Rev. Franklin Knight Honorary Degree letter

Collection — Box: Multi 03

Identifier: MS-0079

Staff Only

Scope and Contents Note

This collection contains a letter from Peregrine Wroth to Franklin L. Knight announcing that the Board of Visitors & Governors of Washington College has unanimously conferred an honorary Doctor of Divinity on Knight. The letter also mentions that the college does not give many honorary degrees, and this should speak highly to Franklin Knight’s accomplishments. The Honorary Degree was awarded at the August commencement in 1857. Peregrine Wroth was a professor of chemistry and served as secretary for the Board of Visitors & Governors of Washington College.

Dates

Creation: 1857 August 6

Access restrictions

Collection is open for research.

Publication rights

Copyright has not been assigned to Washington College. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Archives and Special Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Washington College as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the researcher.

Biographical Information Note

Franklin Lafayette Knight (1824-1876) was born August 3rd in Maine to Franklin Knight and Ruth Whitney Johnson Knight. He graduated from Bowdoin College and became a minister of the Episcopalian Church. An expert in dead languages he taught Greek and Latin at the University of the South, at Sewanee, TN in 1867. In 1869 he and his family moved to Washington, D.C. where he served as assistant rector of St. John’s Church. He served as rector of Kent Parish in 1856. Knight’s mother was from a prominent Maryland family as was his wife, Lavinia Howard Dorsey Knight (1828-1912), they married in 1851. Together they had seven children: William Dorsey; Franklin; Anna Ruth; Howard McCarty; Merrill Donaldson; Henry Louville; and Grace F. Washington College conferred an honorary Doctor of Divinity on Knight in 1857. Franklin passed away in 1876 in Washington, D.C.