Mary M. Knight - pioneering educator

This Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m., the Mason County League of Women Voters is sponsoring an open house at the Mason County Historical Museum (427 West Railroad Ave.) to showcase seven women, past and present, who have made a difference in the county. One of those women is Mary M. Knight, who played a significant role in the early days of education. This is Mary's story.

Mary Dunbar was born in Ingham County, Michigan, on Sept. 2, 1854, the only daughter of the five children of C. S. and Orpah Dunbar. She decided early that she would be a teacher, and after graduating from high school at the age of 16 and apprenticing for a few terms in Michigan, she began her teaching career in Huron, South Dakota, where her family had moved. In June 1876, she married Marcus F. Knight, a high school classmate and fellow teacher. Mary's parents and brothers moved to Mason County in 1883. In 1890, wanting to be closer to her family, Mary, Marcus and their daughters Jessie and Gyneth followed the family to Shelton, where both Mary and Marcus were hired to teach in local schools.

In the late 1890s, the Knights moved to Whatcom County and taught in public schools there. They returned to Shelton in July 1900, settling on a 3-acre tract in the west end. In September 1900, the local Democratic party nominated Mary to run for county school superintendent, and she won the position in the November election. In his 1903 biography of Mary Knight, Dr. Harry Deegan wrote, "In some of the older states, the notion still lingers that woman is an inferior sort of creature, not able to govern herself much less a body of people in organized form. Not so in the boundless expanse of the great Northwest, where woman is accorded all her rights, political and business as well as social and civil. For this reason no one is surprised when he drops into Shelton and sees a woman acting as superintendent of county schools. Having made a life study of the subject of education and being thoroughly familiar with the art of teaching as the result of long and varied experience, Mrs. Knight's equipment for such an office is exceptional."

Of the Knight family's domestic life, Deegan wrote, "We find their home at Shelton surrounded by a small acreage devoted to a variety of fruits. Prudent housewifery also supplies the domestic table with honey, poultry, and eggs of their own raising, and it will be seen that the Knight's home is typical in its comforts and luxuries as well as its robust self-dependence. It is natural that such a household should attract many visitors and its occupants make many friends and this is found to be true of this estimable couple so largely responsible for the educational interest of Shelton."

In March 1909, Mrs. Knight was preparing a Mason County education exhibit for display at the Alaska, Yukon, Pacific Exposition in Seattle. In October of that year, she was absent from the county for 10 days to attend the county superintendents convention in Bellingham and then travel to Seattle to dismantle the exhibits at the exposition.

Mary retained her county superintendent position in the next two elections. However, in 1916 she was under medical treatment by a specialist in Seattle and was unable to perform the duties. In 1917, new superintendent Mrs. Anna Kimmel Melvin resigned, and Mary was appointed to fill the vacancy. She was re-elected to the position in November 1918.

During her tenure as county school superintendent, Mary recognized the need to provide more consistent education opportunities to rural students. She believed the best way to accomplish that would be to consolidate far-flung one-room schools in the western part of the county into a single district. To that end, she set up community fairs to get the school districts working together, arranging for two or three districts to gather at the end of the school year for a day of sharing and fun. In 1921, a community fair at the Hatchery School in Lower Satsop District 19 was attended by 300 people from schools in Beeville, Deckerville, Rediske, Wayside and Hatchery to discuss consolidation of the five schools into one district. After three more years of discussion, Matlock Consolidated District 310 was formed, and a new schoolhouse was built next to the Rediske School at Matlock.

At a special meeting in September 1924, the board of directors of the new District 310 unanimously resolved that, "In loving respect for and appreciative memory of our former county superintendent's years of unselfish devoted service to the public schools of Mason County we do name and call our new consolidated school the Mary M. Knight School." A petition signed by 100 patrons and voters of the district accompanied the resolution.

Marcus Knight had died unexpectedly in July 1921 during an Eastern Star picnic at Walker Park. For several years, Mary lived with her daughter, Shelton Postmaster Jessie Knight, at Jessie's Birch Street house. She died on Jan. 31, 1940, in a Seattle nursing home after a long illness that had kept her bedridden for several years. All county offices were closed so that personnel could attend the service.

■ Jan Parker is a researcher for the Mason County Historical Museum. She can be reached at [email protected]. Membership in the Mason County Historical Society is $25 per year. For a limited time, new members will receive a free copy of the book "Shelton, the First Century Plus Ten."