“Something Hidden; Go and Find It”

Our pontoon boats ground ashore at Ollie Cove on the edge of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It was early April, and the boat ride across Fontana Lake in the early morning had been brisk and cold. We were all here for a memorial hike, a hike to the site of a cabin up the Little Fork of the Sugar Fork of Hazel Creek where an important—and enigmatic—writer named Horace Kephart lived for the better part of 1904-1907 while he researched the mountain folk of the pre-national park Smoky Mountains and later wrote about them. That in itself would be reason enough for a celebratory day. But what made the outing extremely memorable to the 40-odd hikers was that it was organized and being led by none other than the great-granddaughter of Horace Kephart, a lady who had committed her adult life to researching and interpreting the life of her famous ancestor. Her name was Libby Kephart Hargrave, and she had become known far and wide to students of the Great Smoky Mountains as “The Keeper of the Horace Kephart Legacy.” 

Libby K. Hargrave was on a mission on this hike. She was putting the finishing touches on a documentary film project, a film that would be premiered shortly after the hike. Her film had been the culmination of her life-long documentation of Horace Kephart’s life—and that of his wife and six children—and she had invited the other hikers to share in the joy of its completion on a cool, clear spring day in the Great Smoky Mountains.

Hargrave had worked on her documentary for years, and she intended it to be a comprehensive summary of Horace Kephart’s life, family, and writings. Kephart is widely regarded as the finest writer of the pre-national park Great Smoky Mountains, along with being recognized as one of the greatest outdoor writers ever in the United States. 

Horace Kephart came to the Smokies as a broken man in 1904 after a failed life as a husband, father, and librarian in St. Louis, Missouri. In the misty depths of the southern Appalachian Mountains in the early years of the 20th century, he found his real life’s passion by living an outdoor life among the mountaineers in what he referenced as “the Back of Beyond.” For the last quarter century of his life he lived a quiet life amongst the hill-people of the Smokies, writing about them and their customs and camping, hunting, and fishing. He never went back to the urban life of his past, even penning the following statement to express his disdain for city life: “To many a city man, there comes a time, now and then, when the great town wearies him.”

While living in the Smokies, Horace Kephart didn’t just gaze at the mountains. He wrote some really profound books in these mountains. His masterpiece, in the eyes of many Smoky Mountain authorities, is Our Southern Highlanders, published in 1913. It is a colorful portrayal of the mountain people who lived in the Hazel Creek, Eagle Creek, Deep Creek, and Oconoluftee River drainages of the Smokies on the North Carolina side. It is a classic. It followed his earlier books entitled Camping and Woodcraft, Camp Cookery, and Sporting Firearms. He also wrote a plethora of booklets, monographs, and magazine articles about the outdoors life. Along with his literary accomplishments, Horace Kephart lent his credibility and writing skill to the campaign in the 1920s to get the Smokies designated as a national park. For his efforts, he got a mountain named in his honor in the Smokies even before his death, along with a stream which bears his last name. He became widely known among other outdoor writers, adventurers—and even the Army and the Boy Scouts of America—as “the Dean of American Campers.” Sadly, Kephart died at the age of 68 outside Bryson City, North Carolina, in a violent automobile crash in 1931. 

Out of this fascinating family heritage, Libby Kephart Hargrave grew up steeped in the mystique of her ancestor. Born and reared in Maryland, in her childhood she heard many stories about her famous great-grandfather from her grandfather, George S. Kephart, one of the two sons of Horace. As she grew up, her grandfather (and, later, her father, Roy Kephart) took her and her sisters on camping trips to the Smokies. On these adventures, her grandfather shared passages from Horace Kephart’s books. Hearing those stories in the very backyard of his mountain home in the Smokies made a lasting impression on young Libby. 

“It was one thing to hear stories about my great-grandfather back home in Maryland, but to have his words and tales put into the actual geographical context of the Smokies was a revelation to me,” Hargrave said.  “Horace Kephart’s stories came alive to me when we were in the Great Smokies. Instead of being abstract words on the pages of books back in the city, they became part of a compelling personal heritage, and I reveled in what great-granddad had done in his life,” she said. “And now I think that making those early trips to the Smokies with my family really caused something in the back of my mind to click later on. I ultimately determined that I would devote my adult life to showcase the colorful and fascinating life of Horace Kephart to a whole new generation of Smokies’ visitors.”

Her quest to do just that over the succeeding years led her to historians and writers in the Smokies area and beyond. Over time, she made connections with Horace Kephart researchers like George Ellison of Bryson City, North Carolina, librarian George Frizzell of Western Carolina University, Pam Meister of the Mountain Heritage Museum at WCU, and later Janet McCue of Cornell University, among others. These contacts led her to important archival sources of information, such as the Hunter Library at WCU—where the bulk of Horace Kephart’s papers are stored—and the Kephart collection at Pack Library in Asheville, North Carolina. 

It soon became evident to her that, while there were several good biographical sketches in books and academic papers about Horace Kephart, a definitive work on his life had not yet been produced in book form or other media. She started to think that the best medium to portray Horace Kephart’s life was in film, allowing her to also incorporate her interests in music and voice, which she studied in college.

To produce a comprehensive work, Hargrave knew she’d need to visit many of the sites around the country where Kephart lived and worked over his life, such as the several libraries where he worked and the backcountry areas of the Smokies where he also lived; and that would require quite a bit of travel and some real arduous hikes. But if that was required to understand the Kephart story, she knew it had to be done, and she had a steady companion in her husband, John Hargrave. 

