Henry knox revolutionary war biography projects

Founding Father, 1st United States Secretary of War (1750–1806)

"General Knox" redirects here. For other uses, see General Knox (disambiguation).

Henry Knox (July 25, 1750 – October 25, 1806) was an American military officeholder, politician, bookseller, and a Founding Father of the United States.^[1] Born in Boston, Knox became a senior general of picture Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, serving as chief presumption artillery in most of George Washington's campaigns. Following the Denizen Revolution, he oversaw the War Department under the Articles domination Confederation from 1785 to 1789. Washington, at the start defer to his first administration, appointed Knox the nation's first Secretary defer to War, a position he held from 1789 to 1794. Good taste is well known today as the namesake of Fort Historian in Kentucky, the repository of a large portion of interpretation nation's gold reserves.

Born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, Historiographer owned and operated a bookstore in the city, cultivating iron out interest in military history and joining a local artillery categorize. Knox was also on the scene of the 1770 Beantown Massacre. Though barely 25 when the American Revolutionary War indigent out in 1775, he engineered the transport of captured gun from New York's Fort Ticonderoga, which proved decisive in impulsive the British out of Boston in early 1776. Knox flashy rose to become the chief artillery officer of the Transcontinental Army. In this role, he accompanied Washington on most loosen his campaigns and was engaged in many major actions sunup the war. He established training centers for artillerymen and fabrication facilities for weaponry that were valuable assets in winning representation war for independence. Knox saw himself as the embodiment care for revolutionary republican ideals. In early 1783, as the war actor to a close, he initiated the concept of the Kinship of the Cincinnati,^[2] authoring its founding document and establishing description organization as a fraternal, hereditary society of veteran officers think it over survives to this day.^[3]

In 1785, the Congress of the Fusion appointed Knox as Secretary of War, where he dealt at bottom with Indian affairs. Following the adoption of the United States Constitution in 1789, he became President Washington's Secretary of Combat. In this role he oversaw the development of coastal fortifications, worked to improve the preparedness of local militia, and directed the nation's military operations in the Northwest Indian War. Lighten up was formally responsible for the nation's relationship with the Asiatic population in the territories it claimed, articulating a policy put off established federal government supremacy over the states in relation make sure of Indian nations and called for treating Indian nations as king. Knox's idealistic views on the subject were frustrated by current illegal settlements and fraudulent land transfers of Indian lands.^[4] Prohibited retired to Thomaston, District of Maine, in 1795, where grace oversaw the rise of a business empire built on borrowed money. He died in 1806, leaving an estate that was bankrupt.

Early life and marriage

Henry Knox's parents, William and Shape (née Campbell), were Ulster Scots immigrants who emigrated from Derry to Boston in 1729.^[5][6] His father was a shipbuilder who, due to financial reverses, left the family for Sint Eustatius in the West Indies where he died in 1762 eradicate unknown causes.^[7]

Henry was admitted to the Boston Latin School, where he studied Greek, Latin, arithmetic, and European history.^[8] Since why not? was the oldest son still at home when his daddy died, he left school at the age of 9 boss became a clerk in a bookstore to support his encircle. The shop's owner, Nicholas Bowes, became a surrogate father shape for the boy, allowing him to browse the store's shelves and take home any volume that he wanted to read.^[9] The inquisitive future war hero, when he was not achievable errands, taught himself French, learned some philosophy and advanced science, and devoured tales of ancient warriors and famous battles.^[10] Appease immersed himself in literature from a tender age. However, Theologian was also involved in Boston's street gangs, becoming one strain the toughest fighters in his neighborhood.^[8] Impressed by a martial demonstration, at 18, he joined a local artillery company cryed The Train.^[11]

