Jeremiah Knox was born about 1815 in Cadiz, Harrison County, Ohio, later to be known as the birthplace of actor Clark Gable. His father, Rev. William Knox, an immigrant from County Tyrone, Ireland, was a Methodist Episcopal minister in Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Young Jeremiah took to the pulpit early, preaching in churches as young as age 20, and accepting an assignment to the Pittsburgh Conference.
Rev. Jeremiah Knox was attached at various times to a number of churches in the area, including the Carson Street Methodist Episcopal Church in Birmingham. His service to the church spanned 30 years, although most Allegheny Countians remembered him more for his fruit farm of 100+ acres and the luscious produce he was able to coax from the soil after retiring from the ministry.
He was later associated with the firm of R.C. Cummins & Co., nurserymen and fruit dealers, whose business was located on Smithfield Street. The Knox Botanical and Seed Store at 29 Fifth Avenue was a popular spot where folks could purchase flowers, seeds and objects collected by Jeremiah while traveling abroad. Another store, perhaps at a different time, was on Liberty Street and was open for the sale of seeds and strawberries.
As noted in an obituary in the Pittsburgh Daily Gazette, Jeremiah was also on the Board of Directors of the Tradesmen’s National Bank.
His personal life saw two marriages, two children of his own plus stepchildren by his first wife’s previous marriage. Sarah Beltzhoover was from a prominent family, being the daughter of Jacob Beltzhoover. Born in 1800, Sarah married Dr. Frederick Bausman when she was 17, bearing him four children, two boys and two girls. Dr. Bausman died in 1834 and Sarah married Jeremiah Knox six years later. Jeremiah was 15 years her junior. The couple had a daughter, Amanda, born in 1841, and a son, William Wilbur (“W.W.”), who was born in 1844. Sarah brought the Bausman children to the marriage and the family settled into the large house on Coal Hill.
After nearly 11 years of marriage, Sarah died in the spring of 1851. Devastated, lonely and left to care for the two youngest offspring, Jeremiah continued his work in the pulpit. Perhaps the result of prayer or simply a chance meeting, he found a lovely lady several years later whom he courted until she finally agreed to be his wife. According to Emily Black Moorhead’s Whirling Spindle, things were a bit rocky at first. The lady, Mrs. Mary Morgan, was Emily’s teacher at a select school on Ferry Street (later moved to Smithfield Street) and was divorced. At that time the Methodist Church did not approve of divorced persons marrying and Jeremiah’s congregation reportedly asked him to resign if he planned to marry Mrs. Morgan. They did marry sometime in the 1850s, but Jeremiah did not give up the ministry until after 1860.
Mrs. Morgan, according to Emily, had been married to a “worthless” man and had wished to be free of him. It was Emily’s lawyer father who was sympathetic to her and, although divorces were not easy to procure at that time, he was successful in her case.
The courtship of Mary and Jeremiah was found to be interesting and amusing by her students. Although unclear how they first met, Jeremiah, while in town, often drove his buggy by Mary’s school and stopped in for a chat. Mary, according to Emily, “had a lot of real charm though not actually a beauty. She was animated and sympathetic, responding doubtless to the troubles of the Methodist divine who had anxieties of his own.”
He began to linger at the school in the old engine house on Smithfield Street, much to the delight of the students who did not mind one bit having a break in the long school day.
Mary was the former Mary Gray, born in Ohio and approximately the same age as Jeremiah. Her father was Rev. James Gray, a wealthy preacher at the Methodist Episcopal Church in Sewickley. He had previously lived in Alleghenytown and Steubenville, Ohio, and was born in Ireland.
Retiring to the farm, Jeremiah’s interest in horticulture blossomed and he worked tirelessly perfecting the fruit he would sell to eager visitors. His reputation grew and he became well known throughout the area not only as an accomplished farmer but as a gentleman and a good friend to all. The select school where Mary taught closed, as did her career as a teacher. Mary presided over the house which, according to Whirling Spindle, was “a rambling two-story frame house, with broad verandas, a wide hall, spacious living room and windows on all sides overlooking the acres of strawberry beds and grapevines which were laden in season with the luscious Concord -- brought to perfection equal to that of the strawberry.”
Mary also cared for the children, who became quite fond of her and she of them. She and Jeremiah did not have any children of their own but at times she had her hands full with Jeremiah’s. Mary probably did not have any children by her first husband Mr. Morgan since there were no Morgans listed in her will or estate.
