He attended Hatfield High School and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, graduating in 1876 with a degree in Civil Engineering.
He worked as an engineer for the War Department for one year, then joined the New Britain Gas Company in Connecticut.
Albert's son was Cornelius Kingsley Garrison Billings who later became President of Peoples, and co-founder with Knapp of Union Carbide.
Over the next decade, Knapp opened two processing plants at Niagara Falls, New York, and another at Sault Ste.
He continued to buy adjacent land over the next two decades until he owned over 12 square miles of lake front.
He started building his own home on the property in 1901, a large stone and shingle mansion with a cable car to run people down to the lake and back.
[4]: 3–4, 7 It is believed that in 1904, Knapp, who was perhaps fifty or sixty pounds overweight, was diagnosed with diabetes and instructed by his physician, Franklin Nuzum, to take a health retreat to California.
They returned the next year and purchased 11 parcels of land in Montecito, California, near the beach where they stated they had plans to build.
Staying at the Potter for six weeks, they purchased the 70-acre Arcady estate in Montecito from Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead and sold the 11 beach parcels.
In 1913, Knapp purchased the "Tanglewood" property(modernly known as Ganna Walska Lotusland) from Caroline Lucy Tallant.
Other mountain retreats Knapp owned in the area were the Laurel Springs Ranch (purchased in 1925), which he refurbished and made available as a nurse's retreat (and which was the future home of Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden), the El Capitan Ranch at Refugio Pass, Indian Camp (aka Wagon Wheels), Lower Indian Camp (aka Punch Bowl), and Agua Caliente Springs.
Founded by 50 women in 1888, the hospital was transitioning from convalescent treatment to modern insurance-based medical care in the early 1910s.
In 1917, Knapp also funded the first Dispensary in Santa Barbara, serving the populace who could not afford hospitals or physicians.
Knapp became President of the Board in 1919, and brought his personal physician from Chicago, Dr. Franklin Nuzum, to serve as Chief of Staff.
Sansum came to Santa Barbara to run the Potter Clinic, and as the sole practitioner in the United States using insulin for the treatment of diabetes, made crucial contributions to the substance's development.
No personal motives or convenience of the officers of the hospital, of the nurses, or of the physicians in charge have any place till the good of the patient has been taken care of.
He spent the last years of his life as a patient at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital and died there on July 21, 1945.