My Genealogy Hound

IRVIN POLEY KNIPE, eldest of the six sons of Dr. Jacob O. and Clara Poley Knipe, was born at Norristown, Pennsylvania, February 27, 1866, educated at the Norristown public schools and at the university of Pennsylvania, graduating from the academic department of the latter institution in 1886; and from the law department in 1889. From April, 1886, to August, 1889, he was a reporter on the Norristown Herald, and since 1889 has been practicing law in Norristown, in association with his preceptor, Hon. Irving P. Wanger, member of congress from the eighth Pennsylvania district, under the firm name of Wanger & Knipe. He has been borough solicitor of Norristown for a number of years, and in a similar capacity represents a number of other boroughs in Montgomery county. In 1897 he compiled and published a comprehensive digest of the laws and ordinances of and relating to Norristown. On December 1, 1902, Mr. Knipe was elected chairman of the Republican county committee of Montgomery county.

On February 23, 1899, he married Margaret Richardson, also a member of the Montgomery county bar, daughter of John C. and Ellen (Rittenhouse) Richardson. They reside in Norristown. They are especially interested in local historical and genealogical matters and have probably the largest private library thereof in the county.

The Knipe family settled in what is now Upper Gwynedd township, Montgomery county, in 1763, when the great-great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch purchased for three hundred and eighty-seven pounds sterling, a farm of one hundred and fifty acres on which he and his descendants lived for nearly a century and a half.

The immigrant records of Philadelphia show that Johannes Kneip (or Knip), aged thirty-eight, landed September 25, 1748, and Johannes Knipe September 30, 1754. The ancestor, whichever of these two he was, on May 24, 1789, wrote in German his signature “Johannes Kneip” to his will, and died in November, 1792, leaving among his large family a son David, who in turn was the father of Jacob, himself the father of Jacob Oliver, whose son is Irvin P. Knipe. Jacob Knipe, a widely known physician, settled at Falkner Swamp, New Hanover township, and there died August 28, 1883. His wife was Rachel Evans, descended from two different Welsh families of the same name, one of her ancestors being John Evans who came from Radnorshire, Wales, before the time of Penn, and settled at London Britain, Chester county; while the other, David Evans, was born in Wales, 1690, and about 1719 settled in Montgomery county on a plantation comprising the north corner of Montgomery township and the east corner of Hatfield which he entailed to his grandchildren by his daughter Rachel, and which (prior to its division in 1823) was the largest tract of land in Montgomery county in the hands of one person.

On his mother’s side, Mr. Knipe’s genealogy includes the families of Poley Boyer, Heebner, Warley, Rhoads and Bigony. Francois Pechenet (Bigonet, Bigony), believed to be of Huguenot origin and a native of Nismes, in the province of Languedoc, France, emigrated from Lisbon, “qualified” at Philadelphia, December 7, 1773, and settled at Falkner Swamp, where he married Mary Brandt, probably an emigrant from Germany.

In three generations of Mr. Knipe’s family, including paternal and maternal ancestry, there were thirteen practitioners of medicine.

Miss Margaret Richardson, who subsequently married Mr. Knipe was admitted to the bar of Montgomery county, September 5, 1898. By a strange coincidence she, the first woman lawyer in the county, bore precisely the same name as Dr. Margaret Richardson, the first woman physician in the same county, although in no wise related. Mrs. Knipe’s father was a member of the state legislature, and through her mother she is connected with the families of Royer, Shupe and Rittenhouse, being in direct descent from William Rittenhouse, the first papermaker in America, ancestor of David Rittenhouse, the eminent astronomer and scientist.