Joseph Knight Sr.
Joseph Knight Sr. was a close associate of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. Knight provided significant material support to Smith's translation and publication of the Book of Mormon.
Knight was born in Oakham, Massachusetts. In 1795, he married Polly Peck. By 1800 they were living in Vermont. They moved to Colesville, New York, in 1808.
Knight first met Joseph Smith while Smith was working for Josiah Stowell. He later hired Smith to work at his large farm and gristmill. Smith's courting of Emma Hale was helped by Knight lending him his sled. The Smiths also borrowed Knight's wagon when they went to pick up the golden plates from the Hill Cumorah.
Knight was baptized into the Church of Christ on 28 June 1830. All his children, their spouses, his sister, and three of his wife's siblings along with their spouses joined the church. The Knight family constituted the Colesville Branch, the first branch in the church, and they later sold their homes and properties and migrated as a group to Thompson, Ohio, where they settled on the farm of Leman Copley, a former Shaker who had converted to the LDS Church. Shortly after this Copley left the Church, and forced the Colesville Saints to leave his farm so they then migrated en masse to Jackson County, Missouri.
Among Knight's children was Newel Knight.
Knight and his family were driven from Jackson County in the Mormon persecutions of 1832–33 and eventually settled in Caldwell County, Missouri. They were driven from Missouri entirely in the winter of 1838–39 and settled shortly thereafter at Nauvoo, Illinois.
The Knights left Nauvoo with the majority of Latter Day Saints in 1846, and journeyed west with the Mormon pioneers. Knight died on the trek west at Mt. Pisgah, Iowa.
