George Washington Harris
Encyclopedia
George Washington Harris (March 20, 1814, Allegheny City, Pennsylvania – December 11, 1869, Knoxville, Tennessee
) was an American humorist
best known for his character, "Sut Lovingood," an Appalachia
n backwoods reveler fond of telling tall tale
s. Harris was among the seminal writers of Southern humor
, and has been called "the most original and gifted of the antebellum humorists." His work influenced authors such as Mark Twain
, William Faulkner
, and Flannery O'Connor
.
Harris moved to Knoxville as a child, where he worked variously as a silversmith, riverboat captain, and farmer. His earliest works were political satires published in the Knoxville Argus around 1840, and his earliest attributable works were four sporting stories published in the New York Spirit of the Times
in 1843. He wrote his Sut Lovingood tales for various newspapers in the 1850s and 1860s, twenty-four of which he compiled and published as his only book, Sut Lovingood: Yarns Spun By a Nat'ral Born Durn'd Fool, in 1867. Harris died in Knoxville in 1869 after mysteriously falling ill on a train ride.
) in 1814. In 1819, Harris's half-brother, the younger Samuel Bell, completed an apprenticeship at an arms factory, and moved to Knoxville to open a jewelry store. Harris went with him, and was apprenticed at the shop.
In 1826, a steamboat
known as the Atlas became the first to reach Knoxville from the Mississippi River
. Harris built a small model of the Atlas, and dazzled an audience by sailing it across the so-called "Flag Pond" on the north side of town. At age 15, Harris rode horses in "quarter races" (i.e., races over a quarter of a mile) at tracks in the Knoxville vicinity. In 1835, he was hired as captain of the steamboat, Knoxville. As captain of this vessel (later renamed the Indian Chief), Harris took part in the Cherokee removal
in 1838.
. Around 1840, he published his first political satires in the Knoxville Argus (later renamed the Standard), a Democratic
-leaning newspaper edited by Elbridge Gerry Eastman (1813–1859), with whom Harris would form a lifelong partnership. Since articles in the Argus were typically published under generic pseudonyms, it is not known with certainty which articles Harris wrote.
By early 1843, Harris had moved back to Knoxville to operate a metalworking shop. That same year, he published four "Sporting Epistles," the earliest known works attributable to him, in the New York Spirit of the Times
. In 1845, he published "The Knob Dance: A Tennessee Frolic," in response to a Mississippi
writer who had derided East Tennessee as bland and overly-obsessed with religion. Over the next two years, he wrote several more stories for the Spirit, culminating with, "There's Danger In Old Chairs" in 1847.
In the late 1840s, Harris turned to inventing, and claimed to have prepared several articles for Scientific American
, but no such articles have been found. Over the subsequent decade, he engaged in various enterprises, which included the founding of a glassworks and the cofounding of a sawmill, both of which apparently failed. He was elected an alderman for Knoxville in 1856, and appointed the city's postmaster the following year.
area in southeast Tennessee. While working in the area, it is believed he met a local farmer, William "Sut" Miller (d. 1858), who inspired his most well-known character, Sut Lovingood. In November 1854, Harris published his first Sut Lovingood tale, "Sut Lovingood's Daddy, Acting Horse," which would also be his last entry in the Spirit of the Times. For the remainder of the decade, his preferred outlet was the Nashville Union and American, edited by his old friend, Elbridge G. Eastman.
As the rift between the North and South widened in the years leading up the Civil War
, Harris, an ardent Democrat and secessionist, moved to Nashville, and began writing political satires in support of the South. These included his four-part story, "Love-Feast of Varmints," which lampooned the Opposition Party
's March 1859 Nashville convention, and three Sut Lovingood tales in 1861 which attacked President Abraham Lincoln
. In early 1862, Harris fled Nashville ahead of invading Union forces, and spent the remainder of the war evading the Union Army.
