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.'