A Hagiography of Henry Knox

I was delighted to learn just now that the guy who played General Henry Knox (1750-1806) in the HBO mini-series John Adams was none other than Del Pentecost, who played the title character in Fatboy, John Clancy’s adaptation of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roiabout 20 years ago. There’s the extent of our theatrical angle on his story! But Knox is one of our more gratifying Founding Fathers to learn about, deserving of a moment’s contemplation, at least. Fort Knox, Kentucky, and Knoxville, Tennessee are both named after him. By no stretch of the imagination ought that to be considered trivia. The man was instrumental in the founding of this country, 250 years ago.

Most with an interest in the biography of Knox have a very specific reason for loving him. By trade in civilian life he had been a bookseller. Having spent three years in that job myself, I find myself claiming him as “one of our own”. The key to appreciating Knox is that he was an auto-didact, a bookworm since childhood. He turned himself into something like a genius of artillery merely by reading books about military history and strategy. Barely 25 years old at the beginning of the war, the Boston bookseller was a Son of Liberty, a witness to the Boston Massacre, and a member of the local militia. He was the guy who helped move the stolen cannons from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston, and who helped make The Battle of Bunker Hill so painful to the British. When Washington assumed command, he made Knox his chief artillery officer for the duration of the war.

Later Knox was Secretary of War under the Articles of Confederation (1785-89) and under the Washington Administration (1789-94). In this position, his job consisted primarily of negotiating with various Indian tribes, and overseeing various conflicts with them as well. It should be known that Washington’s government strove to deal with the indigenous tribes diplomatically just as they would any other nation. The cycle of bad faith and betrayal that characterized American Indian relations overall had not yet set in. Yet it’s worth noting that Fort Knox and Knoxville are located in Kentucky and Tennessee, territory that had belonged to the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, and other groups prior to the cession of their lands to the Americans.

Knox County, Maine is also named after the General. This is because he settled there after his retirement from government service. He built a manor house in Thomaston he called Montpelier. While there he spent his last years speculating in land, raising cattle, manufacturing bricks, and shipbuilding. Also of note: he helped a freed slave and Revolutionary War vet named Amos Peters establish a black community in the nearby town of Warren, which became a village called Peterborough.

Knox’s parents were Ulster Scottish immigrants. His father was a wealthy shipbuilder who died when Henry was a boy, necessitating his apprenticeship to a bookseller. It is unknown whether or how the family is related to the founder of Presbyterianism.

Lastly, as will be apparent from any portrait of him, Henry Knox was a HUGE man. Standing 6’3″, he had reached a weight of 300 lbs. by his later years. Ultimately his epicureanism is what finally did him in. Choked on a chicken bone; died of a resulting infection three days later. He was 56 at the time.