George Washington Harris
| George Washington Harris | |
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| Born | George Washington Harris March 20, 1814 Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, USA |
| Died | December 11, 1869 (aged 55) Knoxville, Tennessee, USA |
| Resting place | Brock Cemetery Trenton, Georgia, USA |
| Pen name | "Mr. Free," "Sugartail" |
| Occupation | writer, riverboat captain, jeweler |
| Genre | "Old Southwest" humor, political satire, local color |
| Notable works | Sut Lovingood: Yarns Spun By a Nat'ral Born Durn'd Fool (1867) |
| Spouse | Mary Emeline Nance Jane Pride |
George Washington Harris (March 20, 1814 – December 11, 1869) was an American humorist best known for his character, "Sut Lovingood," an Appalachian backwoods reveler fond of telling tall tales. 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, Tennessee 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.
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 Pittsburgh) 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.
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