Moonshine, Hardware, Foxes, & Percy Flowers

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donbosco

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My Deddy knew who the moonshiners were. Moonshiners have need for hardware stores from time to time after all. I think there must have been a ‘Hardware Man’s Pledge’ of confidentiality though - kind of like the ones that bartenders and hair dressers take - because he never named names. That my Grandpa’s nickname was Applejack has always made me wonder about some of his own commercial pursuits early on in his life. You don’t get that handle for nothing I’d wager.

Just how much of Chatham County’s economy was tied up in White Lightnin’ I can’t say but there were telltale signs. I was led to believe that a good deal of The #DeepChatham Devil’s Tramping Ground legend was wrapped up in illegal, rather than ethereal, spirits for example…i.e., moonshiners and their customers making all those spooky things happen in the late night hours down there near Harper’s Crossroads. For local Baptist teetotalers those midnight (they don’t call it moonshine because it’s a broad daylight product) distillers were doing the work of the Bad Man one way or the other anyway so we probably ought to put the quibbling aside. On the technology side, one of the first things I learned growing up working in #BonleeHardware was how to measure, cut, flare, and fit copper tubing.

The irony of course is that it’s likely that for generations illegal distilleries and bootlegger joints rivaled in number the ubiquity of churches in the North Carolina countryside. And no doubt they shared a great many patrons as well. I’ve always heard that “Tar Heels will vote dry as long as they can stagger to the polls.” If you’ve never heard that then now you have. Add in there that we never fully repealed prohibition statewide and were actually the state that kicked it off in 1908, over a decade before it went nationwide.

I also remember very well the lamentations over the severe dryness of the drive into Raleigh and Chapel Hill on those college football Saturdays. Charlotte to the Triangle - the road across the “goodliest land under the cope of Heaven” - was a bone dry one if you didn’t know any clandestine sellers along the way. Many of those Saturday tipplers were Deacons on Sunday. I think Rob Christensen called this ‘The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics,’ See Here: The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics | Rob Christensen | University of North Carolina Press

Turning to the “King of the Moonshiners,” Percy Flowers of #JohnstonCounty - there’s no doubt he was a lawbreaker - he flaunted alcohol laws and taunted tax collectors - trial by jury was his greatest legal defense as Johnstonians refused to convict him. I reckon that says something though I’m not 100% sure what. Multiple families, black and white, were part of his commercial network and the mythical figure Robin Hood was often mentioned in reference to his life. He definitely loved dogs and his pups were considered some of the finest and most beloved around. Of course he was a rabbit hunter but he was first and foremost a fox hunter - if you know anything about the latter country pastime (not the Englishter version with horses and fancy clothes) then the connections with the same sort of traipsing around in the middle of the night associated with moonshining and bootlegging are clear. If you’re not, then suffice it to say that my nigh Prohibitionist Southern Baptist Momma was unequivocal in her barring of my participation in those midnight junkets.

Flowers’ tale is one of financial success and apparently community respect and support. If you wonder about race and Percy Flowers there are no indications that he was Civil Rights activist but I’ve also seen none where he’s identified as Klan. His #1 assistant for decades was an African American man, Howard Creach, and their story bears some of the characteristics of paternalism and there also appears to have been a genuine trusting friendship between the two men and their families. No doubt there is a larger story there. Read here if you want more: Family Means a Lot of Things — Bit & Grain

At any rate Percy Flowers went ‘National’ in 1958 - which was, not coincidentally the year after a major Federal push against illegal, untaxed liquor that discovered that NC was home to at least 20% of U.S. production and that Flowers was the main man behind that. He did serve 6 months in the Federal Penitentiary in the late ‘60s for tax evasion. He was born in 1903 and passed away in 1982. Whether he was a hero or not he does fit the label of ‘Folk Legend.’

#OTD (8/2) in 1958 ‘The Saturday Evening Post’ dubbed Johnston County’s Percy Flowers “King of the Moonshiners.” Always afoul of The Law, Flowers, b. 1903, mostly remained free and farmed well into the 1970s. He died in ‘82, a regional economic force.

