Strangers to Us All Lawyers and Poetry

Henry Harvey Fuson

(1876-1964)
Kentucky

H.H. Fuson was born at Little Clear Creek, in Bell County, Kentucky on August 21, 1876, the son of John Thomas and Sarah Jane (Lee) Fusion, descendant of Thomas Fuson (1760-1849), a Kentucky pioneer. Fuson obtained his A.B. in 1905 from Cumberland College, and his B.S. in 1920 from the University of Cincinnati. His poetry was anthologized in Kentucky Poetry and Folk Lore (1926), Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1926 and Yearbook of American Poetry (William Stanley Braithwaite ed., 1926), Principal Poets of the World (1932). Fuson was associated with the editing of Kentucky Folk Lore and Poetry Magazine and was a member of the Kentucky State Historical Society. After 1929, he was an attorney in Harlan, Kentucky. [Source: The Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Poets: The Who's Who of American Poets 171-172 (New York: Avon House, 1938)]

The following biographical information appears in Fuson's The History of Bell County, Vol. II (1938):

H. H. Fuson began his literary efforts in 1902 while he was living in the old Pineville Hotel. A good part of his first book was written while he lived in Pineville, Kentucky, 1902-1912. Most of the other writings were done while he lived in Covington, Kentucky, 1912-1925. Some writing was done while he lived in Louisville, Kentucky, 1925-1928, and some of the work has been carried to completion since he has lived in Harlan, Kentucky, 1929 to the present.

In 1931 H. H. Fuson began depositing his Kentucky books and manuscripts in the Library of the University of Kentucky, Lexington. He has placed over two hundred Kentucky books there under his name, books of a variety of authors on Kentucky literature. He has placed the originals of all his manuscripts there. He has had bound and placed in this library five volumes of Fuson family statistics, ten volumes of letters of the Fuson family, and numerous other bound material. His twenty-eight scrap books placed in the library, extending from 1905 until the present, contain much history of Bell County as well as much history of southeastern Kentucky. His main interest has been in the literature of the state of his birth.

He was born on Little Clear Creek, Bell County, August 21, 1876; attended the Evans School, near W. L. Fuson's in 1883; the Clear Creek Springs School, 1884-1894; Pineville High School, winter term, 1895-1896; Cumberland College, 1894-1905, part time work, where he graduated in 1905 with an A.B. degree; University of Cincinnati, 1912-1925, part time where he graduated in 1920 with a B.S. degree; completed his A.M. credits there but did not take degree; attended University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 1912, summer term. He taught school, acted as Principal and Superintendent, as follows: Lower Cannon Creek (Happy Valley) 1895; Clear Creek Springs 1896-1898; Laurel Fork in South America 1899-1901; County Superintendent of Bell County Schools, two terms, 1902-1910; Superintendent of the Pineville, Kentucky, Schools 1910-1912; Principal of the Seventh District School, Covington, Kentucky, 1912-1914; Principal of the First District School, Covington, 1914-1922; Principal of the John W. Hall Junior High School 1922-1925. He gave up teaching in 1925, studied law and was admitted to practice in 1929, when he came to Harlan and opened a law office with J. B. Snyder. He was County Attorney of Harlan County, September, 1935, to November, 1936, by appointment.

In 1906 he was married to Sara Ellen Watson, born April 7, 1876 Somerset, Kentucky. She graduated at Georgetown College, Georgetown, Kentucky, 1904, B.S. degree, and taught school in Kentucky and Montana for several years. There was born to them one daughter, Ruth Maurine Fuson, born July 7, 1910, who married Philip W. Scott, October 16, 1937 and went to Bradford, Pennsylvania, to live.

Poetry

Henry Harvey Fuson, The Pinnacle and Other Kentucky Mountain Poems (Louisville, Kentucky: J.P. Morton, 1921) [online text]

