Warren Ezra Knapp, educator and superintendent of public instruction for Arapahoe County, Colorado, was born in Westmoreland, Oneida County, New York, on 22 January 1850, the eldest child of Jairus S. Knapp and Harriet A. (Kellogg) Knapp. His paternal ancestry descends from Oliver Pickett Knapp of Connecticut, through Ezra Abbott Knapp of Oneida County, and traces further back to Saxony and Scotland. His paternal grandmother, Sophronia (Waters) Knapp, was a daughter of Elijah Waters of Connecticut. His maternal line descends from Deacon Warren Kellogg of Hartford, Connecticut, and further from Abraham Kellogg, with direct descent from a passenger of the Mayflower. Professor Knapp’s siblings included Leonard Kellogg, Harriet Antoinette (wife of Newell DeRoy Lee), Edwin Abbott, Helen Maria, and Alice Emeline. In 1876 he married Sarah F. Cochrane of Ithaca, New York, daughter of Robert and Eliza J. Cochrane. Of their five children only Evelyn survived to adulthood.
Prof. Warren Ezra Knapp, superintendent of public instruction of Arapahoe County, is a member of a family that traces its lineage back to Saxony and to Scotland. For many generations its representatives have been identified with the history of the United States. From Connecticut Oliver Pickett Knapp removed to Westmoreland, Oneida County, N. Y., where he died at an advanced age. His son, Ezra Abbott Knapp, was born near Fairfield, Conn., and removed to Oneida County, N. Y., where he engaged in farming until his death, in December, 1841, at the age of forty-three years and eight months. When a mere lad he had taken part in the battle of Sacket Harbor. He married Sophronia Waters, who was born in Connecticut, and accompanied her father, Elijah Waters, to New York state, where he followed the carpenter’s trade.
In the family of Ezra Abbott Knapp there was a son, the oldest of the family, Edwin A. Knapp, M. D., who served as surgeon of the One Hundred and Twenty-second New York Infantry, during the Civil War, and died in Syracuse, N. Y. Another son, Jairus S., who was the third among the six children of the family, was born in Westmoreland, Oneida County, N. Y., May 8, 1825, and grew to manhood on the home farm. He made farming his life work, and for fifty-four years tilled the soil of the old homestead. Meantime he held a number of local offices and took part in many enterprises for the benefit of the town and county. In 1891 he retired from farming and has since resided in Denver.
In 1849 Jairus S. Knapp married Harriet A. Kellogg, who was born in Westmoreland, N. Y., January 31, 1825, being a descendant of one of the passengers of the historic “Mayflower.” She was a daughter of Deacon Warren Kellogg, who was born in Hartford, Conn., and became an early settler of Oneida County, N. Y., where he engaged in farming and carpentering. He died in 1869, at the age of ninety. His father was Abraham Kellogg.
The subject of this sketch is the oldest child of Jairus S. and Harriet A. Knapp, the other members of the family being Leonard Kellogg, of Denver; Harriet Antoinette, who is Mrs. Newell DeRoy Lee, of Westmoreland, N. Y.; Edwin Abbott, who has been in Boulder, Colo., since November, 1877, and is now the city marshal; Helen Maria, of Denver, and Alice Emeline, who has been in Honolulu since August, 1891, and is now principal of the Kamehameha preparatory school for native boys in that city.
Born in Westmoreland, N. Y., January 22, 1850, Warren Ezra Knapp was a student in the Whitestone (N. Y.) Seminary, where he prepared for college. About the same time he began to teach school, teaching in his native town and at Jamesville, N. Y. In September, 1871, he entered Cornell University (having won a state scholarship), where he remained for two years, and then spent one year as principal of the Savannah Union school in Wayne County, N. Y., after which he applied his earnings as teacher to the completion of his college course. He re-entered Cornell as a member of the class of 1876, having among his classmates Jesse Grant and R. B. Hayes, Jr. After leaving Cornell he held his former position as principal of the Savannah school for one year.
In August, 1876, at Ithaca, N. Y., Professor Knapp married Miss Sarah F. Cochrane, who was born in Ithaca, the daughter of Robert and Eliza J. Cochrane, whose occupation was farming.