Legendary Percy Flowers, “King of the Moonshiners”

Also see “Percy’s Run” a documentary made in 2011 by D.L. Anderson about the confluence of fox hunting and Flowers in Johnston County. It’s a well-spent 13 and a half minutes.
 

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My Deddy knew who the moonshiners were. Moonshiners have need for hardware stores from time to time after all. I think there must have been a ‘Hardware Man’s Pledge’ of confidentiality though - kind of like the ones that bartenders and hair dressers take - because he never named names. That my Grandpa’s nickname was Applejack has always made me wonder about some of his own commercial pursuits early on in his life. You don’t get that handle for nothing I’d wager.

Just how much of Chatham County’s economy was tied up in White Lightnin’ I can’t say but there were telltale signs. I was led to believe that a good deal of The #DeepChatham Devil’s Tramping Ground legend was wrapped up in illegal, rather than ethereal, spirits for example…i.e., moonshiners and their customers making all those spooky things happen in the late night hours down there near Harper’s Crossroads. For local Baptist teetotalers those midnight (they don’t call it moonshine because it’s a broad daylight product) distillers were doing the work of the Bad Man one way or the other anyway so we probably ought to put the quibbling aside. On the technology side, one of the first things I learned growing up working in #BonleeHardware was how to measure, cut, flare, and fit copper tubing.

The irony of course is that it’s likely that for generations illegal distilleries and bootlegger joints rivaled in number the ubiquity of churches in the North Carolina countryside. And no doubt they shared a great many patrons as well. I’ve always heard that “Tar Heels will vote dry as long as they can stagger to the polls.” If you’ve never heard that then now you have. Add in there that we never fully repealed prohibition statewide and were actually the state that kicked it off in 1908, over a decade before it went nationwide.

I also remember very well the lamentations over the severe dryness of the drive into Raleigh and Chapel Hill on those college football Saturdays. Charlotte to the Triangle - the road across the “goodliest land under the cope of Heaven” - was a bone dry one if you didn’t know any clandestine sellers along the way. Many of those Saturday tipplers were Deacons on Sunday. I think Rob Christensen called this ‘The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics,’ See Here: The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics | Rob Christensen | University of North Carolina Press

Turning to the “King of the Moonshiners,” Percy Flowers of #JohnstonCounty - there’s no doubt he was a lawbreaker - he flaunted alcohol laws and taunted tax collectors - trial by jury was his greatest legal defense as Johnstonians refused to convict him. I reckon that says something though I’m not 100% sure what. Multiple families, black and white, were part of his commercial network and the mythical figure Robin Hood was often mentioned in reference to his life. He definitely loved dogs and his pups were considered some of the finest and most beloved around. Of course he was a rabbit hunter but he was first and foremost a fox hunter - if you know anything about the latter country pastime (not the Englishter version with horses and fancy clothes) then the connections with the same sort of traipsing around in the middle of the night associated with moonshining and bootlegging are clear. If you’re not, then suffice it to say that my nigh Prohibitionist Southern Baptist Momma was unequivocal in her barring of my participation in those midnight junkets.

Flowers’ tale is one of financial success and apparently community respect and support. If you wonder about race and Percy Flowers there are no indications that he was Civil Rights activist but I’ve also seen none where he’s identified as Klan. His #1 assistant for decades was an African American man, Howard Creach, and their story bears some of the characteristics of paternalism and there also appears to have been a genuine trusting friendship between the two men and their families. No doubt there is a larger story there. Read here if you want more: Family Means a Lot of Things — Bit & Grain

At any rate Percy Flowers went ‘National’ in 1958 - which was, not coincidentally the year after a major Federal push against illegal, untaxed liquor that discovered that NC was home to at least 20% of U.S. production and that Flowers was the main man behind that. He did serve 6 months in the Federal Penitentiary in the late ‘60s for tax evasion. He was born in 1903 and passed away in 1982. Whether he was a hero or not he does fit the label of ‘Folk Legend.’