_______________, Just From Kentucky (A Second Volume of Verse)(Louisville, Kentucky: J.P. Morton & Co., 1925)

_______________, I Chant the Mountains ( [Louisville, Kentucky: Standard Printing Company, 1945)

_______________, Poems ([Frankfort, Kentucky]: Roberts Printing Co., 1950-1952)

_______________, A Mess of Pottage (Frankfort, Kentucky: Roberts Printing, 1950)

_______________, Florida Poems (Frankfort, Kentucky: Roberts Printing, 1950)

_______________, The Vanishing Plateau (Frankfort, Kentucky: Roberts Printing, 1951)

_______________, These Hills (Frankfort, Kentucky: Roberts Printing, 1951)

_______________, The Autumn Maid (Frankfort, Kentucky: Roberts Printing, 1952)

_______________, The Crown of Glory (Frankfort, Kentucky: Roberts Print Co., 1952)

Writings

Henry Harvey Fuson, History of the Bell County Association of Baptists: Over a Quarter of a Century of Growth, 1896-1922 (Covington, Kentucky: Jameson, 1922)

________________, Ballads of the Kentucky Highlands (London, Kentucky: The Mitre Press, 1931)(Folcroft, Pennsylvania: Folcroft Library Editions, 1977)

________________, History of the Cumberland and Ford Settlement (1931)

________________, History of the Fuson Family, Vol. 1 (London, Kentucky: Mitre Press, 1932)

________________, History of the Fuson Family, Vol. 2 (London, Kentucky: Mitre Press, 1938)

________________, The Strange Shape (Louisville, Kentucky: Standard Printing Co., 1946)

________________, History of Bell County, Kentucky (New York: Hobson Book Press, 1947)

Research Resources

"Collected Poems" [typescript, 2 vols, 1935-1951]
"The Kentucky Cardinal [and other poems]" [typescript, 1933]
"The Cave Dweller and Other Poems"
[typescript manuscript, Inverness, Florida, 1951]
"The Path to the Sun and Other Poems" [typescript manuscript, 1957]
"Echoes from the Mountain, and Other Poems" [typescript manuscript, 1958]
"Buffalo River Tales and Other Poems" [book, 1958]
"Poems From the Wayside" [1960]
"Rhymes of Old Age" [1961]
"86 Poems at 86" [book, 1961]
Poetry of the Fusion Family [typescript], Journal [24 vols.]

"Here I Am" [biography]
"Westward Ho!" [3 vols., typescript manuscript, Los Angeles, 1955]
Miscellaneous Writings [manuscript, 1906-1914]
Educational Writings [typescript, Harlan, Kentucky, 1931]
Literary Efforts, 1902-1924 [Louisville, Kentucky, 1928]
A Kentucky Mountain Boy: An Autobiography" [Inverness, Florida, 1952]
Letters of the Fuson Family [1927-1937]
Scrap-books [30 vols., 1905-1942]
Fuson Family Records [1961]

"History of Harlan County, Kentucky: Some Chapters" [1942]
"The Battling Ages" [typescript manuscript, Harlan, Kentucky, 1945]
"Honey in the Rock" [manuscript, Harlan, Kentucky, 1945]
"Many Colored Sands" [manuscript, Harlan, Kentucky, 1945]
"Pegasus in Kentucky ..." [book]
"The Golden Age" [book]
"The Wolves of Hinterland" [typescript, manuscript, Inverness, Florida, 1951]
"Following the Game Trail" [typescript manuscript, Inverness, Florida, 1951]
"Fruit of the Vine" [book, Palatine, Illinois, 1955]
"Down Country Lanes" [typescript manuscript, 1955]
"The Winding Trail" [typescript manuscript, Harlan, Kentucky? 1955]
"Winning of the West" [book, Los Angeles, 1956]
"The Fig Tree" [typescript manuscript, Los Angeles, 1956]
"Call of the Wild" [typescript manuscript, 1956]
"Stories from the Kentucky Mountains" [typescript, compilation, 12 vols., 1956-1963]
"Halley's Comet Again" [typescript manuscript, Los Angeles? 1956-1957]
"Nuggets of Gold" [book, 1957]
"The Phantom Horseman" [Los Angeles, 1957]
"A Time for Dreams" [typescript manuscript, 1958]
"The Trees Remember" [book, 1960]
"I ride to visit schools; the story of early education in the Kentucky mountains"
[book, 1961]
"The Last Leaf" [book, 1963]
"The Wider View of Life" [book, 1963]
" The Honking Geese" [misc. material, Los Angeles, 1956]
University of Kentucky Library
Lexington, Kentucky

"Out From Shore" [manuscript, 1963]
"The Dreamers [i.e. Dreamer's] Dream" [poetry manuscript, 1963]
Bell County, Kentucky, Public Library
Pikeville, Kentucky, Public Library