Sarah Kemble Knight
Sarah Kemble Knight | |
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| Born | April 19, 1666 |
| Died | September 25, 1727 (aged 61) |
| Occupation(s) | teacher, business woman, court scrivener |
| Spouse | Richard Knight (d. 1703) |
| Children | Elizabeth (Knight) Livingston |
| Parent(s) | Captain Thomas Kemble and Elizabeth Trerice |
| Relatives | Caleb Trowbridge, John Livingston |
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Sarah Kemble Knight (April 19, 1666 – September 25, 1727) was a teacher and businesswoman, who is remembered for her diary of a journey from Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony, to New York City, Province of New York, in 1704–1705, a courageous adventure for a woman to undertake.
Biography
Knight was born in Boston to Captain Thomas Kemble and Elizabeth Trerice.[1] Her father was a merchant of Boston. In 1689, Sarah married Richard Knight. They had one child, Elizabeth. Having been left a widow after her husband's death in 1703, Knight assumed the responsibility of managing her household. In 1706 she opened a boarding house and taught school, which gained some reputation in Boston. She is described as “excelling in the art of teaching composition.”[2] Unverified rumor has it that the Mather children and Benjamin Franklin were included among her pupils, but Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola speculates that this “writing school attended by Benjamin Franklin is more likely rumor than fact.”[3] For additional income Knight also made copies of court records and wrote letters for people having business with the court. Historians have recently noted that Knight’s civil engagement is not as exceptional as it once seemed, for in the early eighteenth century many women played significant economic roles.[4]
In 1713, Knight's daughter married John Livingston, of Connecticut, and Madam Knight moved with them to New London, where she continued her business and land dealings.[1] Madam Knight, as she was generally called as a mark of respect, spent the rest of her life either in New London or Norwich, Connecticut. She owned several farms in New London, and had a home in Norwich. She ran an inn out of the Livingston farm in New London.[5] In 1718 the Norwich town record says she was “taxed twenty shillings for selling strong drink to the Indians,” but it adds “Madam Knight accuses her maid, Ann Clark, of the fact.”[6] When she died in 1727, she left her daughter a large estate,[1] “attesting to her shrewdness and skill as a businessperson.”[7]
Sarah Kemble Knight is buried at Ye Antientist Burial Ground, New London.[citation needed]
Journey from Boston to New York
Having previously worked as a court scrivener, Knight possessed a basic working knowledge of legal matters. In 1704, she took it upon herself to "settle the estate of her cousin[,] Caleb Trowbridge[,] on behalf of his widow," [8] and began her journey, on horseback, from Boston, Massachusetts to New Haven, Connecticut, an unparalleled feat for a woman at this time. She recounted her experiences in the “journals” that have made her known to students of American colonial literature and history. The small diary of her Boston–New York journey was first published, posthumously, in 1825, by Theodore Dwight. The Journal of Madam Knight has subsequently been reprinted by others with additional biographical information.[9]
Her journal remains noteworthy both for its larger-than-life central character (Knight) and its telling of a trying journey not normally undertaken by a woman.[10] The discomforts of primitive traveling are described with much sprightliness and not a little humor.[9] The journal 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. At the same time, it is interesting for its original orthography and interspersed rhymes.[11]
Courage
Knight's journey was a difficult one, but her courage and determination throughout the journey is illustrated in multiple moments throughout her journal. Knight’s shrewd business savvy is apparent early in her account of her journey when she writes about an exchange concerning payment for an escort. She tells the woman attempting to get more money from her simply that she “would not be accessary to such extortion.” [12] In the end, Knight stands her ground and is able to bypass the negotiator, deal directly with the would-be escort, and arrange a price she feels is fair. Along the way, Knight may feel fear or apprehension, but she urges herself on, conquering her fears as she crosses rivers, swamps, and woods. For example, she writes, “I now ralyed all the Courage I Was mistriss of, Knowing that I must either Venture my fate of drowning, or be left like ye Children in the wood.” [13] Knight is not exceptional in that she does not feel fear throughout her journey, but that she is strong enough to know what must be done and overcome that fear.
