Karen White and Folly Beach, South Carolina: Southern Literary Tour, Part Two: #15

This novel is another example of the Lowcountry sub-genre of Southern literature, and as such is peppered with names of places in the area, and around Folly Island in particular, where it is almost exclusively set. It alternates between the years of the Second World War and the present, is much concerned with bottle trees, romantic manuscript research, and Nazi spies off the coast of the barrier islands of the Carolinas.

Folly Island is about a twenty-minute drive from Charleston, and the picturesque Morris Island lighthouse is in Charleston Harbor, at the north-eastern extremity of the island. It features prominently in On Folly Island. A leaflet written by Jim Booth, of Save the Light, Inc., reveals that the lighthouse's foundations are damaged and calls for donations. Years of beach erosion worsened the situation when jetties were built at Charleston.

The first lighthouse was built on Morris island in 1767, another one was built in 1838, and work on the present one, which stands at 158 feet, was begun in 1872. In 1962 it was decommissioned and replaced by a new one at Sullivan's Island. Save the Light, Inc. bought Morris Island lighthouse in 1999, although the State of South Carolina now has title to it and leases it to the organization for fundraising, etc.

Typical beach houses on Folly Island.

Paul Green in Chapel HIll, North Carolina: Southern Literary Tour, Part Two: #14

COMMENTS TO FOLLOW!

O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) in Greensboro, North Carolina: Southern Literary Tour, Part Two: #13

At Bellemeade and Elm, downtown Greensboro, North Carolina, is an area set aside for a stone display in tribute to the short story writer O. Henry, or William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), who moved with his parents to Greensboro when he was nine years old. To say the least, his short life was colorful, involving working in a drug store at an early age, moving to a farm in Texas, then to a bank, fleeing to Honduras after being charged with embezzlement, only to return and spend two years in prison for the offence, and then to incorporate his adventures into his stories, and to die poor In New York City.

The stone book represents two stories by O. Henry (who adopted his pseudonym after one of his prison guards, an Orrin Henry): 'The Gift of the Magi' and 'The Ransom of Red Chief'. The above illustration is of the former story, in which the wife sells her beautiful hair to buy her husband a Christmas present: a fob chain for his highly prized heirloom watch; but her husband has bought her an expensive comb for her long hair by selling his watch. O. Henry was a master of irony.

The righthand side of the sculpture shows the initial words of 'The Ransom of Red Chief', in which two bungling kidnappers make off with a young boy with the intention of earning $2000 ransom money. The scheme backfires because the boy is far too much of a handful for them, and the story ends with the pair selling him back to his father. The statue shows a young boy popping out of pages as if to illustrate the impossibility of tying him down.

O. Henry as an adult.

A representation of O. Henry's dog Lovely.

In the grounds of the Greensboro Historical Museum is a statue of the young O. Henry.

Surrounded by large numbers of common buckeye butterflies, the setting was quite idyllic.

Henry Jerome Stockard at Burlington, North Carolina: Southern Literary Tour, Part Two: #12

Henry Jerome Stockard (1858-1914) is most noted as the author of the poetry collection Fugitive Lines (1897) and A Study of Poetry (1911), and he was the president of the Peace Institute from 1907 to 1912. He lived at the intersection of North Church Street with Graham Hopedale Avenue, Burlington, North Carolina, a state of which he was the unofficial poet laureate.

This little monster appeared in the right wing mirror in the parking lot. Mercifully, unlike many of his animal peers in the South, he doesn't bite.

The South in Two Minds: W. J. Cash and Thomas Dixon in Shelby, North Carolina: Southern Literary Tour, Part Two: #11

At West Marion and Martin in Shelby, near Gastonia in North Carolina, there are three historical markers, two of which relate to writers: Thomas Dixon and W. J. Cash, two very different people with strong Shelby connections. W. J. Cash (1900-41) was born in Gaffney, South Carolina, and spent a large about of time writing for various newspapers. He detested the Ku Klux Klan, and wrote about the dangers of nazism and fascism.

After many years of work, he published The Mind of the South - a seminal work still highly regarded today - a few months before his death in 1941.

Cash was found hanged in Mexico a few months after the publication of his book, although the Mexican authorities rushed through his cremation against his family's wishes, and no examination of the body was possible. (A few weeks previously, Cash had been complaining about being followed by German spies.)

Thomas Dixon (1864-1946) was born in Shelby, and is best known for one of his novels, The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan, which firmly registers Dixon's support for that violent rascist organization, which D. W. Griffiths, very sensitive to Dixon's ideas, filmed as The Birth of a Nation (1915). Dixon was pro-white supremacy, pro-traditional family, and obviously very right wing.

Dixon's grave in Sunset Cemetery, Shelby, clearly shows the importance with which the man was held:

'A native of Cleveland County and most distinguished son of his generation'. There we have it, then.

