Knox, William H.
Biography
Mr. Knox was described as a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who lived in Utah in his later years. In 1896, he attended a festival in Utah that celebrated its citizens who were over seventy years of age. As an elderly Black man, his attendance was noted in a local Black-owned newspaper along with that of other elderly Black members of his faith: Isaac Manning, Jane James, Wesley Taylor, and a Mr. Harris. Unfortunately, the news report does not offer any other identifying information for Knox, Taylor, or Harris, other than the fact that they were Black and Latter-day Saints.[1]
From 1875 to 1970, Utah celebrated Old Folks’ Day, an annual festival for Utah residents aged seventy years and older. These celebrants would spend the day enjoying meals and entertainment provided by young volunteers, and riding in carriages, trains, and boats. The day would end with recognition of some of the most remarkable elderly in attendance: the oldest man and woman, furthest travelled, oldest man and woman who were completely toothless, oldest woman never married, mother of the most children, longest member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and oldest members of other Christian denominations.
On 25 July 1896, Mr. Knox attended Old Folks’ Day. The Broad Ax, a Black-owned newspaper in Utah, described him and others who attended as “very old gentlemen” and “faithful members of the Mormon Church.” Throughout the celebration, he reportedly intermingled with the senior citizens of other races “as brothers and sisters.”[2] Given that Old Folks’ Day was a celebration primarily for Utahns over the age of seventy years, it can be presumed that Mr. Knox was a Utah resident, and potentially well over seventy years based upon his description of being “very old.” This suggests that he may have been born around 1825 or earlier.
The only known candidate for Mr. Knox’s identity is William H. Knox, a Black man born in Kentucky in 1820. He may have lived in Kansas prior to his residency in Utah. In 1893, 72-year-old William H. Knox testified in a trial in Salt Lake City. He observed the violation of coal ordinances and took the witness stand to explain what he knew.[3]Unfortunately, his testimony was turned against him and he ended up spending a night in jail on perjury charges. He was also accused of purposefully obscuring or reporting false information in court. As a result, he was imprisoned overnight from January 16 to 17, 1893.[4] The prison record describes him as 5 feet 7 inches tall, with black hair and dark brown eyes, a mole on the right side of his neck, and a scar on his right arm and left leg. The prison record also reports that he could not read or write, and was a Methodist. If the William H. Knox who spent a night in jail is the same Mr. Knox from the Old Folks’ Day report, then he likely converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sometime after his imprisonment in 1893 and before his festival attendance in 1896. Without knowing where he lived, it is impossible to verify what is known about William H. Knox and compare it against LDS membership records. However, there are no other Black men with the last name of Knox who appear in public records in Utah at the same time.
William H. Knox was eventually admitted into the Utah Territorial Insane Asylum, now the Utah State Hospital, suffering from dementia.[5] Several news articles discussed his admission; they reveal that Knox was transferred to the Utah Territorial Insane Asylum in Provo from the Utah county infirmary on 7 May 1902.[6] He was 82 years old, and reportedly “originally came from Kentucky but came [to Utah] from Kansas about eight years ago.”[7] This would suggest that William moved to Utah around 1894, though he testified in court in Salt Lake in 1893. The 1880 census lists an “A. Wm. Knox,” a 62-year-old Black man, who lived alone in Kentucky at the time. It also reports that A. Wm. Knox was widowed, worked as a teacher, and that he and both of his parents were born in Kentucky.[8] Perhaps William lived in Kentucky for much of his life before moving to Kansas, and later Utah.
As a mentally ill, elderly Black man, William was not treated with respect. His personal and medical affairs were sometimes reported in a dehumanizing manner, distinct from the ways that news accounts reported on the emotional and physical health of other patients. Many news articles describe his struggles with mental health in graphic detail, revealing that William suffered from suicidal ideation and likely did not receive proper emotional support.[9]
Other newspaper articles use language crafted to criminalize William, likely misquoting or even crafting falsehoods about him in order to sensationalize the reports. It was not uncommon for Black asylum patients across the nation, especially men, to be criminalized in such a manner.[10] Several articles describe William conflating one of the physicians at the hospital with the son of Jesse James, infamous outlaw, cowboy, and leader of the James-Younger Gang.[11] These articles then “reveal” with no corroborating evidence that William “knew [Jesse James] well. He was bigger than [the physician], but [the physician was] a handsomer man.”[12] The same articles acknowledge that William suffered from senile dementia, experienced severe suicidal ideation, and had been declared insane by a court of law and yet still alluded to a connection with the outlaw gang. William was not of sound mind, and likely would not have been able to recognize the physician’s parentage or clearly recall memories of the outlaw gang had he known them. A common symptom of advanced senile dementia is severely limited verbal communication, a fact that makes it unlikely that William would have been able to communicate clearly and with multiple long sentences. In addition, while William was born in 1820, Jesse James was 27 years his junior and passed away at only 34 years of age. It is unlikely that William knew the outlaw or ever encountered him and yet news accounts suggested a connection designed to cast criminal aspersions onto William.
William H. Knox passed away on 1 June 1902, less than a month after he was transferred to the Provo asylum.[13]He was interred in an unmarked grave without ceremony in the Provo City Cemetery in Provo, Utah.[14] He was eventually honored with a placard stating his name and date of death on a memorial in the cemetery erected by the Utah State Hospital Forgotten Patients Cemetery Project.[15]
By Danielle M. (Elder) Blaylock
[1] “Old Folks’ Day,” The Broad Ax (Salt Lake City, Utah), 25 July 1896, 1.
[2] “Old Folks’ Day.” The Broad Ax (Salt Lake City, Utah), 25 July 1896, 1.
[3] Utah, 3rd District Court Territorial Criminal Case Files, Series 6836, Reel No. 11, Case No. 997, 1893, William Knox, Utah Division of Archives and Records Services, Salt Lake City, Utah.
[4] Utah, Department of Corrections, Inmate Services Prison Commitment Registers, 3rd District Court, No. 151, Page 313, 1893, Wm H Knox, Utah Division of Archives and Records Services, Salt Lake City, Utah.
[5] William Knox, FindAGrave.com.
[6] “Committed to Asylum,” The Salt Lake Herald (Salt Lake City, Utah), 8 May 1902, 3.
[7] “Is Insane,” Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah), 7 May 1902, 2.
[8] United States, 1880 Census, Kentucky, Bourbon County, Clintonville.
[9] “Is Insane,” Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah), 7 May 1902, 2.
[10] Judith Weisenfeld, Black Religion in the Madhouse: Race and Psychiatry in Slavery’s Wake (New York University Press, 2025).
[11] “Committed to Asylum,” The Salt Lake Herald (Salt Lake City, Utah), 8 May 1902, 3.
[12] “Took John James for Son of Jesse,” Salt Lake Telegram (Salt Lake City, Utah), 8 May 1902, 3.
[13] “Tuesday’s News,” The Semi-Weekly Standard (Ogden, Utah), 6 June 1902, 8.
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