Editor’s Note: Western North Carolina is rich with untold stories—many resting quietly in local cemeteries. In this Tombstone Tales series, we explore the lives of people from our region’s past whose legacies, whether widely known or nearly forgotten, helped shape the place we call home.

FLETCHER, N.C. — Long before television brought America “Bill Nye the Science Guy,” another Bill Nye had already made the name famous. Edgar Wilson Nye, one of the nation’s most beloved humorists of the late 19th century, rests in the quiet churchyard of Calvary Episcopal in Fletcher.

Born in Shirley, Maine, in 1850, Nye moved with his family to Wisconsin as a child. He studied law, passed the bar, and began a short-lived career as a lawyer. He discovered his sharp wit and gift for storytelling would carry him further in print than in the courtroom.

In 1876, Nye headed west, landing in the rough-and-tumble town of Laramie in Wyoming Territory. He served briefly as postmaster and justice of the peace before turning to journalism. In 1881, he founded the Laramie Boomerang, a newspaper he named after his mule, known for wandering off and returning at the most inconvenient times. The mule’s name was a joke in itself — and so was much of Nye’s writing. His humorous essays quickly spread beyond Wyoming. Newspapers across the country began reprinting his columns, and readers from Boston to San Francisco came to know “Bill Nye.”

By the mid-1880s, Nye was recruited by Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World. There he wrote for one of the largest papers in the country, his words reaching millions of readers. He also found success on stage, touring with poet James Whitcomb Riley. Their joint appearances — Nye’s comedy followed by Riley’s verse — packed theaters in an era before movies and radio, when live literary entertainment was at its height.

Nye’s fragile health led him to seek relief in the mountain air of western North Carolina. He first visited Asheville in 1886 and returned often before moving permanently in 1891. Nye purchased land along the French Broad River in Arden, where he built a 14-room house at Buck Shoals. From there, Nye continued to write, lecture, and dabble in farming.

Locals came to know Nye not only as a famous humorist but as a kind neighbor. Accounts from the period describe him as approachable and as comfortable swapping stories on a porch as he was on stage and filling newspaper columns.

Nye’s time in North Carolina was short. He was diagnosed with meningitis and died at Buck Shoals on Feb. 22, 1896. He was only 45. His funeral was held at Calvary Episcopal Church, and he was buried in the churchyard.

Nearly three decades later, in 1925, the church marked what would have been Nye’s 75th birthday with special memorials. A pew he had used was set aside, a memorial window was installed, and a granite boulder with a bronze plaque was placed on the church grounds.

The memorial is inscribed with a passage from the Book of Jeremiah: “I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow.”

It can be easy to confuse Nye with his modern namesake but long before the “Science Guy,” Bill Nye the humorist was a household name. His wit shaped American humor in the late 1800s, and his words filled newspapers and books.

For Western North Carolina, his story adds another layer to the region’s cultural history. In Fletcher, amid rows of gravestones and the shade of Calvary’s trees, the laughter of Bill Nye the Humorist may be gone, but his legacy is carved in stone.

Visit the final resting place of Bill Nye the Humorist in Calvary Episcopal Churchyard, in Fletcher, North Carolina

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