(
^
u
Containing the HISTORY, CONSTITUTION, BY-LAWS,
LIST OF OFFICERS AND MEMBERS OF THE
Jvitcrxxrltoti Association 0f ^mmxa
FROM ITS ORGANIZATION, WITH
AN ACCOUNT OF THE
FIRST AND SECOND REUNIONS.
COMPILED AND EDITED BY
WILLIAM HERRICK GRIFFITH, of Albany, N. Y.,
Secretary of the Association,
Secretary of Livingston Chapter, Sons of the Revolution ; Member Society Sons of the
American Revolution ; Society of Colonial Wars ; Society of War of 1812 ; Order of
Founders and Patriots; Society of Mayflower Descendents ; Order of
Descendents of Colonial Governors ; Order of the Old Guard of
Illinois; New England Historic-Genealogical Society;
New York Historical Society ; Albany Institute ;
Albany Historical and Art Society, Etc.
PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF
MINER ROCKWELL KNOWLTON,
of Poughkeepsie, N. Y.,
and
WILLIAM HERRICK GRIFFITH,
of Albany, N. Y.,
and presented by them to Association Members.
ALBANY, N. Y.:
S. H. Wentworth, Printer,
1897.
11687
CONTENTS.
Page.
Preface 5
Constitution and By-Laws . 7
Officers of the Association 1895-6 12
Officers of the Association 1896-7 13
Members since organization 14
Early History 18
First Reunion at Hartford, Ct 20
Meeting of Executive Board at Springfield, Mass. ...... 25
Second Reunion at Boston, Mass ...... 26
Responses to Banquet Toasts.
Opening Remarks of Hon. Marcus P. Knowlton 38
Response of Mr. James B. Knowlton to "Battle of Bunker
Hill." 39
Response of Hon. Hosea M. Knowlton, Attorney -General, to
"Commonwealth of Massachusetts." 41
Response of Hon. Samuel Utley to " Colonel Thomas Knowl-
ton of Connecticut." 44
Reading of Mr. William Herrick Griffith's toast, " Lieutenant
Daniel Knowlton of Connecticut and his Military Descend-
ants," by Mr. Miner Rockwell Knowlton 49
Response of Hon P. H. Woodward to "The Good Old
State of Connecticut. " . 70
Response of Dr. Thomas Knowlton Marcy to " The Knowl-
ton Statue and First Reunion." 74
Response of Mr. Frederick J. G. Knowlton to "Our Canadian
Cousins." 76
Response of Mr. Leslie D. Knowlton to "The Knowlton
Association." 78
Response of Rev. Charles H. W. Stocking, D. D., to "The
Knowlton History." '. So
Knowlton Stag Dinner in New York 85
Memorial to Deceased Members 86
PRE FACK.
In submitting this first Year Book of the Knowlton Association
of America, the Secretary feels that an apology is due its memteis
for his long delay in issuing the work. It was expected that mem-
bers would have it by January, 1897. Various interruptions,
occasioned by unforseen causes, and much correspondence required
by his duties as an officer of this Association, have rendered it im-
possible for the Secretary to issue the work before. However, he
hopes that the little book will be accorded a welcome, even though
it be a somewhat tardy one; that his humble effort may result at
least in stimulating the interest of some Knowltons who have thus
far neither attended the Re-unions nor affiliated with the Association
and that the perusal of its pages may recall pleasant memories to
those who have.
The Secretary hopes that suitable authority may be given him
at a future meeting to devote such proportion of treasury funds as
remain after paying for necessary correspondence and printing, to
the publication of a Yearly Register and Record of Association
Meetings, as a means of keeping the members of this widely
scattered family in touch with each other, thus stimulating and in-
creasing an interest in Knowlton annals and tradition, which thus
far displayed has been so gratifying.
Albany, N, Y., ist August, 1897.
CONSTITUTION
—AND-
BV=LAWS,
ADOPTED
17th June, 1896.
CONSTITUTION.
ARTICLE I.
NAME.
This Association shall be known as The Knowlton
Association of America.
ARTICLE 11.
OFFICERS AND TERMS OF OFFICE.
This Association shall be governed by a Board of
Ofificers consisting of a President, Vice-President, Secre-
tary, Treasurer, Historian and an Executive Committee
of five members, all of whom shall hold office for one
year or until their successor shall be elected. Election
shall be held at each regular meeting of the Association,
although a year has not elapsed from the time of the
last preceding meeting and their term of office shall
begin on the day next after the day of their election.
ARTICLE III.
OBJECT.
The objects of this Association are hereby declared
to be the bringing together of scattered members of the
Knowlton Family of America to hold annual re-unions
at convenient places; to promote mutual interest and
good fellowship ; to strengthen patriotic sentiment and
to put into permanent form the genealogy and annals of
all known members of the family from their earliest
progenitor down to the present time.
9
ARTICLE IV.
ELIGIBILITY AND MEMBERSHIP.
All persons bearing, or who before marriage have
borne the name of Knowlton, and all their lineal des-
cendants of whatever name, or all who have intermarried
with persons bearing the name, shall be eligible to mem-
bership in this Association.
Honorary membership may, by vote of the Execu-
tive Board, be conferred upon such persons as may
have, by their services to the family or prominence in
the Nation deserve it. Such persons shall be exempt
from all dues or assessments but, with the exception of
the Historian, shall not be eligible to hold office.
ARTICLE V.
FUNDS.
The funds of this Association shall be devoted to
the necessary expenses of the Secretary and Treasurer,
and should sufficient funds be left they shall be applied
to assisting the Historian in meeting such necessary
expenses as may be incurred in promoting the general
interests of the Association in the way of research.
B V= LAWS.
ARTICLE I.
The membership dues of this Association shall be
$2.00 per annum payable in advance, on November 13th
of each and every year.
ARTICLE II.
It shall be the duty of the Executive Committee to
act with the other officers of this Association in making
arrangements for the Annual Re-unions.
ROLL OK
OFFICERS AND MEMBERS
OF THE
KNOWLTON ASSOCIATION,
FROM
November 13, 1895, to January, 1897.
OKKICERS AND NIKIVIBERS
OF THE
KNOWLTON ASSOCIATION
OF AMERICA,
Who have joined from its organization, November 13. 1895,
to May I, 1897.
Officers from November 13, 1895, to November 13, 1896.
PRESIDENT,
Hon. MARCUS P. KNOWLTON,
Springfield, Mass.
VICE-PRESIDENT,
Dr. THOMAS KNOWLTON MARCY,
Windsor, Ct.
SECRETARY AND TREASURER,
WILLIAM HERRICK GRIFFITH,
Albany, N. Y.
HISTORIAN,
Rev. CHARLES H. W. STOCKING, D. D.,
East Orange, N. J.
T3
Officers from November 13, 1896, to November 13, 1897.
president,
Hon. HOSEA M. KNOWLTON,
Attorney General of Massachusetts,
New Bedford, Mrss.
VICE-PRESIDENT.
EDWIN F. KNOWLTON,
Brooklyn, N. Y.
secretary and TREASURER,
WILLIAM HERRICK GRIFFITH,
Albany, N. Y.
HISTORIAN,
Rev. CHARLES H. W. STOCKING, D. D. ,
East Orange. N. J.
executive committee,
MINER R. KNOWLTON, Poughkeepsie. N. Y.
Colonel JULIUS W. KNOWLTON, Bridgeport, Ct.
GEORGE H. FITTS, Ashford, Ct.
FREDERICK J. G. KNOWLTON, St. John, New Brunswick.
GEORGE W. KNOWLTON, Boston, Mass.
Wilson Ames,
Franklin Ames,
George H. Ames.
Amos K. Allstyne,
Benjamin B. Bradbury,
MEMBERS.
[Charter inenibcrs are marked *.]
1625 Old Colony Building, Chicago, 111.
2204 Prairie Avenue, Chicago, 111.
17 Plymouth Place, Chicago, 111.
299 Washington Street, Boston, Mass.
Drexel Building, New York City.
Mrs. Charles DeW. Brownell, 107 Westminster St., Providence, R.I.
Mrs. Anna M. Bacon, Scarboro, N. Y.
Miss Minnie L. Baird, Lee, Mass.
Isaac Knovvlton Bradbury,
Boston and Bangor S. S. Co., Boston, Mass.
Mrs. C. A. Batchelor,
Eli W. Batchelor,
Waldo F. Brown,
*Mrs. Sydney W. Crofut,
^George T. Chaffee,
*Mrs. J. F. Chamberlin,
*Wolcott Chaffee,
*Lucretia Chaffee,
Newman K. Chaffee,
Henry Chaffee,
Joseph C. Chaffee,
Dr. F. K. Chaffee,
Mrs. Charles L. Colby,
Mrs. C. L. Currin,
Mary E. Carter,
William Chaffee,
West Upton, Mass.
West Upton, Mass.
Oxford, Butler, Co., Ohio.
Danielson, Ct.
Rutland, Vt.
Stafford Springs, Ct.
Garretsville, Portage Co., Ohio.
Windham, Ohio.
Rutland, Vt.
Lee, Mass.
Lee, Mass.
Pittsfield, Mass.
3 East 69th Street, New York City.
The Kenwood, Chicago, 111.
Wayside, N. Y.
Box 594, Sioux City, Iowa.
^Mrs. Julia Knowlton Dyer,
40 Hancock Street, Dorchester, Boston, Mass.
Col. Charles L. Dean, 14 Blackstone Street, Boston, Mass.
^George H. Fiits, Ashford, Ct.
Thomas Knowlton Fitts. Hartford, Ct.
Mrs. Sarah Knowlton Foster, Knowlton, P. Q., Canada.
Hiram Sewell Foster, Knowlton, P. Q., Canada.
'i'Mrs. P. H. Knowlton Foote, i Beech Glen Avenue, Boston, Mass.
*Miss Fidelia C. Foote, i Beech Glen Avenue, Boston, Mass.
15
*Mrs. Mary L. Knovvlton Griffith, 328 Hudson Ave., Albany, N. Y.
*William Herrick Griffith, 37 Maiden Lane, Albany, N. Y.
Miss Margaret Francis Griffith, care of William H. Griffith.
Mrs. Helen Knovvlton Gibson, Alpine St., West Newton, Mass.
Miss Edith Hoyt, Stamford, Ct.
Mrs. Charles S. Hall, Binghamton, N. Y.
*Jesse F. Knowlton, Peabody, Mass.
*Miner Rockwell Knowlton, Poughkeepsie, N. Y.
Miner Nathaniel Knowlton, late U. S. N.,
28 Gurley Street, Chicago, N. Y.
*Thomas Knowlton, Foster, P. Q., Canada.
'^'Mark D. Knowlton, 13 Allen Street, Rochester, N. Y
*Fred. Knowlton, 13 Allen Street, Rochester, N. Y.
Frederick Kirk Knowlton, Rochester, N. Y.
Annie Dean Knowlton, Rochester, N. Y.
*George W. Knowlton, West Upton, Mass.
*Daniel W. Knowlton, West Upton, Mass
*James B. Knowlton, Ludlow, Mass.
*Col. JuHus W. Knowlton, Army and Navy Club, Bridgeport, Ct
Harlan P. Knowlton, 209 Maine Street, Hartford, Ct.
*George D. Knowlton, 73 Howell Street, Providence, R. L
Charles Sumner Knowlton, 1005 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
*Edwin F. Knowlton, 201 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, N. Y.
*Eben J. Knowlton, 87 Remsen Street, Brooklyn, N. Y.
*Mrs. Sybil Ann Knowlton, 328 Hudson Ave., Albany, N. Y.
Nathaniel Knowlton, Couse. Rensselaer Co., N. Y.
*George H. Knowlton, 328^^ Hudson Avenue, Albany, N. Y.
Miss Mary Ellenore Knowlton, 3281^ Hudson Ave., Albany, N. Y.
Henry T. Knowlton, 130 Pearl Street, New York City.
Hon. Hosea M. Knowlton, Attorney General, New Bedford, Mass.
Edgar J. Knowlton, Manchester, N. H.
George H. Knowlton, 744 Elm Street, Manchester. N. H.
A. Curtis Knowlton, 39 South Water Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
Ann W. Knowlton, Newburgh, Maine.
Charles D. Knowlton, Freeport, 111.
Lieut. Joseph Lippincott KnowUon, U. S. A., Ft. Sheridan, 111.
Henry C. Knowlton, 517 Southeastern Avenue, Joliet, 111.
Hon. Marcus P. Knowlton, Springfield, Mass.
Paul Holland Knowlton, Eastman, P. C , Canada.
Dallas Knowlton, 631 Massachusetts Avenue, Washington, D. C.
i6
Selden Knowlton, Farmington Falls, Maine.
George C. Knowlton (Died December, i8g6), St. Louis, Mo.
J. George Knowlton,
E. Frank Knowlton.
Leslie D. Knowlton,
William M. Knowlton,
Willis F. Knowlton,
Edward F. Knowlton,
Willis Knowlton,
Philip E. Knowlton,
Phineas Knowlton,
IngersoU F. Knowlton,
Mrs. Reginald Kirkpatrick,
Miss Minnie Kirkpatrick,
George W. Knowlton,
John P. Knowlton,
Lyman O. Knowlton,
George Phelps Knowlton.
Nathan M. Knowlton,
John C. Knowlton,
D. A. Knowlton,
Homer W. Knowlton,
Daniel Knowlton,
Fred J. G. Knowlton,
Nathaniel Knowlton,
J. Russell Knowlton,
Gilsey House, New York City.
Camden, Maine.
125 Milk Street, Boston, Mass.
Rowayton, Ct.
Saginaw, Mich.
58 Mynle Avenue, Manchester, N. H.
610 Cookman Avenue, Asbury Park, N. J.
Cleveland, Ohio.
Box 706, Springfield, Mass.
Armonk, Westchester Co., N. Y.
323 Washington Ave., Albany, N. Y.
323 Washington Ave., Albany, N. Y.
Watertown, N. Y.
Sagamore, Mass.
516 Ash Street, Indianapolis, Ind.
4 Central Square, Cambridgeport, Mass.
Westboro, Mass.
Watertown, N. Y.
Freeport, 111.
Pecatonica, 111.
St. John, New Brunswick.
St. John, New Brunswick.
South Berwick, Maine.
51 Exchange Place, New York City.
George E. Knowlton,
care of Blake Brothers, Nassau Street, New York.
Mrs. J. L. Keith.
Levi Knowlton,
Mrs. W. R. Kimball,
James Wolcott Knowlton,
John L. Knowlton,
Harriet M. Knowlton,
James Knowlton,
Mrs. Annie M. Knowlton,
Timothy Knowlton,
Fred A. Knowlton,
Lester N. Knowlton,
Alden P. Knowlton,
Grafton, Mass.
Utica, Leiping Co., Ohio.
"The Yates," Syracuse, N. Y.
1645 K Street, Washington, D. C.
Brattleboro, Vt.
care of Edmund F. , Swampscott, Mass.
52 Monument Street, Portland, Maine.
West Upton, Mass.
Norwich, Ct.
Marion, Iowa.
Holyoke, Mass.
Bondsville, Mass.
17
Rochester. N. Y.
Calhan, Colorado.
Warrenville, Ct.
Windsor, Ct.
9 Lawrence Street, Chelsea, Mass.
340 State Street. Albany, N. Y.
Beverly, Mass.
Box 52, Scarboro, N. Y.
Box 52, Scarboro, N, Y.
Box 52, Scarboro, N. Y.
Hamlin C. Knowlton,
Charles F. Knowlton,
Miss Mary A. Loomis,
*Dr. Thomas Knowlton Marcy,
*Mrs. George E. Mitchel,
Elijah Wariner Murphey,
Mrs. H. M. Magee,
Miss Eleonore J. Mulholland,
Mrs. Anna E. Mulholland,
Miss Daisy Maud Mulholland,
Mrs. Mary Knowlton Mixer, 427 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, N. Y.
Mrs. William Marland,
Thomas Reid,
Helen E. Starr,
Martha Knowlton Starr,
*Hon. Samuel Utley,
*Mrs. J. B. Van Schaick,
Mrs. Sarah C. Wheeler,
Mrs. D. L. Watson,
A. L. Williams,
E. B. Woodin,
Mrs. Charles Wood,
Mrs. Abigail Wilson,
Charles Russ Wood,
Shelton K. Wheeler,
Mrs. Arthur C. Widger,
Mrs. Harriet K. Walker,
Katherine Wood,
12 School Street, Andover, Mass.
7 Tower Street, Montreal, Canada.
2 Beacon Street, Hartford, Ct.
2 Beacon Street, Hartford, Ct.
Worcester, Mass.
Huntington. L. I.
Becket, Mass.
Gloucester, Mass.
Enfield and Canaan, N. H.
27 Sargent Street, Springfield, Mass.
528 W. 28th Street, Faribault, Minn.
Rockport, 111.
528 W. 8th Street, Fairbault, Minn.
Chattenooga, Tenn.
Francis Street, Boston, Mass.
South Berwick, Maine.
528 West 8th Street, Faribault, Minn.
Members will please inform the Secretary immediately of all changes in names
and addresses.
EARLY HISTORY AND ORGANIZATION.
While eno^afjed in loukiiiii- up £renealoo-ical and
historical matter concerninir a branch of the Knowlton
family, previous to the summer of 1895 the present
Historian and Secretary of the Association heard of. and
became known to. manv members of the Knowlton
familv all over New England and the Middle States,
through correspondence and per'^nnal interviews. In
this wav thev collected a mure or less comidcte list of
names and addresses of different members of the family.
Having been informed with a few others, by some of
the Hartford Knowltons (who had been instrumental in
securing the appropriation for the Knowlton statue),
that it was to be unveiled with appropriate ceremonies
at Hartford some time in the fall of 1895, Dr. Stocking
and Mr. Griffith, above referred to, decided to submit
their list of names to the Statue Commission, and sug-
gested the sending of in\ itations for this event to as
many members of the familv as could be learned of.
