November 15, 2023 • 59 mins
On this week’s episode of Bear Grease, your host, Clay Newcomb, is bringing you the saga of the American Plott Hound - a story not without drama. Plotts are a breed of big game hound specializing in bear hunting. They were originally bred deep in the mountains of Southern Appalachia, specifically Haywood County, North Carolina. The breed, which carries the family name of Plott, was kept in isolation for nearly 150 years while being refined by the frontier mountaineers of Appalachia. The Plott Hound is anything but mainstream, but in his extensive travels to meet Plott Hound men and women, Clay has met some of the finest, salt-of-the-earth people in America. This is a fascinating story of true Americana and we really doubt you’re going to want to miss this one…
Connect with Clay and MeatEater
Clay on Instagram
MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube
Shop Bear Grease Merch
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Well, I used a good word their story. I call
it a saga, and I sure hope I don't disappoint you.
We can't prove this, We can't.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Some stories are so sacred, so old, you almost have
to earn the permission to tell them.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
This is one of those.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I don't think it could be told by an outsider
by like a visiting journalist. The only way to tell
the story is from the inside. The audacity of my
attempt comes after nearly a decade of curiosity, hunting with
and meeting some of America's top plot hound families and historians,
and maybe most critical, being a plot man myself. Well,
(00:49):
that is even if I qualify. But I feel like
I'm ready. We're talking about the saga of the American
plot hound, which is a breed of big game hounds
special lising and bear hunting, developed deep in the mountains
of southern Appalachia, specifically Haywood County, North Carolina.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Unique to the.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Breed is they carry the family name of plot They
were kept in isolation from the wider nation for nearly
one hundred and fifty years while being refined by the
frontier mountaineers of Appalachia. We've beaten around the bush of
the plot genesis story, but we've never told it in
its entirety, nor included the controversy of its authenticity. I'd
(01:32):
be remiss to say if I didn't say that plot
people are usually outsiders, a little bit quirky, often opinionated,
and perhaps unsatisfied with the mainstream trends of the hound world.
And I think they're quite content with this identity. The
plot hound is anything but mainstream. In my extensive travels
(01:53):
to meet plot hound men and women in this country
over the last decade, I've met some of the finest
salt of the Earth people in America. But this is
not a story without drama and debate. This is a
fascinating story of true Americana, and I really doubt that
you're gonna want to miss this one.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Not everyone's been born in North Carolina. Not everyone lives
in western North Carolina. Not everyone has been around a
plug dog. Unselfishly, I will tell you that it is
a pride that I have that not everyone has.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
My name is Clay Nukelem and this is the Bear
Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search
for insight and unlikely places and where we'll tell the
story of Americans who live their lives close to the land,
presented by FHF gear, American made, purpose built hunting and
(03:00):
fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the
place as we explore.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
There's where Plot Creek begins right up there.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
This see old log house.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Right there, that's the remnants of the Henry Plot cabin.
He's got to be back to about eighteen oh three.
And that house there was built in nineteen oh three
by Mantraville Plot and his son John Plott moved into
it nineteen twenty four after Mott died. And that's where
(03:44):
little George Plott lived as a boy.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I'm in western North Carolina. The mountains and places are
so steep and thick it's intimidating, or at least when
I think about traveling long distances of foot in them.
Right in a truck with a man whose last name
is Plot P L O T. T. You see, this
isn't just a story about dogs.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
It's a family story.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
This is my friend Bob Plot, a direct descendant of
the people who lived in that cabin and bred and
built what's known today as the American Plot Hound.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
This creek here you see, there had dogs all lined
up down they watered to dogs. They had dogs all
up that run, all in a run where they could.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I've seen that a lot over here in the Appalachians,
where these there's these little springs like a spring maybe
and they'll they'll state their dogs out.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
A passerby might.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Be in jeopardy of missing the beauty history the legacy
of such a scene. One of the most striking images
of Appalachia is a narrow hollow full of handsome, dark
brindle hounds tethered to wooden dog houses, with their lead
extending far enough for them to have free access to
fresh spring water. It's common to the uninformed it might
(05:06):
be unnotable or even an eye sore. Archaic may be
hillbilly and the derogatory sense of the word, but not
to meat or the people on the inside. A plot
hound is a muscular built dog, with males averaging sixty
to seventy pounds and females in the fifty pound range,
often with a saber tail, short to coarse hair, and
(05:29):
moderate length ears not reaching past their nose when outstretched.