After the war, Harris, with the help of Chattanooga congressman William Crutchfield
, was appointed president of the Wills Valley Railroad
(which operated in Georgia and Alabama). In 1866, he published "Sut Lovingood Come to Life," an attack on the Radical Republicans. The following year, he published his only book-length work, Sut Lovingood: Yarns Spun By a Nat'ral Born Durn'd Fool, which was a collection of twenty-four Sut Lovingood tales, sixteen of which had been published in various newspapers prior to the war.
, to show his manuscript to a prospective publisher. On December 11, while riding the train back to Alabama, Harris fell gravely ill somewhere near Bristol, Tennessee
. When the train stopped in Knoxville, Harris, unconscious, was taken to the Atkin Hotel, which stood on North Gay Street
.
At the Atkin, Harris was examined by a doctor, who issued a preliminary diagnosis of apoplexy
. Later in the evening, four other doctors arrived, including Harris's brother-in-law, John Fouche. These doctors rejected the initial diagnosis, and suggested a possible morphine
overdose. Around 10:00 PM, Harris briefly regained consciousness, and managed to say one final word: "poisoned." He died shortly afterward, with the official cause listed as "unknown." No copy of his manuscript, High Times and Hard Times, has ever been found.
. The first of these, entitled "Sporting Epistle from East Tennessee," was an account of a raccoon
hunt in which the hunters mistook a bulge in a tree for a raccoon. The second involves a mountaineer who travels several miles to watch a quarter-race in south Knox County, but misses the race due to drinking. The third epistle is a collection of anecdotes and observations, and mentions a 100-pound fish caught at Forks-of-the-River in east Knox County. The fourth epistle describes a country dance at "Tuck-a-lucky" (Tuckaleechee
) Cove in south Blount County.
One of Harris's earliest successes was "A Snake-Bit Irishman," which appeared in the Spirit of the Times in 1846. The story involves several hunters in Morgan County who play a prank on an Irishman who had invited himself into their camp. The story relies on Irish
stereotypes common at the time. In "A Sleep-Walking Incident," also published in 1846, Harris claimed to have once spent the night with a farm family in northeastern Tennessee, during which he sleep-walked his way into bed with the farmers' daughters. While the enraged farmer threatened to shoot Harris, he allowed him a brief headstart on his horse, and Harris managed to escape.
and other religious figures and politicians.
Revenge pranks are a common theme in the Sut Lovingood tales. In "Parson John Bullen's Lizards," for instance, Parson Bullen, a fire and brimstone
preacher, beats Sut with a club after catching him in the bushes with a girl at a camp meeting
. Later, when Bullen is preaching to a large crowd, Sut releases several lizards which crawl up Bullen's legs, prompting him to strip off his clothes in terror. Another target of Sut's revenge is Sicily Burns, a mountain woman who tricks Sut into drinking baking soda. In response, Sut causes a bull to wreak havoc at Sicily's wedding.
Sut's dialect is an exaggerated version of the South Midland dialect
, commonly called "Appalachian English
." Appalachian characteristics that frequently occur in Sut's speech include r-intrusion (e.g., "orter" for "ought to"), h-retention (e.g., "hit" instead "it"), short "e" pronounced as short "o" (e.g., "whar" for "where"), and trailing t-intrusion (e.g., "onct" for "once").
and Republicans
. In his 1856 story, "Playing Old Sledge For the Presidency," Harris has Sut Lovingood recount a dream in which presidential candidates James Buchanan
, Millard Fillmore
, and John C. Frémont
play a card game for the presidency. Harris's 1859 story, "Love-Feast of Varmints," mocked the Opposition Party's state convention, using anthropomorphic animals to portray party leaders such as John Bell
, Henry S. Foote
and Neill Brown.
In 1861, Harris published his three-part attack on Abraham Lincoln
entitled "Sut Lovingood Travels With Old Abe as His Confidential Friend and Advisor." His first writings after the Civil War included "Sut Lovingood's Dream" and "On the Puritan Yankee," which defended Southern values. In 1868, Harris published "The Forthcoming Early Life of Sut Lovingood, By His Dad," which was a response to "The Early Life of Grant, By His Father," which had appeared in the New York Ledger earlier that year. One of Harris's last political stories, entitled "Well! Dad's Dead," was an allegory bemoaning the decline of the Southern way of life.
novel, Suttree
(the setting of which was inspired by Knoxville), the book's title character is called "Sut" for short, which some writers suggest is a reference to Sut Lovingood.
