My Genealogy Hound

WILLIAM F. KNOX, physician, McKeesport, was born at Connellsville, Pa., March 30, 1831, a son of David S. and Sarah B. (Franciss) Knox. His paternal grandfather, Rev. William Knox, a native of County Tyrone, Ireland, emigrated to America in 1797; was received into the Baltimore conference in 1800, and, settling in Ohio, was successively a member of the Baltimore, Ohio and Pittsburgh conferences. He died June 16, 1851. The maternal grandfather of our subject, James Franciss, a native of the north of Ireland, was a physician; served in the Revolution, and was a pioneer of Connellsville, Pa. David S. Knox, father of William F., was a native of Connellsville, Fayette county, Pa., a printer by trade, and early in life followed teaching, mercantile and manufacturing pursuits, and later engaged in banking business for thirty-six years. He was an officer of the Monongahela bank of Brownsville, Pa.; was six years teller and thirty years cashier. This bank was famous as one of the few that never suspended. David S. Knox died Oct. 17, 1872, aged sixty-seven years. The subject of this sketch was reared in Brownsville and educated in the public schools of that town, and Allegheny College, Meadville, Pa. He read medicine with Dr. W. L. Lafferty, of Brownsville, and in October, 1852, entered the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia, graduating April 1, 1854. In July of the same year he began the practice of medicine in Snowden township, Allegheny county, and in December, 1855, located in McKeesport, where he has since been in active practice. The doctor has been twice married. His first wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas and Jane (Wood) Kiddoo, of Snowden township, bore him six children, three of whom, Jennie, William J. and Sarah F., are living. His present wife, Mary Paull, is a daughter of Col. William L. and Jane (Torrence) Miller, of Port Perry, this county. Dr. Knox is a successful physician, and the oldest practitioner in McKeesport. He is a member of the American Medical association, the Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania and the Allegheny County Medical society. He is a member of the First M. E. Church; politically, he was formerly a republican, and is now a prohibitionist.