#OTD (8/2) in 1958 ‘The Saturday Evening Post’ dubbed Johnston County’s Percy Flowers “King of the Moonshiners.” Always afoul of The Law, Flowers, b. 1903, mostly remained free and farmed well into the 1970s. He died in ‘82, a regional economic force.

Legendary Percy Flowers, “King of the Moonshiners”

Also see “Percy’s Run” a documentary made in 2011 by D.L. Anderson about the confluence of fox hunting and Flowers in Johnston County. It’s a well-spent 13 and a half minutes.

Love this story and the links.

Minor quibble - Maine passed a law banning the manufacture and sale of anlcohol except for “medicinal or mechanical” reasons in 1851. The law was in effect until 1934. Portland’s mayor, Neal Dow was dubbed “The Father of Prohibition” and the “Napoleon of Temperance” (he was short).
 
Love this story and the links.

Minor quibble - Maine passed a law banning the manufacture and sale of anlcohol except for “medicinal or mechanical” reasons in 1851. The law was in effect until 1934. Portland’s mayor, Neal Dow was dubbed “The Father of Prohibition” and the “Napoleon of Temperance” (he was short).


I do remember Neal Dow now that you mention him - many years ago a buddy of mine wrote an MA on him (ASU). That did stick with me for a while because I spent some time in Portland in the early ‘80s and it was not a T-Totaling place in any way in those days!

Thanks for the addendum. What can we say about NC’s early adoption of prohibition then? It was the 20th century’s first? I’d bet there are some aspects of the movement in the 1900s that are different from Dow’s.
 
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Good looking fox hound and Mr. Flowers.
 

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OK, could someone explain what this thread is, exactly? I've lived in NC from time to time but I'm not a North Carolinian, and I certainly have no ties to the communities being mentioned in the OP. So maybe I'm just missing something obvious?

Is the OP fiction? Is it true stories from memory? Is it a passage copied from some other written work? Is Percy Flowers a person, or a fictional character?

Don Bosco, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought you were a historian of Latin America. So do you normally talk or write in folksy language like "I reckon"? I mean, it's possible. I don't want to say that you can't grow up in rural NC and then study Latin American history. That is not really my experience, though. Maybe you write in that language when trying to relate folksy stories (fictional or not), and then in a more formal diction when writing professionally. That's perfectly OK. I'm just wondering. I'm just not sure what's going on in this thread.
 
My Deddy knew who the moonshiners were. Moonshiners have need for hardware stores from time to time after all. I think there must have been a ‘Hardware Man’s Pledge’ of confidentiality though - kind of like the ones that bartenders and hair dressers take - because he never named names. That my Grandpa’s nickname was Applejack has always made me wonder about some of his own commercial pursuits early on in his life. You don’t get that handle for nothing I’d wager.

Just how much of Chatham County’s economy was tied up in White Lightnin’ I can’t say but there were telltale signs. I was led to believe that a good deal of The #DeepChatham Devil’s Tramping Ground legend was wrapped up in illegal, rather than ethereal, spirits for example…i.e., moonshiners and their customers making all those spooky things happen in the late night hours down there near Harper’s Crossroads. For local Baptist teetotalers those midnight (they don’t call it moonshine because it’s a broad daylight product) distillers were doing the work of the Bad Man one way or the other anyway so we probably ought to put the quibbling aside. On the technology side, one of the first things I learned growing up working in #BonleeHardware was how to measure, cut, flare, and fit copper tubing.

The irony of course is that it’s likely that for generations illegal distilleries and bootlegger joints rivaled in number the ubiquity of churches in the North Carolina countryside. And no doubt they shared a great many patrons as well. I’ve always heard that “Tar Heels will vote dry as long as they can stagger to the polls.” If you’ve never heard that then now you have. Add in there that we never fully repealed prohibition statewide and were actually the state that kicked it off in 1908, over a decade before it went nationwide.

