Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Please welcome guest author Marcus C. Thomas. Thomas is a native of Sand Mountain in DeKalb County in Northeast Alabama. He is a 25-year veteran FBI special agent (retired) and an amateur genealogist. He serves as the Chief Technology Officer for a Denver-based high-tech company. In his most recent project, he has applied his skills gained as an investigator with his genealogy experience to crack a 90-year-old mystery of the identity of midwife, folk healer, and fortune teller, Granny Dollar. The results appear in his first book, Witch of the Mountain: The Real Story of Granny Dollar.

Adapted from the preface – 

In April 1986, I left my home to drive over 500 miles northeast to Quantico, Virginia. I was joining the FBI as a special agent. Over the 25 years following my entry on duty, the FBI took me far from that home, both geographically and figuratively. But it was the place of my birth, “The Mountain” as we called it, that would always remain “home” for me and my family.

During the first few months of my career—those spent at the training facility in Quantico, Virginia—I spent almost every weekend, along with a fellow new agent, in a tottering old car making the long trip back home. To pass time on these long rides, we would often exchange stories of mysteries and our theories of their solutions. It was during one of the many talks that I shared the story of Granny Dollar.

I first learned the story as a young boy from a cousin who had heard it around the campfire of one of the many girls’ camps on Lookout Mountain near Mentone, Alabama. I became captivated by her life story and wanted to know more. Although she was known by that time mostly as a ghost with a companion ghost dog, in her time, Granny Dollar had been admired as a 101-year-old, half-Cherokee midwife, folk healer, and fortune-teller who practiced on the mountain from the early 1890s through 1930.

But I learned that very little accurate information has ever been known about the real identity of Granny Dollar. Even as I turned my attention to other mysteries and FBI investigations, I never could completely shake my fascination with Granny Dollar.

For 25 years following my arrival at Quantico, I continued to work as an FBI agent besides raising a family, traveling the world, and working on many interesting and challenging cases. Along the way, I became deeply interested and involved in genealogy. After retiring, I moved back to the Chattanooga area to settle down. I then turned much of my idle time and attention to my research on genealogy and local history. When I finally returned to the mystery of Granny Dollar, I was fortunate enough to have 25 years of law enforcement experience and a slew of genealogy research behind me.

I was able to apply the skepticism and investigative skills developed in those years, to see flaws in the tale of Granny Dollar. These flawed facts would lead to questions that would then lead me to the real identity of Granny Dollar. I was also able to make logical assessments about her character and motivations and to conclude that her true story was not what the tales suggested. 

In seeking the truth, I have come to see Granny Dollar in a different light. To me, she has become much more than a character of an old Indian woman who occasionally scared children. She has become a real human being. She faced life’s struggles with grit. She survived and made a name for herself in a time when that was not easy for a woman to do. Thus, I have developed a new respect for her. I hope that the reader will come to share those feelings of respect.

Excerpt from the Introduction

In the “old days,” in the isolated mountains and hollows of Appalachia, people were self-reliant out of necessity. Dirt roads, where there were roads at all, weren’t suitable for rapid travel. Communication between farms and communities moved only as fast as a horse and buggy would allow. Illiteracy, superstition, and a deep distrust of strangers added to the isolation.

And in this isolation, there developed an ideology for explaining misfortune, such as the cause of storms and droughts, unexpected deaths, and financial losses. When there was a medical need, there were few options. People had to rely on what they had and what they knew. Outsiders, even if trustworthy, were not readily available. Over the years, communities developed a culture of folk healing to address their medical needs. Folk healing, or “folk magic”, was a mix of traditional practices, herbal medicine, the power of suggestion, and a dash of superstition.

The knowledge to stop bleeding, set bones, and guide babies and mothers through difficult births, was priceless and guarded. Powers of observation, communication, patience, and other skills associated with health care were only learned through practice. The ability to decide and then act, without fear, was an admirable trait. Thus, the character of the wise, old granny woman was developed. Granny women were part mystic, part conjurer, part prayer warrior, and part wise grandmother. They plied their craft throughout their communities, usually for free, and passed on their secrets to select learners through rituals, handing down the secret knowledge of their trade.

By the time Granny Dollar emerged from obscurity in 1923, the knowledge of granny women outside their rural communities was meager and scattered. As a result, outsiders did not recognize Granny Dollar for the character she was. For almost a century, Granny Dollar has existed in the collective conscience of a northeast Alabama community as a folksy, homespun, hometown character.

Her image prevailed as a rugged, gray-haired Cherokee woman, standing almost six-feet tall, clenching a corncob pipe in her teeth, and spinning yarns about history, conjuring, healing, and fortune-telling—“Listen to what Grandma says!” Until now, Granny Dollar has existed as a caricature with certain characteristics and details of her life either exaggerated or omitted entirely from her story. In the end, this image was utilized by her neighbors and the few journalists who took note of her lore, to arouse curiosity to promote a distinctly-southern cultural identity.

Initially, the character of “Granny” was invented by Dollar herself, but for completely different reasons. This book will peel back the persona that Granny Dollar carefully constructed and protected to expose her true identity. It will also attempt to describe how she became the legend and character we know as “Granny Dollar.” Lastly, this book will delve into her efforts to survive a backward culture to reveal a poignant tale of passion, betrayal, theft, and death.

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