two years, yet neither party knew of the other's presence in the wilderness. In 1774 Knox led his men 100 miles farther west, and built a camp and station for skins on a site nine miles east of Greensburg, on Green river, where they slew many thousands of bears, panthers, otters, beavers, deer, and other game. After over three years' absence, most of the party returned home, and were named and known afterward as the “long hunters,” from their prolonged absence. Drake's pond and lick, Bledsoe's lick, and Manseo's lick, were discovered and marked on this expedition, and each named after the finder. Col. Knox returned to Kentucky in 1775 and settled. For years afterward he figured in the civil and military events of the state, and in 1795-1800 was state senator for Lincoln county.
KNOX, John, clergyman, b. near Gettysburg, Pa., 17 June, 1790; d. in New York city, 8 Jan., 1858. He was graduated at Dickinson college in 1811, studied theology under Dr. John M. Mason, was licensed by the Associate Reformed presbytery of Philadelphia in 1815, and became pastor of the Collegiate Reformed Dutch church in New York city in 1816. For the last twenty-five years of his life he was the senior pastor. He published occasional sermons and tracts. See his “Memorial,” by Thomas De Witt and others (New York, 1858).
KNOX, John J., merchant, b. in Canajoharie, N. Y., 18 March, 1791; d. in Knoxboro, N. Y., 31 Jan., 1876. He settled at Augusta, Oneida co., N. Y., in 1811, and the village which was his residence was subsequently named for him Knoxboro. He was the principal contractor in 1837 for a section of the Erie canal at Little Falls, and in 1839 was chosen president of the bank of Vernon, and served for twenty-four years. Gov. De Witt Clinton appointed him brigadier-general of militia in 1826. Gen. Knox was a presidential elector on the Harrison ticket in 1840 and on the Lincoln ticket in 1860. For forty-seven years he was a member of the board of trustees of Hamilton college, and for thirty years its chairman.—His brother, James, lawyer, b. in Canajoharie, N. Y., 4 July, 1807; d. in Knoxville, Ill., 8 Oct., 1876, was graduated at Yale in 1830, studied law in Utica, N. Y., and was admitted to the bar in 1833. In 1836 he removed to Knoxville, Ill., and engaged in commercial and agricultural pursuits. He was a member of the State constitutional convention in 1847, and a representative in congress from 5 Dec. 1853, till 3 March, 1857. He gave $50,000 to Hamilton college, in part for an additional endowment of the professorship of political economy, and in part for a hall of natural history, and a like sum to Yale college.—John J.'s son, John Jay, comptroller of the currency, b. in Knoxboro, N. Y., 19 March, 1828, was graduated at Hamilton in 1849, and trained to business in the bank of Vernon. From 1857 to 1862 he was a private banker in St. Paul, Minn. In January, 1862, he contributed a paper to “Hunt's Merchant's Magazine,” in which he advocated the establishment of a national banking system, with circulation guaranteed by the government. Secretary Chase's attention was attracted to its author, who was given an appointment under the government in the same year, and did important work in San Francisco and New Orleans. In 1866 he was placed in charge of the mint and coinage correspondence of the treasury department at Washington, was appointed deputy comptroller of the currency on 10 Oct., 1867, by Secretary McCulloch, and advanced to the comptrollership on 24 April, 1872, by President Grant. His report on the mint service, containing a codification of the coinage laws with amendments, was printed by order of congress in 1870. The bill which he prepared was passed, with a few modifications, under the title of “The Coinage Act of
