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Free Home Page The Knapps from 1797 to 1931
Brompton, Quebec, Canada
The name Knapp originates in Saxony, in a Saxon word, the root of which is spelled "cnoep", signifying a summit or hilltop. John being the given name, and living on a hill, he was called John of the hill, John Knopp German, and John Knapp English. The first record of the name Knapp left Suffolk County, England for America, and in 1640 on Roger Knapp came. They and their descendants settled in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York. It is possible that Ephriam Knapp, the Elder, is descended form one of the families;i there is a gap of more than one hundred years, so that the relationship is purely conjectural.
In 1797 part of Brompton Township was granted to Ephriam Knapp
who, with his father, Ephriam the Elder had come from northern
New York with William Barnard and his associates. The first Knapp
homestead was the farm south of Christ Church, Brompton. July
19,1801 a son Thomas, the first white child to be born anywhere
in that vicinity, was born to Ephriam and his wife who was a
Houstin, ii a daughter of a widow who had settled in the
Wakefield Hill iii district a few years after 1797. Their
children were Thomas, Asa, Lynds, John, Lewis, Lois, and
Margaret.
Brompton was erected a township November 27, 1801. Supplies were
brought from Three Rivers, which was an old settlement, by canoe
and boats fashioned out of logs, planked across the bottom, which
they moved along by poling. In these boats there was room enough
for two rows of barrels containing whiskey, pork, tobacco, and
flour. Flour was expensive and hard to get at any price at that
time. The barrels were shipped back to Three Rivers filled with
"salts" like asphalt run in hot, made by boiling down
lye got form wood ashes. They would work all winter chopping and
burning piles of hard wood, and leach and boil the lye in sing.
If the salts were further burned in thick cast kettles, it made
potash which was always saleable at that time, for potash had not
then been found in mines. This was one of the few ways of getting
ready money.
Thomas Knapp helped making portage on the St. Francis River at
the several falls, with his father's yoke of oxen, and later he
made the boat trips. He bought a farm in Brompton not far from
his father's, cleared a piece f land near a spring which he
found, and built a house. (This spring is still in use on the
farm which is famous for its numerous springs.) In 1824 Thomas
married Caroline Holmes whom he met at Mrs. Adams's at Brompton
Falls, a house where the boat men got meals and lodgings.
Caroline was born in Guildhall, Vermont, April 6, 1805, and came
to Quebec when young. Her brothers and sisters were Samuel,
Hiram, Alfred, Lucrecia, Catherine, Abigail, and Eunice. Lucrecia
married Deacon Joshua Foss of Sherbrooke; their children were
Justin, Edwin, Maryann, and Ellen. Catherine married Charles
Annable of Eaton. They were left orphans when Caroline was ten,
and she was placed with this family at Brompton Falls, to work
until she was eighteen, when she was to receive a goose feather
bed and a pair of pillows; she stayed until she was nineteen, and
for the extra year she was given a handmade, drop-leaf kitchen
table (which Gordon Knapp has in his kitchen in Sherbrooke at the
present day.) When she was nineteen she married Thomas Knapp, and
they had a family of five boys and four girls, one girl,
Clarinda, dying when very young.
In the winter the father, Thomas, often went to Three Rivers to
cut and make railroad ties, hiring two or three men to go with
him, and taking provisions for a week or more which Caroline
prepared.
That was the period of raising flax for making table linen,
towels, sheets, etc., and sacks of the coarse flax. Caroline
became expert at spinning and weaving in patterns of her own
design. She also reared sheep and wove woollen cloth and blankets
for her family and for many of her neighbours. The amount of work
that she accomplished is almost unbelievable.
Thomas bought a piece of land a mile from home, through which a
brook ran, obtaining a mill privilege, and built a saw mill,
which was entirely home made and of wood except for one upright
saw in a wooden sash or frame. A man could saw about 2000 feet in
a day. He drew his best pine and spruce lumber to Sherbrooke for
sale. The pines were scattered on the wild land which nobody
owned. He sawed the hemlock plank to build the dam for Clarks
Mill at Brompton Falls. This mill sent much of its lumber by way
of Portland to South America for fence boards, and also made clap
boards, sugar boxes, shingles, laths, barrel staves, and heads.
In 1860 when the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII,
visited Canada, Charles Clark made great preparations for the
inspection of his mill; he had his men uniformly dressed,
standing at attention. When the Prince stepped in, the saws were
instantly set in operation.