As Colonel Thomas Knowlton, of Connecticut, was a
representative hero of the race in America, it was felt by
the Secretary and Historian, that the ceremonies attend-
ing the unveiling of his statue would prove of deep
interest not onlv to his immediate branch of the familv
but also to all bearing the name who were descended
from Captain William Knowlton, Colonel Thomas' pro-
genitor, and first of the name to visit this country.
They also thought that no better time than this could
be chosen for a reunion of the family and an attempt if
19
possible to make the different liranches of this widely
scattered circle known to each other and by forming
some kind of a society or organization, rescue and pre-
serve records and facts in a systematic way which other-
wise would in time be lost.
Accordingly having advised with the Commission
at Hartford, and after a time obtained their co-operation
and consent to this object, Mr. Griffith issued notices
announcing that a reunion of the family would be held
immediatelv after the unveiling ceremonies at Hartford.
November 13, 1895, and these notices were mailed to
everv member of the family and name whose address
could be obtained. Through the courtesy of the Statue
Commission, and especially of Mr. Charles Dudley
Warner, one of its members, the Hall of Representatives
in the Capitol building itself was offered as the place for
holding this reunion, and notices announcing the fact
were published in the Hartford papers previous to the
13th of November. Many persons who came to attend
the unveiling ceremonies saw these newspaper notices
and many did not. There would have been a much
larger attendance at the reunion, had an announcement
been made at the ceremonies or at their completion, in
the capitol before unveiling. The history of the unveil-
ing, together with the speeches, etc., has been ably
written up in pamphlet and book form by Mr. P. H.
Woodward and Dr. Thomas Knowlton Marcy, and
everything pertaining to that event can be learned by
perusing it. The book is entitled " Statue of Colonel
Thomas Knowlton, Ceremonies at the Unveiling." It
was printed by the Case, Lockwood and Brainard
Company, 1895.
THE FIRST REUNION.
Those members of the family who knew of the
reunion accordingly assembled in the Hall of Repre-
sentatives, in the Capitol, at Hartford, about 3:45 r. m.,
November 13, 1895, immediately after the statue had
been unveiled in the Capitol grounds. Although many
had already been obliged to leave Hartford before night
set in for their distant homes, yet there was a goodly
attendance of Knowltons from all over the United
States and the Canadas present.
On motion of Colonel Julius W, Knowlton, of
Bridgeport, Ct, Dr. Thomas Knowlton Marcy, of
Windsor, Ct., was called to the chair.
Mr. William Herrick Griffith, of Albany, N. Y.,
was appointed Secretary, on motion of Colonel Marvin
Knowlton, of Williamantic, Ct.
The chairman made a brief statement of the object
of the meeting, which was to consider the propriety of
organizing a society or association of the Knowltons of
America, and he called upon the Rev. Charles H. W-
Stocking, D. D , to make a fuller statement for the
information of all present.
Dr. Stocking responded by saying, that although
not a descendant of the Knowlton family, he had long
been in intimate association with a branch of it, and that
in looking up the early history of said branch he had
collected a considerable amount of material for a
Knowlton genealogy. The intended scope of the pro-
posed history had been limited ar first to a portion onl\-
21
of the American Knowltons, but the erection of the
statue to Colonel Thomas Knowlton had excited such
general interest that it was proposed to prepare and
publish a complete historv of all the descendants of the
orig-inal Captain William, whose widow and four sons,
John, William, Thomas and Samuel, emigrated to
Ipswich, Mass., in 1632.
This work was now well in hand, and the great
interest which it had excited through the country gener-
ally would appear to justify the formation of a family
organization whose object might properly be to foster a
mutual interest and to stimulate a patriotic sentiment
among the numerous and scattered members of this
interesting American family, as well as to promote the
work and circulation of the proposed history.
Dr. Stocking believed that the Knowltons ought to
know each other better. He had found them to be a
people, as a rule, of unusually high social, business and
professional standing, and conspicuous for those qualities
that make for sound citizenship. In the Colonial and
Revolutionary Wars, in the War of 181 2, Mexican and
in the great Civil War they had made splendid records
in defence of their country, and if that record is to be
preserved the work must be done now.
In reply to a question from Judge Samuel Utley,
of Worcester, Mass., Dr. Stocking stated that the his-
tory would include all of the Knowlton name, as well as
those who had intermarried with Knowltons, and also
those who had changed the Knowlton name by inter-
marriage. Should the proposed history not be formally
recognized and approved by an organized association
the circulation of the proposed work would be confined
to that branch of the family, one member of which had
22
thus far met all the expense incurred. Dr. Stocking
suearested the formation of the association with a small
membership fee for promoting the objects already men-
tioned, and he indicated his readiness to apply any sums
that might be advanced from the treasury of such asso-
ciation over and above necessary expenses for transpor-
tion, search of records, stationery, printing and postage,
toward the reduction of the cost of the historv when
published ; that is to say, should he receive from the
treasury above the aforementioned expenses the sum of
$200 or more, then the price of the historv to members
of the association would be reduced pro rata.
Dr. Stocking was followed in his remarks by
Mr. William Herrick Griffith, of Albany, who said that,
after hearing of the patriotic record to which they had
just listened of the great Revolutionary hero, he thought
it would be a disgrace to the Knowlton name if it were
not handed down in some permanent form to after
generations. Mr. Griffith cited the patriotic examples
of other American families who had formed similar
associations with the happiest results. He thought that
every Knowlton present would be willing to contribute
annually at least S2 as a membership fee tor such an
organization. Such an association would be the medium
of assembling at stated intervals the members of a
widely scattered family, of stimulating genealogical
research and perfecting family records, and would result
in a mutual benefit to all concerned.
Mrs. Julia Knowlton Dyer, of Boston, in a stirring
patriotic speech, declared that she was proud to be a
Knowlton, and wanted to enroll her name at the head
of the list of the members of the association should it
be formed.
23
Colonel Julius Knovvlton, of Bridgeport, moved
that an association be formed, of which the officers
should he a President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treas-
urer and Historian, which motion was unanimously
carried.
Dr. Thomas Knowlton Marcy, of Windsor, Ct., was
then elected Vice-President.
On motion of Mr. Miner R. Knowlton, of Pough-
keepsie, Mr. William Herrick Griffith was elected Sec-
retary and Treasurer ; on whose motion also the
Rev. Charles H. W. Stocking, D. D., was elected
Historian.
The membership fee was fixed at $2 yearly, and
it was voted that the association hold annual reunions at
such times and places as might be arranged by the officers
acting as an executive committee. The officers were
requested to prepare a Constitution and By-laws for
the government of the association, to be presented
for approval at the next annual meeting. Thirty persons
enrolled themselves as charter members of the associa-
tion, as follows :
CHARTER MEMBERS.
Mrs. Julia Knowlton Dyer, Dorchester, Mass.
Mrs. Mary Knowlton Griffith, Albany, N. Y.
William Herrick Griffith, Albany, N. Y.
Dr. Thomas Knowlton Marcy, Windsor, Ct.
Miner R. Knowlton, Poughkeepsie, N. Y.
George H. Fitts, Ashford, Ct.
Hon. Samuel Utley, Worcester, Mass.
Mrs. Sydney W. Crofut, Danielson, Ct.
Mrs. J. B. Van Schaick, Huntington, L. I.
Thomas Anson Knowlton, Foster, P. Q., Canada.
Mark D. Knowlton, Rochester, N. Y.
Fred. Knowlton. Rochester, N. Y.
George T. Chaffee, Rudand, Vt.
24
Mrs. J. I-'. Chamberlin,
Geort^e W. Knoulton,
Daniel \V. Knowlton,
Mrs. P. H. Knowlton Foote,
Miss Fidelia Foote,
James B. Knowlton,
Col. Julins W. Knowlton,
Harlan P. Knowlton,
Mrs. George E. Mitchell,
Wolcott Chaffee,
Lucretia Chaliee,
Jesse F. Knowlton.
George D. Knowlton,
Edwin F. Knowlton,
Eben J. Knowlton,
Mrs. Sybil A. Knowlton,
George H. Knowlton,
The meeting adjourned at 5:30 r
call of the President.
Stafford Springs, Ct
West Upton, Mass.
West Upton, Mass.
Boston. Mass.
Boston, Mass.
Ludlow, Mass.
Bridgeport, Ct.
Hartford, Ct.
Chelsea^ Mass.
Garretsville, Ohio.
Windham, Ohio.
Peabody, Mass.
Providence, R. I.
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Brooklyn. N. Y.
Albany, N. Y.
Albany, N. Y.
M., subject to the
MEETING OF THE EXECUTIVE BOARD,
AT SPRINGFIELD, MASS.
The officers of the Association met as an Executive
Committee, at Springfield, Mass., February 25, 1896.
All were present, and were entertained by the President
at his club.
The minutes of the first meeting at Hartford were
read by the Secretary.
A statement was then made by the Treasurer of the
financies of the Association to date, showing the pro-
gress of the general, work which had already extended
far beyond its expected limits. There were found to be
more Knowltons in the country than had been dreamed
of and the expense therefore of communicating with
them all had been much greater than was expected.
Dr. Stocking made a general statement as Historian
of the condition and prospects of his work, after which
a Constitution and set of By-Laws was prepared to be
submitted for adoption at the next reunion.
The Officers and Board then decided to hold the
next meetino and reunion of the Association in Boston,
Mass., on 17th June, 1896 (Anniversary of the Battle of
Bunker Hill), and appointed Mr. Griffith to make all
necessary arrangements.
On motion the meeting adjourned.
SECOND REUNION,
The Second Reunion was held, as appointed, at
Boston, Mass, 17 June, 1896 (Anniversary of the Battle
of Bunker Hill).
The family assembled at the Hotel Vendome.
Commonwealth avenue, at 9 a. m, and tally-hos con-
veyed as many as desired, to the Bunker Hill Monument
and to witness the celebration at Cambridge. The
morning was passed in visiting historic spots of great
interest to the familv in and about Boston.
From 3 to 4:30 p. m, a reception at the Vendome
took place. The receiving party consisted of : Judge
Marcus P. Knowlton of Springfield, Mass., Mrs. Mar)^
Louisa (Knowlton) Griffith of Albany, N. Y.. Dr. and
Mrs. T. Knowlton Marcy of Windsor, Conn., Colonel
and Mrs. Charles L. Dean of Maiden, Mass., and Rev-
C. H. \V. Stocking, D. D., of East Orange, N. J., the
Historian of the Knowlton family.
Nearly 200 Knowltons were present and the occa-
sion was greatly enjoyed. About 5 p. m. those present
adjourned to another apartment and the Second Annual
Business Meeting and election of officers was held.
The meeting was called to order by the President,
Hon. Marcus P. Knowlton. who stated that the first
business of the meeting was to choose a secretary pro
tem on account of the necessary absence of Mr. Griffith,
the Secretary of the Association, who had met with an
accident which made it impossible for him to be present,
very much to his regret and to the regret of all members.
Mr. Leslie D. Knowlton, of Boston, was unani-
mously elected Secretary pro tem.
27
Then followed the reading by Leslie D. Knowlton
of the minutes of the last meeting, which report was
approved.
The Secretary's report was then read as follows :
Albany, N. Y., June, ij, i8g6.
The Secretary begs to report that since the Hartford Reunion
he has devoted a much larger proportion of his time to the work of
the Association than he had expected would be necessary. It is
probable that no member of the family had any adequate conception
of the numerical strength of the family and of the consequent mag-
nitude of the work. At least 2,000 persons have been corresponded
with, some of them several times, of which number the Secretary
regrets to say only 118 have become members of the Association,
from which it would appear that while all are glad to gain informa-
tion, but few care to share the financial burdens of the work,
although exceedingly light. Had even one-quarter of the Secre-
tary's correspondents joined the Association the treasury would
have been easily able to meet all legitimate demands and to render
material assistance to the Historian in his arduous and expensive
work.
It is but fair to say, however, that the announcement of a second
reunion has greatly stimulated applications for membership, and
the Secretary does not doubt but that large accessions will be made
during the present year.
He has been much gratified at the interest manifested in the
Knowlton family as such and independently of the Association, and
the publication of the history is looked forward to with unbounded
interest. The correspondence indicates an unusual degree of intel-
ligence, thrift, patriotic sentiment and loyal kinship among the
members of the Knowlton family.
At the request of the Executive Committee the Secretary visited
Boston, and was ably seconded by the Attorney General of Massa-
chusetts and others of the family in arranging the details of the
Second Reunion.
In conclusion, he desires to bear testimony to the zeal, energy
and unsparing devotion with which the Historion has co-operated
with him in promoting the interests of the Association.
(Signed) WILLIAM HERRICK GRIFFITH,
Secretary.
28
The Constitution and By-laws drawn up were then
submitted to the Association for their action. (See
page 8.)
President Knowlton : The next l)usiness is to deter-
mine what action shall be taken in regard to the Consti-
tution and By-laws which have been presented, and to
the Board of Officers, in accordance with the vote taken
at the original meeting.
Dr. Stocking: I move that the Constitution as read
be adopted as a whole.
Motion seconded.
Voice : Which I suppose is to include the By-laws.
President : The motion then is for the adoption of
the Constitution alone.
Voice: I noticed there was mentioned " Five offi-
cers and an executive committee of five ; " is it the
intention that the five officers will be the executive
committee ?
President : As I understand it calls for the same five
officers as have been before and an executive committee
of five.
It was then unanimously voted to adopt the Con-
stitution.
President Knowlton asked for further action.
Voice : I will request the reading of the first by-law.
The Secretary pro tem read " The membership dues
of the Association shall be $2 per annum."
Dr. Stocking: I will request, your honor, the read-
ing of this by-law over again, for the purpose of making
a statement.
The Secretary re-read the first by-law.
Dr. Stocking : The constant intercourse which has
been necessitated by my part of the work with the Sec-
29
retary of vour Knowlton Association, has made me
familiar witii all the details of the work of the Secretary
and the Treasurer. He has already expressed very clearly
the imperative necessity of meeting^ the enlarged finan-
cial demands of the work, and inasmuch as the issue of
one circular alone among 2,000 Knowltons costs $40 for
postage, stationery and printing, and as the services of
the Secretary are given gratuitously, it goes without say-
ing that some provision ought to be made, perhaps,
either by the change in this by-law, or if this by-law be
adopted, then by some other expedient by which the
Secretary shall not be embarrassed by the growing
expense. If it is asked that this by-law shall stand as it
is, and I see no objection to it, subsequent action might
be taken to meet any deficiency that might arise.
President Knowlton : Is any motion made by any
member of the Association?
Mrs. Julia Knowlton Dyer moved the adoption of
the first by-law.
President Knowlton: It is moved and seconded
that the first by-law be adopted.
Mrs. Dyer then spoke as follows : Scattered all over
the country are a great many Knowltons to whom $2
looks sufficient to belong to an association that meets
but once a year. It seems to me that in the beginning,
at least, we should be very moderate ; that by and by
when this Association has become famous, and we all
expect it will, then there will be a rush to be members,
and then they can bear the increase of the annual dues,
but at present $2 looks to me as large as we ought to
place it.
President Knowlton : Is there anything further to
be said on this motion? The motion before us is to
30
adopt the firsl l)\-la\v. Are you ready for the question ?
Question.
The by-law was adopted unanimously.
Then followed the reading of the second by-law.
The second by-law was unanimously adopted.
President Knowlton then spoke of the report of the
Treasurer, which he said stated particularly, item by item,
with date of the receipts and expenditures, the expendi-
tures consisting of a large number of items, mainly for
printing and postage. He did not think they would
care to have it read. The items of expenditures con-
sisted of items connected with matters pertaining to the
Association, two items amounting in the aggregate to
$93, paid to Dr. Stocking, the Historian. The report
shows payments aggregating $316.
The Treasurer's report was accepted unanimously.
The following officers were then elected unani-
mously :
PRESIDENT,
Hon. HOSEA M. KNOWLTON,
New Bedford, Mass.
VICE-PRESIDENT
EDWIN F. KNOWLTON,
Brooklyn, N. Y.
SECRETARY AND TREASURER,
WILLIAM HERRICK GRIFFITH,
Albany, N. Y.
HISTORIAN,
Rev. CHARLES H. W. STOCKING, D. D.,
East Orange. N. J.
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE,
MINER R. KNOWLTON, Poughkeepsie. N. Y.
Colonel JULIUS W KNOWLTON, Brideeport, Ct.
GEORGE H. FI TTS, Ashford, Ct.
GEORGE W. KNOWLTON, Boston, Mass.
FREDERICK J. G. KNOWLTON, St. John, New Brunswick
Colonel Julius W. Knowlton stated that he wished
to make a motion that we extend to Wm. H. Griffith a
vote of thanks for his labors since our last meetino^, and
we also extend to him our sympathy.
Dr. Stocking : I move to amend that motion as
follows : That the members of the Knowlton Association
send a telegram to Mr. Wm. H. Griffith expressing their
regret that he is not present with us, their sympathy in
his affliction, which we hope will be a temporary one, and
our hearty wishes that he will be w^ith us at our next
aunual meetmg.
The motion, as amended, was carried unanimously.
President Knowlton : I will request the Rev. Dr.
Stocking to send the telegram in the name of the
Association.
Dr. Stocking: If the Association will not think me
appropriating too much of their time, and they will not
consider me intrusive, I will make a little plea for the
Secretary. He has given a great deal of time to this
work, and has given it gratuitously, and proposes to
spend a great deal of time the rest of his life in pro-
moting the objects and interests of this Association. It
is estimated that there are about 13,000 living and
deceased Knowltons in America. One can have some
idea of the work of the Secretary from this statement of
the amount of labor he is called upon to do and of the
probable expense in preparing a circular, one or more
during the year, and giving notices to all the mem-
bers of the Knowlton name in America, not simply to
the Association, and in this way keeping them in touch
with each other, and stimulating their interests in the
Knowlton family and the Knowlton cause, which results
in accession of members to the Association, and is
therefore worth more than it costs.