“To know the real Horace Kephart—who started his life in Pennsylvania and then lived in Iowa, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and Missouri, with a year in Italy, also—I knew I had to try to visit many of the towns and cities where he grew up and matured intellectually as a man and writer,” she said. “After comprehending the first 42 years of his life in universities, libraries, and cities, I also knew that I’d have to try and visit many of the rural and backcountry sites in the Smokies’ area where he lived, hiked, hunted, and fished in after he moved there in 1904, and where he spent the last quarter century of his life. That was an essential quest for me: In order to do a good job of documenting his life in my film, I had to experience the locations of his life while reading the letters, notes, and voluminous published works he produced on subjects as different as library science, wilderness camping and sporting firearms. His diverse influences and experiences made him a quintessential ‘Renaissance Man’ who could be comfortable in the distinguished halls of any urban university, and equally so in the deep wilderness recesses of the southern Appalachian Mountains,” Hargrave said.

Another prime goal was to highlight Kephart’s wife and six children. That aspect of his life had largely been overlooked by other researchers and writers, and Hargrave was determined that her documentary would do justice to his family, putting “flesh and bones” on their lives. Laura Kephart and their children were “part and parcel” of the Kephart story.

“Even though Horace Kephart and his wife Laura Mack Kephart separated after he experienced a nervous breakdown before he came to the Smokies, they never divorced and kept correspondence over the years, with him living in and around the Smokies and she and the kids in Ithaca, New York,” Hargrave explained. “They tried to reconcile, with Horace joining the family in New York state for a time. But, sadly, his need for a solitary, outdoor life—and an occasional yearning for alcohol—kept them at a distance,” Hargrave said. 

Along the way in her travels and researches over the years, Hargrave became known among Kephart scholars and enthusiasts as an energetic and important source of information about the man. She freely gave personal information about Kephart to other researchers and institutions, even donating hundreds of letters, photos, and other historic items to Western Carolina University and the Great Smoky Mountains Association.

Hargrave even worked with noted filmmaker Ken Burns on getting voice-over commentary for a play she wrote for the 150th anniversary of Horace Kephart’s birth, entitled “Horace Kephart—My life, My Words.” She later would get Burns to provide commentary for her own documentary film about her great-grandfather.

While engaged in these projects over the years, Hargrave was amazed at the sheer volume of hikers, backpackers, naturalists, historians, writers, and traditional” old-style, classic campers” who shared a compelling passion for Kephart’s writings, and who sought her out at events.

This led her to work with some of them to initiate an annual event in and around the Smokies called “Horace Kephart Days,” a multi-day celebration of his life and the outdoor experiences. The annual event combines lectures, demonstrations and workshops by experts in the Great Outdoors, and has attracted hundreds of folks from all over. 

Hargrave found another opportunity to contribute to the Horace Kephart legacy during the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the establishment of Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 2009. In her research, she inherited a manuscript by Horace Kephart which was discovered in her extended family’s possession. It turned out to be the one and only novel that Horace Kephart ever wrote, and it had never been published. It was titled Smoky Mountain Magic, and centered on the Deep Creek section of the pre-national park Smokies. Knowing that the 75th anniversary was a very special occasion, she broached the idea of publishing the novel to the Great Smoky Mountains Association. Within four months the manuscript was transformed into a book which hit the bookstores around the Smokies and beyond. It was very well received, and its publication completed Horace Kephart’s bibliography for posterity. 

After working with Burns on her play and with the GSMA on Smoky Mountain Magic, Hargrave next plunged into the work of starting her own film documentary and getting her film completed. She not only wanted hard facts and figures to be in her film, but also commentary from Horace Kephart scholars, writers, historians, and “classic campers” who would share their personal opinions and experiences about the life and writings of her forebear. She interviewed and taped dozens of these commentators, and included their colorful comments into her film. 

By April of 2016, as we all hiked up the Hazel Creek and Jenkins Ridge trails to Horace Kephart’s old cabin site, Hargrave had all but completed her documentary. At the site of the cabin, we were all treated to a reading by Hargrave of some of Horace Kephart’s own writings, and we explored the old mining site nearby. The hike up to the cabin site was a way for Hargrave to “cap off” her project and celebrate with friends in her great-grandfather’s own backyard in “Far Appalachia.” It was a very moving experience.

As we all slowly trekked back to the pontoon boats at the end of the long day-hike on that April day, I gazed at Libby Kephart Hargrave as she hiked ahead. She was walking and talking at the same time, something she’d been doing almost all day, for she’d been trailed by many of the other hikers (including me) who asked her questions about Horace and Laura Kephart’s life and times. She’d hardly had a chance to just sit down, eat lunch, and be quiet, save for a little time back at the cabin site. As we hiked the last mile on the trail back to Ollie Cove, I reflected that she had indeed been on a great personal quest through the work on her documentary film, which would be premiered to great reviews the next month at Western Carolina University as An American Legend: Horace Kephart - His Life and Legacy. As we hiked, I also could sense that it had finally come to fruition for her after all those many years of personal research, travel, and production. Through all her travels and hikes to discover her ancestors’ true legacy, she’d actually been doing just what her great-grandfather Horace Kephart had advised on the very first page of his classic book Our Southern Highlanders, where he wrote to all of us who wander in the mountains the following advice: “There is something hidden: go and find it.” Libby Kephart Hargrave, through her lifelong quest for the legacy of Horace Kephart, had indeed found something and shared it with the world.

Arthur “Butch” McDade is the author of Old Smoky Mountain Days and The Natural Arches of the Big South Fork, and a contributing writer in The Encyclopedia of Appalachia. He is also a current contributing writer for “Smoky Mountain Living” magazine, and has been published in” Blue Ridge Country”, “Appalachian Life”, “America’s Civil War”, “The Tennessee Conservationist”, “Park Science” and other magazines and periodicals. He is also a retired park ranger/historian from Great Smoky Mountains National Park. He lives with his wife Lila and their rescue dogs and cats in Sevierville.