Samuel Knight Sr.

Candidate Biography:

Born: October 4, 1820 in Dudley, Massachusetts
Married:  Elizabeth Stuart
Children: Fletcher H., Samuel Jr., and Robert Stuart
Died: April 16, 1866 (1:45 pm) in San Francisco, CA

1857-1866: Bank Superintendent, Wells Fargo Company

• Elizabeth Haight Knight was a sister of Henry H. Haight (Governor of California; 1867-1871)
• OUCH: Knight was killed in an explosion at the Wells Fargo office in San Francisco.
  "Sam Knight, less than a decade later when he had become Wells Fargo's main business agent in San Francisco, was blown to heaven by the first explosion ever recorded in that region of an unknown substance called nitroglycerine... As freight agents on the West Coast for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, Wells Fargo had received two leaking wooden boxes which were taken to their San Francisco offices as damaged freight. When a workman struck one to open it, a tremendous explosion took most of the Wells Fargo office and the adjoining Pacific Union Club with it. Several employees of each establishment were killed. Among them was the unfortunate Sam Knight." Source: "Tales of Wells Fargo in Sacramento" by Joan Parker

Source: History of Political Conventions in California, 1849-1892 by Winfield J. Davis (1893)
Source: "The San Francisco Bay Region" Vol. 3 page 182-183 by Bailey Millard. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc. 1924. [Transcribed by Deana Schultz]
Source: "Tales of Wells Fargo in Sacramento" by Joan Parker, Golden Notes (Sacramento County Historical Society), April 1963