I also remember very well the lamentations over the severe dryness of the drive into Raleigh and Chapel Hill on those college football Saturdays. Charlotte to the Triangle - the road across the “goodliest land under the cope of Heaven” - was a bone dry one if you didn’t know any clandestine sellers along the way. Many of those Saturday tipplers were Deacons on Sunday. I think Rob Christensen called this ‘The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics,’ See Here: The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics | Rob Christensen | University of North Carolina Press

Turning to the “King of the Moonshiners,” Percy Flowers of #JohnstonCounty - there’s no doubt he was a lawbreaker - he flaunted alcohol laws and taunted tax collectors - trial by jury was his greatest legal defense as Johnstonians refused to convict him. I reckon that says something though I’m not 100% sure what. Multiple families, black and white, were part of his commercial network and the mythical figure Robin Hood was often mentioned in reference to his life. He definitely loved dogs and his pups were considered some of the finest and most beloved around. Of course he was a rabbit hunter but he was first and foremost a fox hunter - if you know anything about the latter country pastime (not the Englishter version with horses and fancy clothes) then the connections with the same sort of traipsing around in the middle of the night associated with moonshining and bootlegging are clear. If you’re not, then suffice it to say that my nigh Prohibitionist Southern Baptist Momma was unequivocal in her barring of my participation in those midnight junkets.

Flowers’ tale is one of financial success and apparently community respect and support. If you wonder about race and Percy Flowers there are no indications that he was Civil Rights activist but I’ve also seen none where he’s identified as Klan. His #1 assistant for decades was an African American man, Howard Creach, and their story bears some of the characteristics of paternalism and there also appears to have been a genuine trusting friendship between the two men and their families. No doubt there is a larger story there. Read here if you want more: Family Means a Lot of Things — Bit & Grain

At any rate Percy Flowers went ‘National’ in 1958 - which was, not coincidentally the year after a major Federal push against illegal, untaxed liquor that discovered that NC was home to at least 20% of U.S. production and that Flowers was the main man behind that. He did serve 6 months in the Federal Penitentiary in the late ‘60s for tax evasion. He was born in 1903 and passed away in 1982. Whether he was a hero or not he does fit the label of ‘Folk Legend.’

#OTD (8/2) in 1958 ‘The Saturday Evening Post’ dubbed Johnston County’s Percy Flowers “King of the Moonshiners.” Always afoul of The Law, Flowers, b. 1903, mostly remained free and farmed well into the 1970s. He died in ‘82, a regional economic force.

Legendary Percy Flowers, “King of the Moonshiners”

Also see “Percy’s Run” a documentary made in 2011 by D.L. Anderson about the confluence of fox hunting and Flowers in Johnston County. It’s a well-spent 13 and a half minutes.

In re: Percy Flowers. I was in the Boy Scouts growing up. I was also raised in a liberal household in Eastern NC. As I got older, I switched to the Explorer Scouts. On one occasional, there was an Explorer weekend retreat on Topsail Island, Friday night through Sunday afternoon. Some generous soul had let us use his cottage for a Fall weekend. I signed up for this as soon as I heard about it. My grandfather let me borrow his car for the weekend so I could drive directly from school to Topsail Island. All I had was an address, not a description of the cottage. When I arrived, it was a very big cottage, built in the shape of a barn. I instantly recognized it. It was Percy Flowers' cottage at Topsail. I almost turned around and went home. But the allure of a fun weekend at the beach overcame whatever qualms I had. Two final points: 1) I did have fun. 2) There was no Klan memorabilia in the cottage. Percy Flowers was, among other things, reputed to be the Grand Dragon of the Johnston County KKK.
 