Their classic color is brindle with a brown undercoat and
dark stripes, but some appear almost black at a distance.
There are two rare color variations of plots. Number one
the Maltese brindle or this kind of grayish black stripe
(05:50):
looking dog. But the most rare is the buckskin plot,
colored almost like a Golden Retriever or a yellow lab
intelligence trailer in ability, grittiness to stick with rough game.
I've actually heard plot men in East Tennessee. You refer
to them as nervy, and they're strong tree dogs. Plot
(06:10):
Hounds are traditionally used on raccoons, hogs, mountain lions, but
most importantly and core to their identity, bears. In many circles,
they're known as plot bear dogs. Imagine there being twenty
five plot hounds right through there. That was the beginning
(06:30):
of the plot breed.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
And there were I mean that right there is where
they were, and I mean, I've got pictures that big house,
the bigger house there. The white house was built in
nineteen oh three by Mott Plot and he didn't have
any running water in it till probably the forties, and
didn't have an indoor bathroom in it until the forties.
John Plott said he wasn't going to go to the
bathroom inside of house he lived in, but there was
(06:55):
a great picture of him and his wife standing right
there with two of the grediest plotthounds you've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
The story of the plot Hound goes way back to
before America was America. The reason this story is unique
is that most of the hound breeds came here from England,
in many.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Ways already developed.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
But the origin story of the plot is surrounded by mystery,
cloaked by faded time, geographic isolation, and scant documentation congruent
with the hill folks ways. But in the early nineteen hundreds,
this dog just emerged out of the hollows of the
Great Smoky Mountain region, fully developed, uniquely suited, and deeply
(07:39):
tied to the region's interior circle of bear hunters. These
dogs became the symbol of Southern Appalachian ingenuity, Taylor fit
for the rugged landscape, its people, and its beasts. The
most interesting thing to me about plots, though, is their
cult like following and this deep connection to place. No
(07:59):
other hound breed has this. It's a phenomena unlike anything
I've ever seen. And because of that, there is great
risk in telling this story. If I die a suspicious,
untimely death. It might be related to the version of
the story that I tell. This is serious business, and
what I've always loved about plot people is their passion.
(08:22):
I've always been attracted to passionate people who dedicate their
lives to narrow windows of expertise. One such man is
John Jackson of western North Carolina. He's an old style
Highland gentleman, a pastor, a schoolteacher, but most uniquely for
my interest, a plot historian.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
I haven't told you yet, but.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
The plot hound is the state dog of North Carolina.
There's a strong case that this was our first maid
in America hound. But kind of like building a Ford
truck in twenty twenty three, we had to bring in
some overseas materials. We're going to jump right into the
story with mister John. Where did these dogs come from? So,
(09:09):
mister John, there's such a rich history of plot hounds
in North Carolina, which is where they got started.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Tell me that story.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Well, I used a good word their story. I called
it a saga. In seventeen sixty, there were two brothers
who came from Germany, a Palatinate area of Germany. There
was a great mass migration of Germans from that area
to colonbial America, and the story. The saga goes that
(09:44):
they were the sons of a German gamekeeper. They brought
with them some what we would call plot dogs, the
ancestors of plots, one of which was yellow and the
rest were brown colored, which means they were brendled.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
This is the foundation piece of the plot hound story
known far and wide in plot circles.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
The two brothers from Germany.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Their father was a gamekeeper, a guy who took care
of the large property of some type of royalty, and
he sends his boys to the English colonies future America
with some of his prize hunting dogs, brindle and yellow
colored hunting dogs. If we were building a car, the
dogs would be the engine and the brothers would be
the power train. And please note how mister John referred
(10:32):
to these as plot dogs, as in dawgs. That's a
term of endearment. It means something. I now want to
go back to the man I just rode around with
with the interesting last name of plot. This is Bob
Plot and he's jumping in right where mister John left off.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
The story we always told him was told generation for
generation was my fourth great grandfather said, man, this just
there's no future here for my kids. I'm sending my
two boys and the only thing of real value I
have to America, and it's these five of these dogs.
