My Genealogy Hound

MELVIN J. KNOX, who has been a successful contractor and builder for many years, has erected many of the fine residences in Silver Creek, and is one of the most enterprising citizens of that village. He was born near Wattsburg, Erie county, Pennsylvania, March 13, 1853, and is a son of Charles and Ami (Beart) Knox. His grandfather, James Knox, was born in 1794, in Connecticut, and was a soldier in the War of 1812. He resided in Sheridan, this county, several years, and died in 1866, aged seventy-two years. Charles Knox (father) was born in Cortland county, this State, on August 24, 1824. For several years he lived in Erie county, Pa., but removed to this county in 1854, locating in Sheridan, where he remained until 1868, when he came to Silver Creek, where he has since resided. He is a carpenter by trade, but has been a contractor and builder most of his life, and politically is a republican. In 1850 he married Ann Beart, who was born in England in 1827, and she bore him five children.

Melvin J. Knox was reared in this county, receiving his education in the common schools, and after leaving school at the age of fourteen years learned the trade of a carpenter, and has worked at it ever since, although he has largely added to it by taking up contracting and building. He came to Silver Creek in 1868, and worked at his vocation until 1884, when he built the large plant he now owns on Buffalo street, known as the Silver Creek planing-mill, where he manufactures doors, sash, blinds, shutters, mouldings, lumber, lath, shingles and deals largely in builders’ hardware and general supplies. He is a large contractor and builder, and has built all the way from three to twenty-three houses a year for several years, and generally has a very flourishing and steadily increasing business. Politically he is a republican, and is assistant chief of the fire department.

Melvin J. Knox was married, September 8, 1875, to Lily Holcomb, of Silver Creek. Their marriage has been blest with three children, one son and two daughters: Edith, Porter and Drusilla, aged thirteen, eleven and two years respectively.