Samuel Knight
Samuel Knight, his personal and family background, and his involvement in and statements about the Mountain Meadows Massacre
Samuel Knight
1832-1910
Biographical Sketch
Early Life in Missouri and Illinois
Born in 1832 in Jackson County, Missouri, Samuel Knight was descended from New England Yankee stock. His grandfather, Joseph Knight, and his father, Newell Knight, had been early supporters of the Mormon founder Joseph Smith in upstate New York. They had been part of the "Colesville Branch" that moved to Jackson County in western Missouri in 1831. In 1833, conflict with the original settlers in Jackson County drove the Mormon newcomers into northwestern Missouri.
While they squatted along the river bottoms, Knight's mother died shortly after childbirth. His father married Lydia Goldthwait and the family briefly settled in Ray County in northwest Missouri but in 1836 were pressured to leave. They homesteaded in nearby Caldwell County and Knight's father participated in the militia actions around Far West in 1838 during the armed conflict that ensued. In early 1839, after their ouster from western Missouri, they moved to Commerce, Illinois, then upriver to Nauvoo on the Illinois frontier.
Migration to Utah
The Knight family departed Illinois in 1846 and were among the vanguard company that wintered on the traditional lands of the Ponca Indians in present-day Nebraska. There his father died in early 1847. To avoid possible legal claims to him from his mother's family, Knight's step-mother sent him ahead on the trail.
At the age of fourteen and traveling apart from his step-mother's family, Knight entered Great Salt Lake Valley in fall 1847. He was reunited with his stepmother and half-brothers and -sisters in 1850.
Indian Interpreter in the Southern Indian Mission
In October 1853, at the age of twenty, Knight was called as an Indian missionary to southern Utah and arrived at Fort Harmony in 1854. He was among Jacob Hamblin's Indian interpreters who founded Fort Clara on the lower Santa Clara, 1854-55. In 1856, he married Danish emigrant Carolyn Beck (1836-1869).
In the Iron Military District: Private Samuel Knight, Company H, John D. Lee's 4th Battalion
In 1857, 24-year-old Samue Knight was a private in company H in John D. Lee's 4th Battalion. In mid-1857, to avoid the summer heat on the lower Santa Clara, Samuel Knight, Jacob Hamblin, David Tullis and others were homesteading a mountain ranch at the Mountain Meadows.In early August, Knight's wife gave birth to their first child. His wife was seriously ill and they remained there for several months until she recovered.
Around Saturday, September 5, having received orders from Cedar City, Knight carried orders south to Fort Clara (and perhaps Washington) to incite Indians on the lower Santa Clara to gather at Mountain Meadows. On Monday, September 7th in the evening, following the first attack on the emigrants, he and other southern militiamen met Major John D. Lee south of the Meadows, joined him and moved up to the Meadows the following day. On Friday the 11th, Lee recruited Knight and Sergeant Samuel McMurdie to drive wagons to the emigrant wagon circle and carry away young children and wounded adults. After the final massacre these wagons carried the surviving children to Hamblin's ranch.
Scouting to Encounter the U.S. Army in 1858
In 1858, Knight was in the patrol to southern Nevada with Jacob Hamblin, Dudley Leavitt, Ira Hatch and others to scout for the approach of the U. S. Army from the West Coast.
Later Life in Santa Clara
In 1862, when Swiss emigrants moved to Santa Clara in southwest Utah, Knight and his family was among the few native-born Americans to remain. Except for a brief stint in eastern Nevada in 1864-65, Knight remained in Santa Clara in southwestern Utah for the remainder of his life. He accompanied Jacob Hamblin's exploring parties to the Hopi mesas and Navajo lands in Arizona in 1858, 1863 and 1873. Following the lead of Jacob Hamblin, many Indian interpreters eventually moved to Arizona to pursue their interest in the Hopi. Knight, however, remained in southern Utah and worked among the "Piedes," or Southern Paiutes.
By the time of the death of his wife Carolyn in 1869, she had borne him six children. Following her death, he married Dudley Leavitt's sister, Laura Malvina Leavitt (1851-1922), Utah born with Canadian and New England roots, who bore him ten children.
Testifying in John D. Lee's Second Trial, 1876
In 1876, Knight, along with Nephi Johnson, Joel White, Samuel McMurdie, and Jacob Hamblin, were called as a prosecution witnesses in the second trial of John D. Lee.
His only polygamous marriage was in 1888 to a Missouri-born widow, Susan Charlotte Nanney Hunt (1832?- ?), just two years before the Mormon Church's Manifesto that officially ended the practice.
Later Statements about the Massacre
In the 1890s and the early twentieth century he gave several important interviews and statements concerning the massacre. These have now been published in Turley and Walker, Mountain Meadows Massacre: The Jenson and Morris Collections, .
He lived on in Santa Clara, earning his livelihood as a farmer and rancher and continuing to work with the local Paiutes. He spent more than 50 years in Santa Clara. He died in 1910 and was buried there, survived by his second wife Laura and eleven children (see photo below of his second family). At the time of his death, his obituary noted that he was known for recounting his early years in Missouri and Illinois where he and his family had been driven from their homes on four occasions, an indication of the persistence and power of these early life experiences to shape Mormon memory and identity.
References
Alder and Brooks, A History of Washington County, ; Bagley, Blood of the Prophets, ; Bigley and Bagley, Innocent Blood: Essential Narratives, ; Brooks, The Mountain Meadows Massacre, ; Brooks, ed., Journal of the Southern Indian Mission, ; Brooks, On the Ragged Edge, ; Hartley, They Are My Friends, ; Knight, Lydia Knight’s History, ; Knight, The Jesse Knight Family, ; Knight, Samuel, interview, 1895; Larson, The Red Hills of November, ; Larson, I Was Called to Dixie, ; Lee,Mormonism Unveiled, ; Lee Trial transcripts; Little, Jacob Hamblin, ; New.FamilySearch.org; Turley and Walker, Mountain Meadows Massacre: Jenson and Morris Collections, ; Walker, et al, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, .
External Links
For further information on Samuel Knight, see:
- Samuel Knight's testimony in the 1876 trial of John D. Lee at: http://www.mtn-meadows-assoc.com/knight.htm
Further information and confirmation needed. Please comment or contact editor@1857ironcountymilitia.com.