And three of them are supposed to be brindle colored dogs.
Two of them are supposed to be light colored or
buckskin type dogs.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Did he just say my fourth great grandfather, Yes, he did.
Bob's fourth great grandfather would have been the father of
the German brothers that mister John was talking about. But
this is going to get dramatic real quick, so brace yourself.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
They his brother died because you know, the conditions on
the ships took two months to get to America. They
were terrible, bad food, bad water. Anyway, legend has it
that he died buried at sea. So here's this kid,
sixteen years old at most, and he's like, man, all along,
five dogs, gets to Philadelphia, He's got to go and
(11:57):
then does The version I always heard was that they
were coming to America to be contract hunters in Newburn,
North Carolina, which at that time was the largest German
settlement on the East Coast. But they didn't have you'd think, oh,
it's the frontier and it was. But they had blacksmiths
and wheelwrights and as they didn't have hunters. So so
(12:19):
that was a theory and what we're always told. But
now the other theory is they arrived in Philadelphia and
just went down the wagon road and went straight to
the Pied Mine in North Carolina, where we know they
did end up. But the story I was always told
was the real poignant story was his two brothers, my
third great grandfather, George, his brother, they're in route. They
got five dogs with them. They can't speak English, you know,
(12:42):
they're Germans. When George got here, they still referred to him.
Even his son Henry, who came to Haywood County later,
they referred to him as the Old German because they
still had these strong German accents, still spoke German.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
We've just covered a ton of ground really quickly. Enoch,
one of the brothers, has died. Johannes lives and brings
the five dogs from Germany with the intent of becoming
a professional hunter in the colonies. Even two generations later,
Bob said they called his great grandfather the Old German.
(13:15):
Bob actually wrote an incredible book about the history and
story of the plot Hound called Strike and Stay the
story of the plot Hound. In it, he details this
plot genesis story, which was handed down in his family.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
It's believed that the.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Modern plot hound was bred and evolved directly from these
five dogs that were on that ship. Some believe they
were never outcrossed from those original five dogs. However, I've
never personally met anyone who confessed to fully believing this.
It's kind of like believing the most extravagant version of
a fairy tale. It's just not really that functional. But
(13:54):
I have some interesting news for you, and of all people,
I hate to cast doubt on such a great story,
but I'd advise you to not get too attached to it.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Here's mister John.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Here's where we got to stop him in it, And
I surely hope I don't disappoint you. We can't prove this,
We can't. I have worked on it and worked on
it and thought I had found him, and it's not him.
There is, to my knowledge, there is no Johannes plot.
(14:30):
His name would have been George Plott, George Plutt senior.
There's a George Plutt junior. He came he and his
family together. They were well to do. They paid their
manumission fee and they came down the o' wagon road
to Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. That's where Charlotte is. He
(14:52):
would have settled in what is now Cabaris County, which
used to be part of Becklenburg.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Now, so you're saying the story of Johannes Plott and
his brothers, you're saying that's not necessarily true, right, And
you're saying this is true. Is that George Plot And
so George Plott isn't Johannes Plott.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
This is a semi wealthy guy.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Okay, he was not to So this is the traditional
The traditional story was Johannes Plott and this boy's his
dad send him with dogs.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
And you're saying that's not necessarily what he can prove.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
It's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
What he's saying is this, they've never found written record
of a lone teenager named Johannes Plott bringing dogs from
Germany to fully corroborate the traditional story. However, would lost
or inaccurate records from the mid seventeen hundreds be all
that surprising. Written records of that time would undoubtedly have
(15:48):
been a dim record of reality. There is, however, record
of a man named George Plott coming over with his family,
just no dogs. I want to see what Bob Plott
has this about this, and don't think for a minute
these are trivial matters in Appalachia. If I go mysteriously
missing after this series, I'd like to commission Brent Reeves
(16:10):
to come out of retirement and lead a reconnaissance team
into the Great Smoky Mountains, not to avenge my death,
but to do even more research so that we can
get to the bottom of this.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Here's Bob.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
Now. The other version is, and it may be true,
it may not be true, is that his parents took him,
that the family came together as the family unit. Again,
all I'd ever heard from time I was as tall
was the first story. It's been convoluted from the start,
you know. Nineteen fifty nine first year book came out
about plothounds. There were ten different stories in the first
(16:46):
Year Book, and all of them were different, Like how
can you put ten different stories in the same yearbook.
