The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-08-21
Death of Mary Gordon DuHeeI
 Ren1oues q Historic Figure
Living Alone on Duffees Mountain at Blount Springs Thousands of Alabama People Had Known Her and
 Become Familiar With Her Unique Character
By AUGUSTA RAN poLpH REID

Miss Mary Gordon Duffee is dead; her name is familiar north and south and, now that she is gone there will be many incidents in her life recalled. To those who visited Blount Springs
 she was known as The Poetess of the Mountain Her verses, which she either gave or sold to her friends. were often gems and while she was
 stern and wonderfully peculiar, her
 real sympathy with nature was dis
 closed in the depth of her rhyme. Miss Duffie was born in Tuscaloosa seventysix years ago, the daughter of Mathew .Duffee and Jane Gillespy.
 Her father was a full-blood Irishman,
 man with a great big heart. and one who loved his feflowman. Her moth CT was highly educated and lady to the maApr born; sensitive and
 proud. When Miss Duffee was a young girl they moved to Blount Springs, which was then fashion able summer resort. He purchased what is known as Duffee's mountain, where he built comfortable log home and planted young orchard and few there were who ever climbed the rocky path leading there, who did not return with a basket of his famous winesap apples and a bit of his Irish wit
 They moved to Blount before the war and Miss Mary Duffee mounted her horse and rode over the rocks and mountains to the needy families and rendered valuable service to those
 who had given fathers and sons to
 the cause.
 There were a thousand stories told
 of her eccentricities and she lived up
 to most of them.
 Mir. Duffee operated the hotel at Blount Springs until it was burned in the fall of 1869. It was known as
 the "Duffee House." and he was a
 splendid host. Miss Mary was a source of great interest to the hun dreds of guests; in fact, she was the entertainment committee and kept her horse saddled ready for all kinds of expeditions over any part of the coun- | try. She had railroad passes when l the roads were built through the coun- | try and was wont to take mysterious business trips and while away took great pleasure in signing herself Mary Duff Gordon & Co.," and was always interested in waiting for some great scheme to materialize. In 1870. | she rode horseback through the coun- 1 try to Forkland, Greene county. Ala | bama and spent several months with | friends down In the forks of the Tom | bigbee river. Though she was in clined to boast of eating at her own l home, her visits were rare exceptions. About this time the Ku-klux clan were busy in this vicinity and many ] believed the object of her visit was l to capitalize her information, though at no time was her loyalty to the south doubted. In fact. just before 1 the close of the war there wal some | mystery surrounding the disappear ance of some cotton money. Suspicion | rested on men of prominence. Miss Duffee at once realized the meaning l and consequence and she threw her | self into the danger line and assumed all responsibility, was arrested | and the war ended before a trial could I be had. The money was Confederate and then of no value and 1t all ended. Thus public gaze turned to Miss Duff l fee and she met the situation fear | lessly and without a word. She held | her secret and sacrificed her ideals 1 to save somebody she thought more useful.
 Here began the mystery of her life and feeling she had made herself ex- l traordinary she lived up to the de- mands of the talk of the times. She was a writer of no mean talent and among her contributions to the press were a series Of stories relaliVe to "Pioneer Families of Jones val ley" She had known these good peo- pie in her horseback expeditions known them in their homes and at Blount and she paid to them splen- did tribute as they grew and got rich lin Birmingham.
 I On a recent visit to her on the same old mountain where she lived alone, in what time had left of this ances- tral home she recalled my name. l had known her in her earlier days