Daniel Knouse was born near Sunbury, Pennsylvania. In 1833 he married Catharine Zellers, who died in 1850 leaving him a widower with ten children, the oldest of which was about 16 and the youngest a babe of two weeks old.
In 1851 he married Mrs. Eliza Pontius, who died in 1895. He was the father of 16 children, 12 of whom survived him. At the time of his death, he and 73 grandchildren, and 86 great grandchildren.
He was a man of unusual physical endurance. With his large family and children and no means of support but manual labor, he worked hard, both early and late, without any visible signs of fatigue and by industry and economy, besides providing for his large family, he succeeded in accumulating sufficient money to buy himself a little home of four acres with a log house and stable thereon, to which he moved with his family in 1839. As time went on he secured the means, he bought additional and adjoining tracts of land, mostly woodland which he cleared, until he had gathered together a farm of about one hundred acres.
He was a model farmer, exact and thorough, using as a motto, "What is worth doing at all is worth doing well," and had the reputation of raising the best crops in his neighborhood.
In early life he became a member of the Lutheran church, from which he separated, after some years, to become a member of the United Brethren Church, in which he served as a local preacher for a number of years; and although differing materially on some doctrinal points, Daniel remained a UB member the rest of his life. His opportunity to obtain an education was limited to a few months in a "subscription school," but being naturally a student, and gifted with an unusual memory, by private study he fitted himself for a school teacher, and taught in the public school during about ten winters.
He was a great reader, especially of the Bible, and those who knew him best are ready to testify to the fact that few men are to be met who are better versed in scripture than he was. As before intimated, he differed with the views and orthodoxy of many organized religious denominations, yet he firmly and strictly adhered to the fundamental principles of all Christian denominations, namely the atonement and redemption by our Lord Jesus Christ.
He was charitable, in some respects to a fault, and ever ready to lend assistance to the needy as far as power and means would permit; and on account of his benevolent disposition, the unscrupulous frequently took advantage thereof by which he lost a great deal of money, becoming responsible and liable for the payment of papers to which he had given his name as security.
He had his enemies, and who has not? But he had a large number of warm friends, and at the ripe age of eighty-five years, he went to his grave lamented by the entire community in which he lived for a period of sixty-six years. He was next to the oldest of a family of nine children and all but three preceded him to the grave. Of his many friends, acquaintances and associates of the long ago, none survive him.
Source: By one of the children