Biography of Stephen M. Knight, Bowie County, Texas *********************************************************** Submitted by: V Richardson Date: Apr 2000 Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/tx/bowie/bowitoc.htm *********************************************************** From Watlington Manuscript, 1920 S. M. Knight was a native of Rappahannock Co, VA, but came to Texas early in life. Born August 29, 1835, and a few years after his arrival in Bowie Co., he married Miss Martha L. Hughes, from which marriage were born several sons and daughters. Amy married Robert Hooks, now dead, and lives in a beautiful home in the town of Hooks, where he lives. Essie, another daughter, is the wife of J. W. Smith, President of the Guaranty State Bank of Hooks. "Sam Bug" Knight as he is called, owns and occupies the old home site of several hundred acres, is a successful farmer, besides being extensively engaged in lumber trade. He married Miss Wyse if New Boston, and has now an interesting family of several children. Mat Knight, the only, original, redoubtable, irrepressible Mat, the eldest son of Stephen M. Knight, though now more than fifty years old, is still the same rollicking, jovial, fun loving boy as when a pupil of mine, thirty five years ago He was then sixteen, always in good humor, his propensity for mischief invariably in evidence, but as a diplomat he could give Simon Suggs several points and beat him "squeezing" out of a tight place. Dave Caldwell, an overgrown, gawky boy, about Mats age, was often the butt of his innocent pranks. One incident is recalled and often reverted to when Davy came out second best I n a jumping contest with Mat. Stephen Knight died soon after in 1884, I think, his death universally mourned. His wife lived a few more years, when she was laid beside her husband in the family grave yard. Mr. Knight left considerable land and other property, and by the death of an unmarried brother in law, Residing in Louisiana, his children came into possession of the vast estate of their deceased uncle. Some years after this, Mat married West Texas lady and has since resided in Louisiana some twenty five miles down Red River from Shreveport, where he is engaged in farming. His lands there comprise several thousand acres, and about three thousand being in cultivation.