sentences:  McKnight's health rapidly failed, and he was released shortly before his death on January 1, 1778.The younger McKnight attended schools in New Jersey and graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1771, in the same class as James Madison, Gunning Bedford Jr., Henry Brackenridge, and Philip Freneau.He was one of the founders of the American Whig Society, along with Brackenridge, Madison, Samuel Stanhope Smith, Bedford, Freneau, John Beatty, John Henry of Maryland, and William Bradford.