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Harold did recall a time when his mother might not have been so proud of him. He had saved up some money and, unbe- knownst to his parents, bought a cool little Chevy Camaro he found for sale. While bringing it home, the temptation to test its speed overcame him, so he “opened it up” a bit. As luck would have it, Chief “Mom” was patrolling that day. She spun around with lights flashing and pursued the vehicle, but failed to catch up as it continued to race ahead, turning off along the back roads her son knew all too well.
“She didn’t know it was me driving, so I didn’t dare bring that car home that day,” he re- called recently. “I hid it at a friend’s house until I figured she’d forgotten all about it.”
Another amusing story was one about their mom’s part- time job as a Security Officer at Colby-Sawyer College in New London. The three laughed as Harold recalled the night their mom was on duty outside a so- rority where a party was under- way. At the time, Colby-Sawyer was an all-girls school so when two men and a woman tried to go inside, Officer Knott followed her instructions and stopped them. One man kept trying to explain who he was and that they were invited to the party. Knott didn’t recognize his name, though and stood her ground. What she didn’t realize until later was that the three of them were indeed invited, and party- goers were quite upset when they weren’t allowed inside.
“It turns out she had stopped Steven Tyler, his wife, and Joe Perry (from the band Aerosmith) from going to the party,” Harold laughed.
While in law enforcement, Chief Knott’s two trained po- lice dogs were her partners until 1989 when the former chief re- turned to town. She continued to serve under him as an officer until 1991, when she felt it neces- sary to retire due to some health issues. Stories such as this and more are now memorialized in her writings, “Cops Have All the Fun...Or So It Seems.”
Retirement didn’t slow Ann
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Emerson-Knott down, though. The nearest ambulance service was nearly 10 miles away, and as a police officer, she had come to recognize that the town was in dire need of a better response to accidents and medical emergen- cies. With the support of friends Debbie Glidden and Phyllis Wig- gen, the trio recruited other Dan- bury residents to take emergency medical training. Together, they then formed Danbury F.A.S.T. (First Aid Stabilization Team), a volunteer group trained to pro- vide immediate medical atten- tion until an ambulance arrived.
Over the next several years, Ann answered to an even Higher Calling. She attended theology classes and became a Lay Min- ister, serving as a Senior Warden for Trinity Episcopal Church in Tilton and St. Jude’s Episcopal Church in Franklin.
Ann also had other talents, and among them was painting. Her portrait of the Old Man in the Mountain and the Wood- stock Covered Bridge are fam- ily favorites. She loved painting scenes on the seacoast, particu- larly along Star Island and Smut- tynose Island, as well. Through that, she became involved with a volunteer group that called themselves the Smuttynose Rangers. Their mission was the restoration of the historic circa 1760 Captain Haley House. Two generations of family continue to be involved in this ongoing pet project of hers.
Genealogy was one of Ann’s last passions. Through research, she discovered she was a direct descendant of one of Frank- lin’s founding fathers and that in 1909 her grandfather, Henry Emerson, owned a barber shop where Onions Pub at the Tilton Inn is now located.
After a lengthy illness, Ann Louis Emerson-Knott, the re- silient wife, mom, volunteer, lay minister, painter, and Police Chief, was finally laid to rest on July 23, 2017. To this day, she is still remembered with love and much respect by all who knew her, but most especially those who were privileged enough to call her “Mom.”
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