In re: Percy Flowers. I was in the Boy Scouts growing up. I was also raised in a liberal household in Eastern NC. As I got older, I switched to the Explorer Scouts. On one occasional, there was an Explorer weekend retreat on Topsail Island, Friday night through Sunday afternoon. Some generous soul had let us use his cottage for a Fall weekend. I signed up for this as soon as I heard about it. My grandfather let me borrow his car for the weekend so I could drive directly from school to Topsail Island. All I had was an address, not a description of the cottage. When I arrived, it was a very big cottage, built in the shape of a barn. I instantly recognized it. It was Percy Flowers' cottage at Topsail. I almost turned around and went home. But the allure of a fun weekend at the beach overcame whatever qualms I had. Two final points: 1) I did have fun. 2) There was no Klan memorabilia in the cottage. Percy Flowers was, among other things, reputed to be the Grand Dragon of the Johnston County KKK.
No moonshine?
 
My Deddy knew who the moonshiners were. Moonshiners have need for hardware stores from time to time after all. I think there must have been a ‘Hardware Man’s Pledge’ of confidentiality though - kind of like the ones that bartenders and hair dressers take - because he never named names. That my Grandpa’s nickname was Applejack has always made me wonder about some of his own commercial pursuits early on in his life. You don’t get that handle for nothing I’d wager.

Just how much of Chatham County’s economy was tied up in White Lightnin’ I can’t say but there were telltale signs. I was led to believe that a good deal of The #DeepChatham Devil’s Tramping Ground legend was wrapped up in illegal, rather than ethereal, spirits for example…i.e., moonshiners and their customers making all those spooky things happen in the late night hours down there near Harper’s Crossroads. For local Baptist teetotalers those midnight (they don’t call it moonshine because it’s a broad daylight product) distillers were doing the work of the Bad Man one way or the other anyway so we probably ought to put the quibbling aside. On the technology side, one of the first things I learned growing up working in #BonleeHardware was how to measure, cut, flare, and fit copper tubing.

The irony of course is that it’s likely that for generations illegal distilleries and bootlegger joints rivaled in number the ubiquity of churches in the North Carolina countryside. And no doubt they shared a great many patrons as well. I’ve always heard that “Tar Heels will vote dry as long as they can stagger to the polls.” If you’ve never heard that then now you have. Add in there that we never fully repealed prohibition statewide and were actually the state that kicked it off in 1908, over a decade before it went nationwide.

I also remember very well the lamentations over the severe dryness of the drive into Raleigh and Chapel Hill on those college football Saturdays. Charlotte to the Triangle - the road across the “goodliest land under the cope of Heaven” - was a bone dry one if you didn’t know any clandestine sellers along the way. Many of those Saturday tipplers were Deacons on Sunday. I think Rob Christensen called this ‘The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics,’ See Here: The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics | Rob Christensen | University of North Carolina Press

Turning to the “King of the Moonshiners,” Percy Flowers of #JohnstonCounty - there’s no doubt he was a lawbreaker - he flaunted alcohol laws and taunted tax collectors - trial by jury was his greatest legal defense as Johnstonians refused to convict him. I reckon that says something though I’m not 100% sure what. Multiple families, black and white, were part of his commercial network and the mythical figure Robin Hood was often mentioned in reference to his life. He definitely loved dogs and his pups were considered some of the finest and most beloved around. Of course he was a rabbit hunter but he was first and foremost a fox hunter - if you know anything about the latter country pastime (not the Englishter version with horses and fancy clothes) then the connections with the same sort of traipsing around in the middle of the night associated with moonshining and bootlegging are clear. If you’re not, then suffice it to say that my nigh Prohibitionist Southern Baptist Momma was unequivocal in her barring of my participation in those midnight junkets.

Flowers’ tale is one of financial success and apparently community respect and support. If you wonder about race and Percy Flowers there are no indications that he was Civil Rights activist but I’ve also seen none where he’s identified as Klan. His #1 assistant for decades was an African American man, Howard Creach, and their story bears some of the characteristics of paternalism and there also appears to have been a genuine trusting friendship between the two men and their families. No doubt there is a larger story there. Read here if you want more: Family Means a Lot of Things — Bit & Grain

At any rate Percy Flowers went ‘National’ in 1958 - which was, not coincidentally the year after a major Federal push against illegal, untaxed liquor that discovered that NC was home to at least 20% of U.S. production and that Flowers was the main man behind that. He did serve 6 months in the Federal Penitentiary in the late ‘60s for tax evasion. He was born in 1903 and passed away in 1982. Whether he was a hero or not he does fit the label of ‘Folk Legend.’

