Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Knight, Sarah

KNIGHT, Sarah, teacher, b. in Boston, Mass., 19 April, 1666; d. near Norwalk, Conn., 25 Dec., 1727. Her father, Capt. Thomas Kemble, was a merchant of Boston, and she married Richard Knight, who died about 1703. In 1706 she opened a school in Boston for children, and numbered among her pupils Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Mather. She is described as “excelling in the art of teaching composition,” and, as a mark of respect, was called “Madam Knight.” In 1713 she removed to Norwalk, Conn., and in the town-record is named as “taxed twenty shillings for selling strong drink to the Indians,” but it is added “Madam Knight accuses her maid, Ann Clark, of the fact.” Madam Knight's “Journey from Boston to New York in the Year 1704, from the Original Manuscript, including the Diary of the Rev. John Buckingham of a Journey to Canada in 1710” (New York, 1825; Albany, 1865), is a record from a diary in the author's own handwriting from notes recorded on the way. It is valuable as a history of the manners and customs of the time, and is full of graphic descriptions of the early settlements in New England and New York.