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Below is a family biography included in Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Chautauqua County, New York published by John M. Gresham & Co. in 1891.  These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary.  Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more.  There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.

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HIRAM L. KNOWLTON, a man firm in his convictions, willing to see the right, and, when convinced, unswerving in adherence to the action he has decided to sustain, is an agriculturist, grape-grower and ex-defender of his country. He was born in the town of Harmony, Chautauqua county, New York, June 29, 1835, and is a son of William and Maria (Barney) Knowlton. William Knowlton was a native of Vermont, where he was born in 1796, but left that country of ice, snow and marble, and came to this county about the year 1820. He secured him a farm and pursued the calling of a farmer in Harmony and Clymer towns until his death, which occurred in 1882, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. Mr. Knowlton was an active, energetic man, full of business and of marked executive ability. He was but sixteen years of age when England made her second attempt to subdue the young American government, but, as many of the other boys did in the original and final struggle, he donned a uniform, shouldered a musket and marched away with the men. He was wounded and drew a pension up to his death. He married Maria Barney, a native of Genesee county, this State, who was born in 1800, and they had eleven children, ten of whom attained manhood, and marrying, bore families. Mr. and Mrs. Knowlton were both members of the Methodist Episcopal church, and were happiest when they were advancing its work. She died in 1875, aged seventy-five years.

Hiram L. Knowlton was reared on his father’s farm and educated in the common schools. He remained at home until twenty-five years old, and then started to acquire the carpenter trade, which learned he followed for five or six years, but finding farming more congenial to his taste and disposition, he went back to it and has since been an agriculturist. In 1874 a pretty place of eighty-five acres, where he now lives, two miles from Westfield, was secured, and has ever since been his home. A portion has been set to grapes, and makes a very promising vineyard. Mr. Knowlton enlisted in Co. G, 49th Regiment Inf., N. Y. Vols., when President Lincoln called for troops in 1861, but he was discharged in the spring of 1862, on account of failing health, and he returned to his home.

In 1864 he married Selina McCollom, a daughter of Alexander McCollom, of this town, and they have two children, William A. and Carey J.

H. L. Knowlton is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and of William Sackett Post, No. 324, G. A. R. He is a pronounced republican, and one of the foremost citizens of the town.

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This family biography is one of 658 biographies included in Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Chautauqua County, New York published in 1891. 

View additional Chautauqua County, New York family biographies here: Chautauqua County, New York Biographies

View a map of 1897 Chautauqua County, New York here: Chautauqua County, New York Map

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