The mid-20th century brought revived interest in Harris's work. Literary historians compiled biographical materials regarding Harris's life, and scoured old newspapers to find and catalog Harris's work. In 1967, Thomas Inge published a collection of Harris's known works that did not appear in Sut Lovingood's Yarns in 1867. The book was entitled, High Times and Hard Times, after Harris's lost manuscript.
In 2008, George Washington Harris's final resting place was discovered in Brock Cemetery, Trenton, Georgia
. The literary/detective team was a group of scholars and writers from several states including Calhoun Community College
faculty members located in Decatur, Alabama
; a local historian from Decatur,; and a writer based in Georgia
. On April 20, 2008, a monument in his honor was erected at his burial site by Sigma Kappa Delta
, an honor society
for students at two-year colleges.
Knoxville, Tennessee
Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...
) was an American humorist
Humour
Humour or humor is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement...
best known for his character, "Sut Lovingood," an Appalachia
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...
n backwoods reveler fond of telling tall tale
Tall tale
A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some such stories are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories such as, "that fish was so big, why I tell ya', it nearly sank the boat when I pulled it in!" Other tall tales are completely...
s. Harris was among the seminal writers of Southern humor
Southern literature
Southern literature is defined as American literature about the Southern United States or by writers from this region...
, and has been called "the most original and gifted of the antebellum humorists." His work influenced authors such as Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
, William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
, and Flannery O'Connor
Flannery O'Connor
Mary Flannery O'Connor was an American novelist, short-story writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries...
.
Harris moved to Knoxville as a child, where he worked variously as a silversmith, riverboat captain, and farmer. His earliest works were political satires published in the Knoxville Argus around 1840, and his earliest attributable works were four sporting stories published in the New York Spirit of the Times
Spirit of the Times
The Spirit of the Times: A Chronicle of the Turf, Agriculture, Field Sports, Literature and the Stage was an American weekly newspaper published in New York City. The paper aimed for an upper-class readership made up largely of sportsmen. The Spirit also included humorous material, much of it based...
in 1843. He wrote his Sut Lovingood tales for various newspapers in the 1850s and 1860s, twenty-four of which he compiled and published as his only book, Sut Lovingood: Yarns Spun By a Nat'ral Born Durn'd Fool, in 1867. Harris died in Knoxville in 1869 after mysteriously falling ill on a train ride.
Early life
The details of Harris's early life are obscure. His father, George Harris, and a companion, Samuel Bell, moved to Pennsylvania in the 1790s. Bell's son, also named Samuel, was born in 1798. After the elder Bell died, Harris married his widow, Margaret Glover Bell, and they gave birth to George Washington Harris in Allegheny City (now part of PittsburghPittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
) in 1814. In 1819, Harris's half-brother, the younger Samuel Bell, completed an apprenticeship at an arms factory, and moved to Knoxville to open a jewelry store. Harris went with him, and was apprenticed at the shop.
In 1826, a steamboat
Steamboat
A steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels...
known as the Atlas became the first to reach Knoxville from the Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
. Harris built a small model of the Atlas, and dazzled an audience by sailing it across the so-called "Flag Pond" on the north side of town. At age 15, Harris rode horses in "quarter races" (i.e., races over a quarter of a mile) at tracks in the Knoxville vicinity. In 1835, he was hired as captain of the steamboat, Knoxville. As captain of this vessel (later renamed the Indian Chief), Harris took part in the Cherokee removal
Cherokee removal
Cherokee removal, part of the Trail of Tears, refers to the forced relocation between 1836 to 1839 of the Cherokee Nation from their lands in Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, Alabama, and North Carolina to the Indian Territory in the Western United States, which resulted in the deaths of approximately...
in 1838.