32
Maii\ (»f \(>u were j)resenl at the unveiling; of
the statue of Colonel Thomas Knowlton, a statue which
is intended to he more or less a memorial of the
brav'^e deeds of that Revolutionary hero, hut the finders
of time are ooincr to he verv husv with that statue,
althouij^h of bronze, and the time will come when
although not destroyed it will at least be defaced. A
history is perpetual possession not simply of one hut
many ^generations, of o;cnerations unborn, and therefore
this question of history is one, it seems to me, in which
all other questions are substantially merg^ed, and as all
other preparations independent of these social reunions
and the cultivation and fostering of a spirit of kinship,
all other questions and all other works properly lead up
to that one work, history. It is proper, if you will
indulge me very briefly, that 1 state something of that
history. I began supposing that I was not a Knowlton,
that I had nothing to do with the Knowltons but inti-
macy. About three wrecks ago I discovered that Lydia
Stocking, our ancestress, married one, Griffith of the
family of our Secretary of this Association, and that
another family intermarried with the Griffiths and the
Stockings, so that after all I find there has been, as you
will probably think, a very small tributary found to
empty into the main stream of the Knowlton life. I
trust the stream will not be polluted thereby.
I am, therefore, that much devoted to the purpose
of this historical work as if I were a born Knowlton,
and therefore I have, for the past year, given almost all
my time exclusively to this work and to no other. I
have tabulated 8,000 names in America and Canada, and
there will be more coming in a very short space of time,
but it has been felt by many members of the Knowlton
33
Association that if there are any honors to which
this family is entitled they should wear those honors ; if
there is a coat of arms, or a coat without arms that any
Knowlton desires to wear, and which his ancestor hon-
orably wore, it is legitimately proper of the Knowlton
name, and without qualifying their intense Americanism,
which all the Knovvltons of America deeply feel and are
imbued with, there is a considerable and growing number
of Knowltons who are desirous to know from whence
came Captain William and his four Devonshire sons,
and his wife. I have found from whom they came, and
have carried the line back to the year 1520, and the line
has never before been carried back by a living person,
and it is mentioned now not because your historian has
done it, but because some one has been found who will
give time and effort to that work which you are to hand
down to your children' and to generations yet unborn,
as the most honorable legacy which history has com-
mitted to their keeping. To that end I am proposing
to go to England and spend my entire vacation, not less
than two months, in the search for the records ante-
cedent to 1632. I have twenty-five names and twenty-
five places supplying abundance of data for that work,
in order that I may bring into intelligent, coherent,
historic line those facts, persons, events and records
which are now entirely disconnected, and when I tell
you this is going to be done intelligently and promptly
and has never been attempted by a living person I can-
not think any of you will not applaud the design.
I was told, after I had been in this work for a short
time, that when I ventured up into Canada that my time
and efforts would be in vain, for there was no one there
worth looking after. (Laughter.) We have enough
34
with us to justify the minutes I have spent in that
Canadian work (applause), and when I tell you I went
up into Canada almost with a protest, with the ther-
mometer twenty-five deo;rees below zero, with only one
name to work with, and I found a Member of Parlia-
ment, a Member of the Privy Council, two Judges of the
Supreme Court, merchants, doctors of divinity, and four
hundred others equally valuable, and when I tell you
that three w^eeks ago I crowned the list by the grandson
of a Knowlton who went from Massachusetts and who
bred her children so well that her grandson is at this
moment the Prime Minister of Canada, Sir Charles
Tupper (great applause), it looks as though I was not
engaged in a wild goose chase. I have as much data to
work with in England as I had in Canada, and I am
coming back to tell you about an expensive and beauti-
ful park named for the family, Knowlton Park ; about
an antiquarian, born in 1691, who attained such rank in
scientific circles that he was made a Fellow of the
Royal Society.
(Dr. Stocking here spoke of a plant down on the Cape of Good
Hope, Knowltoniana, named after the antiquarian).
You have been looking to-day upon the face of an
ancestor who died hundreds of years ago, and upon the
face of a woman of England, and they have been
brought here by persistent faith in that enterprise for
you to view to-day. I am going to England, please God,
if my life be spared, and I am going to do that work,
but this historical work is expensive. It means the pay-
ment of personal expenses, traveling, railways, hotels,
steamers, everything of the kind. It implies constant
expense, printing, stationery, postage, that do not appear
upon the records of the Secretary. Up to the present
35
time I have not received one dollar for the history from
any source whatever, but the few of the Knowlton
family who believe in pushing up the stream to see what
lies behind, who believe that the things of this country
are a growth and not an accident, who believe that
Napoleon, Washington and Lincoln, and Colonel
Thomas Knowlton wdio fought down yonder, are not
accidents, and I want to ask these good people here if
they do not think that is a record which ought to be fol-
lowed up? Don't you want to know who those men
and women were that left their stamp upon English
history, and if there is a coat of arms don't you want
that coat of arms, that you may point to it and ask your
children to follow the examples set them by those who
earned those honors ? Do the members of this Associa-
tion know, they most of them do know, that in the
Mosaic country the Jew who could not trace his
ancestry back to Abraham and through the special tribe
from which he was derived, was ruled out of the
synagogue. I have, therefore, no sympathy with those
Knowltons who say " all I want to know is who my
father or my mother was."
When this work is completed, and please God it
will be next year some time, it will be worth more to
you and to your grandchildren than can be expressed in
dollars and cents ; not because I have done that work,
but because somebody has been found to do it and do it
so that it shall he authentic, and you shall hand it down
as a family treasure to those who come after you. The
number of copies will determine the price of the volume.
When the manuscript is in the hands of the publisher
he will give me an estimate for different numbers of
copies, and I will then send out a circular to every
36
member of the Knowiton family in Canada and the
United States telling them what is the price of the
costlier and more elegantly bound volume and the cost
of a volume not so elegantly bound, and I pledge you
my word I am going to put the price down so that
they will be possessed by every member of the family,
and I shall be pleased if I receive ordinary mechanics
wages. I beg to say one thing more, the history cannot
sustain the expenses of the English work ; all that it
can bear in this costly way will be the history of the
Canadian and United States Knowltons. Some of the
Knowltons are preparing in private and sending to me
voluntary contributions which are not going to be solici-
ted ; they are sending to me individual subscriptions to
a special fund to enable me to go and obtain this
English material. Perhaps I shall not take the breath
out of your bodies and nostrils if I tell you that the
expense of that two months work I have estimated to
be the extraordinarily modest sum of about $450, and I
do not believe any man is likely to be found to under-
take a similar work on that figure. I have $265 towards
the fund. If what I have said appeals to any of you I
shall be very glad before you disperse to-night to receive
voluntary contributions toward that end. If the $450
is made up I shall go to England ; if it is not made I
shall borrow^ it and pay it when I can.
On motion all present adjourned to the Banquet
Hall.
About 7 p. M. the members of the Association sat
down to the Banquet. The Menu was as follows :
37
BANQUET.
Little Neck Clams.
Consomme, Imperatrice,
Cream of Chicken, a la Reine.
Fresh Penobscot Salmon, Hollandaise.
Sliced Cucumbers. Parisiene Potatoes.
Sweetbread Cutlets, Florentine.
Frogs Legs, Tartar Sauce.
Fillet of Beef, Richellieu.
Roast Turkey, Sage Dressing.
Green Peas. Potatoes, Chateau.
Pineapple Sherbet.
Charlotte Russe. Moscovite Jelly.
Assorted Cakes. Harlequin Ice Cream.
Fancy Water Ices.
Fruit. Crackers. Cheese. Olives.
Strawberries.
Coffee.
38
After some time had passed in partaking of the
banq'ict the President of the Association, Hon. Marcus
P. Knowlton, arose and made the following opening
remarks :
Ladies and Gentlemen : We have come from the East, West,
from near and from far, to greet one another as kindred, to com-
memorate the virtues and deeds of our ancestors, and to renew our
interests in the family to which we all belong. It is fitting that this
meeting is in Boston, so near the place where our first American
progenitors by their honest industry and unflagging energy laid the
foundation for that character for integrity and moral worth which
they have given to us as an inheritance. It is fitting that we have
assembled in this grand and beautiful hotel on the avenue which
many consider the finest in the world, which within the last fifty
years has grown up from end to end out of the sea, crowding back
the ebbing and flowing tide, a monument to the enterprise of our
people. It is peculiarly fitting that our meeting occurs on the anni-
versary of the first important battle which our forefathers fought for
their liberty, a battle in which our ancestors by the name of Knowl-
ton bore an honorable part.
Whichever way we turn from this point of observation we see
that for more than 250 years men and women of the name of
Knowlton have been doing the world's work in every field and
doing it well.
There are eloquent gentlemen present who will tell us of all
these things, and I ought not to detain you by any extended
remarks as you are waiting to hear them. Naturally the thoughts
of those who have stood to-day in the shadow of the monument ot
Bunker Hill turn first to the memorable struggle which that monu-
ment commemorates. After the end of the war our forefathers who
had fought for their liberties quickly returned to peaceful pursuits,
and we have here to-night a gentlemen who is engaged in the peace-
ful and important business of a manufacturer, who can tell us the
story of the battle as he has heard it from his ancestors. Our first
toast tonight is "The Battle of Bunker Hill and the day we
Celebrate."
39
"THE BATTLE OF BUNKER FULL AND THE
DAY WE CELEBRATE."
" They fought for peace, for peace they fell;
They sleep in peace and all is well." — F. Miller.
Responded to by Mr. James B. Knowlton, of Ludlow,
Mass., as follows :
Mr. President, relatives and descendants of the Knowlton
brothers, who bravely crossed the seas and landed at Ipswich in
1632:
It is with pleasure that I respond to the toast "The Battle ol
Bunker Hill and the day we Celebrate."
The famous battle upon " Breed's Hill " was described 3t our
first meeting-. I will simply ask you to roll back the tide of 121
years, go with us to Faneuil Hall, "The Cradle ot Liberty," climb
to its bell tower and look out in your mind's eye upon the town of
Boston on that hot 17th of June, 1775. Look! seethe English fleet
in the harbor shelling a wood pile on yonder hill ; see the Americans
digging like woodchucks amid the shot and shell. The English are
landing troops; their bayonets gleaming in the midday sun as they
climb the hill to complete their oppression by death; all is still
behind that rail fence; why don't they fire? Now their smoke
mingles with the hot air fi-om burning Charlestown. See the Red
Coats fall — the English retreat and again face the old "flintlocks,"
only to receive the same well aimed bullets and to find the Ameri-
cans no cowards — more of the flower of the English army left dead
upon the battle field. Look! Clinton's forces have joined the dis-
couraged retreaters; 3,000 well armed soldiers against 1,500 poorly
equipped men, full of courage and determination. Ah! they make
a third charge. Oh! why so little smoke from the trenches?
their powder gone; they retreat, but do so nobly fighting, u?ing
their muskets like clubs. Let us change our gaze to the noisy
street below; see the lean " Red Coats " in all their pomp. Behold
those frightened Tories searching for a place to hide. Hurrah !
here comes the true American clothed in homespun with musket
and powder horn, serious and determined, ready to die for freedom.
My friends, where are your sympathies? With the English or
Tories, or the much oppressed Americans? If there is one drop ol
Knowlton blood in your veins that drop is tingling through your
body in response to the noblest feelings that can animate the human
40
breast. Methinks I hear your answer, " Give me Liberty or give
me Death," and under the broad canopy of the Stars and Stripes
shall ever remain a " Land of the free and home of the Brave."
It is most appropriate that we celebrate this day in orood old
Boston, and as we gather around this festive board, may we feel that
we are one family of truly American ancestry, reunited after two and
one-half centuries. If history should repeat itself, may we as
descendants of brave men, be ever ready to grasp the oppressor as
our great-grandfathers clutched the old "flintlocks" and marched
to Lexington at the alarm call, inspired only by patriotism. Let us
at this time renew our devotion to the Knowlton traditions, ever
remembering " Honor is dear."
Now, my friends, by the mystic waters of old Boston may we
by patriotism, sound common sense, honor and love, ever be
worthy to be called the descendants of the Knoulton brothers of
America.
President Knowllon : From the earliest times the
people of Massachusets have felt great pride and satis-
faction in living under a system of government, and a
bodv of laws, adapted to the protection of liberty and of
our people. In the selection of our public officers we
are charged with the interests of protecting the people
against wrongdoers and in advising and assisting in the
administration of the o-overnment and the execution of
the laws. We have endeavored to be wise and discreet.
The present Attorney-General of the Commonwealth
has honorably maintained the high standard of official
conduct established by his most illustrious predecessors
(cries of hear! hear!), he is a member of our family
and an honor to our name. Our next toast is '' The
Commonwealth of Massachusetts."
4T
"THE COMMONWEALTH OF
MASSACHUSETTS."
"A land of settled government,
A land of just and old renown," — Tennyson,
Responded to by Hon. Hosea M. Knovvlton,
Attorney-General of Massachusetts, as follows:
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : I did not think I would
stay because one who has taken the name of Knowlton by marrying
me has called me hence, but the company was so good looking that
I changed my mind and have stayed. I am very glad to be here,
very glad to see that there are so many good-looking Knowltons of
both sexes who can come together at a dinner of this kind. It was
my fortune — being the son of a minister, my venerable father's name
being Isaac Knowlton — it was my fortune to have lived in boyhood
in three different cities and in a good many different towns, and I
always noticed that our family was the only family of the name of
Knowlton anywhere in town. It was not pleasant. I sometimes
had — as very likely many have had to do — I have sometimes had
to spell the name out so that postmasters and postmasters' lady
clerks would know that we were not in the N's but in the K's.
(Laughter and applause.)
I understand, and perhaps I ought to say here, that you have
taken advantage of my absence to elect me president of this Asso-
ciation. If that is so, I beg to return my thanks for that honor.
(Applause.) I esteem it a high honor not only to be president of
the Knowlton Association, but consider it a high honor to be presi-
dent of something that embraces the entire continent of America and
Canada as well as Massachusetts.
At first sight it might seem that the formation of associations
like this, which have become somewhat common in recent years,
was a violation of the spirit of the Constitution of the Common-
wealth which I am sworn to explain to the President and his asso-
ciates upon the bench. When our ancestors — who, by the way,
are the ancestors of a great many people throughout the length and
breadth of this land (although we don' there in the East now cut the
figure in politics and in National conventions which we ought to,
unless later news changes my views) a good many of our blood
have gone and built up New England communities all through the
land — among the principles that our ancestors thought it necessary
42
to incorporate into the Declaration of Rij^hts — that memorable
document which settled the policy of this Commonwealth forever,
was a proposition to the effect that hereafter in this Commonwealth
hereditary title should be unknown. They declared — and it is the
sixth article of that Declaration of Rig^hts, and has been copied by
many other States — that no man, or association of men, has any
right to obtain distinction other than that which arises in considera-
tion of services rendered to the whole body, and that title being in
its nature not capabe of descending to one's children, or relations,
or heirs. The idea of a man building up — I depart from the origi-
nal a little to make it more modern — the idea of a man establishing
a reputation by heredity is absurd and unnatural. They brought
over here a deep feeling of revolution against the system prevailing
in the mother country by which a man was great, and is to-day —
not to such an extent as it was then — by which a man was great
because his ancestors were great, and I am glad to say that the
Commonwealth has improved and prospered upon that principle.
In this State, and in other States of the Union as well, a man
receives what he deserves, and not what he may have deserved from
his father. But like many other good principles in action they
went somewhat to excess, like the aversion to the display and pomp
in religious worship which they also inculcated in the communities
that settled in this State, so far as I have read; it was many years
before music was introduced in the worship of God in our Protestant
churches. Coming so far away from the pomp, and display, and
forms and emptiness of the religion in the old country they went to
the other extreme, and so, perhaps, a good many of our fathers
and grandfathers have confused the proper distinctions between
one's own respect for their ancestors and any claim to be respected
themselves aside from their ancestors. Those two propositions, if
differentiated properly, show that this Association has a right to
exist. Any man who claims respect and honor, or claims the right
to be elected to office, or to be preferred, on account of his ancestry,
violates the principles on which this country was established, and
upon which long may it stand. But that is far different from the
proper feeling of pride and self-respect which one may entertain by
reason of an honorable ancestry behind him. Nobody has a right
to be elected to office because Colonel Thomas Knowlton was a
worthy Revolutionary soldier, but we all have a right to be proud
that we bear a name that was so high in the annals of the Revolu-
43
tion, and if that principle be once understood it will help not only
to our self-respect, but lead us, perhaps, to imitate the virtues of
those who went before us. And it is a little surprising, Mr. President,
to find how many pretty good Knowltons there are. I am very
glad that the rest of the people who sometimes have not known
how to spell the name will learn that it is yet an honorable one. I
found it out a good while ago. I remember twenty years ago I was
sent to the State Senate from my own town. As I say, there were
no other Knowltons in Southern Massachusetts, and I do not think
there any now excepting my children, and I am doing my share to
perpetuate the name; but I found when I got to the legislature that
there were other Knowltons in the State, the venerable William
Knowlton was my colleague, and also in the House there was a more
obscure, but lower branch, a very observing man who has become
Judge of the Supreme Judicial Court, and is now your president.