Humor
Despite the hardships of her journey, Knight infused humor into her journal as she traveled. The clearest picture of this humor is the poem to rum that she wrote one night in an inn when she could not sleep. The men in the kitchen next to the room in which she stayed were quite loud and drunk and so she composed the following:
I ask thy Aid, O Potent Rum!. To Charm these wrangling Topers Dum. Thou hast their Giddy Brains possest. 2 The man confounded wth the Beast And I, poor I, can get no rest. Intoxicate them with thy fumes: O still their Tongues till morning comes! [14]
After she has asked rum to do her this favor she states, "I know not but my wishes took effect, for the dispute soon ended wth 'tother Dram; and so Good night!"[15] Although her circumstances are rough, Knight finds a moment to allow humor to assist her in working through the hard spots in her accommodations.
Racism and Class Concerns
While readers can celebrate the way she documents her endurance on a difficult journey and reflects upon her accomplishments as a business woman, Sarah Kemble Knight was a complex human being with early American racial and class sensibilities. Although her work receives recognition for its feminist implications, scholarship also addresses the racist and classicist inclinations it presents. However, it should be remembered that the social norms of Knight's world inevitably shaped her thinking and her writing. As an example, in accordance with the views of her era, Knight refers to racial interactions between slaves and whites in a very disturbing light: "But too Indulgent (especially ye farmers) to their slaves: sufering too great familiarity from them, permitting ym to sit at Table and eat with them, (as they say to save time,) and into the dish goes the black hoof as freely as the white hand."[16] Another instance of racism occurs in Knigh's description of her encounters with Native Americans: "There are every where in the Towns as I passed, a Number of Indians the Natives of the Country, and are the most salvage of all the salvages of that kind that I had ever Seen: little or no care taken (as I heard upon enquiry) to make them otherwise."[17]
With regard to class concerns, Knight comments that a certain country gentleman is animal-like and uncouth. She says that country people, like cows, "seldom Loose their Cudd." [18] She also describes that man as "spitting a Large deal of Aromatick Tincture, he gave a scrape with his shovel like shoo, leaving a small shovel full of dirt on the floor, made a full stop, Hugging his own pretty Body with his hands under his arms, Stood staring rown'd him, like a Catt let out of a Baskett."[19] Clearly, Knight's views of the strangers she met on her journey would conflict with more modern understandings of how we should treat our fellow human beings. However, as an early American writer, Knight's writings offers scholars a view into the complexities of eighteenth-century life.
References
- ^ a b c Sidney Gunn (1933). "Knight, Sarah Kemble". Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
- ^ "Unit 3: Utopian Promise; Authors: Sarah Kemble Knight (1666-1727)". American Passages: A Literary Survey. learner.org. Retrieved 23 September 2012.
- ^ "'Wee made Good speed along'". History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web. gmu.edu. Retrieved 23 September 2012.
- ^ The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 7th ed. Vol. A. 368
- ^ Geraldine Brooks (1900). Dames and daughters of colonial days. T.Y. Crowell & Co. p. 100.
- ^ Frances Manwaring Caulkins (1852). History of New London, Connecticut. p. 372.
- ^ "Unit 3: Utopian Promise; Authors: Sarah Kemble Knight (1666-1727)". American Passages: A Literary Survey. learner.org. Retrieved 23 September 2012.
- ^ "Unit 3: Utopian Promise; Authors: Sarah Kemble Knight (1666-1727)". American Passages: A Literary Survey. learner.org. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
- ^ a b One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1905). . New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.
- ^ Waisman, Charlotte S.; Tietjen, Jill S. (2008). Her Story. Collins. p. 17. ISBN 978-0-06-124651-7.
- ^ Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). . Encyclopedia Americana.
- ^ Sarah Kemble.Journal of Madam Knight. Ed. Perry Miller and Thomas H. Johnson. New York: American Book Company, 1938. 4. Web.
- ^ Knight, 15.
- ^ Knight, Sarah Kemble. Journal of Madam Knight. Ed. Perry Miller and Thomas H. Johnson. New York: American Book Company, 1938. Web.
- ^ Knight, 19
- ^ Knight, 36
- ^ Knight, 37
- ^ Knight, 41
- ^ Knight, 41
External links
- Sarah Kemble Knight - From Annenberg Media Learner.org
- Sarah Kemble Knight - From Houghton Mifflin The Heath Anthology of American Literature
- "Wee made Good speed along" - Boston Businesswoman Sarah Knight Travels From Kingston to New London, 1704.
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