I mean, one of them's got to be true. And
so all I knew was was what they had told me.
My father told me this was a story Bonne and
told me, this was a story my grandfather's. You know,
all these my uncle, my grandfather, my grandfather died by them.
(17:06):
But my uncle's this is what my daddy told me.
This is what his daddy told him. And so and
I also had a kind of unique situation in that
I'm just a third great grandson to George Plot, who
founded the breed you know, who bottom over here from
Germany supposedly, and most people are five six seventh great grandson.
(17:28):
But see, my grandfather was born in the Civil War.
Really yeah, So he died in nineteen forty four. I
didn't know him, so, but my dad was at D
Day he died, you know, when I was just still
a kid too. So I was around all these old guys.
So you don't have to go back, you know, just
three generations and you're there.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
So they knew this stuff, you know, and it all
made sense, It all tracked when I started researching it.
So and I tried to document as much as I could.
And once the Plot family got to North Carolina, it
was very easy to document. Yea, they got there, it
was a little more difficult.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Bob believes that the name Johannes was anglicized to George,
and so we're talking about the same person. Bob's grandfather
was born during the Civil War, and Bob's father had
him later in life. Bob is a rare fellow. You
feel like you're touching history just by talking to him.
The Plot's story holds some water for me simply for
(18:27):
this reason, and he just clarified a distinct line in
the story of what we're sure of and what we're
not sure of. Once the Plots got to North America,
the history is much easier to track, and it's clear
that a man named George Plot arrived and quickly appeared
with the unique line of hunting dogs not found anywhere
else in the colonies, and these dogs that they had
(18:49):
were uniquely different than these English strains of hounds. So
let's clarify the controversy and look at the options. It's
possible that no dogs came from Germany at all, but
the Germans who came here acquired hunting dog stock that
was already present in the colonies when they arrived, and
from this emerged what would become the Plot hound. That's
(19:11):
option one. There were definitely hounds, curves and all varieties
of mongrel dogs as potential stock. Here or number two,
the story is true, and they brought in a unique
strain of German big game hounds that developed into a
new identity in the New world under the guiding hand
(19:33):
of this isolated family on the frontier. I'd like to
note how quickly they emerged with a unique looking dog,
which was brindle, while most of these English hounds were
not brindle at all. However, as my friend Alvin once
told me, the brindle color is a recessive gene and
almost all dogs. If you mix up a bunch of dogs,
(19:53):
it isn't long before you get that brindle coat.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Hmmm.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
So maybe this unique brindle's stuff isn't entirely relevant regardless, Bob,
mister John, and the whole lot of Plot connoisseurs agreed
the period between the seventeen fifties and eighteen oh three
is a mystery. But Henry Plot we just saw his
old cabin in North Carolina. By the time he showed up,
(20:18):
he had a line of dogs fully established in the
region as reputable brindle bear dogs. So if option two
is right and the family story is correct, and the
stock did come from Germany, what were they doing with
the dogs over there?
Speaker 4 (20:35):
Here's Bob, So I think these guys are like that works,
that works together. And I think over multiple generations, going
back probably five or six generations before my family came here,
this breed was evolving into that. So sometime around either
seventeen forty two seventeen fifty, depending on.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
The Germans were using these dogs for what over there.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Boar hunting mostly and anything. There were multipurpose dogs because
they used them for herding, they used them for hunting,
but they were already on big game. Whatever they needed
to do, that's what they used them for, you know.
