- Benjamin Knower
Benjamin Knower (1775 Roxbury, now a borough of
Boston, Massachusetts -August 23 ,1839 Watervliet,Albany County, New York ) was an American merchant, banker and politician.Life
By 1800 he had removed to
Dutchess County, New York , and on June 21, 1800, he married Sarah Van Kleek (1779-1833) at the Dutch Reformed Church inPoughkeepsie, New York . Before 1810, he settled inAlbany, New York where he sold hats made by his brother Timothy inGuilderland, New York . Local lore had it that the hats were madewaterproof by immersion in the Bozenkill, a stream behind a mansion in Knowersville, a village of Guilderland.He was
New York State Treasurer from 1821 to 1824, and was one of the leading members of theAlbany Regency . On April 28, 1824, his daughter Cornelia (ca. 1801-1889) married State ComptrollerWilliam L. Marcy .Knower became rich as a financier of the
Erie Canal and as a director of the Mechanics and Farmers Bank of Albany. After the death of his first wife, on June 23, 1836, he married Sophia P. Castle (d. 1886) inNew York City .He was buried at the
Albany Rural Cemetery inMenands, New York .ources
* [http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/knill-knowland.html Political Graveyard]
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=E3sFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA35 "The New York Civil List" compiled by Franklin Benjamin Hough (page 35; Weed, Parsons and Co., 1858) (Google Books)]
* [http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~knower/benjstem.htm Knower genealogy, at rootsweb] (giving wrong date of death)
* [http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~knower/benjdeath.htm Obit in "The Annals of Albany" by Joel Munsell (1859), at rootsweb]
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