After making a tour of the Continent and England, he returned home and engaged as the Assistant of Prof. J. D. Whitney, now of Harvard University, in the State Geological Surveys of the States of Wisconsin and Illinois, embracing the Upper Mississippi lead region. He continued with Prof. Whitney during the survey, comprising the southeastern part of Iowa.
On the establishment of the New York State Agricultural College at Ovid, the foundation of which was subsequently merged with that of Cornell University, Dr. Kimball was appointed to the Chair of Professor of Chemistry and Economic Geology. Upon the appointment of the President of the college, Gen. Patrick, as Brigadier-General of Volunteers, Dr. Kimball became that officer’s Chief of Staff, with a commission from the President of the United States, as Assistant Adjutant-General of Volunteers, with the rank of Captain. This was in 1862. His first service in the field was with the Army of the Rappahannock, under Gen. McDowell. He took part in numerous engagements, notably, those of Groveton, Manassas, Chantilly, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. General Patrick having been assigned to duty as Provost-Marshal of the Army of the Potomac, Capt. Kimball accompanied him, and served on the General Staff of that army under Generals McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, and Meade, successively.
When the army went into winter quarters, Capt. Kimball, whose health had become impaired, resigned from the army, and settled in New York. He resumed the practice of his profession as Mining Engineer and Metallurgist. Upon his marriage, in 1874, he accepted an honorary Professorship in Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa., removing from New York to one of the houses in the beautiful park and grounds of that institution, though retaining his office and business in New York City.
Dr. Kimball has been largely identified with the mineral development of Bedford County, Pa., and at the time of his appointment as Director of the Mints, was President of the Everett Iron Company, whose blast furnace, built in 1883-84, is one of the largest and finest in this country. As a scientist he is a contributor to various scientific journals at home and abroad, and among others the American Journal of Science, published at New Haven. Several of his papers have appeared in the proceedings of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, of which he has been Vice President. Dr. Kimball has traveled extensively in the United States, Mexico, and the West Indies, in prosecuting his professional practice, and as a man of scientific accomplishments and of affairs, bears a deservedly high reputation.
Dr. Kimball comes of Revolutionary stock. His paternal great-grandfather, William Russell, of Boston, was associated with the Sons of Liberty, and the leaders in public affairs in the times that tried men’s souls. He was present, disguised as an Indian, and assisted in the famous Tea Party in Boston harbor on the memorable 16th of December, 1773. Later, Mr. Russell was adjutant of the Massachusetts Artillery, raised for the defense of Boston, and which served in the Rhode Island campaign of 1777-78. Still later, while serving as Secretary to Commander John Manley, of the U. S. war vessel Jason, Russell was captured by the British frigate Surprise, and confined in Mill prison till June 24, 1782, when he was exchanged. But so sturdy a patriot could not rest unemployed, and twenty days after his liberation, found him again in the naval service. He was again made prisoner by the British, in November following, and consigned to the notorious British prison ship, Jersey, lying off New York.
An anecdote is related by Mr. James Kimball, father of the subject of this sketch, in a memoir on the Tea Party in Boston harbor furnished the Essex Institute Historical collections (1874), which illustrates the temper of Mr. Russell as a patriot. Returning to his home after the destruction of the tea, he took off his shoes, and carefully dusted them over the fire; he then took the tea canister and emptied its contents. Next morning he had printed on one side of the canister, “Coffee,” and on the other, “No Tea.” This was the brief decree of banishment promulgated by the Tea Destroyers, and the prohibited luxury disappeared from their tables.
HON. JOHN JAY KNOX.
Late Comptroller of the Currency, now President of the National Bank of the Republic, New York City, we are indebted to The Financier, August, 1885, for the following biographical sketch:
Hon. John Jay Knox was Comptroller or Deputy Comptroller of the National currency for seventeen years. He was born in Oneida county, New York, March 19, 1828. His ancestors were Scotch Irish, and came originally from Strabane, County Tyrone, Ireland, in 1759. He received his early education at the Augusta Academy and the Watertown Classical Institute, and was graduated from Hamilton College in the Class of 1849. Among those in college with him were Senator Hawley of Connecticut, and Chas. Dudley Warner. After leaving college he became teller in a bank at Vernon, of which his father was President, at a salary of $300 a year, where he remained from 1850 to 1852. He spent some time in the Burnet Bank at Syracuse, and was afterwards cashier of the Susquehanna Valley Bank at Binghampton. He and his brother, Henry M. Knox, established a banking house at St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1857, shortly before that State was admitted into the Union.