But they had great value. So all these dogs were available,
you know. But the most thing it was really unique
was most it was the Germanic origins because most of
(21:19):
the American purebread dogs come from their British house, whereas
its plihound came from Germany. But they're all applied.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
And what's interesting at that time is he would have
been sending his sons to a new world that was
known for hunting in wilderness, So it would have made
sense that he would have given he would have sent
his kids.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
With tools that they would have needed to survive. And
thrive in this place.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
I really want to believe this version of the story,
and many do, but some don't. But nobody complains about
it not being.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
A good story.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
But as we've seen in many of our other deep
dives into American history, myths can become told so many
times they become infallible truth. What's your gut telling you
right now with just this little bit of information you have.
You don't have all the info yet, but you're probably
leaning the direction. I really appreciate Bob's perspective, and of
(22:17):
all people, he's got the right to have one. This
is his family's story that he heard while sitting on
the knee of his family in a rocking chair in
North Carolina. He's kind of become the caretaker of this story,
which I'd say is very noble. But he's the first
to acknowledge that it's hard to know exactly how it
went down. However, once the calendar rolled into the eighteen hundreds,
(22:42):
the evidence is clear and undeniable. The more I understand
about history, especially that far back in American history there
just wasn't a lot of documentation was so, I mean,
these stories have like oral tradition does hold a lot
of relevance to these kind of stories, and obviously there's
(23:02):
documentation of land records and all this stuff, like these
people did actually exist. But so, you know, I want
to say that because it wasn't like it is now,
where every single thing we do is documented. I mean,
like if I go down here and buy a coffee,
somebody two hundred years from now will know it. Yes,
they'll say, Clay Nukam was in North Carolina with Bob
(23:23):
Plott on the morning of July seventh.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Man. Back in those days, that wasn't the case.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
No, And that's a great point because up until eighteen hundred,
passenger ships didn't have a cargo manifest supposedly, or some
of them did, but a lot of them didn't, so
sometimes you didn't know who was on there who wasn't.
But John Plot he had supposedly. I never saw it,
but I know people, reputable people who did, who said
there was a manifest, a cargo manifest that listed the
(23:51):
five dogs now and that they were listed as three
brenda or tiger stripe dogs and two solid colored buckskin dogs. Now.
Again I never saw that. I don't know, but again
that was oral tradition. But I know four people who
have never lied to me before, who swear to God
that they saw it.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Greater mysteries have been solved, but at this point it's
unlikely this ever will be. Paper products from the seventeen
fifties usually don't accidentally get preserved, and I want you
to hear these stories so you can make a decision
for yourself what you believe. But truthfully, what you or
I believe about the origins of these dogs really isn't
that relevant, because today what's not disputed is that plot
(24:34):
hounds are widely distributed across America and even much of
the world, and are a top notch big game hound.
So let's just take a time out for a minute
and clarify exactly what we do know. George or Johannes Plot,
without dispute, did come from Germany on September twelfth, seventeen
fifty on a ship called the Priscilla. There is documentation
(24:56):
of a signature G Plot on that car manifest.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Just no dogs.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
And to give a big time fast forward, high level view,
this George Plot would die in Lincoln County, North Carolina
in eighteen ten at the age of seventy six, So
all that adds up, and it's well documented that he
had a pack of hunting dogs, which he turned over
to his son, Henry, who would then move to the
Great Smoky Mountains. Bob and I were just at Henry's
(25:23):
home place. The mystery is simply, where did these dogs
come from. Here's Bob with a summary of the deep
Plot family history describing their movement through North Carolina.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
We know for a fact. Now up to that point,
we can speculate. You can have this camp over here
saying yeah, they went to New Bernard, the camp over
here saying no, they went from Philadelphia to the area
around Salisbury. Either one could be true, but we know
for sure that by seventeen sixties they were there. There's
lane grants, there's marriage certificates, theres death certificates, theres the
(26:00):
court records signifying yes, George Plot was here, George Platt
got married here, George Platt started having a family here.
