Samuel Lorenzo Knapp


Samuel Lorenzo Knapp was an American author and lawyer.

Biography

He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1804, studied law with Chief Justice Theophilus Parsons, and became an eminent lawyer. During the War of 1812, he commanded a regiment of militia on the coast defences.
He was a representative in the Massachusetts legislature from 1812 to 1816. Knapp was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1814. In 1816, he was imprisoned for debt, upon his release from prison in 1817, he moved to Boston.
He became editor of the Boston Gazette in 1824, also conducting the Boston Monthly Magazine. In 1826 he established the National Republican, which failed two years later, and he returned to practicing law in New York City. He was given the degree of LL.D. from the Paris College.

Works

His works, which are chiefly biographical, include:
He edited "The Library of American History". He was the author of a variety of occasional public addresses. George Harvey Genzmer, in evaluating his biographies in the Dictionary of American Biography, calls him "ornate, laudatory, and patriotic, and wholly untrustworthy."