In Memoriam

Deputy Duncan Joseph Nichols, 44, died on September 9, 1904, from a gunshot wound he suffered in the line of duty.

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With the help of researchers and librarians at the Orange County Library in Hillsborough, the Government and Heritage Library in Raleigh, and the Wilson Library at UNC-Chapel Hill, we were able to gather many articles about the death of Deputy Nichols, and some ancestry information about his family.

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In short, James Knapp Horner, 58, shot Deputy Nichols in the arm when Nichols went to serve a warrant on him. The warrant alleged that Knapp whipped his daughter-in-law. The deputy died from a severed artery before making it back to his home at the Caldwell Institute. A posse captured Horner on September 12, shooting him in the right side, but only lightly wounding him. Horner spent one night in the Orange jail. Officials transferred him to Durham to await his 1905 trial, at which the court found Knapp guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced him to 12 years in prison.

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Deputy Nichols’ grave is in the Little River Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Hurdle Mills. At the time of his death, his parents, William Allen Nichols and Martha E. Nichols, his wife, Pattie Martha Miller, nine of his 11 brothers and sisters, and three children survived.

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Nichols’ death came 80 years prior to the founding of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF) in 1984. This nonprofit organization built and now maintains the national memorial to fallen officers. Public Information Officer Alicia Stemper researched Nichols’ death and made application to the Fund in 2021. In August of that year, the Fund approved the application and Nichols’s name is now engraved into memorial wall with the names of other officers who made the ultimate sacrifice. The following May, representatives from our office traveled to Washington, DC to view the unveiling of Nichols’ name on the monument, attend the annual candlelight memorial service with two of Deputy Nichols’ great-grandsons, and to hear his name read aloud, a moment that formally verified and recognized his long-ago sacrifice.