Kannie Frances Heaton Knox

Written By: Jane Gibson Nardy - Cashiers Historical Society | Issue: 2017/01 - Winter

Kannie Frances Heaton, named after a Zachary relative, was born September 8, 1879, in Cashiers Valley, the sixth child of Hannibal Heaton and Louisa Emmelie Zachary.  

When Kannie was age 18, her mother committed suicide by hanging herself inside a barn.  Shortly after the death of her mother, Kannie’s father and some of her siblings moved to the Ellijay section of Macon County, but Kannie next shows up in Birmingham, Jefferson County, Alabama on March 1, 1905, when she married Frederick W. Knox, age 37.

She was listed as “Miss Kannie Frances Heaton, age 25,” with the pastor of St. Paul’s Catholic Church conducting the service.

For the next 25 years, Kannie and Fred led an adventure-filled life together.  Fred was a senior civil engineer with several railway companies where he spearheaded searches for the best passages for Trans-Continental train routes through the Rocky Mountains, Bitter Root Mountains, and the Cascade Mountains.  Photographs show Kannie, Fred, and a few of his employees and horses posed in front of a tent in rugged Western mountain terrain.  At some point, Kannie and Fred ended up in San Francisco, where Fred worked as an engineer for the local government, and it was from their home in San Francisco that Fred wrote Kannie’s sister, Mae Carpenter, in Augusta, Georgia, the sad news that Kannie, in 1930, “had a stroke of nervous prostration.”  She was physically fine but suffered from bouts of mental illness and hallucinations from which she never recovered.

Fred spared no expense in getting the best care for Kannie, placing her in California’s Agnew State Hospital where she was still a patient when Fred died in December 1934.  An official estate packet gives details of Fred’s will and the large amount of money he left to continue Kannie’s care until her death, naming Wells Fargo Bank as her executor. 

Kannie lived on for 25 years and at an unknown date she was moved to the North Carolina State Hospital in Morganton as evidenced by a letter written to her sister, Mae Carpenter, in Augusta, Georgia with a notice of Kannie’s March 23, 1959, date of death. Kannie was buried in the Upper Zachary Cemetery in Cashiers with only a footstone with her initials carved on it marking her resting place.

Note: In the fall of 2016, Mae Heaton Carpenter’s granddaughter, Barbara Chambless, visited Cashiers and donated to the Cashiers Historical Society’s “Jane Nardy Archives” a large history/genealogy collection of documents relating to the Cashiers family of Louisa Emmelie Zachary Heaton and Hannibal Heaton. 

Thank you Barbara!