(Applause.) Between us, Judge, the fortunes of the noble family
began and kept right on. (Great applause and laughter.) We
stayed by each other as we should. Perhaps that is enough for me
to say now in behalf, so far as I can see, of the Commonwealth ot
Massachusetts. To those of you who are strangers within our
gates I beg to extend a most cordial and hearty welcome. Don't
hurry away. We are on historic ground. You cannot take a walk
in the suburbs without stumbling over something that has something
to do with the Revolution and the history of the world. Stay here
to morrow. Commonwealth avenue is only the beginning of a
system of parks. Come up to the State House. Let me intro-
duce you to a governor who has in his veins the blood of two
governors, one of Connecticut as well as Massachusetts. Go down
to the Court House; see there the Supreme Judicial Court which,
I may say here in this presence without fear of being contradicted,
is, next perhaps to the Supreme Court of the United States, the
most honored and illustrious court in the United States, and of
whom your president is one of the most honored members.
(Applause.) I don't always agree with him, but he tries to do
right. (Applause.) Go down to Faneuil Hall and see that price-
less relic filled with associations of great deeds. Come up and see
our Bulfinch front and see if you don't think it is worth preserving.
Enjoy yourself while here and let the Commonwealth of Massachu-
setts entertain you as its guests. (Applause.)
44
President Knowlton : Wherever civilization exists
the magistrate and the soldier are held in high honor as
representatives of the justice and the power of the State.
We have with us to-night a member of the Judiciary of
Massachusetts, who with the impartiality of the Court
over which he presides, is held in the highest esteem of
the community. He has also the distinguished honor
of being a lineal descendant of the Revolutionary hero
whom we are all proud to number among the members
of our family. I give you as his toast " Colonel Thomas
Knowlton of Connecticut," and I ask the Hon. Samuel
Utley of Worcester, Massachusetts, to respond.
"Colonel THOMAS KNOWLTON, of Connecticut."
"And though the warrior's sun has set,
Its light shall linger mund us yet —
Bright, radiant, blest." — DeMonrique.
Responded to by Hon. Samuel Utley, Worcester,
Mass.
Blackstone computed that we should have about five hundred
millions of relatives within fifteen degrees, and I am glad to meet
so many of one of the families in that large connection.
The story of Colonel Knowlton' s life has been well told in
the address of Mr. Woodward, and the battle of Bunker Hill, where
his principal services were rendered, belongs to another speaker.
It therefore seems best, in the brief remarks that I shall make,
to confine myself to a general view of him and his career. He
entered the French and Indian war at an early age, and was in four
campaigns before he was twenty. This war was said by Fisher
Ames to be a place where heroes were not celebrated but made,
and was the school for many who appeared in the Revolution. He
was married at eighteen years of age, his wife being fifteen years of
age. They had nine children, two of whom died in infancy. Only
four of his children had children. I think he has had about 200
descendants, though there are none of the family name. After the
evacuation of Boston he paid his family a visit on his way to New
York, and my grandmother used to tell us of the mother and
45
children around her, standing by the door and watching him out of
sight as he left home for the last time.
John Adams thought no ancestry nobler than one hundred and
sixty years of sturdy New England yeomanry, while we rejoice in
two hundred and sixty-four years of ancestors who have done well
their part wherever fortune has called.
Morse says that whatever blood mingles with that of the Adams'
had to take its color as well as its course, and in this family one
finds much the same condition, though the Colonel does seem
rather warlike with the blood of many deacons in his veins.
One is reminded of Cromwell's Ironsides, whose shouts of joy
at meeting the enemy gave delight to the stern soul of Turrenne.
Trumbull painted two pictures of the battle of Bunker Hill.
The small one, engravings of which are common, is owned by
Yale. The large one 6x9 feet is in the Wadsworth Museum in
Hartford, and was painted later. Trumbull was Aide to Washing-
ton; saw the battle from Roxbury; must have known Colonel
Knowlton well, and by family traditions messed with him. Many
members of the family bear striking resemblance to the picture and
we think it safe to call it a likeness of him.
It is said that one of his young daughters, when riding horse-
back met a gentleman who inquired if she were the daughter of
Colonel Knowlton, remarking that she looked like him, and on her
return she related the incident in great wrath, saying "it was that
damned Knowlton nose."
The picture represents him as wearing a striped waistcoat, and
in his inventory a "streaked jacket" appears, which of course may
be a mere co-incidence.
The inventory amounts to ^764. What the relative value of
money was it would be difficult to tell in what is called the witches
dance of paper money then prevailing. He left notes against
twenty-six persons. From his parents he inherited about ^10 1.
His clothing was valued at ^30, including four military suits and
some equipments, the other personal property was of small value.
He had three military books, a gamut, which I suppose was a
musical book, an arithmetic, four small histories, some bibles and
other books, amounting to 18 shillings 4 pence.
One would like to know what the military books were, and we
are reminded of Myles Standish, who, according to Longfellow,
kept his Bible with his " Artillery Practice " and " Caesar," though
46
he used it chiefly f )r its accounts of Hebrew warfare, and after some
hesitation he passed it by, and took down the Roman Captain, to
learn how to marshal his army of twelve.
His account book has been given, by Dr. Marcy, to the Con-
necticut Historical Society. In it he spells his name " Knolton,"
without any W. In some old records it is spelled " Nolton."
The silk sash given him in Boston was bought by Colonel Gros-
venor, who was in his regiment, and is now owned by Mrs. Alex-
ander, in Philadelphia. It is said that he had it on when he was
killed, and that it is stained with his blood. The plain chest that
contained his military belongings I have. His gun, which was bent
by a ball at Bunker Hill, was taken to be straightened, and lost.
Tastes differ, and I should be glad to get it with the bend still in it.
In his entire career he commanded the respect and confidence
of all who met him, the plain men of Ashford at their own firesides
or in the typical town meeting; the soldiers with whom he stood
shoulder to shoulder; his brother ofihcers; the great chieftain, all
unite in bestowing upon him the highest praise. The estimation oi
Trumbull is shown in the conspicuous position given in his pictures,
the first of which was painted in 1786, and soon engraved and made
familiar to all. I have asked many people to point out the most
conspicuous person in it, and all have designated the colonel.
General Reed, General Dearborn, General Putnam, Colonel Gros-
venor, Captain Trafton, Captain Brown, in fact all known authorities
unite in commending him.
Whatever may be said of Aaron Burr he was singularly gifted
in a keen insight of men, and he frequently made known his high
opinion of Colonel Knowlton, based on personal acquaintance.
In October, 1885, at the Jumel mansion in New York, I met
Mr. Chase, who had studied law with Burr, married his wife's neice
and long been on terms of intimacy with him, who told me that
Burr often spoke of Colonel Knowlton in high terms, saying that it
would have been better if he had had the command at Bunker Hill,
and making other similar suggestions. It is a family tradition, that
after he was shot Washington came to his side to give expression to
his regard for and sympathy with the dying man, and then he was
borne to headquarters where in a short time he died. Frederick
Knowlton, eldest son of the colonel, enlisted at fourteen years and
five months and desired to go with the troops to Bunker Hill, but
his father took away his gun, which was a good one, and gave it to
47 ■
another man and sent the boy away, but later he was found at the
end of the Hne with a young son of Putnam with some discarded
muskets, where the boys hoped to escape notice in the darkness,
this time their dismissal was final. Frederick was with his father in
New York, was in the b ittle of Harlem Heights, went to his father
after he was shot, and was told by him to go back to the fight as he
could do no good there.
It is sometimes said that Anna, his wife, thought that he should
stay at home and care for his family and the important civil office
that he held. On the facts that she had I think she was right. He
had given no proof of such capacity as to call the head of such a
family away from home and the public duties he then had, and he
took the only child old enough to be of use and left the mother with
helple.ss babes. Surely his paternal duties were heavy. It was no
light task for this young woman of thirty-three years to take that
family of eight, of whom one was yet to be, and in her desolate
home begin the long widowhood of thirty-two years. She accepted
it bravely and without a murmur, and above her are words which
accord well with her life, "Remember God did us part, accept it
with a willing heart," Some of her views seemed to have occurred
to Washington, for he sent Frederick home. I like to think of
that chieftain, whom we are apt to regard as over austere, who, in
all the anxiety of a losing campaign, when he felt the great strate-
gical point of the city of New York slipping from his grasp, could yet
find time to consider the sorrows of this sorely stricken family and
send the boy back to his mother.
On November 25, 1893, the Sons of the Revolution in New
York erected a statue of Nathan Hale in City Hall Park and marked
Revolutionary sites with tablets, among them one at One Hundred
and Forty-third street and Seventh avenue, as the place where
Colonel Knowlton and Major Leitch were buried.
Let us not forget that after majority Colonel Knowlton's mili-
tary career was almost wholly confined within fifteen months. Take
any officer in the army and see what of the things for which he is
now held in honor were done before the night of September 16, 1776,
Had the war then ended, what would have been their record? By
his early death he lost the opportunity for future usefulness, and he
lost the renown that attends upon the old age of a well spent life.
Had he lived to as great age as did some of the officers, to as great
age as did some of his children, he might have heard Webster at
48
the laying of the corner stone of Bunker Hill monument and then
had several years yet to live.
The ordinary accounts of the battle of Bunker Hill may be
stated in three propositions: First, the Americans were in a trap;
second, Captain Knowlton g^ot them out of it; third, therefore
great credit is due to the commander of the expedition, if we could
only find out who he was.
We respectfully suggest that Captain Knowlton should receive
the credit for whatever he did. Events point to a more just appre-
ciation of his services. Quite often a subordinate officer shows the
keenest appreciation of the situation. About twenty years before
Bunker Hill, Colonel Washington at Braddock's defeat; about
twenty years after Bunker Hill, Captain Bonaparte at the seige of
Toulon, are well known historical illustrations of this fact. In the
Revolution itself. Captain Douglass suggested to Rodney a novel
plan which destroyed the French navy and placed sea warfare on an
entirely new foundation. It may be interesting to notice that in the
first great battle of the Revolution Captain Knowlton for the Ameri-
cans, in the last great battle of the Revolution Captain Douglass for
the British, by their rare skill largely determined the result.
Colonel Knowlton was a soldier at sixteen, was in several cam-
paigns at Lake George and Ticonderoga. He saw the French flag
finally furled at Montreal and was at the taking of Havana from the
Spanish. He led the first troops that entered Massachusetts. He
opposed the occupation of Bunker Hill, for reasons now universally
accepted. He devised the novel rail fence which successfully
resisted all assaults, saved the Americans from being outflanked and
captured, and was the first place where successful resistance was
made. He so supplied his troops that they alone had abundant
ammunition and were able to cover the retreat. At Harlem Heights
he restored the waning confidence of the American army, gave the
British their first defeat in the open field, and died the soldier's
death under the eye of and with high praise from Washington
himself."
President Knowlton : It is a cause of great regret
to all of us, and it is a serious misfortune that our Sec-
retary and Treasurer, who, with great expenditure of
time and thought, made all the preliminary arrangements
for this meeting, was unable to be present with us
49
to-night, for whatever success has attended the meeting,
and for such enjoyment as you have found in it, we are
indebted to him. His presence would, doubtless, have
prevented some defects and deficiencies which you have
discovered, and would have contributed largely to our
enjoyment. As he is unable to respond in person to
the toast " Lieutenant Daniel Knowlton, of Connecticut,"
he has kindly furnished us a response in writing. It
will be read by Mr. Miner R. Knowlton, of Pough-
keepsie, and Mr. Knowlton will kindly add a contribu-
tion of his own.
"LIEUTENANT DANIEL KNOWLTON
AND His Military Descendants."
" To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die."
Paper prepared by William Herrick Griffith of
Albany, N. Y. Read by Miner Rockwelk Knowlton,
Esq., of Poughkeepsie, N. Y.*
It was with great hesitation that I consented to respond to the
sentiments of this toast, considering that an older descendant could
more fittingly speak of one for whom I have always cherished the
greatest veneration; whose name has ever been so hallowed in my
memory that any poor tribute of mine would seem to fall far short
of the measure of his worth. I believe there was never truer senti-
ment uttered than that of Sir Edmund Burke, who said that "those
who do not treasure up the memory of their ancestors, do not them-
*The response to the toast " Lieutenant Daniel Knowlton and his Military
Descendants " was assigned to his great-great-grandson Mr. William Herrick Griffith,
of Albany, who requested Mr. Miner Rockwell Knowlton, of Poughkeepsie, a great-
grandson of Lieutenant Daniel, to prepare and read special sketches of two of the
descendants, Captain Miner Knowlton and General Nathaniel Lyon.
Owing to severe illness, Mr. Griffith was unable to be present at the banquet,
and in accordance with his desire, Mr. Miner R. Knowlton also read the paper
which Mr. Griffith had prepared.
As there were many toasts to be responded to and the papers were long (they
are here published in full), it was thought best not to read them entire; so that
much of Mr. Griffith's carefully prepared paper and Mr. Knowlton's article on Captain
Miner Knowlton and all of the article on General Lyon, whose record is so well
known and comparatively recent, were omitted; only a few remarks on General
50
selves deserve to be remembered by posterity." We owe it
to those who have gone before us, I think, to show respect to their
struggles and achievements and to give new inspiration to those of
the present who are standing in the radiance which their patriotism,
fidelity and industry kindled for us.
As I have studied the splendid record and read of the sufferings
and victories of this staunch old Connecticut warrior, who never
knew what fear was, I cannot help realizing what it meant to follow
the profession of arms in Lieutenant Knowlton's day. Those men
in good old Connecticut in those days took up arms for principle,
notpay; they shed their life blood and submitted to the torture
of their bodies by Indian arrows and British bayonets, in defence
of their convictions, to preserve their firesides and found a nation,
not for personal gain, or the achievement of military rank or fame.
They were not "the gold lace" soldiers of the Continental Line,
but the bone and sinew of the army which achieved American
independence.
Such an one was Knowlton, who not only gave to his country
the efforts and enthusiasm of his life, but bequeathed to it a splendid
race of soldiers, each one of whom derived from their ancestor
Lieutenant Knowlton, and from him alone, that indomitable
courage, iron fortitude and patriotic ardor which made their records
remarkable. General Nathaniel Lyon, a grandson, who fell fighting
gloriously at Wilson's Creek, in our last war, often acknowledged
the inspiration of his grandsire's life and tenderly revered his
memory. Captain Miner Knowlton, of West Point, who moulded
the early character of our greatest of modern generals, Ulysses S.
Grant, and was the means of fixing in his mmd that practical
science of war which was afterward so valuable to him, inherited
his qualities of pluck and fondness for army life from the same grand
old Revolutionary sire.
It has been erroneously stated that General Nathaniel Lyon
Lyon and an anecdote of him being given. These remarks and the anecdote were
extemporaneous and were not taken down by the stenographer present, and, as the
anecdote was related by Colonel Thomas L. Snead to Mr. Knowlton, and the latter
has since the banquet found it substantially the same in Snead's book " The Fight for
Missouri," he has thought it best to give the story as Colonel Snead wrote it for
publication ; premising it with a condensed recital of Snead's interesting review of
the stirring events that lead up to the interview referred to, which was the crisis in
the affairs of Missouri, where parleying ceased and war began; and adding Snead's
closing tribute to Lyon's great work.
51
imitated and inherited the traits of his great-uncle — Colonel Thomas
Knowlton, younger brother of the Lieutenant, instead of those ol
his grandfather. His own statement of the fact however, and a
logical consideration of the subject, points to but one conclu-
sion as to the ancestor from whom he inherited those talents for war
which made his name renowned.
The record of Daniel Knowlton' s life is an interesting and event-
ful one, and I will briefly sketch it, giving besides a few authentic
anecdotes which serve to illustrate the kind of man he was and the
indomitable pluck he possessed. Baptised in the West Parish of
Boxford, Mass., 31st December, 1738, as it was the custom in those
days eight days after birth, we may safely conclude that he was
born 23rd December, 1738. His father was William Knowlton,
of Ipswich, Mass., born 30th January, 1708, who married Martha
Pinder, daugther of Theophilus Pinder, of Ipswich, Mass., their
banns being published 13th February, 1728. Martha was a grand-
daughter of John Pinder, or Pynder, " a Soldier in ye Countrie's
Service," one of Major Dennison's subscribers in King Phillip's
war, serving in Captain Henchman's and Captain Brattle's compa-
nies during that stormy period. She was the great-granddaughter
of Henry Pinder, who with wife Mary, in the year 1635, embarked
from London in ship '"Susan and Ellen," for America. Henry
above was of the old English family of Pynder, of Lincoln county,
England, and his arms granted in 1538, are registered as follows
in the Herald's College: "Azure, a chevron between three lions'
heads erased argent, guttee de poix ducally crowned or. Crest —
A lion's head erased or, ducally crowned azure."
When Daniel was about two years old and just after the birth of
his brother Thomas, his father, William Knowlton, purchased a farm
in Ashford, Conn., and removed to that place from West Boxford,
Mass. This was late in the year 1740. Daniel's early training was
calculated to exert a powerful influence upon his military career
afterward, and probably did lay the foundation for some of those
deeds of heroism which have made his name revered among his
descendants. When only nineteen years of age we find him enlisted
in the Colonial regiments for service in the French and Indian
wars with his brother Thomas. He got his first smell of powder
in these wars, and early distinguished himself for bravery and
daring, particularly as a scout, being often sent in command of
small parties to reconnoitre in the forest. No duty connected with
52
the long and bloody wars upon the frontiers required more skill or
tact than that of scouting among the wilds of the Indians, where the
slightest indiscretion might betray the venturesome explorer to the
cruelty of the savage. On one of these occasions, while serving in
Captain John Slapp's company, Phineas Lyman's First Connecticut
regiment, in Lord Loudon's expedition to Fort Edward, between
the 15th of March and the 17th of October, 1757, Daniel saved the
life of his companion and friend, Israel Putnam, who had ventured
into the dense forest outside the ramparts of Fort Edward and hav-
ing been attacked by a warlike Indian, was about to be tomahawked,
when Knowlton came to his friend's relief and brought down the
redskin by a timely shot from his musket. This incident explains
the life-long friendship which existed afterward between Putnam
and Daniel Knowlton.
