Alex Stewart (1891-1985) was born and raised and lived as an adult in the remote Panther Creek community of remote Hancock County, Tennessee. He was a farmer, logger, railroad man, and the father of 13. He was best known away from Panther Creek as a cooper adept at making barrels by hand. In 1983 he received a National Heritage Fellowship Award from the National Endowment for the Arts. The author of this book, John Rice Irwin (b. 1930) knew Stewart for over twenty years. In the early 1960s he became Tennessee's youngest Superintendent of Schools, serving Anderson County. His skill at wheeling and dealing in that role has been evident as well in his role as the creator and director of the fabulous Museum of Appalachia, adjacent to the home he shared in Norris, Tennessee, with his late wife before her death and his move to the Meadowview Senior Living Center. Irwin published several other books on Tennessee mountain arts, crafts, and music.
Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer, 1985. 298 pages. Trade paperback.