Our first ancestor in Hebron was George McKnight, who served as Lieutenant under John Williams and Alexander Webster in the Charlotte County militia during the Revolution. As an officer, George would have been an educated man, perhaps, or an experienced soldier, or both. John Williams was a doctor, by far the most well educated man in the area and the clear and obvious choice to command the Regiment. Alexander Webster was a lawyer and may also have had prior experience in battle. All three men can be placed in Hebron (then called "Black Creek") as early as 1773. Webster and McKnight received their commissions in late 1775, and the Williams regiment (called the "Dorset Regiment") was commissioned in February, 1776. Thus George was already serving as a military officer before the signing of the Declaration of Independence in July 1776.
The only personal history of George McKnight that I have found was written in 1868 by Asa Fitch, a local (Salem) entomologist (bug guy) who collected local family histories on the side. He created many family histories, each carefully recorded, numbered and cross-referenced in a neat and steady hand. His manuscripts were never published, but were microfilmed and are available in the Bancroft library. Two of the entries are directly related to our family - numbers 1733, which describes George McKnight, and 1734, which describes his son, James. Be forewarned that both paragraphs contain factual errors, but they are enlightening. Number 1733 is transcribed in full here.
" 1733. Old George McKnight of Hebron – Family.
" I gather the following, from Esq. James McKnight, Hebron, March 9, 1868. He says his father James, was the son of George McKnight, who came from Ireland when a boy to Pennsylvania, and there married Jean Beattie, and had three children, James(¶ 1734), Sally (married Joseph Chambers) and Nelly, wife of Andrew Randles a brother of Hugh Randles.
" He emigrated from Pa. to Hebron, before the Revolutionary War, and took up a large tract of land, 1000 acres I think, in the central point of the town, including part of “Pine Hill” – Alex. Webster joining him and taking a similar tract.
" At the time the country was evacuated, on Burgoyne’s invasion, he went back to his old neighborhood in Pa. with his family (see ¶ 225) going, I think, on horseback, and their dog following on after them. They staid there through the winter and returned the next spring. They did not bring the dog back with them, but when they had been back about six months, the dog came back! A most surprising instance of canine attachment and intelligence.
" When the St. Lawrence country began to attract the attention of settlers from this vicinity, his two sons in law and he got the fever to move to Lisbon, where the lands they thought were far more desirable than his land here. He accordingly sold out everything and moved with them to Lisbon. James, his son, declined going there, which offended the old man so that he would not give him a share of his property, but let his favorite daughters and their husbands have it all. All that James, my father, got of the hundreds of acres of his father’s was 77 acres – this being pay that he was legally entitled to for working for his father from the time he was 21, till the removal – which was the farm on which James afterwards passed his days, and his son George now lives.
" But his favorite sons in law became dissipated and spent the old man’s property, and he came back to Hebron before the War of 1812, and father took care of him the rest of his life. He is buried with the rest of the family in the Town Grave Yard.
" I know nothing of the descendants of my uncles, Chambers and Randles, only that a son, George Randles was years ago Captain of a steam boat running from Ogdenburg down the river to Montreal and Quebec."
Asa Fitch Manuscript, paragraph 1733, copied from microfilm in Bancroft Library, Salem NY, 2003, transcribed August 2010.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Leland and Evelyn McKnight's Short Time Together
To continue my story from last week's post...
Sometime between August, 1931 and October, 1935, Leland McKnight and his wife Evelyn moved from their home in Westfield, New Jersey to the McKnight farm in Hebron, New York with their three young children. The move was necessary because Leland lost his job (a result of the Depression) and, with no income, the young family had to find a way to survive until a suitable job was again available. Moving back to Leland’s childhood home, which was fully paid for and which would provide at least a subsistence living via farming, must have seemed like the best option among very few available to the couple at the time.
The exact date of their move is not known. From the 1930 census, we know that Leland and Evelyn still lived in Westfield in June of 1930. Their youngest child was born in August, 1931, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Leland’s father, Addison, died in 1932 and his death may also have prompted Leland and Evelyn to consider moving back “home” to Hebron, if they had not already done so. Ida McKnight, Addison’s widow, would have been living alone at the farm then and may have welcomed the company – and the help – of her son and his family. Based on remembrances of Leland’s children, Leland lived at the farm at least a few years when they were small, so an arrival in 1932 or 1933 is most likely.