The bravest troopers and fiercest fighters (it has been some-
where remarked), in the battles and bloody encounters of the
French and Indian wars in New York were soldiers of Con-
necticut regiments. At any rate Knowlton did most of his fighting
during this campaign in Northern New York, in and around the
ramparts of Fort Edward, Ticonderoga and vicinity. In June,
I753> we find him serving in Colonel Eleazer Fitch's Third
Connecticut regiment, and Captain Jedediah Fay's company, at
Crown Point. About this time Knowlton captured three men
belonging to a gang of bloodthirsty desperadoes, whose numerous
atrocities had made them extremely odious as well as terrible.
With a small force on hostile territory, it was unsafe either to retain
or dismiss the prisoners. Duly impressed with the claims of self-
preservation, the captors decided that the crimes of the prisoners
entitled them to halters and that the pressing demands of the case
justified no delay; halters were accordingly made from the bark of
hickory saplings by Knowlton' s orders, from which the culprits
were soon dangling between heaven and earth.
From May 7th, 1761, to December 30th, 1761, Daniel served
as a Sergeant in Captain Robert Durkee's company, in Phineas
Lyman's Connecticut regiment, and from March 4, 1762, to
December 4, 1762, in Captain Hugh Ledlie's company of Lyman's
regiment. The above companies having been mustered, served in
the Crown Point expedition. The original muster rolls showing his
services in these campaigns are on file in the State Library at Hart-
ford, Conn. It is not known positively that Daniel rendered service
53
in the Havana expedition, as most of the muster rolls of these reg-i-
ments were lost or destroyed. We have very jj^ood reasons however
for believing that he did, as we have proof of his brother Thomas's
service there and we have proof that they served side by side in
nearly every campaign of the French and Indian war.
Upon returning to Connecticut and his native town, Ashford, in
1763, he married Elizabeth Farnham, on November 3rd, the daughter
of Manassah Farnham, of Windham. Elizabeth was born at
Windham, 10 March, 1742. Her mother was Keziah Ford, daugh-
ter of Joseph Ford, a soldier in King Phillip's war. Daniel's wife
Elizabeth Farnham was granddaughter of Henry Farnham and
Phebe (Russell) Farnham and great-granddaughter of Ralph Farn-
ham and Sarah Sterling. Ralph, father of Ralph above, married
Elizabeth Holt, and was sixth son of Sir John Farnham, of Ouorn-
dam. County Leicester, England, who lived temp. Edward I. The
Farnham arms are registered in Herald's College.
Daniel now enjoyed a brief respite from the hardships of war
and turned his attention to the affairs of his home and family. His
appearance about this time is said to have been that of a very tall,
wiry man, slightly stooping shoulders, high brow, prominent nose,
stern though gentle features, and blue eyes, in one of which there
was a slight cast, the result of the eye being badly lacerated in the
French war, while chasing a band of savages. A projecting bramble
or prickly branch tore the eye partially out of the socket, but the
indomitable will of the soldier prevailed and delaying not a moment,
and as it were ignoring the annoyance, he is said to have pushed
on paying no attention to the pain. His hair was powdered after
tiie fashion of the period. Naturally it is said to have been a light
brown in color. His gentleness and humanity are illustrated by
the following incident, which has erroneously been ascribed by
some to his younger brother, Thomas. One day as Daniel was
riding past the Presbyterian church at Ashford, he noticed a large
crowd congregated about the whipping post, planted in the vicinity
according to the harsh custom of the day. Upon inquiry he learned
that a culprit was to be flogged for non-attendance at church and
for non-payment of dues. When the sentence was read, prepara-
tory to laying on the stripes, observing that the usual clause was
omitted requiring the stripes to be applied to the bare back, he
jumped from his horse and threw his own coat over the shoulders
of the culprit, thus mitigating the force of the blows.
54
Four sons and a daughter were born to Daniel and Elizabeth
during this temporary period of domestic peace and happiness at
Ashford, but the clouds ot revolution were gathering in the Colo-
nies and at the first call to arms we find Knowlton promptly
responding.
Although in a different part of the country and away from home,
yet the spark which burst to flames of righteous indignation in the
souls of that little army at Lexington and Concord, and which later
kept alive that starving band at Valley Forge until the crowning
victory at Yorktown, also fired the loyal soul of Lieutenant
Knowlton, who lived to see the close of that eventful period after
participating in its most desperate encounters. He lived to fight
the battles of his younger brother, the brave Colonel Thomas, slain
almost at the beginning of the conflict.
It is related that the night before the Putnam company marched
to the relief of Boston, " Old Put," as he was called, was noticed to
leave his house and silently walking over to a field adjacent, there
look towards Ashford, standing some little time shading his eyes
with his hands, with a stern look upon his face. Being followed by
a neighbor and upon being asked for whom he was looking, the
old General ejaculated, " Gad Zounds, had I only Daniel Knowlton
to take with me, I'd lick Hell itself."
When Colonel Thomas Knowlton led the Ashford company to
the American headquarters near Boston, shortly after the battle of
Lexington, this same General Putnam, asked the Colonel where his
brother Daniel was. Being informed that he had gone in another
direction the General remarked, "I am sorry that you did not
bring him with you; he alone is worth half a company. Such is
his courage and lack of fear I could order him into the mouth of
a loaded cannon, and he would go."
In June, 1776, Daniel was commissioned Ensign of Colonel John
Chester's Connecticut regiment, Sixth Battalion, Wadsworth's
Brigade, Captain Reuben Marcy's company. Stationed with this
regiment at Flatbush Pass, August 26th, he participated in the
memorable battle of Long Island, August 27th, 1776, where his
entire regiment narrowly escaped capture.*
* The espadata or ensign's staff which was Carried by Knowlton is in the pos-
session at the present time of one of his great-grandsons, Mr. Miner Knowlton, of
Poughkeepsie, N. Y., and the musket which Sergeant Knowlton carried during the
French and Indian and first year of the Revolutionary War, and which saved the life
of Putnam, is now in possession of the writer.
55
Subsequently he was detached from Chester's regiment and
Wadsworth's brigade, and after the battle of Long Island assigned
to Knowlton's Rangers, which his brother Thomas commanded.
He participated with the Rangers at the battle of Harlem Heights,
i6th September, 1776, at which place and during which engagement
his brother was slain. It was related by Trumbull, of Connecticut,
an intimate friend of Colonel Thomas KnoWlton, that upon his
death the news was carried to his brother Daniel, who was fighting
bravely in another part of the field. Upon hearing the sad news he
exclaimed, " We will retrieve my brother's loss," and before the
day was over the loss was partially retrieved by that glorious success
at Harlem Heights, the first decisive victory of the war.
After the battle of Harlem Heights Knowlton returned to
Chester's regiment again and participated in the battle of White
Plains, N.Y., 28th October, 1776. For bravery on the field he was
appointed Second Lieutenant by the State Assembly of one of eight
battalions of troops ordered to be raised. He again rejoined
Knowlton's Rangers on the Harlem lines after the White Plains
engagement, continuing with them and being in the thick of the
fight at Fort Washington, where, with the entire garrison, he was
made a prisoner of war. For about two years he was in the hands
of the enemy, being confined a portion of the time in the old prison-
ship "Jersey," anchored in Wallabout Bay, during which period
he suffered the worst kind of abuse, privation and persecution. On
one occasion it is related, while he was on the "Jersey," when
pacing back and forth on the vessel with his eyes lowered to the
deck, one of his jailors, a British officer, pompously asked him why
he did not hold up his head, like a man and a soldier. Knowlton
quietly replied, "In passing through fields of grain, sir, I have
noticed that the valuable ears or sheaves bow toward the earth, only
the empty and worthless stand erect." The officer thereupon
showed appreciation of the answer by bowing his own head and
leaving the prisoner to pursue his meditations undisturbed. The
infamy and inhuman treatment of American patriots confined on the
"Jersey" and other prison-.<^hips is too well known as a matter of
history to dwell upon at length here. Every persecution that devil-
ish ingenuity could suggest, every refinement of cruelty, was
practiced upon our men by their English guards. Fed upon
decomposed and putrid food; purposely exposed to fearful diseases,
by having victims reeking with contagion thrown into the midst of
56
the crews; not allowed to breathe the fresh air at times, but stuffed
like rats in a charnel house into the holds of the ships; beaten over
the head by a sword, or musket, if they remonstrated, or pierced by
the bayonet for the slightest word of complaint or disrespect, their
wrongs cried to heaven for redress. The memory of the indignities
and cruelties to which he was submitted during those terrible months
were never forgotten or erased from Knowlton's memory. The
very name of " Britain " fired his anger ever after. Long years after
the war, having retired to his home at Ashford, he was accustomed
to attend divine service at a Congregational church at Westford.
One Sabbath day, when the minister gave out a hymn having for
its refrain "Give Britain praise," Lieutenant Knowlton imme-
diately rose up in his seat and requested that this hymn should be
omitted and some other sung in its stead, but the minister paying
no attention to his request and the choir beginning to sing, the old
soldier marched deliberately out of church, declaring that he could
not worship with a congregation that "gave Britain praise for any-
thing," and he never entered that church again.
A part of the time he was imprisoned by the British was passed
in an old meeting house on Long Island. For the space of four
days he was allowed neither food nor drink. At length a compas-
sionate woman, hearing of his conditon, concealed food and a bottle
of water in her clothing and prevailed upon the guard in some way
to allow her to visit the meeting house. She found Knowlton
almost in a dying condition, and but for her timely relief he soon
would have perished. It was about this time that Lieutenant-
Colonel Selah Hart, of Farmington, presented a petition to the
Connecticut Assembly for aid in behalf ot Nathan Allen, Daniel
Knowlton and a few others, which was granted. This quaint, old
document, alluding to our men as "captivated by their enemies,"
is preserved in the archives of Connecticut to this day. The peti-
tion reads as follows :
"Whereas, Lieutenant-Colonel Selah Hart, of Farmington,
hath preferred his memorial to this Assembly, for himself and about
thirty-eight other Continental officers captivated by the enemies of
the United States of America and confined by them on Long Island,
showing to this Assembly that said officers and their families are
reduced to great distress by means of said officers being held in
captivity, the most of them ever since the 15th of September last,
since which they have received no wages or allowances from the
57
United States, or either of them, and that they have spent all their
money, are considerably in debt, and have no means of subsistance;
that they are unable to procure hard money; that paper money or
bills will not pay them; praying- for relief, etc., as per memorial and
a list of said officers names lodged in the files of this Assembly
appears.
Resolved by this Assembly, That the Committee of the Pay-
Table be and they are hereby directed to adjust and settle said
officers' accounts, when produced to them, and to allow to them,
the same wages since their captivity as was allowed to officers ol
their rank in the Continental army at the time they were captured;
and that the committee pay to them, or to said Selah Hart for their
use, the balance due to each of said officers or such part thereof as
on consideration of their case may appear necessary for their relief;
Provided such evidence shall be produced as shall satisfy said com-
mittee that said officers have not received their wages already. And
said committee are directed, if possible, to make said payment, or
considerable part thereof, in hard money, and for that purpose to
draw on the Treasurer of this State for the same or bills of credit
to exchange for the same, and the Treasurer is directed to pay the
same accordingly; and said committee are to charge the sum so
paid to the United States and transmit an account thereof to
General Washington, with the names and offices of the persons to
whom or for whom the same is paid, and the battalion and company
to which they belonged, as soon as they can ascertain the same,
and request the General to give orders that said sum may be
ordered and paid to the Treasurer of this State for the use of this
State."
The following is a fac-simile of receipt given by Daniel Knowl-
ton for money received from Lieutenant-Colonel Hart :
48-
N«- 13. Received Long Island June 3^ 1777 of Coll.
Selah Heart Eight Pounds Lavvf'} Money in part of
my Wages in Col° John Chesters Regt
^ Daniel Knolton, Ens
58
While in captivity news came to Daniel from his home at Ash-
ford, that a daughter had been born to him (Martha, born 24 Feb-
ruary 1777).
Upon being exchanged with other prisoners, Daniel was
assigned as Lieutenant to Captain Joshua Bottom's company, Lieu-
tenant-Colonel Levi Well's regiment, and participated with them in
the Battle of Horseneck, 9th December, 1780, where he was again
taken prisoner. Upon being released he was given a brief leave of
absence to visit his home in Ashford, and soon after, 9th February,
1781, his daughter Keziah was born.
Enlisting again, he was commissioned First Lieutenant. He
served in that capacity in Captain Benjamin Durkee's company of
Mattrosses, in the Provisional Regiment stationed at Fort Trum-
bull, New London, Ct. , from July 16, 1782, until the close of the
war and the army was disbanded. He was given occasional leave
of absence. Another daughter, Hannah, was born to him, while in
service, (19th April, 1783).
It has been asked by some persons, why did not Knowlton
receive the military rank which was his due ? This was owing to
the fact that he was a prisoner of war much of the time and also
because he refused advancement on one or two occasions, preferring
to serve in that station where he could serve his country best.
Bold, stern and intrepid as a lion in the battlefield, he was retiring,
non-assertive, and in private life inclined to belittle his achievements.
Nothing was more distasteful to his mind than display or ostentatious
show.
As I read the simple inscription on his gravestone in the West-
ford Hill Cemetery ("A Patriot of the Revolution") I turned to
one of his oldest descendants and inquired why a more fitting tribute
to his deeds had not been erected over the grave of the hero. (Go
down in Windham county now and you will find many who have been
and still are, asking this question.) He gave me an answer character-
istic of the Knowltons. ' ' The best acknowledgment of a man's ser-
vices to his race is rendered when his countrymen demand with
surprise why his deeds are not more publicly appreciated."
After the war was over he retired to private life at Ashford and
occupied himself with the humble pursuits of his farm life. He met
with a severe affliction in the death of his wife Elizabeth, who passed
away June I, 1786. He married a second time 24th April, 1788,
Rebecca Fenton, of Willington, by whom he had two sons, Erastus
59
Fenton and Marvin He met his death from the effects of a fall in
the barn attached to the place at Ashford, 31 May, 1825. His
gravestone in the cemetery at Westford bears the following:
" Lieutenant DANIEL KNOWLTON,
A Patriot of the Revolution.
Died May 31st, 1825,
aged 86 years."
We heard many express surprise at Hartford, last November,
that even the name of the elder brother and companion of the brave
Thomas Knowlton was not mentioned (the omission being uninten-
tional however, we presume), while that of the grandson Lyon,
occured often. But for this Veteran of three wars (for he is also
said to have served in the second struggle for Independence), no
fulsome praise, public monuments, or rhetorical efforts are neces-
sary. In the hearts of his followers his memory will ever be hal-
lowed. He needs no visible memorial, for his deeds speak for him,
and loving hands will ever treasure those memorials and annals of
his life, and guard the home of one of nature's noblemen.
" He lived, when patriot faith was strong.
When leap'd to right their country's wrong
Unflinching hearts and hands;
When but one Arnold stained her fame,
And like a beacon black with shame
His hateful memory stands.
He dared to go where any led.
He dared to lead though hope had fled;
This ancestor of ours;
Whose spirit Britain ne'er could tame,
And Putnam, too. well known to fame,
Bold Knowlton's cause approved.
Doth any monument arise,
And spread fair tablet to the skies,
A future race to show
The dauntless soul that never quailed ?
The truthful creed that never failed ?
His people answer " No! "
But yet those virtues pure and true.
Which friend and wife, and hearth-stone knew.
His life of Christian love;
Earth's marble is too poor to keep.
They for such eyes as never weep
Write history above."
6o
Of his military descendants General Nathaniel Lyon and Cap-
tain Miner Knowlton achieved renown in the civil struggle of our
times.
(See Sketches by Miner R. Knowlton, of Poughkeepsie.)
Lieutenant Daniel's eldest son, Daniel, was a captain of militia
in the Revolution; Captain Daniel's son, Nathaniel, served with
credit in the War of 1812, and his son Phineas, now living at Spring-
field, served in the last war.
Lieutenant Daniel's second son, Nathaniel, sers^ed with his
father in the Revolution, as a boy, going along to carry ammuni-
tion. When he grew up he served in the war of 181 2, as did his
sons W'illiam and Farnham, the former being pensioned by the
government. Two of Farnham's sons, now living, have made
brilliant records. Miner N. of Chicago, and Ingersoll F. of West-
chester county. Miner N. Knowlton entered the U. S. Navy in
1862, as a regular in the Engineer Corps, and was appointed Third
Assistant Engineer; was promoted to Second Engineer in 1866;
was on the U. S. Steamer " Unadilla " in the capture of Charleston,
S. C, and was on blockade duty off that port for about eighteen
months until it was captured. Was also on the " Patuxet " in the
fights at Fort Fisher, and was among the first to enter Richmond
after Lee's retreat and while that city was in flames. In 1867 was
ordered to the " Iroquois" and went to China and on a long Indian
voyage on the iron- clad " Terror." At the close of the war he was
appointed inspector of frigates. He resigned in November, 1872,
and his name can be found in any Naval Register.
Ingersoll Knowlton, brother of Miner N., enlisted in the Engi-
neer Corps of the Navy, and sailed from the Brooklyn Navy Yard
on the U. S. Steamer "Circassian" for Port Royal. He then
joined the U. S. Steamer ''Conemaugh," at Georgetown River, S. C.
He was in the engagement under Admiral Dupont. when the fleets
bombarded the forts in Charleston harbor, after w'hich the "Cone-
maugh" was sent north for repairs. In January, 1864, on board
the "Conemaugh," he participated in the engagement in Mobile
Bay under Rear Admiral Farragut, when the rebel ram "Atlanta"
was captured and the U. S. Iron-clad " Tecumseh " was sunk with
all on board by a rebel torpedo. After serving in the Gulf States
for several months the " Conemaugh " came north for repairs, and
he resigned in 1S65.
A grandson of Ephraim (fifth child of Lieutenant Daniel),
6i
Frank Eastman, served in the U. S. navy from the beginning to the
close of the War of the Rebellion.