Early writing career
In 1839, Harris left the steamboat business and purchased a farm near MaryvilleMaryville, Tennessee
Maryville is the county seat of Blount County, Tennessee, in the Southeastern United States. The city is located south of Knoxville. Maryville's population was 27,258 at the 2010 census. It is included in the Knoxville Metropolitan Area. Maryville has received a number of accolades for its...
. Around 1840, he published his first political satires in the Knoxville Argus (later renamed the Standard), a Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
-leaning newspaper edited by Elbridge Gerry Eastman (1813–1859), with whom Harris would form a lifelong partnership. Since articles in the Argus were typically published under generic pseudonyms, it is not known with certainty which articles Harris wrote.
By early 1843, Harris had moved back to Knoxville to operate a metalworking shop. That same year, he published four "Sporting Epistles," the earliest known works attributable to him, in the New York Spirit of the Times
Spirit of the Times
The Spirit of the Times: A Chronicle of the Turf, Agriculture, Field Sports, Literature and the Stage was an American weekly newspaper published in New York City. The paper aimed for an upper-class readership made up largely of sportsmen. The Spirit also included humorous material, much of it based...
. In 1845, he published "The Knob Dance: A Tennessee Frolic," in response to a Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
writer who had derided East Tennessee as bland and overly-obsessed with religion. Over the next two years, he wrote several more stories for the Spirit, culminating with, "There's Danger In Old Chairs" in 1847.
In the late 1840s, Harris turned to inventing, and claimed to have prepared several articles for Scientific American
Scientific American
Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
, but no such articles have been found. Over the subsequent decade, he engaged in various enterprises, which included the founding of a glassworks and the cofounding of a sawmill, both of which apparently failed. He was elected an alderman for Knoxville in 1856, and appointed the city's postmaster the following year.
Later career
Around 1854, Harris surveyed several copper mines in the DucktownDucktown, Tennessee
Ducktown is a city in Polk County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 427 at the 2000 census. It is included in the Cleveland, Tennessee Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:Ducktown is located at...
area in southeast Tennessee. While working in the area, it is believed he met a local farmer, William "Sut" Miller (d. 1858), who inspired his most well-known character, Sut Lovingood. In November 1854, Harris published his first Sut Lovingood tale, "Sut Lovingood's Daddy, Acting Horse," which would also be his last entry in the Spirit of the Times. For the remainder of the decade, his preferred outlet was the Nashville Union and American, edited by his old friend, Elbridge G. Eastman.
As the rift between the North and South widened in the years leading up the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, Harris, an ardent Democrat and secessionist, moved to Nashville, and began writing political satires in support of the South. These included his four-part story, "Love-Feast of Varmints," which lampooned the Opposition Party
Opposition Party (United States)
The Opposition Party in the United States is a label with two different applications in Congressional history, as a majority party in Congress 1854-58, and as a Third Party in the South 1858-1860....
's March 1859 Nashville convention, and three Sut Lovingood tales in 1861 which attacked President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
. In early 1862, Harris fled Nashville ahead of invading Union forces, and spent the remainder of the war evading the Union Army.
After the war, Harris, with the help of Chattanooga congressman William Crutchfield
William Crutchfield
William Crutchfield was an American politician and a member of the United States House of Representatives for the 3rd congressional district of Tennessee. He was born on November 16, 1824 in Greeneville, Tennessee in Greene County...
, was appointed president of the Wills Valley Railroad
Alabama Great Southern Railroad
The Alabama Great Southern Railroad is a railroad in the U.S. states of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. It is an operating subsidiary of the Norfolk Southern Corporation , running southwest from Chattanooga to New Orleans through Birmingham and Meridian...
(which operated in Georgia and Alabama). In 1866, he published "Sut Lovingood Come to Life," an attack on the Radical Republicans. The following year, he published his only book-length work, Sut Lovingood: Yarns Spun By a Nat'ral Born Durn'd Fool, which was a collection of twenty-four Sut Lovingood tales, sixteen of which had been published in various newspapers prior to the war.