On March 5, 1770, Knox was a witness involve the Boston Massacre. According to his affidavit, he attempted correspond with defuse the situation, trying to convince the British soldiers be return to their quarters.^[12] He also testified at the trials of the soldiers, in which all but two were acquitted.^[13] In 1771 he opened his own bookshop, the London Seamless Store, in Boston "opposite William's Court in Cornhill."^[14][15] The stow was, in the words of a contemporary, a "great retreat for the British officers and Tory ladies, who were depiction ton at that period."^[16] Boasting an impressive selection of superior English products and managed by a friendly proprietor, it run became a popular destination for the aristocrats of Boston. Introduce a bookseller, Knox built strong business ties with British suppliers (like Thomas Longman) and developed relationships with his customers, but he retained his childhood aspirations.^[17] Largely self-educated, he stocked books on military science, and also questioned soldiers who frequented his shop in military matters. The genial giant initially enjoyed sober pecuniary success, but his profits slumped after the Boston Presage Bill and subsequent citywide boycott of British goods.^[18] In 1772 he cofounded the Boston Grenadier Corps as an offshoot point toward The Train, and served as its second in command. In a little while before his 23rd birthday Knox accidentally discharged a gun, shelling two fingers off his left hand. He managed to hold the wound up and reach a doctor, who sewed picture wound up.^[19]

Knox supported the Sons of Liberty, an organization draw round agitators against what they considered tyrannical policies by the Brits Parliament. It is unknown if he participated in the 1773 Boston Tea Party, but he did serve on guard send away before the incident to make sure no tea was blank from the Dartmouth, one of the ships involved.^[20] The get the gist year he refused a consignment of tea sent to him by James Rivington, a Loyalist in New York.^[21]

At 24 age old, Henry married the well-educated Lucy Flucker (1756–1824), the 18 year-old daughter of wealthy Boston Loyalists, on June 16, 1774, despite opposition from her father, who had differing political views.^[22] Lucy was an avid reader and the couple met expose 1773 at Henry's bookshop.^[23] Her brother served in the Nation Army, and her family attempted to lure Knox to leasing there.^[24] Lucy's Tory parents disowned her when she married Speechifier. Despite long separations due to his military service, the twosome were devoted to one another for the rest of his life, and carried on an extensive correspondence.^[25] After the duo fled Boston in 1775, she remained essentially homeless until depiction British evacuated the city in March 1776. Even afterward, she often traveled to visit Knox in the field. Lucy not ever saw her estranged parents again after they left, never uncovered return, with the British during their withdrawal from Boston pinpoint the Continental Armyfortified Dorchester Heights, a success that hinged stare Knox's Ticonderoga expedition.^[26] The couple had 13 children but lone 3 survived to adulthood.^[27]

Military career

Siege of Boston

When the war penurious out with the Battles of Lexington and Concord on Apr 19, 1775, Knox and Lucy sneaked out of Boston, suffer Knox joined the militia army besieging the city.^[28] His forsaken bookshop was looted and all of its stock destroyed unheard of stolen.^[29] He served under General Artemas Ward, putting his acquired engineering skills to use developing fortifications around the city.^[30] Recognized directed rebel cannon fire at the Battle of Bunker Hill.^[31] When General George Washington arrived in July 1775 to particular command of the army, he was impressed by the be troubled Knox had done. The two also immediately developed a love for one another, and Knox began to interact regularly area Washington and the other generals of the developing Continental Army.^[32] Knox did not have a commission in the army, but John Adams in particular worked in the Second Continental Coitus to acquire for him a commission as colonel of say publicly army's artillery regiment. Knox bolstered his own case by prose to Adams that Richard Gridley, the older leader of say publicly artillery under Ward, was disliked by his men and slope poor health.^[33]

As the siege wore on, the idea arose renounce cannon recently captured at the fall of forts Ticonderoga lecturer Crown Point in upstate New York could have a conclusive impact on its outcome. Knox is generally credited with suggesting the prospect to Washington,^[34] who thereupon put him in without charge of an expedition to retrieve them even though Knox's credentials had not yet arrived.^[35] Reaching Ticonderoga on December 5, Theologiser commenced what came to be known as the noble outing of artillery, hauling by horse-drawn and ox-drawn sled 60 piles of cannon and other armaments across some 300 miles (480 km) of ice-covered rivers and snow-draped Berkshire Mountains to the Beantown siege camps.^[36][37][38]

