Collection Overview
Title: Frederick Bradford Knapp Collection II
Dates: 1849-1935
Creator: Knapp Family
Repository: Drew Archival Library
Call Number: DAL.MSS.135
Accession Number: DAL.2018.008
Location: Fogg Archives Room
Quantity: 1 box
Language: English

Administrative Information
Access Restriction: Collection is open to researchers
Acquisition Information: Purchase in 2018 from Robert Dente
Preferred Citation: DAL.MSS.135, Frederick Bradford Knapp Collection II, Duxbury Rural & Historical Society
Finding Aid Prepared by Isabel Newman (intern)

Scope and Content:
The collection consists of 22 items connected to the Knapp family of Duxbury, including correspondence from family members, accounts, and information regarding real estate holdings.

Biographical Sketch:
Frederick Bradford Knapp (1857-1932) was born in Walpole, NH, to Rev. Frederick N. Knapp and Lucia Alden Bradford Knapp. He was the great-grandson of Gershom and Sally Bradford of the DRHS’ Bradford House Museum. He received a BS degree in engineering from the M.I.T. in 1879. During his early career, he worked as an engineer on various building projects and railways. By the 1880s, he was employed as the grounds supervisor at Harvard in Cambridge. In 1884 he married the young widow, Fannie M. (Hall) Powers.

In 1886 the Knapps purchased the Ezra “King Caesar” Weston estate on Powder Point and established the Powder Point School for Boys. While living on Powder Point in the King Caesar House, the Knapps had three children: Lucia, Eric, and Elizabeth. After their son, Eric, died in 1909, the Knapps sold the school but continued to live in and own the King Caesar House. Frederick Bradford Knapp established the Eric Knapp School of Forestry, which he ran until 1912. In his later life, Knapp continued to pursue real estate interests and taught freshmen at Harvard during WWI.

Lucia Bradford Knapp Royal (1889-1952) was Frederick and Fannie Knapp’s second child. She grew up in the King Caesar House. Unlike her older brother, she did not attend the all-boy Powder Point School. Instead, she was sent away to boarding school. She graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in landscape design. She also attended MIT in Cambridge. In 1930, she was employed as a “landscape developer.” In 1940, at age 51, she married Henry Wasson Royal, the widower of her aunt Maria Knapp. He was 73 at the time and was the former curator of the Pilgrim Hall Museum.

Series List:
Series I – Correspondence, 1849-1883
Series II – Legal and Financial, 1875-1935
Series III – Published material