'He was the author of 28 books dealing with the Reconstruction period, the most popular of which were "The Clansman" and "The Leopard's Spots", from which "The Birth of a Nation" was dramatized.' Yes indeed, there we have it. Er...

An important writer? Well, an important one from a historical point of view, perhaps, along with all the anti-Tom books, and the denial literature, and other works written in praise of the horrors of the Southern past. Mercifully, things move on.

Not too easy to spot because of the years of grime, but impressive nonetheless.

The inscription on W. J. Cash's grave was illegible due to the dirt and dried grass covering it, but with a little footwork and a number of moist towelettes, words started to take a more definite shape:

'Wilbur Joseph Cash

Son of

John W. & Nannie Hamrick Cash

May 2, 1900 - July 1, 1941

A great mind, a sweet nature, a scholar, author and editor. He loved the South with intensity and was to all a friend.

God's finger touched him and he slept. Behind the dim unkown, standeth God within the shadow. Keeping watch above his own'.

Fred Chappell and Canton, North Carolina: Southern Literary Tour, Part Two: #10

The paper mill in Canton dominates the town with such a wonderful ferocity, its smell greeting the nose as much as its sight greets the eyes, that it is hardly surprising that the contemporary writer Fred Chappell - born in Canton - has made references to it in his novels. There, though, he calls the former Champion Mill (now Blue Ridge Paper Product, Inc.) Challenger Paper Mill.

(Chappell's latest collection of poems is the experimental Shadow Box (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2009), which is something of a new departure for him.)

Margaret Morley, Old Fort, North Carolina: Southern Literary Tour, Part Two: #9

Margaret Warner Morley (1858-1963) was born in Iowa and educated in Brooklyn, but made her name in the southern Appalachians. She took postgraduate studies in biology in the USA, and moved to the North Carolina mountains around 1890, with a view to recording a way of life that was rapidly disappearing.

Morley lived in Tryon in Polk County, and spent many years photographing the flora and fauna and the people of western North Carolina. She wrote many books for children, but is most noted for her book for adults, The Carolina Mountains (1913), which includes a great deal of detail about the region and its people, and is considered an important work in this field. I first came across details about her today when visiting Old Fort Train Station and Museum, and the nearby Mountain Gateway Museum, where a number of Morley's photos are on display.

Angels Re-visited (again), Old Fort, North Carolina: Southern Literary Tour, Part Two: #8

At Old Fort Cemetery, in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina, is another angel carved in Carrara, Italy, and bought by W. O. Wolfe for his monument shop in Asheville. But there is no argument of which I am aware about this angel being one of Thomas Wolfe's contested literary ones on which he modeled Look Homeward, Angel. Instead, though, is a story involving gambling.

The claim is that Samuel A. McCanless heavily beat W. O. Wolfe at a game of poker, as a result of which W. O. forfeited one of his angels. McCanless made use of this prize later when his wife Hattie died of a perforated appendix, although his second wife couldn't square her husband's general meanness with his apparent magnanimous behavior toward his first wife.

It was McCanless's niece Daintry Allison who revealed this information to Bob Terrill, a writer of the Asheville Citizen-Times.

Please click on the comment link below to read the correct story as told by Victoria Sherrill, the great-granddaughter of Samuel Alonzo McCanless and his second wife Geneva, (known as 'Peggy). I'm grateful to Victoria for her contribution and elucidation.

Addendum: As Victoria Sherrill didn't leave an email address, Joe Elliott of Asheville, NC, has sent me the following message:

'Note to Ms. Sherrill: I was born & raised in McDowell Co. where my family history goes back to the late 18th century. I'm currently working on a series of historical sketches about the county, thus the reason for wanting to get in touch with you. Hope to hear from you. Thank you.'

The Riverside Cemetery, Asheville, North Carolina: Southern Literary Tour, Part Two: #7

In Asheville's Riverside Cemetery, North Carolina, it's easy to spot the famous writers buried here - Thomas Wolfe, and O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) because they're well signposted. The grave of Horace Kephart's photographer friend and companion is far less easy to find as George Masa isn't a household name, and I was too weary to ask at the office (assuming there was anyone there.) However, by way of a bonus, I spotted the grave of a notable writer and Wolfe scholar, and here is Ted Mitchell's obituary.

A person could be forgiven for expecting an angel statue on Thomas Wolfe's grave.

W. O. Wolfe's grave is at the side of his son's.

The grave of William Sydney Porter, better known under his pseudonym O. Henry.

Ted Mitchell's gravestone contains a quotation from Wolfe: 'Where shall the weary rest? Where shall the lonely of heart come home? What doors are open for the wanderer, and in what place, and in what time, and in what land? Where? Where the weary of heart can abide forever, where the weary of wandering can find peace, where the tumult, the fever, and the fret shall be forever stilled?'