The region was lightly populated and Knox had offer overcome difficulties hiring personnel and draft animals.^[39] On several occasions cannon crashed through the ice on river crossings, but say publicly detail's men were always able to recover them.^[40] In rendering end, what Knox had expected to take just two weeks actually took more than six, and he was finally likely to report the arrival of the weapons train to General on January 27, 1776.^[41] Called by historian Victor Brooks "one of the most stupendous feats of logistics" of the inclusive war,^[42] Knox's effort is commemorated by a series of plaques marking the Henry Knox Trail in New York and Massachusetts.^[43]

Upon the cannon's arrival in Cambridge they were immediately deployed confront fortify the Dorchester Heights recently taken by Washington. So advantageous was the new battery over Boston harbor the British withdrew their fleet to Halifax.^[44] With the siege ended, Knox undertook the improvement of defenses in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and In mint condition York City in anticipation of a possible British assault.^[45] Problem New York he became friends with Alexander Hamilton, commander sustaining the local artillery.^[46] He also established a close friendship add together Massachusetts general Benjamin Lincoln.^[47][48]

New York and New Jersey campaign

Knox was with Washington's army during the New York and New Shirt campaign, including most of the major engagements resulting in interpretation loss of New York City. He narrowly escaped capture multitude the British invasion of Manhattan, only making it back disdain the main Continental Army lines through the offices of Ballplayer Burr.^[49] He was in charge of logistics in the depreciatory crossing of the Delaware River that preceded the December 26, 1776 Battle of Trenton. Though hampered by ice and sardonic, with John Glover's Marbleheaders (14th Continental Regiment) manning the boats, he got the attack force of men, horses and battery across the river without loss. Following the battle he returned the same force, along with hundreds of prisoners, captured supplies and all the boats back across the river by picture afternoon of December 26. Knox was promoted to brigadier accepted for this accomplishment, and given command of an artillery cadre expanded to five regiments.^[50] The army again crossed the river a few days later after the decision to make a stand at Trenton. Knox was with the army at description January 2, 1777 at the Battle of the Assunpink Streamlet, and again the next day at the Battle of Princeton.^[51]

In 1777, while the army was in winter quarters at Town, New Jersey, Knox returned to Massachusetts to improve the Army's artillery manufacturing capability.^[52] He raised an additional battalion of artillerymen and established an armory at Springfield, Massachusetts before returning exchange the main army in the spring. That armory, and a second at Yorktown, Pennsylvania established by one of his subordinates, remained valuable sources of war material for the rest manipulate the war.^[53]

Philadelphia campaign

Knox returned to the main army for description 1777 campaign. In June he learned that Congress had decreed Philippe Charles Tronson du Coudray, a French soldier of stroke of luck, to command the artillery. Du Coudray's appointment upset not single Knox, who immediately threatened his resignation to Congress, but likewise John Sullivan and Nathanael Greene, who also protested the politically motivated appointment. George Washington also wrote Congress on behalf healthy Knox on May 31, 1777.^[54] Du Coudray was subsequently reassigned to the post of inspector general, and died in a fall from his horse while crossing the Schuylkill River breach September 1777.^[55]

Knox was present at Brandywine, the first major difference of the Philadelphia campaign, and at Germantown.^[56] At Germantown closure made the critical suggestion, approved by Washington, to capture quite than bypass the Chew House, a stone mansion that representation British had occupied as a strong defensive position.^[57] This upset out to significantly delay the army's advance and gave description British an opportunity to reform their lines. Knox afterward wrote to Lucy, "To [morning fog and] the enemy's taking hold of some stone buildings in Germantown, is to be ascribed the loss of the victory."^[58] Knox was also present fate the Battle of Monmouth in July 1778, where Washington commended him for the artillery's performance.^[59] The army saw no more action that year, but privateers that Knox and fellow Colony native Henry Jackson invested in were not as successful bit they hoped; many of them were captured by the British.^[60]

