Cameron McKnight, farmer, P. O. Ingraham, was born October 7, 1828, in Lawrence County, Ind. He is a son of William A. McKnight, born 1800, in North Carolina. In 1811, he came to Indiana, and in 1835 he removed to Clay County, Ill., where he bought land and improved it.

He was one of the first to settle in that part of the county, and was a man of a great deal of energy and ability. He died in this county in the spring of 1862, from wounds received at the hands of robbers on the night of October 1, 1861, in Bible Grove Township.

The grandfather of our subject was Roger McKnight, a native of North Carolina; he died in Indiana. Rebecca (Erwin) McKnight was the mother of Cameron McKnight. She was born 1804, in Lawrence County, Ind. She died 1843, in Clay County, Ill. Eight children called her mother, of whom five are now living.

Our subject received only about six months schooling in his life. In early life he was fond of the sport and spent considerable leisure time in hunting, and even now will devote some time each year to a hunting trip, generally going south to Arkansas.

His father gave him forty acres of land, and in 1850 he bought 160 himself, and on these 200 acres he settled just after he was married to Rebecca Fields, a native of Indiana, who died in April, 1877, leaving eight children, viz., Sarah C. Harmon, Austin R., Cynthia Moore, Millard F., Jehu L., Lyman T., Homer B. and Laura. Mr. McKnight's second wife is Mrs. Martha Turner, born February 3, 1832, in Orange County, Ind. She is a daughter of Francis M. and Elizabeth (Reed) Moore. The following six children are by her first husband, Mr. B. H. Turner: Francis M. , Joseph B., Sarah E., Jessie D. Odell. William S., and Ida M.

Mr. and Mrs. McKnight are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In politics, he is a Republican. Although he has given his children a great deal of land, he has yet 240 acres of good land.

In early life, at the age of twenty he worked on the Mississippi River, going as far north as St. Paul, Minn., where he worked fifteen months in the pineries, returning in 1849, after an absence of twenty-five months, to Clay County, with which he has been identified ever since.

Excerpt from "History of Wayne and Clay Counties, Illinois 1884."