History of Canajoharie, (Montgomery County) New York United States of America

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Biographies:

Frederick Augustus Conkling, merchant, was born at Canajoharie, N.Y., Aug. 22, 1816; son of Alfred and Eliza (Cockburn) Conkling. He received an academic education, became a merchant in New York city, and was for three years a member of the New York assembly. He was a representative from New York in the 37th congress, 1861-63. After the outbreak of the civil war he organized and equipped at his own expense the 84th New York regiment, was commissioned its colonel, and did important service with it in Virginia. He was the unsuccessful Republican candidate for mayor of New York in 1868; supported Horace Greeley for President in 1872, and thereafter the successive Democratic candidates, except in 1888, when he voted for Benjamin Harrison. He was a trustee of the College of physicians and surgeons, an active member of the New York historical society, and the author of numerous pamphlets. He died in New York city, Sept. 18, 1891.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Margaret Cockburn (Mrs. Steele) Conkling, author, was born in Canajoharie, N.Y., Jan. 27, 1814; daughter of Alfred and Eliza (Cockburn) Conkling. She was educated at Albany, N.Y. She is the author of Memoirs of the Mother and Wife of Washington (1850); and Isabel, or Trials of the Heart. She frequently contributed to periodical literature, and translated Florian's History of the Moors of Spain. She died in Jersey City, N. J., July 25, 1890.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

John Daniel Gross, clergyman, was born in Germany in 1737. He was pastor of a church near the New York frontier during the war of the Revolution and about 1784 removed to New York city. He was a regent of the University of the state of New York, 1784-87; professor of German and of geography at Columbia college, 1784-95, and of moral philosophy, 1787-95; and a trustee of Columbia, 1787-92. He accumulated a fortune through buying the land-warrants of the Revolutionary soldiers, and after resigning from Columbia in 1795 he removed to a farm in Canajoharie, N.Y. Columbia conferred upon him the honorary degree of S.T.D. in 1789. He is the author of Natural Principles of Rectitude (1795). He died in Canajoharie, N.Y., May 25, 1812.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

James Knox, representative, was born in Canajoharie, N.Y., July 4, 1807: son of Gen. John Jay and Sarah (Curtiss) Knox. He was graduated at Yale in 1830, and was admitted to the bar in Utica, N.Y., in 1883. He removed to Knoxville, Ill, in 1836, where he was a farmer and merchant. He was a delegate to the state constitutional convention of 1847 and a representative in the 33d and 34th congresses, 1853-57. He gave to Yale college $50,000 and a like sum to Hamilton for a hall of history and to increase the endowment of the Maynard-Knox chair of political economy. He received the degree of LL.D. from Hamilton in 1862. He died in Knoxville, Ill., Oct. 8, 1876.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor