Catherine Huffine Knapp is my husbands paternal great great great grandmother. She was the daughter of Isaac Hoffhines and Eleanor Hendrickson. I have seen her maiden name spelled a variety of ways--Huffine, Huffhine, Huffhines, Hoffhines.
At age twenty-seven she married forty-seven year old Walter D. Knapp on May 27, 1841 in Pickaway, Ohio.
Together they had eight known children:
- Ellnor (Elinor, Ellen) Knapp 1841-1927
- John W. Knapp 1843-1906
- Joseph C. Knapp 1845-
- Drusilla Knapp 1848-1925 (my husband's great great grandmother)
- Walter Knapp 1849-1877
- Ezra Knapp 1850-1931
- Hannah Knapp 1854-
- Isaac Knapp 1859-1883
The Knapp family moved around Ohio. The children have different birth counties. Walter was a farmer; however, I have not found any records of him as a land owner.
There are very few records regarding Catherine. The Knapp's were not wealthy. Far from it. In one record regarding the fight and murder of one of her sons by the other, their home is described as a small cabin. She did have a stove to cook on and did not depend on the fireplace.
Catherine was a witness to the altercation between her sons Walter Jr. and Isaac. The shooting of Walter by Isaac took place in the cabin where the stove and table were housed on September 1, 1877.
Five months after her son was killed, her husband died on February 8, 1878. What happened to Catherine following her husband's death? In 1880, she is enumerated as a boarder with her son John W. Knapp and his family in Sandusky Township, Sandusky County, Ohio.
Catherine died on December 7, 1894 at eighty years of age. To date I have not found a death certificate or obituary. She is buried in Bradner Cemetery, Montgomery Township, Wood County, Ohio. Her married daughter, Drusilla Knapp Smith, lived in Bradner and perhaps Catherine was living with the Smith family when she died.
My husband and I visited Bradner Cemetery a few decades ago and found Catherine's little heart shaped tombstone. Daughter, Drusilla Smith, and son-in-law, Orison Smith, are also buried in Bradner Cemetery. The Smith's are my husband's paternal great great grandparents.
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