Knight, Henry H. and Bettie S., Farm

Built around 1890 on land bought at auction in 1887, this farm north of Tarboro Road in Knightdale, Wake County, centres on a one-and-a-half-story frame farmhouse with a Queen Anne label and a deep rear wing added around 1900. Henry Haywood Knight, a Civil War veteran and county treasurer, ran a general store, cotton gin, saw mill and grist mill from the property. He helped start the area's first school and a Baptist congregation, and he granted a railroad right of way through his land. After his death in 1904, his widow Bettie Knight deeded a depot site, platted town lots and donated land for a church and school. The house has been altered over time, but the surrounding outbuildings from the 1890s and 1900s remain as evidence of a working farm that gave rise to the town.