Manassah (second and twin son of Lieutenant Daniel), held a
Lieutenant's and Captain's commission in Rensselaer County, N. Y.,
Militia, War of 1812. One of his sons, Isaac, rendered valuable
service in the New York State Militia during the same war; par-
ticipated in the Battle of Plattsburgh; was granted a pension and
land in Rensselaer county, N. Y., in consideration of his military
services.
"Captain Miner Knowlton and General Nathaniel
Lyon, military descendants of Lieutenant Daniel Knowl-
ton, with the anecdote of Snead relatino; to General
Lyon."
Paper prepared and read by Mr. Miner Rockwell
Knowlton, as a part of Mr. Griffith's toast on the mili-
tary descendants of Lieutenant Daniel Knowlton.
CAPTAIN MINER KNOWLTON.
(Grandson of Lieutenant Daniel Knowlton.)
Record from Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography,
Volume in.
"KNOWLTON, MINER, soldier, born in Connecticut, in 1804; died in Bur-
lington, N. J., December 25, 1870. He was graduated at the U. S. Military Academy,
in 1829, and commissioned a Lieutenant in the ist Artillery, to which regiment he
was attached till he was retired, rising to the grade of Captain, in 1846. In 1830-7
he served as Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the Military Academy; in 1833-7,
as Assistant Teacher of French, and in 1837-44, as Instructor of Artillery and Cavalry.
As a member of the Artillery Board he aided in the compilation of the "Instructions
for Field Artillery," that were adopted 6th March, 1845, ^°^ '^e service of the United
States.
With a view of studying Foreign Military Science, he went to Algeria in 1845,
and served on the staff of Marshal Bugeaud.
He was at Corpus Christi during the military occupation of Texas, and in the
war with Mexico in mustering volunteers into service on the Rio Grande, and in the
recruiting service and on engineer duty.
He was on leave of absence from September, 1849, till 1861, when he retired
from active service for disability, resulting from disease and exposure in the line of
duty.
Captain Knowlton was the author of " Notes on Gunpowder, Cannon and Pro-
jectiles" (1840), and the compiler of "Instructions and Regulations for the Militia
and Volunteers of the United States" 1861."
62
Captain Knowlton was a grandson of Lieutenant Daniel Knowl-
ton, and a grand nephew of Colonel Thomas Knowlton, both
Revolutionary heroes.
At the last officers' mess that Captain Knowlton attended, at
the time of ending his long and arduous duties as Instructor at
West Point, in 1S44, he was stricken with Epilepsy.
He was always an ambitious student, while performing his
duties as Instructor in Mathematics, French, Artillery and Cavalry;
and he finally broke down from over study. For this reason he
obtained furlough, and visited many foreign countries, in the hope
of overcoming the malady; yet always striving to inform himself in
military affairs, and always conscientiously giving to the govern-
ment the benefit of all information he acquired of foreign armaments
and methods.
Thus we find him after leaving West Point, in the French
Army, in Algeirs, and later in Bermuda, and in Havana, Cuba, on
delicate and special service for the government, and doing recruit-
ing service and engineering work on the Rio Grande, although
incapacitated through disease for service in the field. The falling-
sickness never left him, and at the breaking out of the war of the
Rebellion, being then 57 years old, and the oldest Captain in the
Artillery, he retired from active service, and spent the remainder of
his life at Burlington, N. J., where he had gone to secure necessary
quiet, and where he organized a company of home guards, known
as the " Knowlton Rifles."
He was the Instructor of Lee, Grant, Beauregard, Lyon and all
the prominent West Point officers, both Union and Confederate,
who took part in the Civil War.
An ardent Republican, he was always courteous to those who
differed from him in politics.
Captain Knowlton was more the student than the fighter, and
added to the inborn courtesy of the old school and the trained
etiquette of the regular army officer; the breadth of view and the
charity of a highly educated and liberal-minded man.
He was never married, yet he built a beautiful home for himself
in Burlington, where he entertained his friends and his old army
comrades; and although he expended money generously and
charitably such were his habits, from the early training in Connecticut,
that through good management and intelligent investment of ac-
63
cumulated savings from the modest pay of an army officer, he left
a handsome fortune at his death.
Captain Knowlton is buried in St. Mary's Churchyard, Burl-
ington, N. J., and his monument is capped with ?i.fac simile in stone
of a mortar ready for discharge, and the inscription reads:
" Our aim is always heavenward, for
God and for our Country."
Ashbel Woodword inscribed his " Life of General Lyon" to
Captain Knowlton as "a tribute to patroitism, integrity and dis-
tinguished attainments, and a memorial of old and uninterrupted
friendship."
Captain Knowlton fostered the military instincts of the descend-
ants of Lieutenant Daniel Knowlton; and it is believed that his
example largely influenced Lyon in adopting a military career, and
that thereafter Lyon was guided and influenced in military and
other matters by the precepts and opinions of the relation and
friend who fourteen years his senior, was his teacher and the
respected comrade of the older and then more distinguished officers
of the army.
The publication of the Life of Lyon, for distribution among his
relations and for the public libraries, was mainly due to Captain
Knowlton, and it is probable that it was at his request that his
friend Ashbel Woodward edited the pamphlet, with a miniature
engraving of the Battle of Bunker Hill, in memory of Colonel
Thomas Knowlton.
GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON,
(Grandson of Lieutenant Daniel Knowlton.)
Record from Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography,
Volume IV.
"NATHANIEL LYON, soldier, born in Ashford, Conn., 14th July, 1818; died
near Wilson's Creek, Mo., loth August, 1861. He was graduated at the U. S. Mili-
tary Academy in 1841, assigned to the 2d Infantry, and served in Florida during the
latter part of the Seminole war. He was engaged at the siege of Vera Cruz, pro-
moted 1st Lieutenant while on the march to the city of Mexico, and commanded his
company throughout the subsequent campaign, receiving the brevet of Captain for
gallantry at Contreras and Churubusco. In the assault on the city of Mexico he was
wounded at the Belen Gate. At the close of the war he was ordered to California,
and in 1850 he conducted a successful expedition against the Indians of Clear Lake
and Russian river in northern California, receiving the praise of General Persifer F.
Smith for the rapidity and secrecy of his marches, and his skilful dispositions on the
64
ground. He was promoted Captain on nth June, 1851, and in 1853, returned with
his Regiment to the Kast. While listening to the debates in Congress over the
Kansas-Nebraska Bill, his sympathies were engaged in behalf of the Negro, although
he had been hitherto an earnest Democrat. In 1854, he was sent to Fort Riley, and
during the height of the contest for the possession of Kansas, manifested his
sympathy with the Free State parly, and gave it his aid and support. In 1856, when
the troops were ordered to enforce the laws against the Abolitionists, Lyon seriously
contemplated resigning his commission, that he might not be employed " as a tool in
the hands of evil rulers for the accomplishment of evil ends "; but he was saved from
the necessity of doing so by being ordered to the Dakota frontier. He was on duty
again in Kansas, in 1859, and was with General William S. Harney, in December,
i860, when the Governor of Missouri sent a Brigade of Militia to co-operate with
the National troops in arresting James Montgomery. He was left by Harney at Fort
Scott, but wished to be nearer the scene of the impending conflict in which, he
wrote on 27th January, 1861, "I certainly expect to expose, and very likely shall lose
my life." In the beginning of February, he was ordered to St. Louis. There he
contested with Major Peter V. Hagner, whom he suspected of Southern sympathies,
the command of the arsenal; but his appeal to General Harney, and then to President
Buchanan, was unavailing. He was soon in close accord with Francis P. Blair, Jr.,
and the other Unionist leaders, and at once began to drill and organize the Home
Guards. A few days before President Lincoln's inauguration, Blair went to Wash-
ington to persuade General Scott and the President of the necessity of giving the
command of the arsenal to Lyon, but without success. An attempt of the Seces-
sionist Minute Men to provoke a conflict on inauguration day decided the new ad-
ministration to place Lyon in command of the troops on 13th March, 1861 ; yet the
order was qualified by instructions from General Harney, still leaving in charge of
Major Hagner the arms and materials of war which Lyon intended in the event of a
collision to distribute among the Home Guards. While Governor Claiborne F.
Jackson was promoting the organization of Secessionists Militia, and after he had
placed the police 'of St. Louis under the control of Basil W. Duke, the leader of the
Minute Men, and after the municipal election of 1st April, 1861, had transferred the
city government into the hands of the Secessionists, General Harney revoked his
recent order and gave Lyon entire charge of the arsenal, arms and stores. Before
the bombardment of Fort Sumter, Lyon had strengthened the fortifications and
mounted heav\' siege-guns and mortars that commanded the city and its river
approaches. On the President's call for troops. Governor Jackson prepared to plant
batteries on the hill overlooking the arsenal. Lyon at once communicated with
Governor Richard Yates, who, by the President's orders, sent three regiments of the
Illinois quota to support the garrison in St. Louis. Lyon was at the same time com-
manded, according to his own suggestion, to turn over 10,000 stand of arms to the
Illinois State authorities. Blair had procured in Washington another order authorizing
Captain Lyon to issue 5,000 stand of arms for arming loyal citizens. Harney inter-
fered to prevent the arming of volunteers, and ordered l-yon, who had placed guards
in the streets in violation of the city ordinances, to withdraw his men within the
arsenal, but for this was removed from the command of the department on 2 1st
April. On the same day Captain Lyon was ordered to muster into the service the
four regiments, constituting Missouri's quota, which the Governor had refused to
65
furnish. Without regard to seniority he assumed command on the departure of
Harney, and from that time was recognized by the government as commanding the
department. On the night of 26th April, he secretly sent away to Illinois all the
munitions of war that were not needed for the four regiments, which were speedily
organized and equipped. Although the removal of the arms from the arsenal frus-
trated the Governor's object in ordering the Militia into camp at St. Louis, it was
decided to hold the encampment nevertheless Daniel M. Frost's brigade, number-
ing now, after all the Union men had withdrawn, about 700 men, went into camp on
the 6th of May, in a grove in the western part of the city, which they called Camp
Jackson. Having been authorized by a dispatch from the Secretary of War, Lyon in
May mustered in five regiments, called the Home Guards or U. S. Reserve Corps
in addition to five regiments of Missouri volunteers that had been organized in April.
The volunteers were recruited almost entirely from the German population, as the
native born and the Irish were Secessionists. On the loth of May he surrounded
Camp Jackson, and made prisoners of war of the entire corps of Militia, In the
camp were siege-guns that Jefferson Davis had sent from New Orleans at the request
of Governor Jackson. When General Harney resumed command he approved the
capture of Camp Jackson, but refused to carry out Lyon's plan for immediate opera-
tions against the hostile forces that the Governor was organizing in pursuance of an
act of the Legislature. On 31st May, in accordance with an order that Blair had
obtained from the President, Lyon, who had been commissioned as Brigadier
General of volunteers on 17th May and appointed to the command of the brigade of
German recruits, relieved General Harney of the command of the Department
of the West, The Governor and General Sterling Price, in an interview with
General Lyon, sought to obtain from him a renewal of the agreement General
Harney had made to respect the neutrality of the State; but Lyon insisted on the
right of the U. S. government to enlist men in Missouri, and to move its troops
within or across the State. Open hostilities followed. Lyon sent troops to the
southwestern part of the State in order to meet an apprehended advance of Con-
federate troops from Arkansas, and cut off the retreat of the Governor and the State
troops, while with another force he advanced on Jefferson City, of which he took pos-
session on 15th June, the State forces having evacuated it two days before, and then
on the enemy's new headquarters at Booneville, where he routed Colonel John S.
Marmaduke's force on 17th June. His sudden movement placed him in command
of the entire State except the southwestern corner. On 3d July he left Boonville to
continue the pursuit of Price, but when he learned that the Missourians had defeated
Sigel at Carthage, and effected a junction with the Confederate troops under General
Ben. McCulloch, he halted at Springfield to await re-enforcements. On learning that
the Confederates were marching on his position, he advanced to meet them, although
he supposed that they outnumbered his force four to one, but, after a skirmish at Dug •
Spring, retreated to Springfield again when he found that their three columns had
joined. On 9th August, considering a retreat more hazardous than a battle, he
decided to surprise the Confederates in their camp on Wilson's Creek at daybreak the
next morning. He turned their position and attacked their rear, while General
Franz Sigel, at the head of another column, assailed their right flank. Sigel, after
driving back the enemy, was defeated through mistaking one of their regiments for
Iowa troops. Lyon perceiving new troops coming to the support of Price, brought
66
all his men to the front for a final effort. His horse was killed and he was wounded
in the head and leg, hut, mounting another horse, he dashed to the front to rally his
wavering line, and was shot through the breast, expiring almost instantly. Major
Samuel D. Sturgis, who was left in command, soon afterward ordered a retreat. Of
the 5,000 National troops 1,317 were killed, wounded, or taken prisoners, while of
the Confederates, who were 10,000 strong, 1,230 were killed or wounded. The
National forces fell back on Springfield in good order and retreated thence to RoUa,
while General McCulloch, the Confederate commander, refused to pursue. Lyon's
movement, though resulting in defeat, had enabled the Union men in Missouri to
organize a government and array the power of the State on the National side.
General Lyon bequeathed $30,000 constituting nearly his entire property, to the
government, to aid in the preservation of the Union. A series of articles, written
while he was on duty in Kansas, in advocacy of the election of Abraham Lincoln,
and printed in a local newspaper, were collected into a volume with a memoir, and
published under the title of " The Last Political Writings of General Nathaniel
Lyon " (New York, 1862). See also a memoir by Dr. Ashbel Woodward (Hartford,
1862); James Peckham's "Life of Lyon" (New York, 1866); R. I Holcombe's
" Account of the Battle of Wilson's Creek"; and "The Fight for Missouri," by
Thomas L. Snead (New York, 1886)."
LYON ANECDOTE RELATED BY SNEAD.
The anecdote of Snead concerns the Planter's House (St.
Louis,) inter\'iew, where Lyon virtually declared war against the
State of Missouri.
Snead' s book is entitled " The Fight for Missouri," "from the
election of Lincoln to the death of Lyon," and while written from a
Southern standpoint, it is eminently fair; and his active work in the
political field, and later as Aide-de-Camp of the Rebel Governor
Jackson, and acting Adjutant-General of the Missouri State Guard,
entitles his book to be considered authoritative. This book was
published by Charles Scribner's Sons, in 1886; and it would be well
for anyone desiring to read up on the events that led up to the War
of the Rebellion, and the situation that existed in the border states
before open hostilities commenced, to consult this book.
Claiborne F. Jackson, Governor, was Southern in birth and
sympathies, and while he thought that the conflict was inevitable;
in his inaugural address, after the secession of South Carolina, he
said: " I am not without hope that an adjustment alike honorable to
both sections may be effected, * ^ * but in the present unfavor-
able aspect of public affairs it is our duty to prepare for the worst."
This he was actively doing while Francis P. Blair, Jr., was striving
to enlarge the Unconditional Union party, and to have the command
of the Federal troops and the St. Louis arsenal transferred from
apathetic Major Hagner to aggressive Captain Lyon.
67
After innumerable discouragements, Lyon finally obtained com-
mand; greatly strengthened the defences of the arsenal and erected
batteries and mounted heavy siege-guns and mortars to command
the river approaches and the city itself; in order to have rebellious
St. Louis at his mercy, and thus to be able to dictate the course of
the State. Jackson was talking State's Rights and preparing for
war under the guise of armed neutrality.
General Harney was again given command over Lyon; and
with General Sterling Price, now in command of the organizing
State Militia, under Governor Jackson's authority, made what is
known as the Price- Harney agreement, which avowed that the
object of each was "to restore peace and good order to the people
of the State in subordination to the laws of the General and State
Governments." This gave great offence to Blair and Lyon, who
were prepared to overrun the State, and in a written memorandum
for the guidance of Dr. Bernays, whom Lyon sent to Washington,
Lyon says: "Tell the President to get my hands untied and I will
warrant to keep this State in the Union.
The last effort to save Missouri from the horrors of war was
made at the Planter's House interview, at St. Louis, June ii, 1861.
It was asked for by Jackson and Price, and granted by Lyon, who
was again in command, the latter giving a safe conduct for Governor
Jackson, General Price, and the Governor's Aide, Colonel Snead,
to St. Louis and return to Jefferson City. Lyon came to the
Planter's House, where the Governor was stopping, accompanied
by Blair and Major Conant. his Aide-de-Camp, for the conference.
Snead says: " Lyon opened it by saying 'that the discussion on the
part of his Government would be conducted by Colonel Blair, who
enjoyed its confidence in the very highest degree and was author-
ized to speak for it.' Blair was, in fact, better fitted than any man
in the Union to discuss with Jackson and Price the grave questions
then at issue between the United States and the State of Missouri,
and in all her borders there were no men better fitted than they to
speak for Missouri on that momentous occasion. But, despite the
modesty of his opening, Lyon was too much in earnest, too zealous,
too well informed on the subject, too aggressive, and too fond of
disputation to let Blair conduct the discussion on the part of his
Government. In half an hour it Was he that was conducting it,
holding his own at every point against Jackson and Price, masters
though they were of Missouri politics, whose course they had been
68
directing and controlling for years, while he was only Captain of an
infantry regiment on the Plains. He had not, however, been a
mere soldier in those days, but had been an earnest student of the
very questions that he was now discussing, and he comprehended
the matter as well as any man, and handled it in the soldierly way
to which he had been bred, using the sword to cut knots that he
could not untie. It was to no purpose that they all sought, or pre-
tended to seek, the basis of a new agreement for maintaining the
peace of Missouri. If they really sought to find one they did not.
