Eight Boy Scouts from the North spend the summer hiking and camping in the North Carolina mountains. They encounter moonshiners, rescue two captives, and reform the area’s most notorious bootlegger. During the course of the book, a good bit of Scouting philosophy and practice is displayed.
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Comments Off on Herbert Carter. The Boy Scouts in the Blue Ridge, or, Marooned among the Moonshiners. New York: A.L. Burt Co., 1913.
Filed under 1910-1919, 1913, Carter, Herbert, Mountains, Novels to Read Online
The subtitle is a giveaway of the author’s intentions. This novel is a strong defense of slavery and the antebellum social structure of North Carolina. It is loosely based on the Theophilus Hunter Jr. family of Raleigh, and fictionalized versions of several North Carolina political figures appear in novel. Eugene Hall is the pseudonym of Emma Eugene Hall Baker.
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Comments Off on Eugene Hall. Vernal Dune: In Which Is Shown the End of an Era. New York: Neale Publishing, 1913.
Filed under 1910-1919, 1913, Hall, Eugene, Historical, Novels to Read Online, Piedmont, Wake
David Simmons and Ruth Swaim were childhood playmates, growing up on adjacent farms by the Yadkin River. Their parents assumed that the young people would some day wed, but when David bungles a sale of Mr. Swaim’s apples, he leaves the area. David’s plan is to earn the money to repay Mr. Swaim. Thus begin a picaresque tale in which David encounters an escaped Union prisoner and an Indian princess. David enjoys his time among the Croatan Indians (Lumbees) and comes to love the Princess Elizabeth. That in itself is a complicated situation, but the plot thickens when the Union soldier turns up where Ruth is staying and tells her about David’s new love. Ruth goes to David, and overhears David confess to Elizabeth his prior relationship with Ruth. Ruth and David recognize that their future is together, but leaving the Croatan settlement proves difficult.
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Comments Off on Waldron Baily. The Homeward Trail. New York: W. J. Watt & Co., 1916.
Filed under 1910-1919, 1916, Baily, Waldron, Novels to Read Online, Piedmont
Beaufort fisherman Ichabod Jones attempts to rescue New York socialite Ethel Marion from a nefarious opium-crazed doctor who has kidnapped her. While tracking down Miss Marion and her kidnapper, Captain Jones is reunited with an old love. Captain Jones’ pet rooster, Shrimp, is delightful addition to the plot.
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Comments Off on Waldron Baily. When the Cock Crows. New York: Bedford Publishing, 1918.
Filed under 1910-1919, 1918, Baily, Waldron, Carteret, Coast, Novels to Read Online
There is a lot going on in this novel set in North Carolina in the last years of the Revolutionary War. One plot line follows David Fanning as he leads Tory raiders in Chatham County. The second narrative thread concerns the lovely Polly Rutherford Scurlock who is sent from Chatham County to the safer venue of Guilford County, where she finds multiple suitors. The book weaves many historic events and figures into its plot.
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Comments Off on William Laurie Hill. The Master of the Red Buck and the Bay Doe. Charlotte, NC: Stone Publishing Co., 1913.
Filed under 1910-1919, 1913, Chatham, Guilford, Hill, William Laurie, Historical, Novels to Read Online, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship
Gena Filson’s life is hard after her parents die and her brothers move west. She becomes the hired girl in the household of Jase Dillenburger were she works from sunup to sundown. When old Jase is arrested for moonshining, Gena’s life improves. She gains land, goes to college, and marries a good, church-going man.
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Comments Off on Clarence Monroe Wallin. Gena of the Appalachians. New York: Cochrane Publishing, 1910.
Filed under 1910, 1910-1919, Children & Young Adults, Mountains, Novels to Read Online, Wallin, Clarence Monroe
This novel, by a North Carolina Baptist minister, describes a church which had become chiefly a social club. A dedicated young minister reforms the church. Set in the fictitious city of Woodville.
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Comments Off on C. A. Jenkens. The Bride’s Return, or, How Grand Avenue Church Came to Christ. Charlotte, NC: C. H. Robinson & Co., 1911.
Filed under 1910-1919, 1911, Jenkens, C. A., Novels Set in Fictional Places, Novels to Read Online, Religious/Inspirational
A boy mysteriously appears at the Barony, a plantation near Fayetteville, N.C. A few years later when the elderly owner of the Barony, the reclusive General Quintard, dies, no one knows what to do with the boy, Hannibal. Bob Yancy, a neighbor, takes Hannibal in and raises him like a member of the family. Others know the true identity of Hannibal. They come for him and chase him to Tennessee, hoping to enrich themselves at the boy’s expense. The author’s easy acceptance of the antebellum social structure and attitudes will turn off some readers.
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Comments Off on Vaughan Kester. The Prodigal Judge. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1911.
Filed under 1910-1919, 1911, Coastal Plain, Cumberland, Kester, Vaughan, Novels to Read Online
Making moonshine is part of the mountain culture in this novel set in Wilkes County. Zeke Higgins made the mistake of helping a revenue agent, earning the wrath of many people, including Dick Siddon, the guardian of Zeke’s sweetheart, Plutina. Zeke leaves the mountains to make his fortune, a journey that takes him to Greensboro, the Dismal Swamp, Norfolk, and New York. Back in the mountains, old Dick Siddon has a change of heart, but not before Plutina is kidnapped by a dangerous criminal. Zeke, and his dog, return to save the day.
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Comments Off on Waldron Baily. Heart of the Blue Ridge. New York: W. J. Watt & Co., 1915.
Filed under 1910-1919, 1915, Baily, Waldron, Mountains, Novels to Read Online, Wilkes
After her mother’s death Azalea is befriended by two families and she has to choose between the McBirneys, who live high up in the Blue Ridge, and the Carsons who have a handsome home in the village.
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Comments Off on Elia W. Peattie. Azalea: The Story of a Girl in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Chicago: The Reilly & Britton Co., 1912.
Filed under 1910-1919, 1912, Children & Young Adults, Mountains, Novels in Series, Novels to Read Online, Peattie, Elia W.