#OTD (8/2) in 1958 ‘The Saturday Evening Post’ dubbed Johnston County’s Percy Flowers “King of the Moonshiners.” Always afoul of The Law, Flowers, b. 1903, mostly remained free and farmed well into the 1970s. He died in ‘82, a regional economic force.

Legendary Percy Flowers, “King of the Moonshiners”

Also see “Percy’s Run” a documentary made in 2011 by D.L. Anderson about the confluence of fox hunting and Flowers in Johnston County. It’s a well-spent 13 and a half minutes.

In re: Moonshining. My father ran a wholesale grocery store. Sometime in the early 1960's, the Feds passed a law requiring reports be submitted for purchases of over, IIRC, 250 pounds of sugar and more than four cases of gallon fruit jars within one 24 hour period. In response, suger manufacturers, or at least Dixie Crystals, started packaging their 2 pound, 5 pound and 10 pound batches of suger in 60 pound containers, so that buying four would be under the 250 pound notification trigger. There were customers who came in 6 days a week to my Dad's store and purchased 4 "cases", ie., of 6 - 10 lb bags of sugar and four cases of gallons fruit jars. And repeated this exercise at every wholesale grocery store in the area. Before this law, the folks would just occasionally purchase an entire truck load of 100 pound bags of sugar. Some of the old hands at my Dad's store told of delivering entire truckloads of 100 pound bags of sugar by backing up to another truck and moving the bags from one truck to another.

Another time, an employee of a local candy factory showed up at my Dad's store and explained his regular supplier had some slip-up, didn't deliver the usual order of sugar and he needed to by about a 1,000 pounds of sugar to get him through to the next regular shipment. This guy was amazed at how much paperwork he had to fill out, because previously all the paperwork for the candy factory had been handled by others.

ETA: One time I asked my father why he didn't report these moonshiners who were obviously skirting the law. My father's response had two parts: 1) They aren't breaking the law. 2) Every single one of them has a prior conviction for moonshining and, as such, the Feds know who they are and didn't need his help.
 
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I enjoyed reading that donbosco. Thank you.

Moonshine was a big deal when I was growing up in Rocky Mount in the 1950s. It seemed like at least once a week there was a photo/article in the Evening Telegram about law enforcement busting a still somewhere in Nash or Edgecombe County. My great-grandfather lived in the country near Nashville and took me out in the woods to check on his still a few times. He always told me not to tell anybody about it. He used to tell me stories about Percy Flowers and his shine was the best around.

My avatar is world famous moonshiner Popcorn Sutton. I met him one time at Joey's Pancake House in Maggie Valley back in the mid-1980s. Popcorn was a folk hero up in that area. I enjoyed talking to him.
 
My Deddy knew who the moonshiners were. Moonshiners have need for hardware stores from time to time after all. I think there must have been a ‘Hardware Man’s Pledge’ of confidentiality though - kind of like the ones that bartenders and hair dressers take - because he never named names. That my Grandpa’s nickname was Applejack has always made me wonder about some of his own commercial pursuits early on in his life. You don’t get that handle for nothing I’d wager.

Just how much of Chatham County’s economy was tied up in White Lightnin’ I can’t say but there were telltale signs. I was led to believe that a good deal of The #DeepChatham Devil’s Tramping Ground legend was wrapped up in illegal, rather than ethereal, spirits for example…i.e., moonshiners and their customers making all those spooky things happen in the late night hours down there near Harper’s Crossroads. For local Baptist teetotalers those midnight (they don’t call it moonshine because it’s a broad daylight product) distillers were doing the work of the Bad Man one way or the other anyway so we probably ought to put the quibbling aside. On the technology side, one of the first things I learned growing up working in #BonleeHardware was how to measure, cut, flare, and fit copper tubing.

