View source for 1994 Town of Knox Comprehensive Plan: History

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'''OVERVIEW''' 
 
The Town of Knox, which contains the hamlets of Knox and Township, is located in 
the northwestern corner of Albany County and encompasses approximately 26,000 
acres. It is situated on a weathered, glaciated plateau which stretches south and 
west beyond the Helderberg Escarpment. In 1785, the western boundary was 
established to be 24 miles west of and parallel to the west bank of the Hudson 
River. The township overlooks the Mohawk and Hudson River Valleys, and on 
clear days the Adirondack Mountains to the north, and the Berkshire and Green 
Mountains to the east, are visible. 
 

HISTORY 
 
Prior to 1790, the Town was known only as a wild, mountainous part of the West 
Manor of Rensselaerwyck. In those times, Watervliet, the "mother" of the towns of 
Albany County, was a vast area with indefinite boundaries. As population 
increased, however, it became necessary to reduce this area into administrative units 
of manageable size. Therefore, in 1790, Rensselaerville, which included the present 
townships of Berne, Westerlo and Knox, was separated from Watervliet; Berne, 
which included the township of Knox, was apportioned from Rensselaerville in 
1795; finally, the township of Knox was established, separate from Berne, on 
February 28, 1822. 
 
Legend gives the Hamlet of Knox the early name of Fechtburg, or Fighting Hill. 
This name arose from a bitter dispute over leadership among a party of pioneers 
encamped at the site of the Hamlet. Later, the Hamlet became known as "Pucker 
Street", a reference to the inhabitants' aloof attitudes (or alternately, to a plethora of 
old maids in residence there) or, owing to the nearly 100-foot width of the road 
running through it, as simply "The Street". The origin of the name of Knox is 
uncertain, but probably came from Colonel Knox, Revolutionary War hero, or 
possibly, in honor of John Knox, the Reformer. 
 
A map prepared by William Cockburn for Stephen Van Rensselaer in 1787 shows 
the Town divided into plots of approximately 120 acres. There were many settlers 
already on the land when the map was prepared; historians conclude that these were 
probably lease-holders, although this can not be conclusively documented since the 
original leases were a part of the Van Rensselaer papers destroyed in the Capital 
fire. 
 
In 1845, the Town of Knox reported a population of 2,145 and Knoxville, as it was 
then known, contained about 30 dwellings. Following the Revolutionary War, 
many more settlers came into the area from the vicinity of Stonington, Connecticut. 
 
The Patroon system, which was exported to the New World from Holland long after 
it had been abandoned there, encumbered a section of the Hudson River valley and 
the adjacent lands on either side with a coercive aristocracy that led to long, bitter 
years of hardship and suffering and eventually, to armed revolt. 
 
In 1629, Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, a pearl and diamond merchant of Amsterdam and 
a director of the Dutch West India Company, was given a charter for a grant of land 
in America in return for his agreement to establish a colony of fifty persons on the 
grant within four years. Kiliaen's grant rapidly became the Manor of 
Rensselaerwyck, which stretched along both sides of the Hudson River for 24 miles  
and encompassed an area of about 700 thousand acres. 
 
The first patroon of Rensselaerwyck never saw or visited his estate, but his agents 
served him well and the vast tract was handed down to his descendants intact. It 
became a hereditary seat of enormous economic and political power, as well as a 
source of ever-increasing wealth. The manor survived both the British conquest of 
the colonies in 1664 and the American Revolution more than a century later, with 
the powers of the patroon only superficially diminished. 
 
Henry Christman's Tin Horns and Calico, a stirring and authoritative account of the 
struggle of the reluctant tenant farmers against entrenched injustice, describes their 
situation in the 1830's: 
 
"Under the patroon system, flourishing as vigorously as it had in the days of the 
early seventeenth century, a few families, intricately intermarried, controlled the 
destinies of three hundred thousand people and ruled in almost kingly splendor over 
nearly two million acres of land." 
 
