Evening star., 1952-10-26
BY Jessie Font Evons

By Jessie Font Evans
research in connection with her
novels at the Library of Congress
and at the Folger Library. II con-
slider them both among the most
valuable storehouseS of learning
in the world" she told me. TOO
little known is the invaluable col
lection of material in the Folger,
which dwells upon the economic
features of life in England that
drew to this country it's early
English settlers" she emphasized.
After years of wandering, the
Fletchers' home post Office is
Edenton, N. c., more familiarly
known as Queens Town." when
it was the colony residence of
England's royal governors for this
section. Some of them still rest
under fiat marble stones in his
toric. st. Paul's churchyard. One
of them, Gov. Eden, is said to
have been in league with Black
beard, the pirate, who came ashore
| at this point. and 1nglis Fletcher
$50 pictures him in "Lusty Wind
for Carolina"
| Much of Inglis Fletcher's his
torical writing has been done at
their present residence. pictur-
esque Bandon Plantation on the
ChoWan River. 1t was once the
home of Parson Earle. the spec
tacular, fox-hunting. classicist,
Church of England clergyman, who
appears in so many of her novels.
1t is in his schoolhouse, built about
1855 in the plantation yard and
in which he conducted one of
the first classical academies for
boys in the South, that she does
much "of the pencil chewing"
she acknowledges as a part of the
preliminary stages of "the pers-
Ipiration and hard-work routine"
of her authorship.
when I am in the midst of
writing a new historical novel
keep at it with the regularity Of a
farm hand with a mule in plant
ing time" she told me. Some
times I have comparatively moth
ing to show for the days session.
When things are going very well
with me I occasionally get down
as many as 1900 words at a single
session. Invariably I obey my
husbands signal that is quitting
time when he pre-emptorily blows
several blasts on an old hunting
horn. We are always at home to
visitors after 4 o'clock on week.
days and We like nothing better
than to have our friends down
from Norfolk, Richmond and
Washington over week ends, so
that they may enjoy Bandon' S
more leisurely tempo"
| Art Holley. whose names comes
from antebellum owners of Ban
don is the farm hand who tends
the Fletcher'S holdings. Bessie,
his wife, whose people have lived
on the same land for numerous
generations. is the Fletcher's cele-
brated cook and housekeeper,
whose cuisine always evokes a de-
sire for seconds.
OF their employers Art and Bes-
sic Holley say proudly, 1.-The
Fletchers raise a little cotton, q
little tobacco and a sight of books.
They'S always raising books" J."
They raise peanuts and hogs. too,
the peanuts chiefly as food for the
hogs that usually end up on the
Fletcher's table via a hickory log
smokehouse that is one of the
original dependencies from Parson
Earle'S time.
Inglis Fletcher and John
Fletcher for all Of their western
upbringing share common North
Carolina ancestor, Richard Chap
man, a shipbuilder, whose convent
educated South Carolina wife
Cecilia not only served as an in
terpreter for French prisoners
during the French and Indian
wars when the family treked
westward but killed an attacking
panther with her husbands axe
Young people should know
their history as a vital background
to the events that are happening
today" says Inglis Fletcher. Our
history should be taught not by
events but through the people who
make them. That is the function
of the historical novelist"
The advice of this successful
HISTORICAL novelist to would-be
writers of historical fiction is
Its always better to be the first
to write about a place and its