This third great grandfather was born in Salem, Westchester, New York in 1766. His parents were Quakers and attended meetings at the Amawalk Meeting House in Westchester County as did his future wife's family. Quakers had been active in north central Westchester County since the mid-18th century. The current meeting house in Westchester was the third they built; fire destroyed both predecessors. Taking up most of the property is the meeting's cemetery, which contains many graves of its members from the earlier years. The headstones of those graves strongly reflect Quaker burial practices.
James married Sarah Underhill in 1787 in New Castle, Long Island, New York and started their family there. In the spring of 1824, James and his family left from Cayuga County, NY and headed for Greenwich, Huron, Ohio, where James had purchased 800 acres of forest land on a previous trip to the area several years before. This trip was made on a schooner on Lake Erie, a vessel that is powered by the wind; often having several masts. You're most likely to see a schooner in an old seaport or tourist harbor, since it's an old-fashioned kind of boat with at least two masts and sails. There are still places you can ride on a schooner, but schooners were most common along the east coast of the United States in the eighteenth century. Schooners were historically used for fishing and transporting cargo, and sometimes for racing. The word schooner was probably first used in Gloucester, Massachusetts, coined from the Scottish scon, "to send over water, to skip stones." [Source: Wikipedia]
Huron County's first family surnames were Kniffin, Underhill, Brady, and Sutton. James was listed as "First Family Member #53".[Source: Robert O. Smith, researcher]. Evidently, the Kniffin family was quite happy in Greenwich and lived there for many years.
James died on the 18th of April in 1841 and was buried in the Kniffin Cemetery in Greenwich.
JAMES KNIFFIN
BORN: 12 Mar 1766 in Salem, Westchester, New York
MARRIED: 1787 in New Castle, Long Island, NY
DIED: 18 Apr 1841 in Greenwich, Huron, Ohio
BURIED: KNIFFIN CEMETERY in Greenwich, Huron, OH
SOURCES: Bibliography: Ancestral File searched 23 Oct 2001, AFN: Xtv1-31.Federal censuses of 1790, 1800, 1810, 1820 and1830. Ancestry. com, Quaker Records..BIRTH: JAMES KNIFFEN Research notes from Amawalk Monthly Meeting IN Westchester County, NY [database online] BIRTH OF JAMES KNIFFEN; Information about the trip on the schooner:http://www.rootsweb.com/-ohhuron/kniffin.