Death
Following the success of Sut Lovingood Yarns, Harris made plans to publish a new collection of stories entitled, High Times and Hard Times. In late November 1869, he travelled from his new home in Alabama to Lynchburg, VirginiaLynchburg, Virginia
Lynchburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The population was 75,568 as of 2010. Located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains along the banks of the James River, Lynchburg is known as the "City of Seven Hills" or "The Hill City." Lynchburg was the only major city in...
, to show his manuscript to a prospective publisher. On December 11, while riding the train back to Alabama, Harris fell gravely ill somewhere near Bristol, Tennessee
Bristol, Tennessee
Bristol is a city in Sullivan County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 26,702 at the 2010 census. It is the twin city of Bristol, Virginia, which lies directly across the state line between Tennessee and Virginia. The boundaries of both cities run parallel to each other along State...
. When the train stopped in Knoxville, Harris, unconscious, was taken to the Atkin Hotel, which stood on North Gay Street
Gay Street (Knoxville)
Gay Street is a street in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, that traverses the heart of the city's downtown area. Since its development in the 1790s, Gay Street has served as the city's principal financial and commercial thoroughfare, and has played a primary role in the city's historical and cultural...
.
At the Atkin, Harris was examined by a doctor, who issued a preliminary diagnosis of apoplexy
Apoplexy
Apoplexy is a medical term, which can be used to describe 'bleeding' in a stroke . Without further specification, it is rather outdated in use. Today it is used only for specific conditions, such as pituitary apoplexy and ovarian apoplexy. In common speech, it is used non-medically to mean a state...
. Later in the evening, four other doctors arrived, including Harris's brother-in-law, John Fouche. These doctors rejected the initial diagnosis, and suggested a possible morphine
Morphine
Morphine is a potent opiate analgesic medication and is considered to be the prototypical opioid. It was first isolated in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, first distributed by same in 1817, and first commercially sold by Merck in 1827, which at the time was a single small chemists' shop. It was more...
overdose. Around 10:00 PM, Harris briefly regained consciousness, and managed to say one final word: "poisoned." He died shortly afterward, with the official cause listed as "unknown." No copy of his manuscript, High Times and Hard Times, has ever been found.
Early writings
Harris's earliest attributable works in the Spirit of the Times were four letters, or "epistles," to the Spirits editor, William T. PorterWilliam T. Porter
William Trotter Porter was an American journalist and newspaper editor who founded an early American newspaper devoted to sports. After working at a number of small newspapers, Porter moved to New York City in the 1830s...
. The first of these, entitled "Sporting Epistle from East Tennessee," was an account of a raccoon
Raccoon
Procyon is a genus of nocturnal mammals, comprising three species commonly known as raccoons, in the family Procyonidae. The most familiar species, the common raccoon , is often known simply as "the" raccoon, as the two other raccoon species in the genus are native only to the tropics and are...
hunt in which the hunters mistook a bulge in a tree for a raccoon. The second involves a mountaineer who travels several miles to watch a quarter-race in south Knox County, but misses the race due to drinking. The third epistle is a collection of anecdotes and observations, and mentions a 100-pound fish caught at Forks-of-the-River in east Knox County. The fourth epistle describes a country dance at "Tuck-a-lucky" (Tuckaleechee
Townsend, Tennessee
Townsend is a city in Blount County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The population was 244 at the 2000 census. Townsend is one of three "gateways" to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the home of several museums and attractions relating to both the natural and human...
) Cove in south Blount County.
One of Harris's earliest successes was "A Snake-Bit Irishman," which appeared in the Spirit of the Times in 1846. The story involves several hunters in Morgan County who play a prank on an Irishman who had invited himself into their camp. The story relies on Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
stereotypes common at the time. In "A Sleep-Walking Incident," also published in 1846, Harris claimed to have once spent the night with a farm family in northeastern Tennessee, during which he sleep-walked his way into bed with the farmers' daughters. While the enraged farmer threatened to shoot Harris, he allowed him a brief headstart on his horse, and Harris managed to escape.
