Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial ...

father, Benjamin Ellsworth, was a sol-
dier in the Revolution and was present
at the execution of Major Andre.
Dr. Everett James McKnight, the se-
cond of five children, was born June 12,
1855, and spent his childhood in Ellington.
He was educated at Hall's Family
School in that town, and later was sent
to Hopkins Grammar School at New
Haven, where he completed his preparation
for college. He entered Yale Uni-
versity in 1872, and was graduated four
years later with the class of 1876, which
included a large number of men who
later became prominent in public affairs.
Among them we may mention Arthur
Twining Hadley, now president of Yale,
Otto F. Bannard, of New York City,
Judge James Brooke Bill, Senator John
Kean, Congressman Charles B. Fowler,
Elmer P. Howe, and the late William
Waldo Hyde. Dr. McKnight was prominent
at college as a student and in ath-
letics, doing much to promote popular
interest in football. In the sophomore
year he was treasurer of the Football
Club, secretary, in the year following, and
its president as a senior. After gradua-
tion he spent the following year at the
Yale Medical School, and then attended
the College of Physicians and Surgeons in
New York City for two years longer,
being graduated from there in 1879 with
the degree of M. D.
Shortly after graduation he settled in
East Hartford and was active in practice
there until 1893, when he removed to
Hartford. Being more interested in sur-
gery than in any other branch of medicine,
he has gradually confined himself to that
specialty and has become one of the lead-
ing surgeons in Connecticut. He has been
associated with many institutions in various
capacities, being made in 1889 ortho-
pedic surgeon to the Hartford Hospital,
and shortly thereafter one of the first as-
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
8
sistant surgeons. Upon the death of Dr.
M. Storrs in 1900, he was appointed a
visiting surgeon of the same institution.
For many years he was also surgeon for
the New England Railroad Company, and
is now consulting surgeon of the Hart-
ford Orphan Asylum, the New Britain
General Hospital, the Middlesex Hospital
(Middletown) and the Johnson Memorial
Hospital at Stafford Springs, Connecticut.
In 1899 he was appointed a medical director
of the Hartford Life Insurance Com-
pany, and retained that position for five
years. He has always been active in ad-
vancing the general interests of his pro-
fession and is a member of many medical
organizations, among which we may men-
tion the American Medical Association,
the Connecticut State Medical Society,
the Hartford County Medical Association
and the Hartford Medical Society. He
has served as president of each of the last
three societies, and was a trustee of the
American Medical Association at the
time of his death. As a member of the
Committee of Public Policy and Legisla-
tion of the Connecticut State Medical
Society he has been instrumental in se-
curing good and preventing bad legisla-
tion in matters relating to public health.
He was also a member of the American
Urological Association, the New York
Academy of Medicine, a fellow of the
American College of Surgeons, and an ex-
vice-president of the International Asso-
ciation of Railroad Surgeons.
Dr. McKnight has always taken a keen
interest in public affairs, and in 1893 was
elected a representative from East Hartford
to the General Assembly of Connecticut.
While a member of that body
he served as chairman of the Committee
on Public Health and was a member of
the Fisheries Committee. He was also
interested in the social and club life of
Hartford, and was a member of the Hart-