Little is known of Leland and Evelyn’s time together at the farm either, as Leland died in an accident on Thursday, October 16, 1935. After Leland fell from a ladder and hit his head, his daughter (8 years old at the time) remembers running more than a mile to the nearest phone to call for a doctor, while Leland’s six-year old son was sent to a slightly closer neighbor’s home to get immediate help. But there was nothing anyone could do. According to his obituary in the Salem paper the next day, he died early that evening:
“Leland Rea McKnight met a tragic death yesterday afternoon at his home about four miles east of West Hebron. Mr. McKnight was standing on a stepladder which he had placed at the top of the cellar stairs in order to repair a water pipe and when it slipped fell, striking on his head on the cellar bottom with fatal force. The accident happened about 4:30 and he died in the early evening.”
All three of Leland and Evelyn’s children were quite young, but the eldest remembers hearing vague conversations about Leland’s health, along with speculation that he may have had a heart attack, which in turn caused him to fall. No autopsy was ordered, however, so there is no way to confirm any health issues, and the death has always been considered an accidental one.
I do not possess any photos of Leland. Evelyn was not forthcoming with details about her young husband when I asked her about Leland in the late 1970s, and since discussing it continued to upset her even after so many years, I never pressed the issue. She never remarried (although she told me she received at least one offer). She raised all three children at the McKnight farm, cared for her widowed mother-in-law and then her own mother there, and continued to live there as long as she possibly could. She continued to wear her wedding ring for the rest of her days.
Sometime between August, 1931 and October, 1935, Leland McKnight and his wife Evelyn moved from their home in Westfield, New Jersey to the McKnight farm in Hebron, New York with their three young children. The move was necessary because Leland lost his job (a result of the Depression) and, with no income, the young family had to find a way to survive until a suitable job was again available. Moving back to Leland’s childhood home, which was fully paid for and which would provide at least a subsistence living via farming, must have seemed like the best option among very few available to the couple at the time.
The exact date of their move is not known. From the 1930 census, we know that Leland and Evelyn still lived in Westfield in June of 1930. Their youngest child was born in August, 1931, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Leland’s father, Addison, died in 1932 and his death may also have prompted Leland and Evelyn to consider moving back “home” to Hebron, if they had not already done so. Ida McKnight, Addison’s widow, would have been living alone at the farm then and may have welcomed the company – and the help – of her son and his family. Based on remembrances of Leland’s children, Leland lived at the farm at least a few years when they were small, so an arrival in 1932 or 1933 is most likely.
Little is known of Leland and Evelyn’s time together at the farm either, as Leland died in an accident on Thursday, October 16, 1935. After Leland fell from a ladder and hit his head, his daughter (8 years old at the time) remembers running more than a mile to the nearest phone to call for a doctor, while Leland’s six-year old son was sent to a slightly closer neighbor’s home to get immediate help. But there was nothing anyone could do. According to his obituary in the Salem paper the next day, he died early that evening:
“Leland Rea McKnight met a tragic death yesterday afternoon at his home about four miles east of West Hebron. Mr. McKnight was standing on a stepladder which he had placed at the top of the cellar stairs in order to repair a water pipe and when it slipped fell, striking on his head on the cellar bottom with fatal force. The accident happened about 4:30 and he died in the early evening.”
All three of Leland and Evelyn’s children were quite young, but the eldest remembers hearing vague conversations about Leland’s health, along with speculation that he may have had a heart attack, which in turn caused him to fall. No autopsy was ordered, however, so there is no way to confirm any health issues, and the death has always been considered an accidental one.
I do not possess any photos of Leland. Evelyn was not forthcoming with details about her young husband when I asked her about Leland in the late 1970s, and since discussing it continued to upset her even after so many years, I never pressed the issue. She never remarried (although she told me she received at least one offer). She raised all three children at the McKnight farm, cared for her widowed mother-in-law and then her own mother there, and continued to live there as long as she possibly could. She continued to wear her wedding ring for the rest of her days.
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