Luke Knowlton

Luke Knowlton (November 4, 1738 – December 12, 1810) was a political leader of colonial Vermont, the Vermont Republic, and the state of Vermont. He served as a Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court, a member of the Governor’s Council, and a member of the Vermont House of Representatives.

Knowlton was born in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts on November 4, 1738, the son of Deacon Ezekiel Knowlton (1707-1774) and Susannah Morgan Knowlton (1708-1794). He was educated locally and became a farmer. Knowlton served in the French and Indian War as a private in a Massachusetts militia regiment, and performed duty at Fort Crown Point and Fort Ticonderoga in New York, and Fort Number 4 in New Hampshire.

In 1772 his family relocated to Newfane, Vermont, a new settlement which at the time contained fewer than 20 families, and he was soon appointed a justice of the peace. He was chosen as Newfane's first town clerk when the town was organized in 1774, and he served from 1774 to 1783, and again from 1784 to 1789.

Knowlton had been a Loyalist in the years leading up to the American Revolution, and had received from the British government a land grant in Sherbrooke, Quebec, but upon moving to Vermont he aligned himself with the Patriot cause. In 1782 Knowlton was accused of Loyalist sympathies, and moved to Canada to avoid arrest, returning to Newfane a year later.

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