Samuel Lorenzo Knapp (born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, 19 January 1783; died in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, 8 July 1838) was a United States author and lawyer He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1804, studied law with Chief Justice Theophilus Parsons, and became an eminent lawyer. During the War of 1812, he commanded a regiment of militia on the coast defences. He was a representative in the Massachusetts legislature from 1812 to 1816. Knapp was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1814. 1] In 1816, he was imprisoned for debt, upon his release from prison in 1817, he moved to Boston