Person:George Knight (269)

GEORGE W. KNIGHT,
Born at Kinderhook, in Pike County, Ill., on November 13, 1867, George W. Knight was a son of George and Deborah (Turner) Knight, natives of Canada and Illinois, respectively. George Knight, Sr., was a farmer. He passed away in 1872, and Mrs. Knight was married a second time, to Thomas Cochran. George W. Knight was the ninth of a family of eleven children by the first union, but most of the children died when infants.

George W. Knight attended the public schools of Illinois. From the time when he was thirteen years old until he was eighteen, he went to school in the winter and worked in the summer. He then went to Stone County, Mo., and worked on the farms at Galena for two years. About 1889, he came to California and was employed at a citrus grove at Ontario for two years, and then went to Chehalis County, Wash., where he worked at farming and in logging camps for about seven years. About 1896, he came to Sutter County, being first employed by D. E. Knight, of Marysville, Yuba County, for four years, and then by Frank Walton, of Yuba City, also for four years. In 1904, Mr. Knight purchased an eighty-acre ranch five miles west of Yuba City, in the Franklin district. In 1905 he made this ranch his home, and here he has resided ever since. The same year, he took the position as carrier of the rural delivery of Route No. 1, out of Yuba City, and six months later he was transferred to Route No. 2. He carried mail for twelve years, besides conducting his ranch, on which he has built a fine home. The eighty acres have been developed from a stubble field into a fine producing ranch, devoted to Thompson Seedless grapes, with two acres of almonds. He has installed two pumping plants, one with a three-inch pump and the other with a four-inch pump, for irrigation.

On November 16, 1890, at Montesano, Wash., George W. Knight married Miss Minnie A. Hull, a native of Kinderhook, Ill., and a daughter of David Benton and Sarah Hull. Her father was a merchant in Illinois. She was one of five children that blessed the Hull home, and she was reared and educated in the State of her birth. Mr. and Mrs. Knight became the parents of five children: Wilma [Wilna], Mrs. Darwin Picknell, of Glenn County, Cal., who died at the age of thirty, in January, 1924, leaving one child, a daughter named Doris; Ross W., of Marysville; Florence, a school-teacher in Hawaii; Kenneth, attending the San Jose Teachers’ College; and Doris, who passed away when she was thirteen years old. Ross W. served in the United States Army, and trained at Camp Lewis in the 363rd Infantry of the 91st Division. He was sent to France, where he was wounded and gassed. He received his honorable discharge in 1919. Mr. Knight served as trustee of the Franklin district school for eighteen years. In his political views he is a stanch Republican. He is a member of the Woodmen of the World, at Yuba City.