Visiting Our Past: Judge Felix Alley corrected history, recounted tall tales
"The true history of the Carolina Mountaineers has never been written," Judge Felix E. Alley of Jackson County wrote in his 1941 book, "Random Thoughts and the Musings of a Mountaineer." The book is now considered scarce.
Alley rose to the position of N.C. Superior Court Judge, having been born in 1873 in Whiteside Cove, where his mother, Sarah Norton Alley, had been the first native white child. Sarah's father, Barak Norton, had given Whiteside Mountain its English name; the tributary flowing east off the mountain into the Chattooga River is called Norton's Fork. Felix's paternal great-grandfather, Andrew Hampton, had led a division of Overmountain Men to the Battle of King's Mountain.
With such roots, it is not surprising that Alley, in his "random musings," sang the glory of his people. Alley takes aim against the primary regional historians of the time, Horace Kephart, author of "Our Southern Highlanders," and Margaret W. Morley, author of "The Carolina Mountains." Both authors put moonshiners in high relief, as if they were typical mountaineers. Alley asserts they had been the exception, and had been looked down upon by the regular citizenry.
"Both Mr. Kephart and Miss Morley tell us that the mountain women, as the result of drudgery, undernourishment, and motherhood, are 'bent, broken, ugly' ... by the time they are thirty," Alley writes. "The contrary is the truth."
In that woman-loving spirit, Felix, as a 16-year-old banjo prodigy, had composed a ballad about besting Charlie Wright in winning the hand of Kidder Cole. "Oh, yes, my Kidder Cole is sweet, / And it won't be long till we shall meet, / At her home in Cashiers Valley / Where she'll change her name to Alley."
Though Alley refuted the mountaineer stereotype, he didn't look down upon whiskey-drinkers. Instead, he made a hero of the flawed type. One of his great contributions is his chapter "Mountain Wit," featuring "Uncle" Boney Ridley of Macon County, "the wittiest man who ever lived in the mountains."
Boney was off on a drinking spree with his best friend, Dr. "Snipe" McCloud of Franklin, the tale goes, when he fell off the doctor's horse. "I believe I heard something drap," Boney remarked. Boney remounted, facing backward. Not finding the bridle to grab, and reaching further, he informed McCloud, that "it was this horse's head that I heard drap."
Boney arrived home to seek the care of his Temperance-advocating wife, Polly. Polly prayed, "O, Lord, please have mercy on my poor, old drunken husband."
"Polly," he swore, "don't tell him I'm drunk; tell him I'm sick."
Rob Neufeld wrote the local history feature, "Visiting Our Past," for the Citizen Times until his death in 2019. This column originally was published July 15, 2009.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Visiting Our Past: Felix Alley corrected history, recounted tall tales