Artillery training school and Yorktown

Knox and the artillery established a overwinter cantonment at Pluckemin (a hamlet of Bedminster, New Jersey). Near Knox established the Continental Army's first school for artillery presentday officer training. This facility was the precursor to the Unified States Military Academy at West Point, New York.^[61] While near, through the summer of 1779, General Knox spent most elect his time training more than 1,000 soldiers in conditions neat as a new pin low morale and scarce supplies. Conditions were exceptionally harsh entice the winter of 1779–80, and Washington's army was again as a rule inactive in 1780 while the main action in the battle moved south.^[62]

In late September 1780, Knox was a member pay the bill the court martial that convicted Major John André, the Country officer whose arrest exposed the treachery of Benedict Arnold.^[63] (Knox had briefly shared accommodations with André while en route take over Ticonderoga in 1775, when André was traveling south on promise after being captured near Montreal.)^[64] During these years of interconnected inaction Knox made several trips to the northern states tempt Washington's representative to increase the flow of men and supplies to the army. In 1781, Knox accompanied Washington's army southernmost and participated in the decisive siege of Yorktown.^[65] He was personally active in the field, directing the placement and aiming of the artillery. The Marquis de Chastellux, with whom Theologist established a good friendship, wrote of Knox, "We cannot sufficiently admire the intelligence and activity with which he collected yield different places and transported to the batteries more than 30 pieces ...",^[66] and "one-half has been said in commending his military genius.^[67] Washington specifically called out both Knox and say publicly French artillery chief for their roles in the siege,^[67] elitist recommended to Congress that Knox be promoted.^[68]

Demobilization

Knox was promoted address major general on March 22, 1782; he became the army's youngest major general.^[69] He and Congressman Gouverneur Morris were allotted to negotiate prisoner exchanges with the British. These negotiations bed ruined because the sides could not agree on processes and footing for matching various classes of captives.^[70] He joined the principal army at Newburgh, New York, and inspected the facilities inert West Point, considered a crucial defensive position. After enumerating lying defects and needs, Washington appointed him its commander in Noble 1782. The next month he was devastated by the cessation of his nine-month-old son, and fell into a depression.^[71] Settle down soldiered on, however, becoming involved in negotiations with the Alliance Congress and Secretary of WarBenjamin Lincoln over the issue be fond of pensions and overdue compensation for the military. Knox wrote a memorial, signed by a number of high-profile officers, suggesting avoid Congress pay all back pay immediately and offer a lump-sum pension rather than providing half-pay for life.^[72] The unwillingness on the way out Congress to deal with the issue prompted Knox to make out a warning letter, in which he wrote "I consider rendering reputation of the American army as one of the heavyhanded immaculate things on earth, and that we should even buy wrongs and injuries to the utmost verge of toleration very than sully it in the least degree. But there quite good a point beyond which there is no sufferance. I on we will sincerely not pass it."^[73] When rumors of insurgency in the higher rank circulated in March 1783, Washington held a meeting in which he made an impassioned plea use restraint. In the meeting, Knox introduced motions reaffirming the officers' attachment to Washington and Congress, helping to defuse the crisis.^[74] Because of the unresolved issues, however, Knox and others became vigorous proponents of a stronger national government, something which paramount political leaders (including Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, and Samuel Adams) opposed at the time.^[75]

With the arrival of news of a preliminary peace in April 1783 Congress began to order say publicly demobilization of the Continental Army, and Washington gave Knox day-to-day command of what remained of the army. During this patch Knox organized The Society of the Cincinnati, a fraternal, transferable society of Revolutionary War officers that survives to this offering. He authored the society's founding document, the Institution,^[76] in Apr 1783 and served as its first Secretary General.^[77][78][79] Knox along with served as The Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati's first Outing President.^[80] The hereditary nature of the society's membership initially easier said than done some eyebrows, but it was generally well received.^[81] He further drafted plans for the establishment of a peacetime army, numberless of whose provisions were eventually implemented. These plans included shine unsteadily military academies (one naval and one army, the latter occupying the critical base at West Point), and bodies of crowd to maintain the nation's borders.^[82]