After his marriage, for three years Professor Knapp was principal of the Union school at Westmoreland, his native place. In the fall of 1880 he became principal of the Union graded school and academy at Madison, N. Y., which position he held for two years. He had entered into a contract for a third year, but within a month resigned, in order to accept the position of cashier of the banking house of A. K. & F. B. Yount, at Fort Collins, Colo. He reached Fort Collins July 22, 1882, and entered upon the duties of his position, remaining there until he came to Denver, in October, 1883. He was chosen principal of the Franklin school, which was then being erected, and entered upon his work in January of the following year. At that time the school was the largest and finest building of its kind west of Omaha and Kansas City. He remained its principal until January, 1898, when he resigned to enter upon his duties as county superintendent of Arapahoe County. To this position he was nominated on the silver Republican ticket and endorsed by the McKinley Republicans, and was elected by a large plurality at the election in November previous. The county has nearly one hundred school districts, with six hundred and fifty teachers and thirty-five thousand children of school age, being the most populous county in the state.
In 1884 Professor Knapp became identified with the State Teachers’ Association, also the national association, and in 1890 was appointed superintendent of the Colorado state educational exhibit made at St. Paul, Minn., in July, at the meeting of the national association. He was present at the national meeting of teachers at Madison, Wis., in 1884; at San Francisco in 1888, when he had charge of the Colorado state headquarters; and at St. Paul in 1890, where was the first extensive educational exhibit ever made by Colorado at a meeting of an educational association. In December, 1890, he was elected president of the State Teachers’ Association, and soon afterward was appointed state manager for Colorado for the association meeting in Toronto, in July, 1891, the duty of manager being to arrange for the state representation and take charge of the delegation. During the Toronto meeting he was elected a member of the board of directors, National Educational Association, to represent Colorado. The following year he was again made manager of the state delegation, which he took to the National Educational Association at Saratoga, N. Y.
At the expiration of his term as president of the state association, in December, 1891, the former treasurer, Hon. J. C. Shattuck, who had held the office for fourteen years, resigned, and Professor Knapp was elected to the place, which he has since filled. At the meeting of the National Educational Association in Asbury Park, N. J., in July, 1894, he was again elected to represent Colorado on the board of directors. He, with the influence of other Colorado delegates, succeeded in securing the convention of 1895 for Denver, and he was the state director for the meeting here. In 1896 he again had charge of the Colorado delegation to the National Educational Association at Buffalo, N. Y. With one exception he has attended all the meetings of the National Educational Association since 1888.
The first connection of Professor Knapp with politics was in the fall of 1892, when he was a candidate for state superintendent of public instruction before the Republican convention at Pueblo. Before the nomination he withdrew from the race in favor of his only opponent, geographical and political reasons influencing him in this decision. However, the convention by acclamation placed him in nomination as a regent of the state university, but, with the whole ticket, was defeated, Governor Waite and the entire Populist ticket being elected.
In the Republican state convention of 1894, Professor Knapp was again a candidate for state superintendent of public instruction, and until the convention opened it seemed that he was likely to be nominated. However, a new candidate appeared. Universal suffrage had come into Colorado, and a lady appeared as a candidate. An exciting condition of affairs followed, but, as the ballot was about to be taken, he voluntarily withdrew from the race and moved the nomination of Mrs. Angenette J. Peavy by acclamation, which was done, although hundreds of his friends protested against his withdrawal.
The legislature in 1891 organized the state into normal institute districts, Arapahoe County being the third district. He was the first regular normal institute conductor for this county and after this organization held the institute in the Franklin school. In 1892 he was again appointed and held the institute in the East Side high school, being in each case appointed by the Hon. A. D. Shepard, county superintendent of schools. Since then he has engaged in institute work every summer in the various counties of Colorado and in Cheyenne, Wyo. Since 1892 he has been a member of Washington Camp No. 14, P. O. S. of A., in which he is now president. For sixteen years he has been identified with the Ancient Order of United Workmen. He is a member of the Third Congregational Church of Denver, is its treasurer and for six years was superintendent of the Sunday-school. His daughter, Evelyn, is the only survivor of his five children.
Source
Portrait and biographical record of Denver and vicinity, Colorado : containing portraits and biographies of many well known citizens of the past and present : together with biographies and portraits of all the presidents of the United States.. Chicago: Chapman Pub. Co., 1898.