Jeremiah and Sarah’s children, Amanda and William, grew up on the farm, married and had families of their own. Amanda married Edward J. Matthews of Philadelphia, who was listed as president of a brick company in the 1880 census in Philadelphia County. The census listed Amanda being “at home,” meaning she cared for the house and children and did not work outside the household. However, in her brother’s obituary, mention was made that she was the translator of the recently published “The Angel of the Village.” Four children were born between 1869 and 1878: Frederick B., Wilbur K., Edward Roscoe and Sydney.
Frederick B. was probably named for Frederick Bausman, Amanda’s half brother, who worked for Jeremiah on the farm and became a well-known businessman in his own right.
Jeremiah’s son William Wilbur Knox was called “Will” by the family but preferred “W.W.” in his professional life. His father sent him to college in Evanston, Illinois, where he met a lovely seminarian his own age named Josephine Morse of Massachusetts. The two fell in love and eloped, reportedly to the displeasure of Will's father.
The couple then came to live on the Knox farm where Will probably worked for his father. Later, he was a dealer of agricultural implements at the store on Liberty Street. In the 1870 census his occupation was listed as “Seedsman.”
Will remained in the business for only a short time and then went to Europe in May 1872 with Josephine and their two young children, Charles W., born in 1865, and Virginia, born in 1866. They were called home unexpectedly six months later upon receiving the news of Jeremiah’s death.
Jeremiah Knox died suddenly late at night on November 11, 1872, in his home. He had not been in ill health but awakened that night, thrashing about and having difficulty breathing. Mary immediately rang a large bell used for summoning the farmhands and the noise awakened a neighbor, Mr. Holbrook, who dressed and rushed to the house along with a Dr. Patten. They found Mary frantic and Jeremiah very weak and barely breathing. He died shortly afterwards. The newspapers reported his death was caused by heart disease.
It was said that a few days earlier he had felt a strange sensation and told a friend that he would die suddenly.
His death came as quite a shock to the people of Pittsburgh, especially since, at age 57, Jeremiah was robust and seemed to be in excellent health. One of his friends, Rev. James Dermott, received the news from the toll keeper on the Monongahela Bridge and was so overcome with grief, he collapsed on the spot, remaining unconscious for about an hour.
An obituary in the Pittsburgh Daily Gazette read, in part: “The death of Mr. Knox will be most deeply lamented, not only in the immediate vicinity but throughout an extended territory where he was widely known and greatly respected as a most upright Christian gentleman and an earnest worker in the cause of his Master. His integrity in business and staunch moral character had won for him a multitude of friends, who deeply feel his loss. Particularly will be lamented by the ministers and party of his denomination in which he had marked so long and so faithfully until called to his reward.”
Jeremiah is buried in Allegheny Cemetery between his wives Sarah and Mary. Upon her husband’s death, Mary Knox returned to her home in Alliance, Stark County, Ohio, where she remained until she died in 1898.
The management of the Knox farm then fell to Will, but farming was not his greatest interest. In the 1880 census his occupation was “Agent, Real Estate,” and for years he was the President of the Knoxville Land Improvement Company. He was the founder of Knoxville Borough, named posthumously for his father.
Will’s true love, though, was literature. As the author of several novels as well as short stories and acclaimed poems, Will attracted a good deal of attention, and on at least one occasion, a touch of notoriety.
One of his novels, The Wayward Life; or a Girl’s Destiny, was published anonymously in 1886 by Carleton & Co. Will corresponded with his editor under the assumed name, “Geo. H. Knight,” and he apparently had good reason to keep his identity a secret.
The novel took place in the fictitious city of Mongerville, which readers quickly recognized as Pittsburgh. Worse, several members of the Pittsburgh social club to which Will belonged recognized some of the characters as being strikingly similar to themselves, and in a most offensive way.
Protected for a while by his anonymity, Will was eventually found out and his fellow club members were not happy with him. Will then thought it best to remove himself and his family from Pittsburgh until things cooled down.
Again, they chose Europe, but for an additional reason: Will did not inherit his father’s strong constitution and was at the same time seeking to improve his health in a more hospitable climate.
After traveling with his family for about a year, Will was stricken with pneumonia and died at the Grand Hotel in Dresden, Saxony, in January 1888. He was only 43. Will is also buried in Allegheny Cemetery.
An obituary published in the Pittsburgh Chronicle Telegraph referred to him as “a man who had a vast number of friends and was generous to a fault.” The Pittsburg Press wrote: “”Mr. Knox was a man of extraordinary literary ability and was the author of many poems which, for imagery and sentiment, were of an unusually high order.”
Will and Josephine’s two children, Charles and Virginia, were by then young adults. Charles eventually married a woman named Marie and became a gentleman farmer in Maryland. In the 1920 census in Philadelphia, his occupation was “Senior Clerk, Emergency Fleet.” Charles and Marie had a daughter, Dorothea.
