Edgar S. Knowles, born February 24, 1861, near Riga, Monroe County, New York, was a prominent fire insurance underwriter in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Son of James P. and Cornelia L. (Harmon) Knowles, he moved to Illinois in 1878, graduating from Danville High School in 1881. In 1882, Knowles relocated to Sioux Falls, engaging in various businesses before co-founding the insurance firm Morcom & Knowles in 1896. A committed Republican and active Mason, Knowles married May L. Davis in 1891, with whom he had two daughters, Helen D. (b. 1899) and Alice M. (b. 1901).
Edgar S. Knowles, senior member of the firm of Morcom & Knowles, numbered among the leading fire insurance underwriters of the state, with headquarters in Sioux Falls, is a native of the old Empire State of the Union, having been born on a farm near Riga, Monroe County, New York, on the 24th of February, 1861, a son of James P. and Cornelia L. (Harmon) Knowles, both of whom were likewise born in that state, where the former has followed agricultural pursuits as a permanent vocation. The subject completed the curriculum of the public schools and thereafter continued his studies in the Rochester Academy, at Rochester, New York. In 1878 he removed to Illinois, and he there entered the Danville High School, where he was graduated as a member of the class of 1881. On the 14th of April of the following year, Mr. Knowles arrived in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and here engaged in the grocery business, under the firm name of Mighton & Knowles. In 1884 he was in the employ of the Insurance Company of Dakota, while in the following year he represented in this section the interests of the Luverne Granite Company, of Luverne, Minnesota. Thereafter he was identified with the clothing business in Sioux Falls until December, 1894, when he engaged in the fire-insurance business, as a member of the firm of Knowles & Carpenter, this association continuing until December, 1896, when our subject entered into partnership with Edmund D. Morcom, in the same line of enterprise, under the title of Morcom & Knowles, having gained a representative clientele and acting as underwriters for a number of the leading insurance companies offering fire indemnity. In politics Mr. Knowles has ever given an unqualified support to the Republican party, and fraternally he is identified with the Masonic order, in which he has taken the Knights Templar degrees, being a member of Cyrene Commandery, No. 2, of Sioux Falls, and Yankton Consistory, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, while he is also affiliated with El Riad Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He has been incumbent of the office of recorder of his commandery since 1890, and is distinctively popular in fraternal, business, and social circles.
On the 15th of January, 1891, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Knowles to Miss May L. Davis, daughter of Park Davis, a representative member of the bar of Sioux Falls, whither he came from Vermont, where Mrs. Knowles was born. Mr. and Mrs. Knowles have two children, Helen D., who was born on the 7th of February, 1899, and Alice M., who was born on the 28th of October, 1901.
Source: Robinson, Doane, History of South Dakota: together with mention of Citizens of South Dakota, [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen, 1904.