Finally, when the conference had lasted four or five hours, Lyon
closed it, as he had opened it. 'Rather,' said he (he was still seated
and spoke deliberately, slowly, and with a peculiar emphasis),
'rather than concede to the State of Missouri the right to demand
that my Government shall not enlist troops within her limits, or
bring troops into the State whenever it pleases, or move its troops
at its own will into, out of, or through the State; rather than con-
cede to the State of Missouri for one single instant the right to
dictate to my Government in any matter, however unimportant, I
would (rising as he said this, and pointing in turn to every one in
the room) see you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and every
man, woman and child in the State, dead and buried.' Then turn-
ing to the Governor, he said: 'This means war ! In an hour one ot
my officers will call for you and conduct you out of my lines; ' and
then, without another word, without an inclination of the head, with-
out even a look, he turned upon his heel and strode out of the
room, rattling his spurs and clanking his sabre, while we, whom he
left, and who had known each other for years, bade farewell to each
other courteously and kindly and separated — Blair and Conant to
fight for the Union, we for the land of our birth."
The writer's recollection of Snead's relation to him of this
interview was given at the banquet and differs only at the close, as
follows: "Lyon said in answer to Jackson's plan, and pointing to
each one and finally to himself, 'rather than agree that my Govern-
ment shall submit to a proposition of that kind, I will see you, and
you, and you, and you, and you, and myself dead and buried ' ; then
taking out his watch, he said: 'Gentlemen, it is now twelve o'clock,
one hour will be given to you for dinner. At one o'clock a carriage
will be in readiness at the ladies' entrance of the hotel to escort you
out of my lines, and time will be given for you to go; if after that
time you are found within my military jurisdiction, I shall consider
69
you as prisoners of war.' Snead said: 'We all looked to see who
this little red-headed captain was', adding, 'that he turned on his
heel and left the room, his spurs rattling and sabre clanking as he
went.' Snead also added, with a merry twinkle in his eye, "we left,
and if we had not burnt our bridges behind us he would have
caught us."
This is given because, in the last part of Snead' s published
account of that interview, there is perhaps a little of the glamour of
the "Southern Gentleman" contrasted with an implied lack ol
etiquette on Lyon's part. Lyon was a soldier and an Abolitionist.
Long before the war he predicted it, and he knew at that interview,
that he was dealing with traitors to his Government, who were tem-
porizing to gain time.
Snead, who was a genial and fair minded man, paid the follow-
ing tribute to Lyon at the close of his able book. He says: "Lyon
had not fought and died in vain. Through him the Rebellion
which Blair had organized, and to which he himself had given force
and strength, had succeded at last. By capturing the State Militia
at Camp Jackson and driving the Governor from the Capitol, and
all his troops into the uttermost corner of the State, and by holding
Price and McCuUoch at bay, he had given the Union men of
Missouri time, opportunity and courage to bring their State Con-
vention together again, and had given the Convention an excuse
and the power to depose Governor Jackson and Lieut. -Governor
Reynolds, to vacate the seats of the members of the General
Assembly, and to establish a State Government, which was loyal to
the Union and which would use the whole organized power of the
State, its Treasury, its Credit, its Militia and all its great resources,
to sustain the Union and crush the South. All this had been done
while Lyon was boldly confronting the overwhelming strength of
Price and McCulloch. Had he abandoned Springfield instead, and
opened to Price a pathway to the Missouri; had he not been willing
to die for the freedom of the negro and for the preservation of the
Union, none of these things would have been done. By wisely
planing, by boldly doing, and by bravely dying, he had won the
fight for Missouri."
Lyon's work is so much a matter of history that it does not
need corroboration, but, in this connection, it is of interest to state
that in a conversation had with General Grant, at West Point, during
70
his second term as President, he stated to the writer that Lyon saved
the State of Missouri for the North.
Snead's tribute has special significance, coming as it does from
a Southern officer, who was a prominent actor in the poHtical
manoeuvres to obtain control of the State in the interests of Seces-
sion, and who wielded a sword against Lyon at Wilson's Creek,
where the hero lost his life.
Surely the grandson of Lieutenant Daniel Knowlton had
inherited his grandfather's keen judgment and fearless spirit and
had proved himself worthy of his ancestry.
President Knowlton : Massachusetts has always
had a tender feeling for her sister State, Connecticut,
which shares with her the distinction of being the home
of many generations of the Knowlton family. We
have with us to-night as a representative of that State, a
gentleman to whom we are all greatly indebted for his
graphic and beautiful historical address on Colonel
Thomas Knowlton on the occasion of the unveiling of
the statue, and I will ask Hon. P. H. Woodward of
Hartford, Ct., to speak on
"THE 'GOOD OLD STATE'
OF CONNECTICUT."
"They love their land becaue it is their own,
And scorn to give aught other reason why;
Would shake hands with a king upon his throne.
And think it kindness to his majesty." — Halleck.
Responded to by Hon. P. H. Woodward of
Hartford, Ct., as follow^s :
Two. or three months after the close of the war I was on a train
coming from Georgia, and among the passengers was an antiquated
female who attracted my attention and the attention of all the rest.
It was a time when the ladies of the North were dressing in elaborate
skirts, but the fashion had not then reached the South, and this lady
looked a little like a closed umbrella with the draperies hanging
around the staff; but she was very kind-hearted; she had a basket
71
of lunch which she distributed among the passengers. I fell into
conversation with her. She was extremely bitter against the
Yankees; she did not suspect that I was one, but I listened with
pleasure, and after a while I told her she was born in Connecticut.
She looked at me and said she was. She was then going up to
Kentucky to visit some friends of hers she had not seen for a long
time. About four or five weeks afterwards I was on a train going
from Memphis to Atlanta and I met that same antiquated female
again, and we fell into conversation, and she told me that one thing
had been bothering her, and that was how I found out she was born
in Connecticut. I was not under oath; we had had some friendly
conversation, and I wanted to part in a friendly way, so collecting
my thoughts as well as I could I told her that the ladies who were
born and raised in Connecticut had a sweetness of voice and ele-
gance of diction that we did not find to any great extent down
in Georgia. She looked down for a moment and then raised her
eyes with a heavenly smile and said, " Well, I guess there is some-
thing in that."
Well, I am not under oath to-night, and I am not going to tell
any wrong stories about Connecticut, and the truth answers our
purpose a great deal better.
In connection with the spontaneity of the movement of Eastern
Connecticut during the war I have often wondered why Eastern
Connecticut sympathized with Massachusetts. You know Massa-
chusetts began right away to quarrel with the Crown ; it was here that
the Church and State was united. In the Connecticut colony we
never had any connection; but here until 1680 no man could enter
political life, could not hold office or vote unless he was a member
of the Church. If our friend, Boss Hanna and all the other bosses
at St. Louis, and the bosses three weeks hence left in Chicago, had
lived in Boston in 1680, their first object would have been to get
into the Church. In 1680 the clergy had the State by the throat,
and that continued until Andros came over and succeeded in taking
away that charter.
I am very proud of my Massachusetts ancestry. I would not
say a word to reflect upon Massachusetts. You have had a history
such as no other State in the Union has had, but it was a misfortune
that Church and State were imited. Over here when Andros came
Increase Mather stood up here in a church in Boston and encouraged
the people to defy the British Crown, and to resist by every means
72
in their power the surrender of the charter. It was a theological
movement, but it was a good thing that Church and State were
disunited.
Down in Connecticut we had no quarrel with the Crown. We
had no grievance, except that the Crown was interfering with all
the colonies in the natural laws of trade. We lived under a charter
secured by George II, as late as 17 14, and four-fifths of the people
preferred to live under that charter. We had an aristocratic form
of government built up under that security, and the masses of the
people were practically excluded from much of any participation in
the breaking up of that charter, and although we were getting along
so comfortably with the Crown, still Eastern Connecticut was aflame
through sympathy with Massachusetts. They had a company of
nearly a hundred men, one of the finest companies in the Conti-
nental army, a company so fine that a few months later it was by
common consent made the body guard of Washington during the
siege of Cambridge. Many of the men had served in the French
and Indian War. They knew what a soldier was. They knew there
were troubles ahead which wanted the best men to be found, and
they all by common consent turned to Captain Thomas Knowlton,
and said he must be captain. It was a spontaneous, common
movement to get him ahead. Where a man's neighbors all pro-
nounce him to be a good, competent man, you may take it for
granted that the verdict is true, and in this case it proved preemi-
nently so. He took the command. When the battle of Bunker
Hill comes to be written finally (a great deal about that battle has
passed into oblivion never to be recalled), but some time the whole
story will be told by a man with a mastery of the facts, and with a
philosophical mind, and in that day Colonel Knowlton will be
recognized as the ablest man. He certainly had no superior.
(Applause.)
When Colonel Prescott saw the movement of the British he
ordered Knowlton to go down and dispute the landing. It was one
of the most absurd orders given. There were few cannon. Here
was a man with two hundred tired and exhausted soldiers ordered
to dispute the landing of fifteen hundred men. Captain Knowlton
knew that obedience to that order meant destruction to himself and
to the men, but he saw the purpose of the British. He saw it was
the design of Colonel Howe to get in the rear of the redoubt and
capture the garrison, and instead of obeying the order of Colonel
73
Prescott he commenced the defense behind the rail fence. Now, a
few years ago, one of your distinguished townsmen wrote a very
scathing article on the battle of Bunker Hill, in which he gives the
reasons why the Hill should not have been occupied.
Charles Francis Adams says that both sides did nothing but
blunder, but the British blundered so much worse than the Ameri-
cans that we, perhaps, came off victors; but he, perhaps, goes too
far. Colonel Knowlton was undoubtedly right in the position, the
occupation of the fence rail. Howe lost the battle, as he always
failed, by dilatories; if he had marched forward as soon as he landed
without waiting for reinforcements he would have captured the gar-
rison; taken, perhaps, the whole State, but no man can tell anything
about the mystery that enshrouded the Bunker Hill of that day;
but if Howe had gone forward promptly he would have reached the
rear of the redoubt and captured it.
There was another brave soldier, Colonel Stark. He saw just
what Knowlton saw, the purpose of General Howe. He continued
the line begun by Knowlton to the river. There was where the
battle was lost and won, against that rail fence. The British were
paralyzed. Prescott did his work well, did it admirably; but if one
should attempt to prove him to be a great soldier it would be diffi-
cult to find arguments to support it. He did his work well that
day. If Knowlton had obeyed his order we probably would not be
meeting here to night.
Connecticut is a subject that has no beginning and no end.
One could go on forever and forever, so I will close by giving a few
personal recollections of the Knowlton family.
My father, Captain Miner Knowlton and Mr. William W.
Marcy — who married a granddaughter of Colonel Knowlton — all
grew up together, and sixty or sixty-five years ago those three men
began in the most careful and exhaustive way to collect what infor-
mation they could with regard to the career of Daniel Knowlton
during the Revolution, during the French and Indian Wars, and
especially the part performed by the Connecticut troops at the battle
of Bunker Hill.
I remember, when I was a very small child, and my father was
a physician in large practice and returned occasionally to his native
town, that he took me with him to review old Revolutionary soldiers
who have passed away, and these facts were carefully taken down
and compared, and they have been in my mind ever since, and the
74
substance of them were given in that address to which your President
has referred, but the part of Colonel Knowlton in that fight has
never been adequately described; that is, it has not come down as
a part of current history of our times. Really our ancestors are
very largely what we make them. The old town of Ashford has
run down a great deal. Most of the old families have passed away.
You have had a long account of Captain Miner Knowlton; he
was a frequent visitor at my father's, a man of sweet, beautiful
character. Early in the war he told us the soldiers who were to be
conspicuous on both sides, and his predictions were wonderfully
verified. He was a hopeless invalid, and was prevented from taking
part in these things.
I am glad that you have formed this Association. It is a good
thing for families to come together and celebrate their glories. I
have looked up to considerable extent the John Knowlton family in
the past, and when I look around me to-night and know how much
the Knowltons are doing to make history, and how well they are
doing it, I know that the blood of their fathers flows strongly in the
veins of their sons. (Applause.)
President Knowlton : Amonor the recollections of
my boyhood I recall the bright, black-eyed boy who was
with me as companion and student at Monson Academy,
That boy has changed his raven locks for the crown
which inexperience cannot wear for he has long been
known as a hero, scholar and man of affairs, a direct
descendant of Thomas Knowlton, and who bore a large
part in securing the erection of the monument to per-
petuate his memory. I will ask Dr. Thomas Knowlton
Marcy to respond to the toast :
"THE KNOWLTON STATUE AND FIRST
REUNION."
" The sculptured bust, the epitaph eloquent in praise cannot indeed create dis-
tinctions, but they serve to mark them." — Outre- Mer.
Responded to by Dr. Thomas Knowlton Marcy of
Windsor, Ct.
That a statue was due to the memory of Colonel Thomas
Knowlton no one for a moment can question. He began his mili-
75
tary career in boyhood, was one of the three or four central figures
in the battle of Bunker Hill, and fell while leading a victorious
charge which brightened with a single gleam of light a period dark-
ened by a long series of disasters. That this recognition of his
merits came so late may be counted among the inevitable delays ot
justice. At length, however, the attention of the proper tribunal
was secured
Forty years ago when reading medicine with the late Dr. Ashbel
Woodward, of Franklin, Ct., who had carefully studied his career,
he said to me, ' 'the State should erect a monument to this hero of the
Revolution." The descendants of Colonel Knowlton thought often
and seriously of doing something of the kind, but their efforts did
not materialize; and it is by no means strange that his immediate
family fell far short of their desires, when one remembers under
what stress the young widow with her seven children, the eldest but
sixteen, met the struggle for existence. How changed would have
been their position had their father with his genius for arms survived
the war!
My kinsman and friend, Mr. P. Henry Woodward, and I, have
from time to time made trips together to the scenes where the
early life of Knowlton was spent, and to the spot where rest the
remains of many of his family. Between us the question of an
appropriate memorial was often discussed. In January, 1893, a
happy concurrence of circumstances brought the opportunity for
decisive action. We then appeared before the proper committee,
with other members of the Connecticut Historical Society who
favored the measure, when Mr Woodward read a paper which pre-
sented with clear, impressive and convincing logic the claims of
Colonel Knowlton upon the gratitude of the State To Mr. Wood-
ward's untiring efforts we are indebted for the statue. His father
first suggested it, but the son was the effective force from start to
finish.
We now have a beautiful work of art, occupying a prominent
position near the Capitol, an enduring reminder of true patriotism
and heroic sacrifice.
That the Commission appreciated the Colonel's devotion to his
country is shown by their action in granting so conspicuous a loca-
tion for this memorial.
In his presentation of it to the State, Charles Dudley Warner
remarked, "Colonel Knowlton was a great man. Judged by what
76
he did and by what his rare talents promised, I doubt if the State
has produced a greater military genius or a more unselfish patriot."
After the unveiling ceremonies on the 13th of November last,
the members of the Knowlton family reassembled in the Hall of
Representatives and voted to form a permanent association, holding
reunions annually or at convenient intervals.
It is needless to say that the family has made and is making an
honorable record which it should be our pride and pleasure to pre-
serve and to perpetuate. In this grand old Commonwealth it is
to-day very ably represented in the judiciary, and also ably, il less
conspicuously, in the fields of business. Such gatherings will bring
its members into closer union, stimulating sons to emulate the
virtues of their sires. If kept up with high aims even now, while
crossing the threshold, we can see in the mind's eye the vista
stretching far away till it fades from sight in the distant future.
President Knowlton : We should indeed be inhos-
pitable if we failed to give a very cordial welcome to our
kindred who have come to us from across the border.
We are proud of the work which has been done, and of
the position which has been obtained by a branch of our
family in the Queen's Dominion. The next toast will
be "Our Canadian Cousins," which will be responded to
by a worthy representative of the family, Mr. Frederick
J. G. Knowlton, St. John, New Brunswick.
"OUR CANADIAN COUSINS."
"A thousand welcomes ! !
and more a friend than e'er an enemy." — Shakespere.
Responded to by F. J. G. Knowlton of St. John,
New Brunswick,
I am sorry that there was not a larger representation of Cana-
dian Knowltons here to witness the very hearty greeting which
attended the reception of the toast to which I have the honor to
respond. Perhaps, however, by reason of the very lack of which I
speak I may be able to say a few words about that people not pos-
sible were they here in larger numbers.
I have traveled to some extent in Canada, and whenever and
wherever the name has met me I have tried to find out something
77
of its owner, and I am proud to say here to-night that the prevail-
ing view with reference to that name is that it stood for honesty and
integrity of purpose. (Applause). With that experience behind me
in Canada joined to the more recent experience — and certainly not
less pleasant ones in the United States — I feel sure these traits, or
characteristics, dominant in the brothers of Ipswich, must be trans-
mitted by them and surely descended to their posterity.
This to me is a memorable occasion. We come from widely
scattered places on this continent, some of us being loyal voters ot
different systems of government and different policies, but those
divisions cannot limit nor determine friendships. I was born a
British subject, and, if you will allow me to say so, I rather hope to
die under the Canadian flag (applause), and yet as I stand here
to-night there comes to my mind a few words spoken in the House
of Commons in 1867 by the Right Hon John Bright. A statement
was made that it would be a grand and glorious idea if the Provinces
stretching across this wide continent could be welded together, and
that idea was finally greeted in the British North American in 1867,
and on the occasion of the passing of that act Mr. Bright arose in
the House, and when the proposition looking to the cementing
together of the northern half of that continent was before that House
he said, "I see a broader vision before my gaze; I see one vast
confederation stretching to the North, to the South, and from the
wide billows of the Atlantic coast westward to the more placid bor-
ders of the Pacific main, and I see one people, one language, and
one thought and faith, and over that wide continent, the home of
freedom and the refuge of the oppressed of every race and every
clime." This may be a vision, but it seems to me it is a beautiful
vision indeed. And these words are in my ears to-night as, on
behalf of the Knowltons of Canada, I extend across the political line
that may divide us the hand of fellowship and of kinship, and assure
you that hereafter across that line we shall ever remember that here
we have friends, cousins, kindred in whom we are interested and in
whose welfare we have the heartiest good wishes. (Applause.)
