Merrill Augustus Knight (1891)

KNIGHT, RENSHAW, WYNNER, ANGEVINE, SHERMAN

Posted By: Pat Hochstetler
Date: 12/25/2007 at 17:07:25

The Madisonian
Winterset, Iowa
Friday, July 24, 1891
Page 2

Obituary

M. A. Knight died about 9 o’clock p.m., on Thursday, July 16th, A.D. 1891. The funeral services took place at his residence on Sunday afternoon of this week. Rev. C. I. Nye preached the funeral sermon and the funeral services were in charge of the Masonic fraternity, of which order he had long been a member.

Mr. Knight came from a sturdy New England stock. He was born in North Hero, Vermont, on February 1st, A. D. 1831. He moved to Iowa in 1852, and was therefore one of the pioneers of this state. He first moved to Clayton county, where he engaged in the mercantile business and farming until 1868. In that year he with his family moved upon a farm in Jefferson township, in this county.

In 1859 he was married to Amanda M. Renshaw, who survives him. Their eldest child died in infancy, and their living children are Enola G., (wife of Thomas L. Wynner), Wilson C., Lucy C., (wife of L. H. Angevine), Edison C., Wyman D., Francis M., and Alice F. Mrs. Knight is a sister of L. and Sylvester Renshaw, and Mrs. Clark Sherman, of this county.

Mr. Knight, while not a member of any church, was a Methodist in belief, and at one time he belonged to that denomination. He was a great lover of Free Masonry, and for more than thirty years prior to his death, he had been a member of that order, and for a number of years was master of one of its lodges, and his Masonic brethren testified their respect and esteem for him by their many attentions during his long sickness, and the lodge to which he belonged marched in a body to his grave, where the beautiful burial service of that order was read in memory of his last repose, and but seldom, if ever in this county, has a funeral been attended by as large a concourse of people.

In 1873 Mr. Knight was a candidate for state senator on the republican ticket in this senatorial district, and in 1875 he was elected treasurer of this county, which office he held for three consecutive terms. Last November he was elected justice of the peace for Center township, and at the time of his death he was chairman of the republican central committee of this county.

In all his life he was a broad-minded, liberal and charitable man. He was benevolent without ostentation, amiable and kind to all, devoted and loyal to his friends, and sincere and honest as the sun. To his family he was indeed the kind and indulgent husband and father. No man in the county ever had a larger circle of warm, true friends than he, but beckoned by the mysterious hand of death, he has retired from the din of life, and the dark valley with its weird and solemn shadows has claimed him.

One short sentence closes the life of every man. “He has died!” There is a fatal decreed that dooms everyone to death but there is left to us this sweet consolation: There is a gospel which opens the vision of an endless life and there is also one who has promised those who follow him that he will conduct them through the mysterious trance of death to the realms of bliss and eternal life. One who has led so good, pure and useful a life as Mr. Knight could not in death failed to find this heaven of rest and sweet repose. May the flowers of love ever bloom at his grave and his memory be wherever Green.

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