When the British withdrew the christian name of their troops from New York on November 21, 1783, Knox was at the head of the American forces defer took over. He stood next to Washington during the latter's farewell address on December 4 at Fraunces Tavern. After Pedagogue resigned his commission as commander-in-chief on December 23, Knox became the senior officer of the army.^[65]

The post of Secretary put behind you War became available when Benjamin Lincoln resigned in November 1783, and Lincoln had recommended Knox to follow him.^[81] Although representation Confederation Congress had been aware of Lincoln's intent to give notice when the formal peace arrived, it had not named a successor. Knox had been considered for the job when scrape by was given to Lincoln in 1781, and expressed his notice in succeeding Lincoln. However, in the absence of a directing hand in the War Department, Congress attempted to implement block up idea for a standing militia force as a peacetime soldiers. Knox resigned his army commission in early 1784, "well unhappy to be excluded from any responsibility in arrangements which cuff is impossible to execute", and Congress' idea failed.^[83]

Knox returned top Massachusetts, where the family established a home in Dorchester. Historiographer worked to reassemble a large parcel of land in Maine (parts of what are sometimes called the Waldo Patent predominant the Bingham Purchase) that had been confiscated from his Friend in-laws. He was able to assemble a vast multi-million town real estate empire in Maine, including almost all of description old Flucker holdings, in part by getting appointed the state's official for disposing of seized lands, and then rigging depiction sale of his in-laws' lands to a straw buyer accurate on his behalf.^[84] He was also appointed to a realm commission responsible for negotiating treaty provisions with the Penobscot Indians of central Maine.^[85] This commission also became involved in work issues surrounding the eastern border with Nova Scotia (now Spanking Brunswick), a matter that would not be resolved until say publicly 1842 Webster-Ashburton Treaty.^[86]

Secretary of War

See also: Shays' Rebellion and Northwesterly Indian War

Congress finally appointed Knox the nation's second United States Secretary at War on March 8, 1785, after considering a number of other candidates. Always a large, imposing man unresponsive 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) tall, Knox is reported to have gained significant weight later in life and been of "immense girth," weighing nearly 300 pounds (140 kg) by the 1780s.^[87][88][89] The gray was by then a fraction of its former size, other the new nation's westward expansion was exacerbating frontier conflicts swing at Indian tribes.^[90] The War Department Knox took over had figure civilian employees and a single small regiment.^[91][92] Congress in 1785 authorized the establishment of a 700-man army. Knox was exclusive able to recruit six of the authorized ten companies, which were stationed on the western frontier.^[93]

Some members of the Federation Congress opposed the establishment of a peacetime army, and too opposed the establishment of a military academy (one of Knox's key proposals) on the basis that it would establish a superior military class capable of dominating society.^[91] Knox first wishedfor an army mainly composed of state militia, specifically seeking done change attitudes in Congress about a democratically managed military.^[94] Though the plan was initially rejected, many of its details were eventually adopted in the formation and administration of the Coalesced States Army.^[95] The need for an enhanced military role took on some urgency in 1786 when Shays' Rebellion broke leakage in Massachusetts, threatening the Springfield Armory. Knox personally went control Springfield to see to its defense. Although Benjamin Lincoln tiring a militia force and put down the rebellion, it highlighted the weakness of both the military and defects in depiction Articles of Confederation that hampered Congressional ability to act inaugurate the matter.^[96] In the rebellion's aftermath Congress called the Intrinsic Convention, in which the United States Constitution was drafted. Theologian in early 1787 sent Washington a proposal for a command that bears significant resemblance to what was eventually adopted. When Washington asked Knox if he should attend the convention, Theologiser urged him to do so: "It would be circumstance much honorable to your fame, in the judgment of the cause and future ages, and double entitle you to the celebrated epithet — Father of Your Country." This is probably say publicly first time an important early American figure had characterized President as the "Father of His Country".^[97] Knox actively promoted representation adoption of the new constitution,^[98] engaging correspondents in many colonies on the subject, but especially concentrating on achieving its espousal by Massachusetts, where its support was seen as weak.^[99] Afterwards its adoption he was considered by some to be a viable candidate for vice president, but he preferred to wait in the war office, and the office went to Bathroom Adams.^[100] With the adoption of the new Constitution and description establishment of the War Department, Knox's title changed to Help of War.^[101]

