Chauncey L. Knapp

Chauncey Langdon Knapp (February 26, 1809 - May 31, 1898) was a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts.

Biography

Chauncey Langdon Knapp was born in Berlin, Vermont, February 26, 1809. He finished school, learned the art of printing, and engaged in newspaper work in Montpelier, Vermont. For a number of years, he was co-proprietor and editor of the State Journal. Interested in politics, he served as Secretary of State of Vermont from 1836-1843.

In 1843, he visited Lowell, Massachusetts and met poet John Greenleaf Whittier, at the time editor of Lowell's Middlesex Standard (the voice of the Anti-slavery Movement and the Liberty Party). Whittier invited Knapp to stay in Lowell, take over as editor of the Middlesex Standard, and continue the fight against slavery and for social reform in Lowell. Knapp accepted and he eventually moved from editor of the Middlesex Standard to editor of the Lowell Citizen and News. His interest in politics continued and Knapp became Clerk of the Massachusetts State Senate in 1851.

In 1854, Knapp ran as an anti-slavery Free Soiler and was elected overwhelmingly to Congress as a member of the American Party (the only major party with an anti-slavery plank) to the Thirty-fourth Congress. Shorty after, the Republican party of Abraham Lincoln) was formed with an anti-slavery plank. Knapp left the American Party and joined the Republican and was again overwhelmingly elected to the Thirty-fifth Congress (March 4, 1857-March 3, 1859). During the heated slavery debates in Congress, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts was severely beaten by Congressmen Preston Brooks of South Carolina on May 22, 1856. In response, Congressmen Knapp delivered his first address on the floor of the House, a speech in which he said his constituents viewed the attack as an "audacious blow hurled at the great right of free opinion. . .the primal element and safeguard of constitutional liberty." ^[1]

In 1859, Knapp left Congress and became editor of the Lowell Daily Citizen from 1859-1882. He died in Lowell on May 31, 1898. and is buried in the Lowell Cemetery. Knapp Avenue leading from Rogers Street into the Lowell Cemetery is named for Knapp.

References

• Chauncey L. Knapp at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress