The lady on the left is the original photo of Granny Dollar; on the right is an illustration of this image.
We now know it was a two-part article appear-
ing in both the January and February editions of
the magazine in 1928. But they had scanned the
actual pages, and only about 80% of the text was
legible. Using references from other articles, and
a team of folks staring at computer screens until
they were nearly blind, we managed to com-
pletely and accurately recreate the two articles. If
nothing else comes from this novel, at least those
articles will now be around forever.
Nancy, the oldest of 26 children, grew up at
Bucks Pocket on Sand Mountain and was 12
years old in 1838 when the government decided
the Indian Removal Act of 1835 should apply to
Cherokee Indians as well. She, her dad, her two
moms and no telling how many siblings at that
time, snuck off the side of the mountain and hid
out in Saltpeter Cave for three years.
During that same time, in Etowah County, a
young Cherokee woman by the name of Dew-
drop Pathkiller, whose father was a powerful
chief and a member of the Cherokee Nation, was
a vocal opponent of the forced relocation efforts.
Educated in Ivy League schools, Dewdrop was
deemed a threat and imprisoned. She escaped
and fled, losing the authorities by swimming
10 | SPRING 2020
across the Tennessee River.
This would have put her in the same woods
at the same time as Nancy and her family. Did
their path cross? Granny Dollar never spoke of it,
so we’ll never know for sure. But after she died,
friends discovered a necklace she wore, one they
had never seen before, a small silver chain with
a flat silver disc on the end. On it was inscribed,
“Dewdrop Pathkiller.”
An interesting side note—Dewdrop’s best
childhood friend was a Cherokee girl named
Alivilda. Alivilda was engaged to be married to
the young man she loved, but Dewdrop’s father
forbid it and arranged for her to marry someone
else. Alivilda was so distraught; she jumped off
Black Creek Falls to her death. This might sound
familiar. The locals later changed her name to
Noccalula.
In 1841, when the government had lost inter-
est, Nancy and her family came out of hiding
and moved right back into their hut, probably
thinking everything would go back to normal.
But a famous event involving her father, William
Callahan, I believe put things into perspective.
He and some neighbors discovered a foot peddler
who had been killed and followed the blood trail
CULLMAN COUNTY SENIOR MAGAZINE