Sut Lovingood
Sut Lovingood, Harris's most well-known figure, is a caricature of a stereotypical farmer of rural Southern Appalachia. Knoxville historian Jack Neely describes Sut as, "Huck Finn on amphetamines, a manic, perverse child of some backwoods holler where Idiocy and Genius fuse into one." Sut considers himself (somewhat proudly) to be a "durnder fool" than anyone, save his own father. He is fond of drinking whiskey and chasing girls, and relishes in exposing hypocritical circuit ridersCircuit rider (Religious)
Circuit rider is a popular term referring to clergy in the earliest years of the United States who were assigned to travel around specific geographic territories to minister to settlers and organize congregations...
and other religious figures and politicians.
Revenge pranks are a common theme in the Sut Lovingood tales. In "Parson John Bullen's Lizards," for instance, Parson Bullen, a fire and brimstone
Fire and brimstone
Fire and brimstone is an idiomatic expression of signs of God's wrath in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. In the Bible, they often appear in reference to the fate of the unfaithful. "Brimstone," possibly the ancient name for sulfur, evokes the acrid odor of volcanic activity...
preacher, beats Sut with a club after catching him in the bushes with a girl at a camp meeting
Camp meeting
The camp meeting is a form of Protestant Christian religious service originating in Britain and once common in some parts of the United States, wherein people would travel from a large area to a particular site to camp out, listen to itinerant preachers, and pray...
. Later, when Bullen is preaching to a large crowd, Sut releases several lizards which crawl up Bullen's legs, prompting him to strip off his clothes in terror. Another target of Sut's revenge is Sicily Burns, a mountain woman who tricks Sut into drinking baking soda. In response, Sut causes a bull to wreak havoc at Sicily's wedding.
Sut's dialect is an exaggerated version of the South Midland dialect
Midland American English
The Midland dialect of American English was first defined by Hans Kurath as being the dialect spoken in an area centered on Philadelphia and expanding westward to include most of Pennsylvania and part of the Appalachian Mountains...
, commonly called "Appalachian English
Appalachian English
Appalachian English is a common name for the Southern Midland dialect of American English. This dialect is spoken primarily in the Central and Southern Appalachian Mountain region of the Eastern United States, namely in North Georgia, Northwestern South Carolina, Southern West Virginia,...
." Appalachian characteristics that frequently occur in Sut's speech include r-intrusion (e.g., "orter" for "ought to"), h-retention (e.g., "hit" instead "it"), short "e" pronounced as short "o" (e.g., "whar" for "where"), and trailing t-intrusion (e.g., "onct" for "once").
Political satires
Harris was a strong Democrat, and his political writings either extolled Democratic leaders or lampooned leaders of opposing parties, namely the WhigsWhig Party (United States)
The Whig Party was a political party of the United States during the era of Jacksonian democracy. Considered integral to the Second Party System and operating from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s, the party was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic...
and Republicans
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
. In his 1856 story, "Playing Old Sledge For the Presidency," Harris has Sut Lovingood recount a dream in which presidential candidates James Buchanan
James Buchanan
James Buchanan, Jr. was the 15th President of the United States . He is the only president from Pennsylvania, the only president who remained a lifelong bachelor and the last to be born in the 18th century....
, Millard Fillmore
Millard Fillmore
Millard Fillmore was the 13th President of the United States and the last member of the Whig Party to hold the office of president...
, and John C. Frémont
John C. Frémont
John Charles Frémont , was an American military officer, explorer, and the first candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party for the office of President of the United States. During the 1840s, that era's penny press accorded Frémont the sobriquet The Pathfinder...
play a card game for the presidency. Harris's 1859 story, "Love-Feast of Varmints," mocked the Opposition Party's state convention, using anthropomorphic animals to portray party leaders such as John Bell
John Bell (Tennessee politician)
John Bell was a U.S. politician, attorney, and plantation owner. A wealthy slaveholder from Tennessee, Bell served in the United States Congress in both the House of Representatives and Senate. He began his career as a Democrat, he eventually fell out with Andrew Jackson and became a Whig...
