Orlando Benedict Mayer was born near Pomaria, in present-day Newberry County, South Carolina. A rustic humorist whose work was mostly published anonymously or pseudonymously, Mayer is only now being discovered and, it seems, deserves to rank high among writers of Southern backwoods humor. He also figures strongly as a precursor of the local-color movement.

Hans Ulrich Mayer, the author's great-grandfather, came to Pomaria from Germany in 1752. Both he and his son, Johannes Adam Benedict, fought in the South Carolina militia during the Revolutionary War. Johannes Benedict, the author's grandfather, married the daughter of the Colonel Adam Summer whom Mayer describes in his history of the community as the pioneer settler of the area. Johannes became a well-to-do farmer and blacksmith and owned large holdings of land on the Broad River. He had one son, Adam, the author's father. Orlando Mayer was born on 24 February 1818 to Adam Mayer and...