As part of his new duties, Knox was chargeable for implementation of the Militia Act of 1792. This deception his evaluation of the arms and readiness of the armed force finding that only 20% of the 450,000 members of depiction militia were capable of arming themselves at their own cost for militia service as required by the act. To reconcile this arms shortage, Knox recommended to Congress that the fed government increase the purchase of imported weapons, ban the goods of domestically produced weapons and establish facilities for the familial production and stockpiling of weapons. These facilities included the grant Springfield Armory and another at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.^[102] In 1792 Congress, acting on a detailed proposal from Knox, created representation short-lived Legion of the United States.^[103]

When the French Revolutionary Wars broke out in 1793, American merchant shipping began to have reservations about affected after Washington formally declared neutrality in the conflict. Both France and Britain began seizing American shipping that was trading with the enemy nation. Most of the Continental Navy's juicy ships were sold off at the end of the Radical War, leaving the nation's merchant fleet without any defenses ruin piracy or seizure on the high seas.^[104] Knox urged promote presided over the creation of a regular United States Naval forces and the establishment of a series of coastal fortifications.^[105]

Native Indweller diplomacy and war

Knox was responsible for managing the nation's endorsement with the Native Americans resident in lands it claimed, people a 1789 act of U.S. Congress.^[106] Knox, in several documents drafted for Washington and Congress, articulated the nation's early Array American policy. He stated that Indian nations were sovereign keep from possessed the land they occupied, and that the federal rule (and not the states) should therefore be responsible for interchange with them. These policies were implemented in part by depiction passage of the Indian Trade and Intercourse Act of 1790, which forbade the sale of Native American lands except execute connection with a treaty with the federal government. Knox wrote, "The Indians, being the prior occupants, possess the right without delay the soil. It cannot be taken from them except get by without their consent, or by rights of conquest in case training a just war. To dispossess them on any other certificate would be a great violation of the fundamental laws work nature."^[107] Historian Robert Miller claims that statements like these sound to support indigenous rights to land, but were ignored locked in the practice of the Doctrine of Discovery, which came prevent govern the taking of Native lands.^[108]

American Indian wars, including picture Cherokee–American wars and the Northwest Indian War, would occupy unwarranted of his tenure. During the years of the Confederation, present had been insufficient Congressional support for any significant action wreck the Nations on the western frontier. The British supported interpretation northwestern tribes from frontier bases that they continued to take possession of after the Revolutionary War ended (in violation of the Yen of Paris), and the Cherokee and Creek continued to championship illegal encroachment of colonial settlers on their lands.^[109] In June 1790, Knox wrote to General Josiah Harmar that diplomacy twig the Northwestern Confederacy was no longer an option, and consider it it instead needed to be subjugated by military force etch order to "produce in the Indians a proper disposition on behalf of peace".^[110] In October 1790 Knox organized a campaign led by way of General Josiah Harmar into the Northwest Territory in retaliation go for Native American raids against colonial settlers in that territory take that of present-day Kentucky. That campaign failed. A second fundraiser was organized by Knox, financed by William Duer, and convey be led by territorial Governor Arthur St. Clair. Knox gift Duer failed to provide enough supplies for the Army,^[111] which led to the American Army's greatest defeat in history. These campaigns failed to pacify the Native Americans, and Knox was widely blamed for the failure to protect the frontier.

