History of Michigan, / by Charles Moore. [Vol. 3]

1724

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN

STEPHEN HERRICK KNIGHT, M. D. The medical profession of the
state has one of its ablest representatives in Dr. Knight, who for more
than twenty years has been engaged in practice at Detroit. Dr. Knight
has devoted his attention not only to the calls of a large private practice,
but also to the broader interests of the profession, especially in homeopathy of which school he is an exponent. Dr. Knight belongs to an
old and distinguished family in American history.
Stephen Herrick Knight was born at Salem, Massachusetts, October
31, 1862. His parents were Edward Hale and Mary Meek (Russell)
Knight. Both the Knight and Russell families are among the kindred
which has been identified with successive epochs of American history
from Colonial times, and collaterally the relationship extends to other
old and prominent families, among them the Hale, Adamses, Lowells,
(same family as President Lowell of Harvard) and Coffins.
The original Knight ancestor was John Knight, who came over from
his home in the town of Romsey, county Hants, England, in 1635, settling at Newburyport, Massachusetts. His son, John Knight, Jr., was
born at Newburyport, and was the father of Captain Richard Knight,
who was born in Newburyport in I666, and who was afterwards a distinguished officer in the Indian wars. Captain Knight was the father of
Edmund Knight, whose son Edmund (II) was at the siege of Boston,
during the American Revolution. His son, Hale Knight, was the father
of Albert, father of Edward Hale, the last named having been the
father of Dr. Knight, who thus belonged to the tenth generation of the
family in America.
The original; American Russell in this ancestry was Lewis Russell,
son of a French nobleman and a Huguenot. His parents attempted to flee
from France during the Huguenot persecution, taking with them their
son Lewis, then an infant of less than a year. They found a place on
a vessel about to sail for America, but just before the departure of the
ship, the parents went ashore just what cause is not to be ascertained,
and while on shore were captured and put to death. Thus the vessel
sailed without them, and carried the infant Lewis to America. The
captain of the vessel adopted the child, and subsequently abandoned the
sea and settled at Marblehead, Massachusetts. The son of Lewis Russell was John Russell, born at Marblehead, who became the father of
Tohn Rhodes Russell, who in turn served as an officer in the Louisberg
Expedition at the beginning of the French and Indian war, and was subsequently an officer in the American Revolution, crossing the River
Delaware with General Washington's troops. His name is perpetuated
on the battle monument now standing at Trenton, New Jersey. John
Rhodes Russell married Lois Hooper, whose father was a man of large
property interests. They became the parents of a son, Samuel Hooper
Russell, who served as a soldier in the war of 1812. He in turn was
the father of Mary Meek Russell, mother of Dr. Knight.
Edward Hale Knight, father of the doctor, was born at Salem, Massachusetts, in the same house in which Nathaniel Hawthorne, a distant
relative, was born. Mary Meek Russell was born at Marblehead, Massachusetts.
It was from this long line of Americans, many of whom were distinguished by military achievement that Dr. Knight is descended. His
own career as a physician has well upheld the standards and traditions
of the Knight family. After graduating from the Salem high school in
Massachusetts, in I879, he entered the Harvard University, taking his
bachelor's degree with the class of I883. His professional preparation
was begun in the Bellevue Hospital Medical College of New York City,
where he studied during I885-86, and was graduated from the New York