Faulk County, SD Biographies.....Knapton, Robert  1845 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com January 9, 2005, 11:27 am

Author: C. H. Ellis

    ROBERT KNAPTON, a well known, enterprising and energetic farmer, residing on
section 25, Wesley township, Faulk county, South Dakota, and an honored veteran
of the Civil War, is a native of England, born in Leeds, October 6th, 1843.
Having lost his father during his infancy, he was raised by his grandparents and
with the family came to the United States in 1847. As a boy he worked as a farm
hand, and during the winter months, while pursuing his studies in an old log
school house, he worked out of school hours for his board. He was thus employed
until after the opening of the rebellion when on the 27th of December, 1863, he
enlisted in company A., Twenty-ninth Regiment, Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry,
which was first ordered to New Orleans. Later the regiment was with Gen. Banks
on his Red River expedition and in the engagement of Sabine Cross Roads and
Pleasant Ridge. They helped to construct the dam at Alexander which saved the
fleet, and were then sent to Morgonza Bend where they were given six weeks rest.
They next went to Memphis and on the 24th of August, 1864, to Port Gibson, where
they did patrol duty in the surrounding country. They then returned to New
Orleans and in March, 1865, were sent to Ciperdor Island in Mobile Bay, where
they remained a few weeks. Crossing the bay they went to Spanish Fort and later
to Fort Blakely, where they were stationed when the war ended.

    Later Mr. Knapton was engaged in garrison duty at Mobile and from there went
to Shreveport, Louisana, where a large force of confederates surrendered. He
then returned by boat to Montgomery, Alabama, and was finally mastered out at
Mobile, being honorably discharged at Madison, Wisconsin, October 9th, 1865.
Returning to his home in that state, Mr. Knapton remained there until the
following spring, when he purchased a team of horses and began farming on his
own account, upon rented land. Two years were thus passed and in 1867, after his
marriage, he moved to Buchanan county, Iowa, where he made his home for four
years. He then went to Harrison county, Missouri, but at the end of one year, on
account of ague, he returned to his old home in Wisconsin, remaining there until
coming to Dakota Territory in the fall of 1882. Here he filed a claim on the
north-west quarter of section 25, township 119, range 66, Faulk county and then
returned to Wisconsin. In the spring of 1883 he broke fifteen acres of his land,
and on the second day of November of that year, brought his family to the home
he had prepared for them, having previously erected a house and barn and brought
out a carload of goods from the east. He now owns three quarter sections of good
land of which three hundred acres have been placed under the plow. In his farm
operations Mr. Knapton has been eminently successful, about two hundred acres is
devoted to wheat and eighty to corn. He generally keeps through the winter about
sixty-five head of neat stock, ten horses for his farm work, and thirty or forty
hogs, which are considered a good investment.

    Since casting his first presidential vote at regimental headquarters, in a
rice field in Louisana, for Abraham Lincoln, in 1864, Mr. Knapton has been
unwavering in his support of the republican party. He is identified with the
Grand Army of the Republic, favors prohibition of the liquor traffic and gives
his support to all measures which he believes calculated to prove of public
benefit.


Additional Comments:
From:

HISTORY OF
FAULK COUNTY
SOUTH DAKOTA
CAPTAIN C. H. ELLIS

TOGETHER WITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PIONEERS AND PROMINENT CITIZENS

ILLUSTRATED
19O9

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/sd/faulk/bios/gbs22miller.txt

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