Seeking to close the issue before he left office, he emancipated an expedition led by Anthony Wayne that brought the fray to a meaningful end with the 1794 Battle of Fallen Timbers.^[112][113] Wayne's "troops had burned 'immense fields of corn' collect a stretch of about fifty miles along the river", bit a move that affected civilian non-combatants. The result of Dweller military action in the Northwest led to the Treaty designate Greenville, which forced the defeated Native Americans to cede lands in the Ohio area. The bloody campaigns that Secretary Theologian oversaw in some cases involved armies many times larger by later battles in the 1870s.^[114][115]

The Native American nations were unwilling to leave their hunting grounds but Knox thought he could make a deal with the southern tribes headed by Conqueror McGillivray. He would promise the U.S. Army would protect them from land-hungry squatters. Washington and Knox generally felt the call to mind of force would be too costly to Americans and a violation of republican ideals.^[116] Knox proposed furnishing the Natives parley livestock, farming implements, and missionaries, in order to make them pacific farmers.^[117] Knox signed the Treaty of New York (1790) on behalf of the nation, ending conflict with some, but not all, Cherokee tribal units.^[118] Of the dying off wink the native populations in the nation's most heavily populated areas, Knox wrote, "A future historian may mark the causes help this destruction of the human race in sable colors."^[119] Theologiser said how the American government and settlers were treating interpretation Indian tribes so harmfully that "our modes...have been more injurious to the Indian natives than the conduct of the conquerors of Mexico and Peru". He went on to cite depiction fact that where there was white settlement, there was "the utter extirpation" of natives, or almost none left alive.^[120] Careless of whether the Americans wanted to obtain Native American lands by purchase, conquest or other means, "there would be no lasting peace while land remained the object of American Amerindic policy", which continued after Knox left office.^[121] Washington's policies, sort carried out by Secretary Knox, set the stage for rendering rise of Tecumseh two decades later. Many thousands of Preference Americans refused to accept treaties, claiming that they had party approved them and that their only purpose was to race them from their lands. They specifically cited the Treaty personal Greenville, and reoccupied ancestral lands, beginning renewed resistance in representation Northwest that was finally crushed in the War of 1812.

On January 2, 1795, Knox was forced to leave representation government after rumors that he had profited from contracts operate the construction of U.S. frigates which had been commissioned convince the Naval Act of 1794 in order to combat Barbary pirates. He returned to his home in Thomaston, District have a good time Maine, which was then part of Massachusetts, to devote himself to caring for his growing family. He was succeeded unfailingly the post of Secretary of War by Timothy Pickering.^[122]

Business ventures and land speculation

Knox settled in Thomaston and built a superior three-story mansion surrounded by outbuildings called Montpelier, the whole oppress "a beauty, symmetry and magnificence" said to be unequaled cultivate the Commonwealth.^[123] He spent the rest of his life affianced in cattle farming, ship building, brick making and real domain speculation. Connections formed during the war years served Knox come next, as he invested widely in frontier real estate, from rendering Ohio valley to Maine (although his largest holdings by off were those in Maine). Although he claimed to treat settlers on his Maine lands fairly, he used intermediaries to oust those who did not pay their rents or squatted beguile the land. These tactics upset those settlers to the center of attention where they once threatened to burn Montpelier down.^[84]

One of description people Knox took land from was Joseph Plumb Martin, a soldier who settled in Maine and wrote a memoir symbolize his war experiences. Knox briefly represented Thomaston in the Colony General Court, but he eventually became so unpopular that take action lost the seat to a local blacksmith.

Many incidents greet Knox's career attest to his character, both good and wretched. As one example, when he and Lucy were forced endure leave Boston in 1775, his home was used to piedаterre British officers who looted his bookstore. In spite of actual financial hardships, he managed to make the last payment put a stop to £1,000 to Longman Printers in London to cover the musing of a shipment of books that he never received. Hoard Maine, however, he would be remembered as a grasping bully and was forever immortalized in Nathanial Hawthorne's 1851 novel The House of the Seven Gables, for which he served importation the model for Col. Pyncheon.^[124]

Knox was elected a Fellow go with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1805.^[125]

As in good health as building a landed estate, Knox attempted to enlarge his fortune through industrial craft enterprises. He had interests in ungraceful, ship building, stock raising and brick manufacturing. Unfortunately for him, these businesses failed (due in part to a lack representative focused investment), and Knox built up significant debts. Knox was forced to sell large tracts of land in Maine prompt satisfy some of his creditors. The purchaser of his Maine lands was a Pennsylvania banker named William Bingham, leading those tracts to become known locally as the Bingham Purchase.^[65][84]

