Nearly thirty-five years of most devoted labor entitle Dr. Samuel Knox to rank among those who may be said to have stood at the head of the medical profession of Scott County, and the kindly manner of his administration caused him to be loved as well as honored during the many years of his active practice. Samuel Knox was one of the earliest successful practitioners in Scott County. He was a native of Adams County, Pennsylvania, where he was born October 16, 1824. Ilis parents were Samuel and Margaret (Witheron) Knox, who were also born in the same place. The great-grandfather of our subject came to Pennsylvania at a very early day, and purchased land from William Penn. (The deed for the land was given by Penn about 1704 and it has been handed down from one generation to another of the family, and is now in the possession of Dr. John Knox.)
Like other families of the name in America , Dr. Knox's family traced their ancestry back to John Knox, the great reformer of Scotland, who was born in Haddington in 1505 and died in Edinburgh in 1572. The grandfather of Dr. Samuel Knox was a graduate from the medical department of the State University of Pennsylvania in 1783, and a very influential man as well as a leading practitioner during his lifetime. He had two sons, Samuel and John, one of whom became an eminent divine, having doctor of divinity added to his name before he was thirty-five years of age. For fifty years he filled a pulpit in New York City, and it was at a private school at his residence that Dr. Samuel Knox received his education. He was the second of a family of nine children, and after the death of his parents in Pennsylvania took charge of the family affairs and educated his brothers and sisters, his youngest sister being then but three years of age. He, like many of his ancestors, had a predilection for the practice of medicine, and as soon as he was able to do so, he entered the office of Dr. David Horner of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where he began fitting himself for the profession. This was in 1849, and in April, 1850, he came to Le Claire, Iowa, where he continued his studies under Dr. Hill until 1854-55, when he attended a course of lectures at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. In 1857 he graduated from the Penn sylvania Medical College of Philadelphia, and in the fall of the same year he began the active practice of his profession in Princeton. For more than a third of a century thereafter he continued to reside at Princeton and to treat the people of that community for the "ills which flesh is heir to.” A generation grew up in the course of his professional life, and both the young and old among his patients loved and esteemed him for his virtues and honored him on account of his skill as a physician and his worth as a man.
He was married in 1851 to Miss Mary E. Culbertson , a daughter of Captain John Culbertson of Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Of six children born to them, four lived to maturity, and Dr. John A. Knox has followed in the footsteps of his father as a practitioner of medicine. The elder Dr. Knox laid out what is known as Knox's addition to Princeton in 1855. His political affiliations were with the Whig party in early life, and after its organization with the Republican party.
BIOGRAPHIES