The irony of course is that it’s likely that for generations illegal distilleries and bootlegger joints rivaled in number the ubiquity of churches in the North Carolina countryside. And no doubt they shared a great many patrons as well. I’ve always heard that “Tar Heels will vote dry as long as they can stagger to the polls.” If you’ve never heard that then now you have. Add in there that we never fully repealed prohibition statewide and were actually the state that kicked it off in 1908, over a decade before it went nationwide.

I also remember very well the lamentations over the severe dryness of the drive into Raleigh and Chapel Hill on those college football Saturdays. Charlotte to the Triangle - the road across the “goodliest land under the cope of Heaven” - was a bone dry one if you didn’t know any clandestine sellers along the way. Many of those Saturday tipplers were Deacons on Sunday. I think Rob Christensen called this ‘The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics,’ See Here: The Paradox of Tar Heel Politics | Rob Christensen | University of North Carolina Press

Turning to the “King of the Moonshiners,” Percy Flowers of #JohnstonCounty - there’s no doubt he was a lawbreaker - he flaunted alcohol laws and taunted tax collectors - trial by jury was his greatest legal defense as Johnstonians refused to convict him. I reckon that says something though I’m not 100% sure what. Multiple families, black and white, were part of his commercial network and the mythical figure Robin Hood was often mentioned in reference to his life. He definitely loved dogs and his pups were considered some of the finest and most beloved around. Of course he was a rabbit hunter but he was first and foremost a fox hunter - if you know anything about the latter country pastime (not the Englishter version with horses and fancy clothes) then the connections with the same sort of traipsing around in the middle of the night associated with moonshining and bootlegging are clear. If you’re not, then suffice it to say that my nigh Prohibitionist Southern Baptist Momma was unequivocal in her barring of my participation in those midnight junkets.

Flowers’ tale is one of financial success and apparently community respect and support. If you wonder about race and Percy Flowers there are no indications that he was Civil Rights activist but I’ve also seen none where he’s identified as Klan. His #1 assistant for decades was an African American man, Howard Creach, and their story bears some of the characteristics of paternalism and there also appears to have been a genuine trusting friendship between the two men and their families. No doubt there is a larger story there. Read here if you want more: Family Means a Lot of Things — Bit & Grain

At any rate Percy Flowers went ‘National’ in 1958 - which was, not coincidentally the year after a major Federal push against illegal, untaxed liquor that discovered that NC was home to at least 20% of U.S. production and that Flowers was the main man behind that. He did serve 6 months in the Federal Penitentiary in the late ‘60s for tax evasion. He was born in 1903 and passed away in 1982. Whether he was a hero or not he does fit the label of ‘Folk Legend.’

#OTD (8/2) in 1958 ‘The Saturday Evening Post’ dubbed Johnston County’s Percy Flowers “King of the Moonshiners.” Always afoul of The Law, Flowers, b. 1903, mostly remained free and farmed well into the 1970s. He died in ‘82, a regional economic force.

Legendary Percy Flowers, “King of the Moonshiners”

Also see “Percy’s Run” a documentary made in 2011 by D.L. Anderson about the confluence of fox hunting and Flowers in Johnston County. It’s a well-spent 13 and a half minutes.

In re: Eastern North Carolina Foxhunting. My grandfather loved the sort of foxhunting you describe. He had good friend who was a banker from Boston that one of the NC banks has lured South. My grandfather was always trying to convince this Boston banker to go foxhunting with him. After repeated reassurances that no horses were involved and he wouldn't have to jump any fences while on the back of a horse, the Boston banker finally relented. The arrived at the agreed upon spot where the hunt would begin. The Boston banker stepped out into a very loud melee of swirling black and white dogs. My grandfather said to him, "Bob, isn't the baying of these hounds the sweetest music you've ever heard?" The response from the Boston banker was, "Robert, I can't hear a word you're saying for the barking of all the damn dogs."
 
