<<go back
January 10, 2008

Calhoun Community College Instructor Pivotal
in Solving Literary World Mystery

A Calhoun Community College English instructor recently played a pivotal role in solving a 138 year-old literary world mystery with both local and national ties. 

Late in 2007, Dr. Randy Cross, an instructor in Calhoun’s English department, was contacted by Mr. John Bayne, an author working on a book about burial sites of famous Southern authors.  Bayne was looking for information on the gravesite of American humorist George Washington Harris (1814 -1869) who lived in Decatur, Alabama, at the time of his death.

George Washington Harris was one of the best known of the “Southwest humorists.”  Southwest Humor, the name given to a tradition of regional sketches and tales based in the ‘old South-West’ (Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas), is widely credited with influencing many other authors including Mark Twain, William Faulkner, and Flannery O’Connor.  Harris wrote political articles for the Knoxville, TN Argus beginning in the late 1830’s.  He is particularly famous for his use of dialect in his stories, many of which were published in 1867 as Sut Lovingood: Yarns Spun by a Nat’ral Born Durn’d Fool.  In addition to writing, Harris was a metalworker, jeweler, steamboat captain, inventor, and farmer.  He died on a trip to Lynchburg, Virginia, trying to secure a publisher for his second book.  Falling sick during the return trip, he reportedly uttered the word “poisoned” before dying, prompting many people to suspect his death was not natural.  His second wife, Jane Beal Pride Harris, met the train carrying the body of her husband in Chattanooga where George Washington Harris and his manuscript then disappeared for nearly a century and a half.

After being contacted by Bayne, Cross mentioned the story to Morgan County Archivist John Allison, who in turn, put him in touch with local historian and genealogist, Phil Wirey, of Decatur.  Wirey was able to locate Harris’ grave in Trenton, Georgia, about 30 miles south of Chattanooga, buried next to his first wife, Nancy Emeline Nance Harris, the mother of his children.  The manuscript, however, has yet to be found.

The significance of the discovery of the gravesite has prompted an offer from Sigma Kappa Delta, the English Honor Society for Two-Year Colleges, whose national headquarters are housed at Calhoun, to purchase a suitable monument for the actual gravesite in Georgia.  In addition, SKD is planning for an historical marker to be placed at the site of Harris’ Decatur home, which was located near the current Gobble-Fite Building Supply location on Hwy 20.

For more information, contact Dr. Cross (256-306-2719, rkc@calhoun.edu) or Dr. Sheila Byrd, Executive Director of Sigma Kappa Delta (256-306-2720, shb@calhoun.edu.)

Coverage of this release:

Janet Kincherlow-Martin
Director of Public Relations
(256) 306-2561

Back to Menu