Caroline Maria Field was born July 18, 1828 in Sturbridge, Massachusetts to Theodore and Elizabeth Allen Field. She attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary from 1845-1847, graduating with the Class of 1847. She may have worked as a teacher before marrying John Holly Knapp of Fort Madison, Iowa on November 26, 1848. They had one child, a son, named Henry Eno Knapp. She died on January 31, 1854 in Fort Madison at the age of twenty-five.