Thomas Knapp was a tall, dignified man with blue eyes and
straight, sharp nose. He was called a very generous man to the
worthy, but very severe to the indolent and unworthy. He died of
pneumonia in 1880. Caroline was a large powerful woman, with
hazel eyes, Roman nose, and thick wavy hair even when she died at
the age of 84. She was a skilful nurse, and officiated at
practically every birth and death in the neighbourhood (from the
Key Brook well towards Melbourne), until she was nearly 80 years
old, there being no doctor in attendance at either birth or
deaths in the early years. She died in 1888 after an illness of a
few weeks. There is no question but she was the outstanding
figure of her day in that part of the country.
Caroline used to tell her grandchildren of tending bonfires all
night to keep the wolves away from the sheep and young lambs. The
wolves were finally scared off by blasting for the Grand Trunk
Railway, which was built on the East side of the St. Francis
River in 1853. There were friendly Indians in the country around
there; more than once, late at night, an Indian appeared at the
door, asked, "Any smallpox here" (they were deathly
afraid of smallpox) and when she said "No", he and
several others entered and slept on the floor in front of the
fireplace. In the early morning they noiselessly departed.
June 6, 1858 William Ball deeded the Upper Burying Ground to
Thomas Knapp and Richard Noyce and "their heirs and assigns
forever in tract to and for the benefit and behoof (sic) of the
Inhabitants of School District No. 3 of the Township of Brompton
for the purpose of burying ground."
Thomas and Caroline's family were all born in that house, which
Thomas had built before his marriage. In 1849 when the youngest,
Alfred Holmes Knapp, was three years old, the house was moved a
little way off for the family to occupy while the new house was
being built on the same spot. Thomas and Caroline's children were
Mary Ann, Hiram, Thomas, Clarinda, Horace, David, Katherine,
Fanny, and Alfred.
Mary Ann, born December 6, 1826, a devoted daughter,
Caroline<s greatest comfort, went to Massachusetts and died of
typhoid fever in Lowell, November 11, 1859.
Hiram, born December 19, 1828, married Melinda Poulter; their
children were Mary, Kate, Robert, Richard, Charlotte, Jessie,
Charles, Etta, and Clara.
Thomas Edward, born October 22, 1830, married Hannah Ames; their
children were Ida, Norman ( who still lives in Windsor Mills),
Edward, Caroline, David, Rhoda, Alice, and Cora.
Clarinda, born January 22, 1832, died August 15, 1835 of a fever;
Caroline never ceased to mourn that her little girl died begging
for water, which the doctor refused, because the medical science
of that day considered water fatal to fever.
Horace, born February 22, 1834 and David, born May 23, 1838, were
ambitious young men; in order to earn money to build an
up-to-date saw mill on the farm their father had bought for them
in the Key Brook district (Thomas bought a farm for each of his
sons), they traveled to California, then a great distance,
walking the greater part of the way. At the death of Mary Ann and
of their father, the mother wrote to them, and they answered that
they would come if she needed them, but they would like to finish
the work they were doing; at that time it took one month for a
letter posted in California to reach the homestead, and the
postage was twenty-five cents. The American Civil War broke out
soon, and Horace and David enlisted on the Union side. Nothing
definite was ever known after that; both must have died.
Inquiries were made several times, and all that was learned was
the death, in a Southern prison, of a young man who answered the
description of David.
Katherine, born November 25, 1840, was an unusually talented
girl; she trained herself in music, higher mathematics, language,
arts and crafts; there is in the family a framed wreath, made by
her of locks of family hair.
Fanny Selina, born June 1, 1843, married William Wright, an
Englishman, and they bought a farm and built a home within a mile
and a half of the homestead. They had no children. She died there
August 5, 1908.
Thomas Knapp's sister Margaret had married John Gill from the
Isle of Man, who had previously married Margaret's sister Lois,
and had had by this marriage three children, Kate, Esther, and
Edward. By this second marriage there were Annie, William and
Louise. At Margaret Knapp Gill's death, Thomas brought the three
children home for Caroline to mother. Louise was younger than her
cousin Alfred. At Thomas Knapp's death, January 28, 1860, Mrs.
Greenlay took Bill; he died unmarried. Annie, a good student,
taught school; later she married Daniel Stanton, and lived in
Worcester, Mass.; they had no children. Louise married John
Stanton, Daniel's brother, and lived in Nashua, N.H.; their
children were Helen Medora and Eugene John. Neither Helen nor
Eugene had children and Eugene's death in 1930 ends this branch
of the family.
