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Sarah Kemble
Knight, a Boston schoolteacher and graphic diarist,
was born in Boston in 1666, the daughter of Captain
Thomas Kemble, a merchant. She married Richard Knight,
was left a widow about 1703, and in 1706 opened a
school, where she had the honor of training Benjamin
Franklin, and the responsibility of nursing the literary
aspirations of Samuel Mather.
She was popularly known as
Madame Knight, and had some reputation for excellence
in the art of teaching composition. After seven years
she moved to Norwalk, Connecticut, where she was fined
for selling liquors to the Indians, but protested her
innocence, accusing her own maid. From what she has
to say about strong waters in her "Journal,"
one must hope that she was the victim of a misunderstanding.
She died near Norwalk on Christmas Day, 1727.
She is now remembered for
her account of a journey from Boston to New York in
the year 1704, a series of sprightly descriptions of
early settlements, of inn life, and of the customs and
hardships of colonial travel. It was first edited in
1825, by Theodore Dwight, and was reprinted in 1865
with additional biographical information.
(This biographical note comes
from the book Colonial Literature: Colonial Prose
and Poetry, Second Series, edited by William P. Trent
and Benjamin W. Wells (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell &
Co., Publishers, 1903).
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