Knight family papers, 1784-1960 and undated, bulk 1840s-1890s

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Summary

Creator:
Knight, John, 1806-1864, Knight, Frances Beall, and McDannold, Frances Knight, about 1835-
Abstract:
Correspondence, diaries and notebooks, financial papers, legal papers, genealogical documents, printed materials, and other materials pertain to the John Knight family of Natchez, Mississippi and Frederick, Maryland. Materials in the collection date from 1784 to 1960, and the bulk date from the 1840s to the 1890s. The majority of the papers concern the personal, legal, and financial activities of John Knight (1806-1864), merchant, plantation owner, lawyer, and investor; Frances Z.S. (Beall) Knight (1813-1900), his wife; and their daughter Frances (Fanny) Beall Knight McDannold; as well as their children, relatives, friends, and business partners, especially banker Enoch Pratt and William Murdock Beall. Significant topics include: life in Natchez, Mississippi and Frederick, Maryland; their management of plantations and enslaved people; slavery in Mississippi and other Southern states; 19th century economic conditions, especially concerning cotton, banking and bank failures; U.S. politics in the 1850s-1860s; the Civil War, especially in Maryland; cholera and yellow fever outbreaks; 19th century family life; and the Knights' travels to Europe, Russia, and other places from 1850 to 1864. Genealogies chiefly relate to the descendants of Elisha Beall of Maryland, and the McCleery, Pettit, and McLanahan families of Indiana and Maryland. Papers of John Knight's wife, Frances (Beall) Knight, include her diaries, correspondence, and legal papers. There are also diaries kept by Fanny, their daughter, documenting her travels in the 1860s, as well as her school notebooks and correspondence.
Extent:
5.5 Linear Feet (13 boxes)
Language:
Material in English
Collection ID:
RL.11553

Background

Scope and content:

Collection contains correspondence, diaries and notebooks, financial papers, legal papers, genealogical documents, printed materials, and other items pertaining to the Knight family of Natchez, Mississippi and Frederick, Maryland. Materials in the collection date from 1784 to 1960, with the bulk of the papers dating from the 1840s to the 1890s. The majority concern the personal, legal, and financial activities of John Knight (1806-1864), merchant, plantation owner, lawyer, and investor; Frances Z. S. (Beall) Knight (1813-1900), his wife; and their daughter Frances (Fanny) Beall Knight; as well as relatives, friends, and business partners, especially banker Enoch Pratt and William Beall.

Significant topics include: life in Natchez, Mississippi and Frederick, Maryland; plantations, slaves, and slavery in Mississippi and other Southern states; 19th century economic conditions, especially concerning the cotton market; banking and bank failures; U.S. politics in the 1850s and 1860s; the Civil War, especially in Maryland; reports of cholera and yellow fever outbreaks; 19th century family life; and the Knights' travels to Europe, Egypt, Turkey, and Russia from 1850 to 1864.

Genealogies chiefly relate to the descendants of Elisha Beall of Maryland. There are also two late 19th century albumen photographs of homes in West Virginia (James and Lizzie Brown's "Kingswood") and Maryland ("Beallview," the house of Elisha Beall). A few other images of the Knights are found in the Rubenstein Library's Picture File Collection.

The papers of John Knight concern his business relations with the Beall family of Maryland; his plantations in Mississippi, Hyde Park and Beverly Place, and their management; the purchases, expenses, and medical care of the enslaved people who lived and worked on those plantations; investments in cotton land in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas; economic conditions in the United States, especially concerning the cotton market; the effects of the Civil War, especially in Maryland; and the family's trips to Europe. His notebooks keep careful track of expenses and income, as well as travel. The many land deeds, indentures, slave lists, bills of purchase, and other financial and legal documents in the collection, some dating to the 1700s, chiefly relate to his activities as an attorney and landholder. Many also relate to the legal and financial activities of the Beall family, particularly to William M. Beall. John Knight was also interested in medicine, so the collection holds memoranda books and other papers with prescriptions, receipts, and instructions for medicines treating ailments of the time.

Papers of his wife, Frances (Beall) Knight, include 21 diaries and some correspondence, as well as financial and legal papers. Her diaries describe in detail life in Natchez, Mississippi, religious life, family members, visits, the weather, and health. Of particular interest are her travel diaries, which document the family's travels to Europe, with side trips to Egypt, Turkey, Russia, and other places. Her later papers deal with her financial activities as a relatively young widow, and her role as guardian of her two grandchildren, Knight and Alexandra McDannold, who lived with her after the early deaths of their parents, Fanny Knight McDannold and Thomas McDannold.

The ten diaries of Frances (Fanny) Beall Knight, the daughter of John and Frances Knight, document in some detail their trips to Europe, and details of her father's death abroad in 1864; the collection also contains some of her school and family notebooks and correspondence. Later papers refer to her husband, Thomas Alexander McDannold, who may have been the author of at least one of the anonymous notebooks in the collection, and their two children, Alexandra and John.

20th century dates in the collection refer to a typed draft of a paper on 19th century packet ships, and an article from a Maryland history magazine.

Biographical / historical:

John M. Knight was born in 1806 in Maryland. He was primarily a merchant and financier, but he also owned lands in Louisiana, Arkansas, and several plantations in Mississippi. His financial investments and legal activities were chiefly handled by his business partners William M. Beall and Enoch Pratt, both of Maryland. He was ill for much of his life, but managed to travel abroad extensively with his family from the 1840s through the 1860s. He died in Biarritz, France, in 1864 and was buried in Maryland.

John Knight's wife, Frances Zeruiah Susannah Beall, was his first cousin through the Beall family. She was born in 1813 and died in 1900, outliving her husband by many years, and handling his estate and the guardianship of her two young grandchildren after the early deaths of their parents, Frances (Fanny) Knight and Thomas Alexander McDannold.

Additional information on the Beall and Knight family histories can be found in the Genealogy series in this collection and online.

Acquisition information:
The Knight family papers, formerly the John Knight papers, were received by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book Manuscript Library as a purchase in 1959-1969.
Processing information:

Processed and encoded by Yuqiao Cao, April 2018. Additional description by Paula Jeannet, April 2018.

Accession(s) described in this finding aid: 59-56, 64-216, and 69-86.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Contents

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Restrictions:

Collection is open for research.

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The copyright interests in this collection have not been transferred to Duke University. For more information, consult the copyright section of the Regulations and Procedures of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

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Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Knight family papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

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