Thomas Wolfe's Angel Reconsidered in Bryson City, North Carolina: Southern Literary Tour, Part Two: #6

In a blog post last year, I wrote about the Hendersonville Angel as a model for Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel here. The theory - that Wolfe had been inspired by the angel in his father's monument shop in Asheville - was very interesting if not entirely convincing. However, things were no doubt a little more complicated than that. George Ellison, a writer who has frequently published articles in Smoky Mountain News about such local literary figures as Horace Kephart, for instance, has been aware for a number of years of the wobbliness of the Hendersonville angel theory. As he has said, the original idea about the angel on Margaret Bates Johnson's grave in Hendersonville came from Thomas Wolfe scholar Myra Champion in 1949, and seems to have been accepted without question ever since.

Ellison puts forward the suggestion that the angel in Wolfe's mind was a composite: certainly, Wolfe saw more than one angel from Carrara in Italy in his father's shop, and an angel in Bryson City Cemetery, also sold by W. O. Wolfe, actually holds a lily as mentioned in Wolfe's novel. The Hendersonvillle angel holds no such flower, but wheat. There nevertheless appears to be a conscious effort to exclude the existence of any other angelic candidate in favor of the Hendersonville one.

The Bryson City Cemetery angel marking Fannie Everett Clancy's grave.

The lily close up. George Ellison's article about the angels is here.

Horace Kephart and Bryson City, North Carolina: Southern Literary Tour, Part Two: #5

Horace Kephart (1862–1931) had spent 13 years as a librarian in St Louis, Missouri, when, in 1904, he separated from his wife and six children. He left the clamor of the World's Fair in favor of a more peaceful life in the mountains and woods of Dillsboro, North Carolina.

Kephart became an authority on the region's cultural and natural history, and wrote many articles on outdoor life. He was a great campaigner for a Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and his book Our Southern Highlanders (1913) is a classic work of Appalachian literature: autobiographical, anthropological, and historical. Mount Kephart is named after him, as mentioned in the image below.

Kephart moved to Bryson City, and was killed – along with the writer Fiswoode Tarleton (1890–1931) – in a taxi in 1931 when they were on their way back from buying moonshine.

This historical marker is on Slope Street, Bryson City, just a few yards from School Drive, which leads to Hillside Drive, leading to Bryson City Cemetery, which climbs a hill with the Smoky Mountains as a backdrop.

Kephart's grave consists of an uncut block of stone with a metal plaque inlaid:

'Scholar, author, outdoorsman. He loved his neighbors and pictured them in "Our Southern Highlanders". His vision helped to create the Great Smoky Mountains National Park'.

After Kephart's death, his short history The Cherokees of the Smoky Mountains: A Little Band that Has Stood against the White Tide for Three Hundred Years was published, and 2009 saw the publication of his novel, Smoky Mountain Magic.

Kephart's friend Fiswoode Tarleton was buried at the side of him.

The Cherokee Bears, North Carolina: Southern Literary Tour, Part Two: #4

All right, this has almost nothing to do with literature, but the similarities between the Cherokee bears and the Larkin toads in Hull are so great, and the fun we received just doing the toads was so great, that we just couldn't resist repeating the thing here in North Carolina. Not that any excuse is needed anyway...

The main difference between the painted bears on and around the streets of Cherokee, U.S.A, and those on the streets of Kingston-upon-Hull, England, is that those in Hull are only there for ten weeks, whereas some of those in Cherokee have been there for a few years, the first one being placed in 2005. Twenty-five fiberglass bears were originally commissioned, although as yet only 19 have been released. It's certain that the bears stand a far better chance of survival here in any case: Cherokee is completely dry, but Hull, er, isn't.

The 'Painted Bear Trail' numbers the bears in alphabetical order, a system I follow. The information following the name of the bear denotes its location in Cherokee.

#1. Bear on the Little Tennessee River, Native American Crafts.

#2. Big Cove Bear, Smoky Mountain Plaza.

#3. Cherokee Sunset Bear, Qualla Arts and Crafts.

#4. Children's Mixed Bear, Cherokee Youth Center.

#5. Eagle Dancer Bear, Historical Association.

#6. Fair Bear, Fair Grounds.

#7. Fish Bear, Islands Park.

#8. Flora and Fauna Bear, Saunooke Kiosk.

#9. Forefathers, BP Station.

#10. Harmony of Life, Downtown Kiosk.

#11. Legendary Sunrise, formerly in front of the Cherokee Welcome Center, has been put in storage due to road works.

#12. Patriot Bear, Memorial Park.

#13. Pottery Bear, Fairgrounds and Museum.

#14. Sequoyah SyllaBeary, Museum of the Cherokee Indian. The headgear and the pipe are of course familiar from the well known picture of Sequoyah.

#15. The Bear Chief, Food Lion, Brushy Creek.

#16. The Legends Bear, Smoky Mountain Fly Fishing.

#17. Tourist Bear, inside Saunooke Mill, now a souvenir shop.

#18. The Trail of Tears and 7 Clans Bear, Subway. Now under repair.

#19. Winter Bear, Holiday Inn.