Born on February 24, 1833, at Schaghticoke, Rensselaer County, New York, he was the son of Mary Delia (Buell) Knickerbocker and her husband Herman Knickerbocker, a lawyer and former Congressman from New York.

David Buel Knickerbocker was educated at Trinity College, Hartford and the General Theological Seminary in New York City.

[1] Soon after his graduation from seminary in 1856 he went as a missionary to Minneapolis Minnesota, then a village of three hundred people, and remained there 27 years, during which time he did much to direct its growth.

Their daughter died of illness in Minneapolis in 1865, at the age of seven, and their son David was killed when attempting to jump on railcars at the St. Paul & Pacific depot in the fall of 1866.

Bishop Knickerbacker died December 31, 1894, in Indianapolis and was buried next to his wife in Crown Hill Cemetery.