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The deed for my land in Madison Co. listed "Mr. Sam's still" as a survey point. It was at a spring and there were remains of a still there. The story was that he had somehow pissed off the sheriff who then laid in wait one night at the still and busted him. My nearest local resident was a kid then and remembered it and the locals were kind of pissed. Evidently Mr. Sam made some good shine. I can attest that one of his descendants made some good stuff too.
 
The deed for my land in Madison Co. listed "Mr. Sam's still" as a survey point. It was at a spring and there were remains of a still there. The story was that he had somehow pissed off the sheriff who then laid in wait one night at the still and busted him. My nearest local resident was a kid then and remembered it and the locals were kind of pissed. Evidently Mr. Sam made some good shine. I can attest that one of his descendants made some good stuff too.
Was this just a Vacation home or did you grow up there? If so , did you know Liston Ramsey's Daughter, Martha? Neat lady I worked with in DHHS HR over the years
 
Was this just a Vacation home or did you grow up there? If so , did you know Liston Ramsey's Daughter, Martha? Neat lady I worked with in DHHS HR over the years
Raleigh boy. It was some land I was able to buy quite cheaply at a relatively young age. No electricity, spring fed water. Built an A-frame. Over the years I got to know some locals. Liston was quite the powerhouse but never knew them. Knew the Ponders slightly. Sold it 10 years ago. Wasn't going up much; a pain and costly to maintain. Them hills are hard on your body.
 
I first met EY when they were busting some Floridians growing pot on some land down the road from me. The road was blocked. Got out of car and EY asked who I was and upon telling him he knew who I was.

"You're the boy who bought that piece of land above Mr.F. He tells me you don't know much but a good learner and nice enough feller." It was true. Mr. F was a source of much knowledge of how to exist up there and was a doorway into the close knit society.

Back to EY. He then looks me in the eye and says he don't mind the locals growing a little pot as it's a hard life up here. But damn if he's going to let any outsiders do it. [Note: Never grew any on  my land]. Only saw him a few times; in town at the cafe or such. He always rembered me.

Went to a place way back in the hills with a local a few times. A Ponder appproved gamblin' and licker house...
 
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I had (RIP) a "cousin in law " ) who was the Volunteer Adult for a Teen Group at a superb Do-Gooder Episcopal Church in Greensboro Every summer they would go to Madison County for a retreat and build porches or whatever . One year they worked on a " house on the river " where 4 generations of women/girls lived . They put doors on the house so the fog would not roll into the house. There are some hard lives up there.........
 
This is the third time in a month that Percy Flowers has come up in conversation for me. Possibly the real estate development at Flowers Plantation has him on peoples' minds.
The guy who hosts my monthly poker game told the story of going to pick up his daughter for a first date, I'm guessing in the early 70's. He introduced himself to Flowers and Flowers just looked up and said "She's home at ten" End of conversation.
My sister-in-law asked about the development and I learned that she knew the daughter in HS and at Peace College. She and my brother had double dated with her and said they had to leave the movie early to get her home before curfew. She figured people thought they were leaving to "go parking"
 
OK, could someone explain what this thread is, exactly? I've lived in NC from time to time but I'm not a North Carolinian, and I certainly have no ties to the communities being mentioned in the OP. So maybe I'm just missing something obvious?

Is the OP fiction? Is it true stories from memory? Is it a passage copied from some other written work? Is Percy Flowers a person, or a fictional character?

Don Bosco, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought you were a historian of Latin America. So do you normally talk or write in folksy language like "I reckon"? I mean, it's possible. I don't want to say that you can't grow up in rural NC and then study Latin American history. That is not really my experience, though. Maybe you write in that language when trying to relate folksy stories (fictional or not), and then in a more formal diction when writing professionally. That's perfectly OK. I'm just wondering. I'm just not sure what's going on in this thread.
I'll let DB answer for himself as he has time, but I actually considered introducing the two of you as posters once he joined because I suspected that you and DB might have a lot of potentially interesting conversations but that you probably would need an introduction of sorts to get where he's coming from with his colloquial NC histories (for which he is well known among folks who've known him as a poster over the decades).
 
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