Henry
Knox: Self-made Man, Patriot and Entrepreneur
Henry Knox was an ordinary man who rose to face extraordinary circumstances.
He was born into poverty in Boston in 1750. He left Boston Latin Grammar
School at a young age to apprentice to a bookbinder, helping to support
his widowed mother and younger brother. He eventually worked his way
to opening his own bookshop in Boston at the age of 21, little suspecting
the important role that he would play in the birth of our nation.
His keen interest in military strategy led him to do a lot of reading
on the subject, and when he joined the local militia, his talent was
noticed.
In 1775, as the situation between Great Britain and the American colonies
was heating up, General George Washington inspected a rampart at Roxbury
designed by Knox and was instantly taken with the young man's abilities.
Knox soon became Washington's Chief of Artillery, and earned a place
in history in the winter of 1776 by carting sixty tons of captured
cannon from Fort Ticonderoga in New York to Dorchester Heights, driving
the British from Boston Harbor. Throughout most of the war he was
by Washington's side, and eventually rose to Major-General. Following
the war he was Washington's choice for the first Secretary at War.
They remained life-long friends.
George Washington was not the only person to take particular notice
of the dashing patriot in the time leading up to the American Revolution.
Lucy Flucker, the seventeen year-old daughter of the Royal Secretary
of the Province of Massachusetts, frequently visited Knox's bookstore,
and it soon became obvious that books were not the main attraction
for her. Ignoring her wealthy parents' vehement protests and warnings
of impending poverty and political ruin, Lucy cast her lot with Henry.
They were married in June of 1774, and when Henry escaped Boston to
join the Revolutionary forces late one night the following spring,
Lucy rode beside him, his sword sewn inside her cape. Despite their
vastly different backgrounds, theirs was a happy marriage, marred
only by the fact that ten of their thirteen children did not live
to adulthood.
After
ten years serving his country as Secretary of War, Henry Knox began
to long for the life of a gentleman farmer, like the lives his friends
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were living on their country
estates. Fortunately for him, Lucy had inherited a vast tract of land
in the District of Maine through her mother, the daughter of Brigadier
General Samuel Waldo. In 1795, newly retired, Knox bade farewell to
Philadelphia and moved his family to his newly-built nineteen-room
mansion Montpelier in Thomaston, Maine. There he was to dedicate his
"all to the development of the District of Maine."
He dabbled in many of the emerging businesses in midcoast Maine: He
shipped timber, quarried lime, made bricks, experimented with agriculture,
built canals on the Georges River and got involved with land speculation.
Most in Thomaston welcomed him, despite what was perceived as his
wife's haughtiness and fondness for gambling, as well as his struggles
with squatters. Cyrus Eaton, a local historian, observed that Knox
"loved to see everyone happy, and could sympathize with people
of every class and condition, rejoice in their prosperity, and aid
them in adversity." He welcomed over 500 townspeople to an open
house at Montpelier, helped establish a local church, was instrumental
in starting local militia groups and employed many people.
All too soon though, and before any of his ventures were truly successful,
this military hero finally fell – according to traditional accounts,
the victim of swallowing a chicken bone. Knox was buried on his estate
in 1806, deeply mourned by a town that had come to love him and a
country that always had.
More information on General Knox is available at the Maine Memory
Network website. Click the following link to view the online exhibit:
Major
General Henry Knox
More information on The Society of the Cincinnati is available at
the Society of the Cincinnati website.
