Seaman Asahel Knapp (1833-1911), American educator and agricultural pioneer, was the founder of the Farmers Cooperative Work Division of the Department of Agriculture.

Seaman Knapp was born at Schroon Lake, N.Y., on Dec. 16, 1833. He graduated from Troy Academy in 1853 and from Union College in 1856. He married immediately after graduation and went to teach at Fort Edward Institute in New York. He left in 1862, having become co-owner, vice principal, and professor of mathematics and Latin. He took over Troy Academy in 1862 and helped turn it into a well-known girls' school, Ripley Female College. In 1864 he opened a men's college, Poulteney Normal Institute.

Knapp abandoned his career in education in 1866, when he suffered a crippling leg injury, and moved his family to Iowa to farm. The first winter blizzard killed all his sheep, and he was forced to abandon farming. He served as Methodist pastor in Vinton, then from...