And there's records of other people talking about these dogs.
Sometimes they just called them Brendle bear dogs. Sometimes they
talked about dogs on the frontier, literally defending households now
because this was Cherokee country and Kataba Country at that time.
(26:22):
I mean, this was where they were living on the
east side of the Kataba River was frontier. You know,
this was before the French and Indian or right bout
the time of the French and Indian War. So my
third great grandfather's there. He starts having, like everybody did
back then, a bunch of kids, and most all of
them are born there in what's now Caberts County around Concord. Well.
(26:43):
Again like this great manifest destiny of American history, it's like,
we got to find something better. So they go a
little bit further. They go into Idol County and they
go in across the Kataba River and become the first
white settlers across the Kataba River. And that's where George
settled there, and that's where his boys started really hunting
hard and doing a lot of different stuff. But Henry,
(27:05):
who was my great great uncle, he and his brother
in law, Jonathan Osborne, who was another German immigrant, they
came up here sometime around eighteen oh three with the
mind to settle and supposedly they took the dogs with me.
And here is Heywood County. Yes, so there's an area
there called Pleasant Garden, beautiful beautiful area along the Pigeon River,
(27:27):
and he thought, man, this would be a great place
to set up homestead, plant a proper corn and that's
what in his brother in law did, had the dogs
with him. Well, the corn crop failed, they could get
their first taste of a mountain winter, and they're like, man,
Jonathan's like, I'm getting the heck out of here, you know,
I'm going back down where it's a little bit warmer. Henry,
(27:47):
being stubborn, Plot goes, Nah, I'm staying, man, I'm keeping
my dogs with me. And so he later credits the
dogs of keeping him alive during that first winter, you know,
keep me helping him put food on the fire. Well,
then again, following that ruther of or Trace, he goes
up over Pigeon Gap, comes down into what's now Waynesville,
down into what's now Hazelwood, and then goes follows the
(28:09):
creek up this beautiful valley to the confluence of Richland
Dix Creek and says, now we'll build a house right there,
and builds a cabin there.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Where Henry lives became known as Plot Valley. It's pretty
cool how many locations in the region are named after
the Plots. There's even a range of mountains called the
Plot Balsam Range, which is on the Blue Ridge Parkway
in North Carolina. There's a historical marker there that you
can go and see. Here's mister John with another unique location.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Name Famous Plot was the brother to John Plot. Henry
Plutt would have been his father. He had a line
of Plot dogs that were just superb. One was called
Porter Porter lost his life in Porter Dye Gap.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
He's dog and a bear Porter dyed. On the map
you could find Porter Dye Gap.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Can't now, that's water Rock Knob. Okay, get on the parkway,
go water Rock Knob. Porter Dyke Gap is there. Well.
I had to go to Porter Dyke Gap because I
want to feel the history. Didn't want to read it,
won't feel it. And you know, you visit these places
and it's Hallod Ground. It's Hallock ground. To a person
(29:24):
who likes to bear hunt, run a cone, tre apostle
or something like that, you know it's it's Hallod ground.
It is. That's that's the thing that endears me to
the pluck Hog. It's a just tremendous, overwhelming pride and
what we have been bequeathed.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I hope you're beginning to pick up from these men
just a fraction of what these bear dogs mean to
these people. When's the last time you heard someone speak
of being bequeathed the royal heritage of a mountain strain
of American bear dog. You haven't, my brethren, We've found
ourselves in the midst of something unique, unknown to the mainstream,
(30:08):
and deeply American. Here's Bob with more on Henry plot
down in Plot Valley.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
Well, by the eighteen ten or so, he'd honed pretty
much the whole valley. The dogs were becoming famous. That
they were. You know, people made Brandy to make a
living too, They did that. He had a steal steals
in his will. He's ignifized out. Yeah, and he too
had a prolific family, I mean multiple sons.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
And when you say the dogs became famous, let's describe
what that would mean to someone who wouldn't even understand
hunting culture. Maybe yeah, regionally, especially if these dogs are
helping this guy acchoire game for food on his table.
