SAMUEL KNIGHT

 

Samuel KNIGHT has long held prestige as one of the able and influential members of the California bar, has held various offices of importance, especially in the line of his profession, and in connection with his service in the judge advocate-general’s department after the nation became involved in the World war, he received commission as major in 1918.  His initial service during the war was a Camp Kearney, California, and later he was assigned to duty at the port of embarkation of troops at Hoboken, New Jersey.  After the signing of the historic armistice that brought the war to a close, but before the treaty of peace was  signed, he was called upon for special service in connection with the affairs of the American Expeditionary Forces abroad, where he remained several months.

 

Samuel KNIGHT was born in San Francisco, on the 28^th of December, 1863, and is a son of Samuel and Elizabeth Stuart (HAIGHT) KNIGHT, the former native of Massachusetts and the latter of Rochester, New York.  He is the second of the three children who attained to maturity, the others being Fletcher H. and Robert Stuart.  Samuel KNIGHT, Sr., came to San Francisco in the year 1850, and was an influential executive in the banking department of the Wells-Fargo Express Company, he having been accidentally killed on the 26^th of April, 1866.  His widow survived him forty years, and although a resident of California died in Rochester, New York, in September, 1907.

 

The earlier educational discipline of Maj. Samuel KNIGHT was acquired in the schools of San Francisco.  He continued his studies in Williston Seminary, East Hampton, Massachusetts, where he graduated as valedictorian of his class in 1883, and then entered Yale University, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1887 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts and with a high oration appointment.  After a course at the Yale Law School he studied law in the office of Henry W. TAFT and entered the law school of Columbia University, New York City, in which he as graduated in 1889, with the degree of Bachelor Laws.  He was admitted to the bar of the old Empire State shortly thereafter.  For a time he was associated with the law firm of MYRICK & DEERING.  From 1895 to 1898 he held respectively, for the Northern District of California.  In 1898 he resigned his office and resumed the active practice of his profession, as a member of the firm of COOPER & KNIGHT, in which his partner was J. A. COOPER.  After Mr. COOPER was appointed presiding justice of the District Court of Appeals of the Second Judicial District of California Mr. KNIGHT formed a law partnership with Charles PAGE, E.J.  MCCUTCHEON and R.T. HARDING, and this association continued until the death of Mr. PAGE in 1912.  Mr. KNIGHT retired from the firm on the 1^st of January 1913, and until the spring of 1921 he was in independent practice for a time and then associated with F. Eldred BOLAND. Since February 1, 1921, he has been the senior member of the representative law firm of KNIGHT, BOLAND, HUTCHINSON & CHRISTIN, which enjoys a large and important general law business and has high standing at the bar of the state.

 

Major KNIGHT has been a trustee of the municipality of Hillsborough, his home district, since 1910.  His political allegiance is given to the republican party, in the councils of which he has been influential in his native city and state.  He is actively identified with the California State Bar Association and the San Francisco Bar Association, and is a member of the Pacific Union, Commercial, Olympic, Commonwealth and Pacific Coast Jockey Clubs, besides being a member of the Burlingame Country Club.

 

On October 8, 1895, he married Miss Mary Hard HOLBROOK, daughter of Charles HOLBROOK, of San Francisco.