Early historians took a “top-down” approach, emphasizing politicians, governments, and centers of wealth and power. In the early twentieth century, attention shifted toward the everyday experiences of ordinary people. These early “bottom-up” efforts often took the form of folk history.

Folk histories preserved many of the earliest surviving stories of ordinary people. Their focus was often to retell a story in the way it was remembered, over the rigorous fact-checking, citation, and verification standards used in academic history. At the time, almost anyone dedicated to local history could call themselves a historian, regardless of formal training.  

Sadie Smathers Patton's 1957 booklet, The Kingdom of the Happy Land, is a typical example. A stenographer from Hendersonville, Patton said she gathered stories from local firesides and then tried “to bind together facts as appear to be accurate.” The sections based on the recollections of former Kingdom residents Ezel Couch and his sister Mary can be verified. However, her account of King William Montgomery and his travels from Mississippi cannot.

In 1976, Frank L. Fitzsimons, another folk historian, included a chapter on the Kingdom of the Happy Land in his three-volume collection From the Banks of the Oklawaha. His account, which relied heavily on local legend and Sadie Patton's earlier work, reflects racist stereotypes which were common in the 20th century.  For instance, he claimed the Kingdom’s founders had a “lack of knowledge and geography” and described their arrival in western North Carolina as the result of “blind wandering.”

Interest in the Kingdom of the Happy Land persisted among scholars and local historians throughout the twentieth century, and interpretations of its history continued to evolve over time.

During the Civil Rights era, “bottom-up” history gained greater recognition in academic institutions. Scholars combined the research standards of traditional history while centering on the lived experiences of common people. This approach became known as the “New Social History,” which placed individual lives within broader cultural and political contexts.

In 1979, two scholars from Western Carolina University, Theda Perdue and Samuel Gray, wrote "Appalachia as the Promised Land: A Freedmen's Commune in Henderson County, North Carolina, 1870-1920." Their work situated the Kingdom’s migration within the larger history of racial violence, displacement, and the African American experience during Reconstruction.

In 1980, Glenn Hinson, a scholar with the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, traveled from Durham to Zirconia in Henderson County’s Green River Valley to record interviews with longtime local residents. Many had grown up hearing stories about the Kingdom, and some had relatives who knew former Kingdom residents. Several had visited the site after the community dissolved. While their accounts sometimes conflict and cannot be verified, they provide valuable insight into how the Kingdom was remembered by the surrounding community and how the settlement was arranged on the land.

Glenn Hinson completed these Fieldwork Collection Sheets during his recordings, documenting information about each narrator and their connection to the Kingdom of the Happy Land. He also included his own observations about the interviews.

To access the full recordings, contact the State Archives of North Carolina.
Content warning: While the narrators speak positively about Kingdom residents, some use racist slurs.

By the end of the twentieth century, historians and community stakeholders began to examine the power dynamics and relationship between historians and the communities they studied.

The idea of “shared authority” emerged, encouraging collaboration between historians and community members. Rather than acting as sole interpreters, historians increasingly worked to help communities preserve and tell their own stories.

In 1996, the Black History Research Group of Henderson County worked with historian Gary Franklin Greene to publish A Brief History of the Black Presence in Henderson County. The book was a collaborative effort that drew on years of community research and oral histories collected by the group. The chapter on the Kingdom of the Happy Land was the first interpretation developed through sustained collaboration with the local African American community.