Stephen Van Rensselaer III, sixth lord of the manor, and his son, Stephen IV, were 
the descendants of old Kiliaen most intimately bound up with the history of Knox. 
In Tin Horns and Calico, Henry Christman portrays the state of the manor as it was 
when Stephen III came of age in l785: 
 
"Only scattered settlers had gone beyond the fertile valley lands to clear the heights 
of the Helderbergs, where thousands of untouched acres still awaited the ax and the 
plow. Stephen now announced a `liberal' program to people the rest of his seven 
hundred thousand acres. He would give the patriots of the Revolution homesteads 
without cost; only after the farms became productive would he ask any 
compensation. 
 
"Surveyors were sent over the hills; farms of one hundred and twenty acres each 
were blocked out; exaggerated reports were issued about the fertility of the soil... 
Men began to come and to each the patroon said: `Go and find you a situation. You 
may occupy it for seven years free, then come in at the office, and I will give you a 
durable lease with a moderate wheat rent." 
 
Several thousand farms were taken up on the basis of the patroon's vague offer, and 
for most of the prospective lease-holders, especially for those who found their 
"situations" in the rocky uplands of the Helderbergs, the seven years spent in 
clearing a homestead in the wilderness, were years of cruel privation and rugged 
toil. As Henry Christman wrote: 
  
"Here the farmers spent their energy wresting a living from the grudging land, and 
talked with patient humor of the stones that pushed up perennially as the only 
dependable crop. Some even fancied that the Helderbergs were the last place made 
by God, and the dumping-ground for all the rock left over from Creation." 
 
Many settlers had to "hire out" in order to support their families while they cleared 
their farms. Some traveled many miles to work for a half-bushel of corn a day, 
trudged home with the corn on their backs, and then picked up their axes to work at 
their own homesteads. 
 
When the seven years of unremitting labor had ended and the settlers went back to 
the patroon for their "durable leases", they were handed contracts of "incomplete 
sale", which had been drafted for the patroon by his brother-in-law, Alexander 
Hamilton. With these "leases", or "incomplete sale" contracts, the patroon evaded 
the intent of laws enacted in 1792, and "sold" to the settlers the lands which they 
had cleared, subject to certain conditions, as set forth in Tin Horns and Calico: 
 
"As 'purchase' price for the title to and the use of the soil, the tenant was to pay ten 
to fourteen bushels of winter wheat annually, and four fat fowls; and he was to give 
one day's service each year with team and wagon. He was to pay all taxes, and was 
to use the land for agricultural purposes only. The patroon specifically reserved to 
himself all wood, mineral and water rights, and the right of re-entry to exploit these 
resources. The tenant could not sell the property, but only his contract of incomplete 
sale, with its terms unaltered. A 'quarter-sale' clause restricted him still further: if 
he wished to sell, the landlord had the option of collecting one-fourth of the sale 
price or recovering full title to the property at three-quarters of the market price. 
Thus the landlord kept for himself all the advantages of land ownership, while 
saddling the 'tenant' with all the obligations, such as taxes and road-building." 
 
Rent was due on the first of January. All through the Helderbergs teams were 
hitched to wagons or sleighs for the long pull over frozen roads to the office of the 
distant patroon. Some farmers traveled for more than a day. Once they had reached 
the office of the patroon's agent, they waited outside in the cold yard until their 
names were called. When summoned, they went up to a small, circular window and 
handed their "rates" to the agent inside. In turn, each tenant who had met his 
obligation came away from the window clutching his receipt for wheat and "four fat 
fowls" which had been delivered previously to one of the patroon's collection 
points. But whether a tenant could pay or not, or whether he was sick or injured, he 
was required to be represented at the patroon's office on Rent Day. No tenant was 
allowed inside the office, or permitted to examine the books in which his rents were 
recorded. The tenant had only his receipt and the agent's assurance that the entries 
were correct.