Joseph Knight, was known as 'Father Knight' to Saints of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was a influencial figure in the beginning days of the Restoration. The Knight family met Joseph Smith only six years after his first vision in 1826, and became supporters to the cause of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ on the earth again.
Joseph Smith was lodging in the Knight home in 1826, and sharing of his miraculous visitations. Joseph Knight Jr. recorded "My father and I believe him, and I think we were the first to do so, after his own family."
When Joseph Smith obtained the plates from the Hill Cumorah he used Father Knights horse and carriage.
Joseph Knight Sr. was worried about getting baptized and did not commit quickly. He had not read The Book of Mormon and did not want to commit to baptism without first reading the book. Joseph Smith was aware of the hesitation of Father Knight and prayed for him, and received revelation in Doctrine and Covenants 23:6-7. In the revelation, Heavenly Father told Joseph Knight ". . .It is your duty to unite with the true church, and give your language to exhortation continually." Joseph Knight was baptized on June 28, 1830 by Oliver Cowdery.
After the baptism of a number of people on the Joseph Knight Sr. Farm, Joseph Smith was arrested and taken to South Bainbridge for trail on the charges of being "a disorderly person, of setting the country in an uproar by preaching the Book of Mormon." Despite the best efforts to convict Joseph, he was pronounced "not guilty" at midnight, and only a half hour later he was arrested again in the next county over.
Joseph Knight left New York with the threat of persecution. The Knight family moved onto Thompson Ohio, then onto Jackson County Missouri and settled in Nauvoo.
One day the Prophet Joseph Smith saw the elderly Joseph Knight, in poor health, walking in Nauvoo. The prophet approached him, put his arm around him and pressed Father Knights fingers on top of his cane and said "Brother Knight, you need this cane more than I do." The Prophet told him to keep the cane as long as he needed it, and then to pass it to his descendants with the first name Joseph. The cane has been passed down through several descendants until present day.
Joseph Smith wrote a tribute to Joseph Knight:
"Joseph Knight. . . was among the first to administer to my necessities. . . For fifteen years he has been faithful and true, and even-handed and exemplary, and virtuous and kind, never deviating to the right hand or to the left. Behold he is a righteous man, may God Almighty lengthen out the old man's days; and may his trembling, tortured and broken body be renewed. . . and it shall be said of him, by the sons of Zion, while there is one of them remaining, that this man was a faithful man in Isreal; therefore his name shall never be forgotten.
When the Saints left Nauvoo, under threat of extermination, Father Knight was able to leave with the Saints. With the help of his son, Joseph Knight, they were able to get Father Knight to a new Latter-day Saint settlement called Mount Pisgah, Iowa. It was in this settlement where Joseph Knight passed away at the age of 74, he died in February 1847.
References:
"Who's Who in the Doctrine and Covenants p 166-167