, Henry S. Foote
Henry S. Foote
Henry Stuart Foote was a United States Senator from Mississippi from 1847 to 1852 and Governor of Mississippi from 1852 to 1854. His emotional leadership on the Senate floor helped secure passage of the Compromise of 1850, which for a time averted a civil war in the United States.-Biography:Henry...
and Neill Brown.
In 1861, Harris published his three-part attack on Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
entitled "Sut Lovingood Travels With Old Abe as His Confidential Friend and Advisor." His first writings after the Civil War included "Sut Lovingood's Dream" and "On the Puritan Yankee," which defended Southern values. In 1868, Harris published "The Forthcoming Early Life of Sut Lovingood, By His Dad," which was a response to "The Early Life of Grant, By His Father," which had appeared in the New York Ledger earlier that year. One of Harris's last political stories, entitled "Well! Dad's Dead," was an allegory bemoaning the decline of the Southern way of life.
Influence and legacy
Authors Mark Twain, William Faulkner, and Flannery O'Connor all acknowledged inspiration from George Washington Harris's work. In 1867, Mark Twain wrote a review of Sut Lovingood's Yarns for a San Francisco newspaper in which he suggested the book would "sell well in the west, but the eastern people will call it course and possibly taboo it." Faulkner read the Sut Lovingood yarns with "amused appreciation," and O'Connor ranked him among the top American "grotesque" writers. In the Cormac McCarthyCormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
novel, Suttree
Suttree
Suttree is a semi-autobiographical novel by Cormac McCarthy, published in 1979. Set in 1951 in Knoxville, Tennessee, the novel follows Cornelius Suttree, who has repudiated his former life of privilege to become a fisherman on the Tennessee River. The novel has a fragmented structure with many...
(the setting of which was inspired by Knoxville), the book's title character is called "Sut" for short, which some writers suggest is a reference to Sut Lovingood.
The mid-20th century brought revived interest in Harris's work. Literary historians compiled biographical materials regarding Harris's life, and scoured old newspapers to find and catalog Harris's work. In 1967, Thomas Inge published a collection of Harris's known works that did not appear in Sut Lovingood's Yarns in 1867. The book was entitled, High Times and Hard Times, after Harris's lost manuscript.
In 2008, George Washington Harris's final resting place was discovered in Brock Cemetery, Trenton, Georgia
Trenton, Georgia
Trenton is a city in Dade County, Georgia, United States. The population was 1,942 at the 2000 census. It is the only incorporated municipality in the county, and as such it serves as the county seat....
. The literary/detective team was a group of scholars and writers from several states including Calhoun Community College
Calhoun Community College
Calhoun Community College is a two-year institution of higher learning, located in Decatur, Alabama, United States.The largest of the 27 two-year institutions comprising the Alabama Community College System, Calhoun is an open-admission, coeducational, comprehensive community college dedicated to...
faculty members located in Decatur, Alabama
Decatur, Alabama
Decatur is a city in Limestone and Morgan Counties in the U.S. state of Alabama. The city, affectionately known as "The River City", is located in Northern Alabama on the banks of Wheeler Lake, along the Tennessee River. It is the largest city and county seat of Morgan County...
; a local historian from Decatur,; and a writer based in Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
. On April 20, 2008, a monument in his honor was erected at his burial site by Sigma Kappa Delta
Sigma Kappa Delta
Sigma Kappa Delta is a collegiate honor society for students of English at two-year colleges. Currently, the organization has 87 chapters in the United States; members are eligible for scholarships and awards...
, an honor society
Honor society
In the United States, an honor society is a rank organization that recognizes excellence among peers. Numerous societies recognize various fields and circumstances. The Order of the Arrow, for example, is the national honor society of the Boy Scouts of America...
for students at two-year colleges.
External links
- Sut Lovingood: Yarns Spun By a Nat'ral Born Durn'd Fool — Google Books