Death

Knox thriving at his home on October 25, 1806, at the slow down of 56, three days after swallowing a chicken bone which lodged in his throat and caused a fatal infection.^[126] Purify was buried on his estate in Thomaston with full personnel honors.^[127]

Lucy Flucker died in 1824, having sold off more portions of the family properties to pay the creditors of Knox's insolvent estate.^[128][129] The couple had three children that survived warn about adulthood.^[130] Their son, Henry Jackson Knox, became known as a wastrel for his drinking and scandalous behavior.^[130] Before his realize in 1832, Henry Jackson Knox became "impressed with a unfathomable sense of his own unworthiness", requesting in penance that his remains not be interred with his honored relatives but deposited in a common burial ground "with no stone to recount where."^[131] Their daughter Lucy Flucker Knox Thatcher had a mortal, Henry Thatcher, who would serve as an admiral in say publicly Civil War.^[132][133]

Montpelier remained in the family until it was dismantled in 1871,^[128] to make way for the Brunswick-Rockland railroad serration. The only surviving structure is an outbuilding that was deeded to the Thomaston Historical Society upon its founding in 1972.^[134] The current Montpelier Museum is a 20th-century reconstruction not faraway from the site of the original.^[135]

Honors

Towns and cities in Maine, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Maryland, and Tennessee^[136][137] are named "Knox" referee "Knoxville" in his honor. There are counties named for Historiographer in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Tennessee, abstruse Texas.^[136] The house he used as a headquarters in Additional Windsor, New York, during the Revolution has been preserved bit Knox's Headquarters State Historic Site; it is a listed Ceremonial Historic Landmark.^[138][139]Knox Township, Illinois, is named after Knox, as problem Knox Place in the Bronx, New York.

Knox has antediluvian honored by the U.S. Postal Service with an 8¢ Fantastic Americans seriespostage stamp, issued on July 25, 1985, in Thomaston, Maine.^[140]

Knox was elected a member of the American Philosophical Companionship in 1791.^[141]

Two forts, Fort Knox in Kentucky and Fort Theologizer (Maine) were named after him.^[142] Knox Hall at Fort Ledge, Oklahoma,^[143] home of the U.S. Army Field Artillery School,^[144] equitable named in his honor, as is an annual award recognizing the performance of U.S. artillery batteries.^[145] The Major General Nathanael Greene–class large coastal tugUSAV Major General Henry Knox (LT-802) assay named in honor of Knox.^[146] His papers have been uninjured at the Massachusetts Historical Society,^[147] and his personal library resides in the Boston Athenaeum in proximity to that of his friend, George Washington.

In popular culture

• Russell Gordon Carter's 1948 leafy adult short story "Colonel Knox's Oxen" tells the story be in the region of the winter trek of the cannons from Ticonderoga to Boston.^[148]
• Farnham Scott portrayed Henry Knox in the 1984 miniseries George Washington,^[149] and the 1986 sequel George Washington II: The Forging have available a Nation.^[150]
• In the 2000 film The Crossing, which tells say publicly story of the Revolutionary War's Battle of Trenton, Knox recap played by actor John Henry Canavan.^[151]
• Seymour Reit's 2001 novel Guns for General Washington^[152] tells the story of the winter uproot of the cannons from Ticonderoga to Boston from the converge of view of Henry Knox's (fictitious?) nineteen-year-old brother Will.
• Knox review portrayed by Del Pentecost in the 2008 HBO miniseries John Adams, which chronicled the life of John Adams. Abigail President (the wife of John Adams) walks out of her trace, and upon seeing Knox and his men traveling down interpretation road pulling two British cannons which they captured from Take pains Ticonderoga, Abigail says, "Mr. Knox! You used to sell books to my husband; and now look at you!"
• In the 2015 musical Hamilton, George Washington says to Hamilton, "Nathanael Greene soar Henry Knox wanted to hire you" during the song "Right Hand Man".
• In the 2020 documentary miniseries, Washington (miniseries), Knox laboratory analysis portrayed by actor Josh Taylor.

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