Nine-year-old Henry Knox entered the Boston bookstore, leaving his childhood behind. The boy, blond and tall for his age, could see shelves of books and boxes of fine stationery adorned with floral designs imported from London, along with writing materials, inkwells, quills, pamphlets, and writing paper neatly laid out for customers. His days of playing with friends or attending school would be replaced with the bookshop's chores and adult concerns over money and the support of his family.
HIs life had been turned upside down that year, 1759. His father, William Knox, a once-prosperous shipbuilder, left the family after his business collapsed in the midst of economic hard times sweeping the American colonies. Plagued by debts, the disillusioned Knox boarded a ship bound for St. Eustatius in the West Indies, leaving his family with no means of financial support. Henry was left to care for his mother and his three-year-old brother. His older siblings, John and Benjamin, had left home years earlier to earn a living as merchant seamen, never to return to Boston.
Mark Puls, Henry Knox: Visionary General of the American Revolution
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