Butte County Biographies

ABNER L. KNOWLTON

Submitted by Betty Wilson

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


	ABNER L. KNOWLTON was born in Windsor, Hillsboro county, New 
Hampshire, September 1, 1832, and was the son of Gideon Knowlton.  He lived at 
Windsor until twenty-two years of age.  His early advantages for an education 
were very limited, but, at the age of twenty-four, he went to the New Hampshire 
Conference Seminary, supporting himself while there by sawing wood and teaching. 
 He was there when the war broke out, and joined the fourth New Hampshire 
infantry, and served four years.  His regiment was in Sherman�s command at the 
capture of Hilton Head, in South Carolina.  He was in the expedition that 
captured Fernandina, Florida, and was at the siege of Charleston, participating 
in the operations of this division into the winter of 1863.  From Charleston, 
his regiment went to Virginia, under the command of Butler, and was at the 
battle of Gloucester Point, at the occupation of Bermuda Hundred, and the 
engagement at Drury�s Bluff, called the Frog fight.  The regiment was sent to 
join Grant�s forces at Cold Harbor, and took part in the battle of the 
Wilderness.  From there, his companions were thrown across James river in front 
of Petersburg, where they assisted in the siege, and remained until the winter 
of 1864.  Mr. Knowlton was at the battle of the mine.  In 1865, he was sent 
south, under Butler, and was at the capture of Fort Fisher, and accompanied 
Terry on his second expedition.  His regiment joined Sherman on his march from 
Columbia to Raleigh, being at the battle of Bentonville, in North Carolina.  Mr. 
Knowlton was discharged in the summer of 1865, at Raleigh, and went back home, 
having gone into the service as private, and come back captain.  He opened an 
office at Concord as civil-engineer, and lived there four years.  He came west 
in the employ of the Northern Pacific railroad, as assistant engineer on the 
preliminary survey between Olympia and Portland.  He then settled in Walla 
Walla, and served there as county surveyor for four years.  He then came to 
Butte county, and was elected county surveyor in 1875, after being in Chico six 
months.  He lost a re-election in 1877 by one vote, but obtained a re-election 
in 1879.  Mr. Knowlton was married in 1866, at Concord, to Mrs. Lizzie E. Hoyt, 
of Fisherville, New Hampshire.
 
History of Butte County, California: From its Earliest Settlement to the Present 
Time - Vol. II -  Harry L. Wells & W. L. Chambers - 547 Clay Street, San 
Francisco, Cal., 1882.