The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1909-12-15
MH' clerk
:, ,cpBEMOUs MONUMENTS OF
INFIDEL ARE DESTROYED.
r.octed in Scorn of Christianity and
Designed to Be Imperishable.
A Singular Character.

KFNOSHA, W1S.-Ine blaSphe-
..ns monuments erected by Lewis
rnapp in cemetery here to per-
notnate his hatred of all religion,
md which he often boosted would
\, everlasting, have vanished from
tho face of the earth. Knapp was
ono of the most aggressive infdels
who ever lived, and years before his
aootb planned to leave behind him
tbo record of his unbelief. AS the
host means to do so he caused to
no erected on his cemetery lot six
ronuments cast in metal impervious
ia fire. time, or the elements, metal
that was guaranteed to last forever.
\ IN these shafts he had engraved the
\ onti-cbristian sentiments that gov
i erned his whole existence, sentiments
so blasphemous that many foundry
\ mon refused to cast them. And now
thp monuments are destroyed, ground
into the dust and has disappeared
from the face of the earth.
Called All Religion Humbug.
Knapp was a down easterner,"
horn in New York state in 1912. He
q came to Kenosha and settled here in
i tbe early days when Kenosha was
village, and had ideas of rivaling
y Chicago as the great port Of the
4 Great Lakes. Knapp opened a gro
Gerry store and prospered almost from
n the first But Knapp's bent didn't lie
4 that way He made money. He
made lot of it. But in the prime
\ Of life, when the future seemed to
\ hold forth to him the promise of
great fortune and honor, Lewis
4 Knapp turned from the ways of in
dustry and began to dream, and read
\ and think In the idle moments of
life, when not engaged in weighing
sugar and coffee in the little grocery
n store he was engaged in reading the
8 religious histories of the world. The
h religion of Buddha, of Confucius, of
y MOhammed, and of Christ he studied
B alike, without fear or prejudice. He
found much in all of them that was
Il similar, and in the christian doctrine
\ be fell upon that rock which has
set hundreds of modern Bible critics
4 to Quibbling, the matter of the i'm
\ maculate conception. From this, he
h said, had sprung a structure of lies |
He called all religions humbugs, but !
n the christian religion he entitled |
foolish. He devoted his time to ar
RguiRg the matter with friends.
When he should have been collect
Z ing bills he was sneering at the di-
3 WITTY of Christ to a group of re-
eptiye cronies. And so his trade
Tell off, the community began to look
skance at him, and old Lewis
Knapp Broad Gauge" Knapp, as
be now called himself-and the
world parted company from that
tine
Monuments Were His Protest.
The monuments came as Knapp's
a dea of leaving upon earth his bitter
protest of things and gods as they
#aFe Worshipped in the world today.
is something like thirty years ago
mat the first of them went up. Ken
Sha at that time was a small town,
Knapp was one of it's leading citi-
lenS, and nobody cared to interfere
Win his desire thus to decorate his
Ot IN the cemetery. 1t was to his
Vile, who died in 1871, the first
monument was erected, and it was
n I marble. Later, resolving to make
us words last forever Knapp had the
marble torn down and in it's place
greeted a shaft of bronze This, the
-FSJ OF his sacrilegious monuments,
DOFe the first of his infidel utter
8snces, and served to make his name
AaOWn all over the country.
The religious world was stirred to
II depths. Hundreds of protests
NJ yoQred into Kenosha, excoriating the
n luzens and churches for permitting
u sacn blasphemouss words to be dis
mayed, Of all places, in a cemetery
#Slere lay buried the community S |
Tristan dead. Ministers protested |
NJ !sor0usy, but the cemetery assocla- |
Nm ruled that the lot was Knapps, !
II having purchased and paid for it,
~ mat he could do what he wished |
#olA 1t, provided he did not violate !
Ie rules of the association.
hnapp hailed with glee the uproar
had stirred up, and then applied |
llASelt to erect other blasphemous
lonuments. He began to find dill
IA ulty at this time in having his mon
N 'Ments cast. Kenosha stonecutters
la foundrymen from the first had
sIuSed to touch them, fearing the