Ben S. Grosscup

Ben S. Grosscup is credited as the co-author, with Wilbur G. Zeigler, of The Heart of the Alleghanies; or, Western North Carolina, first published in 1883. The book is a wide-ranging survey of the mountains of western North Carolina, blending local history, travel writing, natural description, and regional legend.

Reliable biographical details about Grosscup himself are surprisingly scarce in the sources readily available online. Based on the records that are easy to confirm, he is chiefly remembered through this collaboration rather than through a large separately documented body of work.

That makes his writing especially interesting: even with so little personal information preserved, his name remains attached to a book that helped introduce generations of readers to the character and imagination of the southern Appalachians.