Person:Daniel Knight (80)

BIOGRAPHY: Our City and its People A Descriptive Work on The City of Rome, New York Daniel E. Wager 1896 Page 3

  The Oneida County records show that in June, 1789, Sylvester Dering of Suffolk County conveyed to Seth Ranney, son of Willett, sr., 100 acres of land in what became Wright Settlement and which constituted the farm on which D. W. Knight resided in recent years. Mr. Dering had purchased that farm and other lands of William Floyd, one of the owners of Fonda's Patent, a few months earlier.

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    In 1795 Cornelius Van Wormer resided on the John Butts place and not long after that Zaccheus Abell, brother-in-law of D. W. Knight, lived on top of Canterbury Hill on the east side of the highway.

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  Col. Daniel Whitman Knight, sr., was born in Lisbon, Conn., in 1764 and purchased of Seth Ranney in 1790, as before noticed, building a log house near where George Wheat lived in recent years. They removed, however, to the foot of Canterbury Hill where he purchased 100 acres in the southwest corner of lot 48, Fonda's Patent, and which included the homestead of his son, Deacon D. W. Knight. Mr. Knight's latter purchase was an absolute deed free from all future rents, and he proceeded  with his native industry to clear up his land and create a permanent and attractive home. There he resided forty years of his life and died March 31, 1830. He was commissioner of highways in 1793, assessor of Rome in 1798, and commissioned one of the justices of the peace upon the formation of Oneida County. He had six children, of whom David, Clark, and Daniel Whitman were the sons. The latter married a daughter of Joshua Kirkland; resided most of his life on the homestead where he was born and was an honorable and useful citizen.

The First One Hundred and Fifty Years 1800 - 1950 First Presbyterian Church Page 9 -10

  Family after family came from New England, particularly from Connecticut, and as so often happened at that time, those from the same township or state settled in the same pioneer neighborhood; otherwise loneliness might develop into an enervating peril, for the women especially.
  When Daniel and Betsy Knight came, they courageously bought land on what is now Turin Road, but soon found it advisable to seek land in the Wright Settlement so much did they dread the isolation and lack of neighbors. Daniel comforted himself in the necessary move by the fact that he sold his three hundred and sixty-two acres for sixty dollars more than he paid for them, a tidy sum in those days which he promptly put into the purchase of a yoke of oxen.

BIOGRAPHY: The First One Hundred and Fifty Years 1800 - 1950 First Presbyterian Church Page 12

  Daniel Wightman Knight came of distinguished church ancestry. He was a lineal descendent of Edward Wightman of Benton-on-the-Trent, the last martyr by fire in England, being burned at the stake in Litchfield, England, April 11, 1612, suffering death for religious liberty. Daniel Knight was a grandson of Valentine Wightman, the Baptist pioneer of religious liberty in Connecticut, of whom it is written, "Ministers sprang from the elder Wightman like branches from a fruitful vine.

CENSUS: 1800 United States Federal Census Record Name: Knight, Daniel W Township: Rome County: Oneida State: New York Image Source: Year: 1800; Census Place: Rome, Oneida, New York; Roll: 23; Page: 209; Image: 425.

1820 United States Federal Census Record Name: Daniel W Knight Township: Rome County: Oneida State: New York Image Source: Year: 1820; Census Place: Rome, Oneida, New York; Roll: M33_73; Page: 127; Image: 128.

1830 United States Federal Census Record Name: Daniel W Knight Township: Rome County: Oneida State: New York