In 1869 Rhoda Berwick, a cousin of William Wright, was sick in
Danville at William Barlow's. Henry Rowe, D.D. (afterwards
Archdeacon) visited her. In 1870 she came to Brompton to the
Knapp home and Caroline Holmes Knapp cared for her until she
died. Finding there were no religious services in that vicinity,
in 1871 Dr. Rowe, and the Rev. Isaac Thompson assisting, began
regular services in the schoolhouse. Mr. Thompson, formerly a
store-keeper and blacksmith, had been a lay reader for some time,
and came from Leeds to study under Dr. Rowe at Bishop's College;
he was later ordained, and became a famous preacher. Dr. Rowe and
Mr. Thompson both lived in Melbourne.
In 1871 Sarah Watkins, a friend of the Thompson family came from
Leeds to teach the Brompton School, boarded at the Knapp home,
and on February 18, 1873 married Alfred Holmes Knapp.
In 1872 Christ Church Brompton was built, all the men in the
neighbourhood helping. Much of the material was brought from
Melbourne; Mr. Wood of Melbourne was the contractor, and he and
his men, ten or more, boarded at the Knapp home. The cornerstone
was laid by William Gordon Mack, lawyer; in it was placed a box
containing coins and papers. Dr. Rowe presented Mr. Mack with the
silver trowel used in the ceremony. The church was consecrated
All Saints Day, November 1, 1872. Dr. Rowe and Mr. Thompson
filled the pulpit until November 1873, when the first rector, the
Rev. L.O. Armstrong, was inducted. (He afterwards left the
ministry and became a lecturer.) On the day of the consecration,
dinner was served in the house now occupied by the Lawrence
Wheeler family. Sarah Knapp's contribution to this dinner was
fifty mince pies. She and her sister-in-law, Fanny Wright, drove
"Old Dick" to Lower Windsor to the Fry House (this red
brick house still stands) to buy the beef for the mince meat.
They crossed to Windsor in a scow. Soon after this time a wooden
covered toll bridge was built. (The toll for double team, round
trip, was fourteen cents, single team ten cents, pedestrian two
cents.) This bridge has since been replaced by a modern iron
bridge, toll free.
Alfred Holmes Knapp and Sarah Watkins Knapp's children were
Arthur, Alfred, Ethel, Emma, Gordon, Fannie, and William.
Arthur Henry, born April 20, 1873, married Edith Estelle Fraser
of Charlestown, Massachusetts; they had no children. He died of
typhoid pneumonia in 1912. His wife lives in Vancouver, British
Columbia, where she fills a Civil Service position, in a
provincial hospital.
Alfred James, born January 11, 1875, married Ella Jean Varney of
Brompton, and their children are James Varney, born July 29,
1903, and Arthur Stevens, born May 13, 1913. They live in
Schenectady, N.Y.
Dora Ethel, born August 17, 1877, married George Eason Jamieson
of Colebrook, N.H., and their children are Lloyd Raymond, born
August 14, 1908, and Evelyn Sarah, born October 6, 1910. They
live in Lennoxville, Quebec.
Emma Eleanoriv, born March 21, 1880, married Benjamin Philip Kemp
of Nahant, Massachusetts, and their children are Muriel Lousev,
born August 11, 1910, and William Henry, born July 9, 1913. They
live in Melrose, Massachusetts.
Gordon Lorne, born August 2,3 1882, married Annie Florence Cordy
of Capelton, Quebec, and their children are Dorothy Florence,
born May 26, 1910, and Harold Gordon, born June 30, 1914. They
live in Sherbrooke, Quebec.
Fannie Alberta, born March 17, 1886, is a professional dietician
and housekeeper. She is now housekeeper at Mac Donald College,
Quebec.
William Harold Wright, born January 12, 1894, enlisted in the
Great War, at Valcartier, Quebec, in August, 1914, and in 1916
received his commission as Lieutenant in Princess Patricia's
Regiment. He married Shirley Gowen of Quebec City and their
children are Shirley Hope, born October 26, 1919, and William
Arthur Glanville, born June 11, 1921, whose twin sister, Milicent
Jane, died in June 1921. William H. Knapp died in a military
hospital in Quebec in April, 1922; his wife died in 1930. Miss
Vivian Tremain, a cousin of Shirley Gowen Knapp, is guardian of
young Shirley and young William Knapp. They live in Quebec City.
E.E.K and M.L.K
Melrose January 1931.
Endnotes added by
E. Garbutt
July 97
i I have now found something that says that he comes from ARRON
KNAPP.
ii I have found docs. Showing that she went by the name Betsey.
iii I am not sure about Wakefield Hill. It could be in Mass.
iv Most likely the EEK & MLK, who wrote the story.
v ditto
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