By this time Josephine may have been looking for a suitable husband for Virginia, a red-headed beauty with spirit, talent and charm. While still in Europe after Will’s death, they met in Florence, Italy, a man named Giuseppe Carusi, the Count di Montercole. Debonair, handsome and sophisticated, the Count took an instant liking to Virginia, and actively pursued her. Virginia, perhaps being coy, did not immediately return his attentions and she and her mother returned to Pittsburgh. They were followed by the eager Count.
Only a few months later Virginia and the Count were married on October 10, 1888, in a triple ceremony and Virginia became the Countess di Montercole. The first wedding was performed at City Hall by Mayor William McCallin, a former sheriff of Allegheny County. The Mayor reportedly said it was his first wedding, although as sheriff he had hanged three people.
At one point the Mayor refused to proceed when he learned the Count could not speak English, but an Italian waiter from the Hotel Duquesne was called in as interpreter and the ceremony went on.
The second ceremony took place at Trinity Episcopal Church and was performed by the Rev. Dr. Samuel Maxwell. The Pittsburgh newspapers made the event front page news and it was lavishly covered in all its splendor. The papers could not praise Virginia and the Count enough: their dress, their gifts to each other, what enchanted lives they were about to live in the Count's castle on the beautiful Adriatic.
Some questioned whether the third ceremony ever took place but in Virginia's own words, it did. It was planned for St. Paul's Cathedral since the Count was Catholic, but some felt the priest would not perform the ceremony if he knew they had already been married twice that day.
When it was all over, the bridal party dined at the Monongahela House, the premier hotel in Pittsburgh. Afterwards, the couple headed for New York and set sail for France on the ship La Normandie. Unfortunately, the lavish weddings were the best part of their marriage and things began to turn ugly on the ship as the couple argued fiercely. The Count reportedly beat Virginia when she refused to give him any of her money. Their troubles continued at the Hotel Bellevue in Paris where the fights grew so loud, the manager asked them to leave.
It soon became clear the Count was an impostor. He did have a home in Italy, to which he took his bride, but he was known locally as a villain and Virginia quickly began plotting her escape back to Pittsburgh. In her own story published in the Philadelphia Inquirer in1890, Virginia said he kept her locked in her room with barred windows and tried to starve her to death, as she suspected he did with his first wife. Virginia did not know he had been married before and indeed he lied about it on their marriage license.
The American Consul at Fossacesia was sympathetic toward Virginia when he learned of her plight and sent word to Pittsburgh for help from her family. Luckily, one of her relatives was in Europe at the time and went to Italy to see what he could do. Virginia was freed from the Count, given a decree of separation and was told to return home.
Virginia spent some time resting at a sanitarium in Wernersville, Pennsylvania, but the Count had not given up. He came back to the United States for reasons unknown, although some said he was trying to extort money from the wealthy Knox family, who would have nothing to do with him. In Philadelphia he was arrested on more than one occasional for distributing circulars defiling Virginia's character, as well as for vagrancy, and was in and out of prison and the almshouse for about three years. Eventually his friends convinced him to return to Italy.
After the divorce, Virginia married again, in 1891, this time to Joseph N. Patterson, a Philadelphia manufacturer. What transpired over the next 15 years is unknown, but in 1906 she was committed to Bellevue Hospital in New York at the request of her husband. He claimed she was an alcoholic as well as insane. How long she remained there is also unknown, but she surfaced in Paris about a year and a half later, again behaving quite erratically.
The Philadelphia Inquirer ran brief notices in 1919 and 1920 that Charles W. Knox was administrator of the estate of Virginia Knox Patterson. Their mother Josephine died in Alliance, Ohio, in 1910. Part of Joseph Patterson's estate went to the Children's Aid Society of Pennsylvania in 1931, in the name of Virginia K. Patterson.
Except for the daughter of Charles W. Knox, of whom nothing further is known, this brings to an end the descendants of Jeremiah Knox of Lower St. Clair Township, later Knoxville Borough and now a beautiful neighborhood of Pittsburgh.
Kathy Borne is a genealogist and family historian with roots in Pittsburgh reaching back nearly 200 years. She is a descendant of the Gray family mentioned in this essay. Her book, A History of the Evanson Family of Cleveland, Ohio, was published last year, and she writes a bimonthly newsletter, Saxmania, about the history of the Saxman family in Westmoreland County. Her knowledge of the Knox family is the result of careful research of public records and newspaper articles. Kathy also spent four years on the staff of a weekly newspaper in Ohio and has been a comedy writer for more than 20 years.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: The occurrence of family names explain the names of some streets in Knoxville, such as Bausman, Amanda, Wilbur, Matthews and Charles.]
