REVENUE COLLECTOR
DIED 1918
Interment unknown
Frank W. Knight, a revenue collector from Cary, North Carolina, hoped to catch and apprehend the notorious illicit distiller Ed Harmon in the hills of North Carolina in 1918. Knight and three other deputies descended on an illicit still near the town of Kennebec, while Harmon was in the midst of operating his still. Gunfight broke out. “Harmon stood his ground, firing upon Knight and breaking his thigh and wounding him in his arm in two places,” the Charlotte Observer reported. “Knight died from a blood clot caused by the wounds.”
Later, Harmon would be shot (not mortally), captured, and convicted, though he had “openly boasted that no man could take him alive. He went armed with rifle and pistol, slept in a different place every night, as a general terror to a large scope of country, and was understood to be the backer of several large distilleries.” Harmon’s legacy was secure, though. “He was so shrewd and wary that he was known as the ‘wild turkey.’”