President Knowlton : We should be remiss on this
occasion if we should fail to ask some member of our
family who resides in Boston, what he thinks of our
Association. We are indebted in many ways to Mr.
78
Leslie D. Kiiowlton of Boston, who will now speak to
the toast of
"THE KNOWLTON ASSOCIATION."
" Like brothers they stand by each other,
Sae knit in alliance are kin." — Burns.
Responded to by Mr. Leslie D. Knowlton of
Boston, Mass.
The first thought which comes to me as I stand here before
you recalls to my memory the first time I was Cdlled upon to address
a goodly company. The occasion was a graduation exercise; a
fellow classmate and myself were to perform an experiment in
chemistry, namely the analysis of two kinds of drinking water. In
testing for lime the element which denotes the hardness of the water,
I proceeded as follows: "I add five cubic centimeters of soap solu-
tion and shake thoroughly." This little speech struck the company
as being a trifle personal and immediately the house was filled with
laughter. My poor comrade was obliged to repeat this operation
several times and each time was greeted with great applause.
I wish to state to-night that I am shaking thoroughly (not
perhaps to determine the hardness of the assembled company), but
with pride and pleasure at the honor I have in addressing this
Association. An association of associations, formed by the ties of
blood. In this age when we have societies formed by almost every
conceivable tie, social, political, financial, etc., what could be more
appropriate, more binding, than one formed by the ties of heredity.
This is a meeting in part of strangers, yet being members of
one great family, who should be friends at the outset, even before
we have met each other; a long acquaintance is not needed to
ensure kindly greetings. Each one should feel that he has a true
friend in every member of the Association; a friend who is ready
and willing to help him whenever occasion requires and where he
stood alone before he will now find himself one of a great army,
powerful and beautiful. He will claim with pride his membership
in our Association and with still greater pride our ancestors.
There exists an old Norwegian legend which says that when a
great man passes away from this world the intellect, courage and
honor that he possessed is transmitted to the babe born at the same
hour of the demise. Applying this theory to our case many great
79
men's good qualites must have been transmitted to many of the
members of our Association, noted for their uprightness and staunch
characters, which have made them faithful members of society and
honorable citizens in every respect. Taking this theory as a fact,
what a tremendous job for the person who would undertake to
apply it to the Smiths, Browns, or Jones of this country.
Family traditions and associations, I firmly believe have
become, and are still becoming the strong support of society at
large. The man whom circumstance has deprived even of the
simple rudiments of education will point with pride to the ancestors
of his blood, who have performed some great act of heroism in
times past. Going still further, it is a part of our duty, as it were,
to constantly aim to foster still more the traditions of one's family.
It is necessary to go back but a little way to see that our
ancestors were worthy of our attention. I cite for instance, the
instigation of the formation of this Association, the erection of the
statue of Colonel Thomas Knowlton, at Hartford, Ct. Is there one
here to-night whose heart is not filled with pride at the thought of
his being one of our ancestors ? He is but one and there are many.
But how shall we find out who these many are ? Shall we leave it
to be done by one and then all receive the benefits? No !
We have founded this Association for two reasons, first, to
bring all of our blood together, that we may know each other, and
second, to attain that strength necessary to search all the archives
of history and make our ancestors, their bravery and fidelity known
and honored by all mankind and venerated by ourselves.
The pleasures of the family circle are peculiar, and though
many are thus encircled the gratification is not diminished. No
one can survey this large company without unwonted emotions.
It is surely well and just to " remember the days of old " and the
men as well, who by their sacrifices in any department of human
endeavor or toil have set forward the state of human progress.
Long may our Association live, large may it grow, and great
may its influence be.
President Knowlton : The next toast of the even-
ing relates to a subject in which we all feel a deep
personal interest. The gentleman who is assigned to
respond to it is one who needs no introduction, for we
all know him and he knows us all ; Rev. Dr. Stocking.
8o
He has already told us something of the Knowlton
Association, but I have no doubt he wishes to add
something more.
"THE KNOWLTON HISTORY."
"I think there is much more juice in this meat." — Old Adage.
Responded to by Rev. Charles H. W. Stocking,
D. D., East Orange, N. J.
I am reminded by the hour, and by the necessity which has
come to many to depart before this time, that I must be very brief
in what I may have to say, but I think while at great disadvantage
at appearing at this point in the programme, yet there is a conspicu-
ous and recognized advantage, for with very singular fitness, and
with a very happy appreciation of the suitableness of things, I have
been placed where all articles with my name belong, at the foot.
(Laughter and applause.)
We are here to-night, my friends, simply because there have
been in the world makers of history; because men have gathered
up the threads of fact and woven them into tissue which we call his-
tory, genealogy. For that reason and that reason only are we here
to-night, to rejoice in the record made by the ancestors of this great
existing and never to be extinguished family. I heartily sympa-
thized with the distinguished President elect of this body when he
referred to the good-looking character of those present, and it goes
without saying that one of the difficulties a historian is constantly
meeting with is that the female members of this great and glorious
family retain their Knowlton name for so short a time; not only
that, but even the male members of the Knowlton family are par-
ticularly attractive, for in my historical researches I found that seven
women would not permit one male member to say "nay," and he
has, therefore, fallen into the institution of Mormonism. (Laughter.)
The historian meets with three classes oi people, some of whom
are entirely satisfied with the thing that now is; others out in a
wider periphery of human experience, and ambition, are content to
gather what lies within their own history, but others being anxious to
drink of the waters of traditional glory, fond of actual experience,
desire to know what shall come down to them from the past; so the
historian has to deal with these three classes. The first class almost
never responds to his circulars and appeals for family records A
8i
great many of them have no records, leaving me to infer that they
never had any bibles in which to record. Now I want to say with
all seriousness that you have a record of one side of the family, but
that record is of a military character. But this record is by no
means the whole of it. When Bishop Williams, of Connecticut,
was recently officiating in a diocese at Connecticut, at the close of
one of his sermons a man said to him, "Bishop, I am glad to see
you. That was a grand sermon ; it made my blood tingle, and if
you don't lay out the sinners I don't know who can. That was a
very fine sermon, but it don't begin to compare with a sermon you
preached fifteen years ago, and the next time you come here I want
you to preach it over again."
Bishop Williams said, "Well, what was the text of the
sermon ? "
"Well, I don't remember what the text was, it was a grand
sermon."
" Well, if you don't remember the text, what was the subject,
the idea, I must have some means of identifying it ? "
" I don't know what the text was, or the subject, but it was a
grand sermon, and I want you to preach it again the next time you
are here."
" How can I preach it unless you give me some clue ? Is there
not some feature that you can recall ?
The man thought a minute and said, " Yes, I have got it now;
you were talking about the necessity of everybody believing some-
thing, and thinking they must have a creed and living up to that
creed, and you urged the necessity of some standard of theology,
but, you said, ' Brethren, I want you to understand that theology is
not the whole of religion by a damn sight.' " (Laughter and
applause.)
The military record of the Knowltons is not the whole thing by
a long sight, for there are men in civic life as well as in military and
political life. There are men in mercantile life to-day bearing the
name of Knowlton that are touching the strings of activity all over
the country, and they are leaving their mark indellibly on their day
and generation and your own generations that are yet to come out
of the womb of time.
This history intends to go forward and complete itself within
the next year. In order to do that as we have taken into our arms
the Canadian cousins, it is my purpose within a short time to
82
go abroad. I have a transmitted line from 1520 to 1632 already,
andif the traditions that lie back of 1520 be correct, and which I
hope to establish by a careful research in every department of
research of historical and geneaological record of the old world, I
believe you will have a history to hand down to your children that
can never be expressed by any commercial value whatever, but
they will be proud to read, that you shall be proud to bequeath to
them, the record of those ancestors concerning whom the Attorney-
General of this State has discriminatingly said, "that while we may
not expect to enter into the glory of our lathers we must not diminish
our own personal pride by referring to the qualities that made them
what they were, and which it is to be hoped are transmitted to us
to follow after."
That is in substance the scope of that history. I have tabu-
lated already eight thousand names, and probably without doubt I
shall be called upon to classify thirteen thousand, and I hope that
every one present who has not responded to the circular sent out
will do so, giving me the most information possible, and lighting up
that record by relating incident and anecdote so that it will not be
like that ancient record of Divine Word which says that "Abraham
begat Isaac, and he died, and Isaac begat Jacob and he died, and
Daniel begat Amos and he died." We want a history to be some-
thing more than that.
I am going to detain you just long enough to touch upon one
subject that has not been alluded to. Everything that has been
said before has been with reference to your forefathers, and it
appears to me to be not inappropriate that I should express briefly
a few thoughts about the women of the Knowlton family.
"OUR KNOWLTON FOREMOTHERS."
They lived in good old-fashioned times, old-fashioned names they
bore.
Most sweet to spouse and lover, we know them now no more.
The only Sallys in our day are those that soldiers make
From frowning granite ports, when they their enemies would take.
Polly was once a comely maid in cotton and alapaca,
Pythagorean biped now she cries, " I want a cracker."
When cares like a wild deluge came and sorrows storms swept o'er
them.
The Knowltons "ran with Patience the race then set before them."
83
But the only Patients in this day, are those that have to swallow
The castor oil and pills of those whom I so soon must follow.
Fair Ruths there were, as sweet as she on Revelation's page
But though we have the Holy Writ this is a Ruthless age.
The dear old Knowlton Marys how seldom will you see.
For now their fair grand-daughters write "je suis votre chere
Marie."
As thus I muse of quaint old names that Knowlton mothers bore,
I'm thinking of three maids with whom I went to school of yore.
A black eyed Faith, a brown eyed Hope, a blue eyed Charity.
The last I loved because she was " the greatest of the three."
I used to stand on dunce's block my little piece to speak.
And looking timidly at her with piping voice would squeak,
" Tho' with tongues of men and angels I speak with utterance
nimble.
And have not Charity, I am but brass — a tinkling cymbal."
Another maid, Mehitable, would break into a giggle.
While naughty Knowltons, in their seats with fun would shake and
wriggle
As through the air from pop-gun sped potatoes on my brow,
'Twas clear they thought Me-hit-a-ble, perchance you think so now.
Those dear old Knowlton women and their honest buxom girls
Had neither "rats" nor "switches" nor artificial curls.
They lived in blissful ignorance of all those paints and dyes,
By which some modern women tell most outrageous lies.
The only hoops those Knowltons knew were those that firmly held
The oaken wash tub strong and those that Indians yelled.
Their fair yet useful hands had a more serious work to do
Than grasp the festive " cycle" to play the Kangaroo.
They had to wield a musket, and learned to "draw a hair"
On many a skulking red skin, on panther and on bear,
And when their sons and husbands heard their country's call to
arms,
Those Knowlton women seized the plow and bravely tilled their
farms.
Hast ever seen their bonnets ? They well disowned the name,
As large as pulpit sounding boards, so far in front they came
That would one try to feast upon a pretty Knowlton face,
He had to look down such a lane of ribbons and of lace
It seemed liked gazing at the stars through leghorn telescopes.
And reading there in Heaven's own face, the issue of his hopes.
84
Ah ! me those noble women, what pumpkin pies they made,
So deep and luscious that a boy might roll his pants and wade.
And eat and eat again. And in the witching autumn night.
They circled round the hay stack beneath the pale moonlight,
And stripped the silken garments from off the golden corn.
Until a faint blush in the east proclaimed the coming morn.
Perchance 'tis but a fancy, but I suspect that here
In husking corn men first began to " get up on their ear."
Around the blazing chimney fire they used to nightly sit,
And while the men their toddy mixed the women knit and knit,
I see them now as in their old arm chairs they're gently rocking,
And think how from so long a yarn should come so short a Stocking.
President Knowlton : I regret to say that Mr,
Mitchell who was expected to respond to the last toast
on "Allied Families," is unable to be present, and that
toast we shall have to postpone.
We have come to the end, but I doubt not there
are persons here, and I trust there may be many, who
have matter of one kind or another of interest to the
family which will be interesting to hear.
Voice : I should like to find out who is the oldest
Knowlton in the audience ; oldest of the Knowlton
name.
President Knowlton : I trust you will not all speak
at once.
Voice : I have a father seventy-eight.
President Knowlton : Mrs. Knowlton of Glouces-
ter, who has left for home, said in my hearing that she
was about eighty years of age.
This is leap year ; it is in order for ladies to ask
questions.
After singing " America," those present adjourned
to the parlors, where "good-byes" were said and the
Second Reunion came to an end.
85
STAG DINNER.
An informal Knowlton "Sta^" Dinner was ^iven
at the Hotel Martin, New York City, 23 vXprii, 1897, at
which were present :
Colonel Julius Knowlton, of BridQ;eport, Ct.
Mr. Mark D. Knowlton, of Rochester, N. V.
Mr. George H. Fitts, of Ashford, Ct.
Mr. Miner R. Knowlton, of Poughkeepsie, N. V.
Mr. Eben Knowlton, of Brooklyn, N. Y.
Mr. Charles Sumner Knowlton, of Philadelphia, Pa.
Rev. C. H. W. Stocking, D. D. (the Historian), of East
Orange, N. J.
Mr. William Herrick Griffith (the Secretary), of
Albany, N. Y.
Many regrets were read from Knowltons who had
expected to he present.
A very interesting informal talk followed the repast.
The Historian made a statement of his work from
the beginning of the History to date, and showed
several of the illustrations which were to appear in the
History, as well as portraits of individuals. He also
stated that the work was about ready for the press, and
would probably be in the publisher's hands very shortly.
in iHcmoviixm,
(GCOVQC (C. ivuovultou.
Mr. Knowiton joined this Association December
15, 1895, and was greatly interested in all its aims and
purposes He was a resident of St. Louis, Mo., and
prominently identified with Western railroads. He died
in December, 1896, and was about sixty-five or seventy
years of age.
(The Secretary requested a more minute sketch of Mr. Knovvl-
ton's life from his son, but up to the hour of going to press it had
not been furnished, but will be found in the History).
lyXvs, J'B^hI Min ivuciuilton.
Mrs. Knowiton joined the Association as a Charter
Member, 13 November, 1895. She held membershi}) by
right of marriage to a Knowiton. After a long and
painful illness she passed to eternal rest at the home of
her daughter, Mrs. E. H. Griffith, at Albany, N. V.,
August 20, 1897. She was the daughter of Leonard
Rowe and Susan Freeman Rowe of Dutchess County,
and was born November 15, 1812, during the exciting
scenes incident to the second struggle for independence.
8;
As her father responded to the eall to arms, and as her
maternal grandfather and great grandfather w^ere both
officers in the Continental army during the Revolutionary
War, being a descendant also, as she was, of eight Colonial
officers, it is not surprising that Mrs. Knowlton also
inherited that strength of character, courage and forti-
tude for which her sires were remarkable. Her father's
family was one of the first to settle in Dutchess County,
N. Y., Johannes Row, or Rauh, as it was then spelled,
coming there from Rhine Germany, with the Palatines
at the beginning of the last century, and holding a grant
of land in the Nine Partners tract near the present town
of Amenia, N. V. Her mother, Susan Freeman's
family, was also a prominent one in Dutchess County,
she being sixth in descent from Governor Robert Treat,
of Connecticut, and seventh from Governor Thomas
Prence of Plymouth Colony. About the year 1810,
Mrs. Knowlton's father removed from Dutchess to
Rensselaer County, N. V., locating in the town of
Schodack, where she was born. She was married to her
late husband, George Washington Knowlton, May 23,
1832, at Troy, Rensselaer County, N. Y. After their
marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Knowlton resided at Greenbush
and Nassau, N. Y.. and since her husband's death,
which occurred in 1884, Mrs. Knowlton has lived with
her daughter in Albany; for the past four or five years
having been more or less an invalid and in delicate
health. In early life she was a devout member of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, but upon her removal to
Albany, identified herself with the Presbyterian faith,
being: at the time of her death a communicant of the
State Street Church. A devoted and consecrated
Christian, she bore up under a long and painful illness
with _o;rcat fortitude and patience, nev^er complaining,
but ever mindful, even in the midst of her suffering, of
the welfare of others. Her own unselfish life and
character was the best evidence of her trust in her
Saviour, and her silent influence and many deeds of
kindness will be sadly missed in the family circle of
which she was a loved and revered member.
Meml)ers are requested in future to advise the Secretary of all births, marriages,
or deaths, for publication in the Year Hook.
ERKATA.
,,„.<;" for "Descendenls."
A TA "Descendants wi
rule Page. "«« "f "„*,•• for ".iese'- •"
. ,^Frances"for"Franc^s.
^ : iX^^^£;::;r:2teenn.er.'ana"any.''
"I' » lo, "are" should be inserted
t " 28 "Ethan" ior "Nathan,
f; » i conima for semi-colon^ ^
62, 3i' . ^.., c„r "patroitism.
. 9, "patriotism ^"-^P j,^, ..nevertheless."
'': . ': "Obtained from Char -11, as ^
■ ^^' ' Geor,eIl,aslateasi7U
7 should be a period anei »union."
7. "'" . „ „ lale as 1714-
7'.
3,,..Ge„e,a,Io«e 'C,J»,^^,,
" 10. "miaiuii"— ,
73' .. ,; uThomas" for "Dameh
73' . ',; omit the word "John.
7^' . , "one" for "o^es."
77
.S8
with o^rcat fortitude and patience, never complainintr,
hut ever mindful, even in the midst of her suffering, of
the welfare of others. Her own unselfish life and
character was the best evidence of her trust in her
Saviour, and her silent influence and many deeds of
kindness will he sadly missed in the family circle of
which she was a loved and revered member.
Members are requested in future to advise the Secretary of all births, marriages,
or deaths, for publication in the Year Book.
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