I mean that kind of stuff quickly gets out. Oh yeah, so,
(30:58):
I mean someone with a past of hounds. And the
other thing is that this is not recreational hunting, and
during that time as well hunters and the idea of
being a hunter. I mean this is right in the
time of Daniel Boone when Daniel Boone's.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
Daniel Boone lid right up the river from the Plot
family and yachtkin read out valley.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah, And so I mean, to be a hunter was
a widespread cultural very much a compliment like these guys
are good hunters. I mean that was essentially like saying,
this is a good family that is well off.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
And not only that, but the good hunters usually had
the good dogs, and so those dogs had value. I mean,
we've got in our Plot family, we've got a bean
rifle which today would sell for probably hundreds one thousand
dollars that was sold that was traded for a dog,
you know, in the early eighteen hundreds, and the flint
lock rifle. And there was Stanley Hicks, oh deer friend
(31:54):
of mine has passed away now his third great grandfather
sold an entire valley for a rifle, keepskin, and a dog.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
So I mean probably felt like you got the better
end of the.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
Absolutely bragged about it, you know. So you start hearing
this reputation. People started talking about these these some of
them just called them Rendel bear dogs. Some of them
start calling them Plot dogs because the Plot family had them,
you know. And what was really interesting about this area
at that time was between eighteen hundred and really about
(32:24):
really about World War two. Trains didn't come into Ashville
in eighteen eighty something was twelve hundred people living there.
By nineteen hundred, when the train was there, it was
the third largest city in North Carolina. But between that time,
between the time Henry Plot first got here in the
early eighteen hundreds and that time, it was kind of
(32:46):
a time capsule. You know, people here there was no
really connection to the outside world because trains didn't get
to Waynesville until eighteen eighties, didn't get the Murphy until
eighteen nineties. You couldn't get in here or out of
here except by a wagon or horse. Yeah, and the
roads were terrible. If it was raining and you could
forget it. Snowing could definitely forget it. Yeah, game was abundant.
(33:07):
There weren't many white people even living here then, and
the few that were were farmers, subsistence farmers, hunters, and
like you said, that was a big deal. Man. You
had to hunt It wasn't a matter of like, oh,
I just enjoy hunting, to go get me a trophy.
This was about I got to put food on the table.
We got to smoke some meat for the winter.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
These dogs had some real legitimate value.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
Most definitely, And people forget they were looking for multi
purpose dogs. Yeah, they were looking for dogs to defend
their homesteads from a time of the Indian Wars all
the way up to the Civil War when deserters were
coming back and you know, trying to attack homesteads and
that sort of thing. And then you have the fact
that you know, people think about fences. Back then, fences
(33:51):
were you used to keep livestock out. Yeah, In other words,
you build a fence around your garden to keep livestock out.
You let your pigs and your cows. You notched their
ears or gave them a mark, and they wentere range
and you kind of knew where they were, and you'd
go check on them two or three times a year.
But in the fall you'd go get the dogs, and
(34:11):
the dogs we hurt them back.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
So what I'm hearing you say is that these dogs
were guard dogs absolutely, so herding dogs, yes, and then
they would have been what we'll define later, but as
tree dogs, dogs that run game that can climb up trees.
This gets as caught up on the plot family history,
their frontier life, and how they were using these dogs.
(34:35):
And the term tree dog is an important distinction amongst hounds.
This means that the dog will stay and bark at
the base of the tree that the game they're pursuing
has climbed, or as Henry Plot probably would have said,
had clumb not all will do this. And it's a
badge of functional honor to be called a tree dog.
(34:57):
And as a quick lineage summary, I think we've got
to go through this plot history just real quick so
you can stay on track. George or Johannes Plott was
born in seventeen thirty four and immigrated from Germany. Interestingly,
Daniel Boone was born in seventeen thirty four too, so
George Plott had a bunch of kids. But one of
them was Henry Plott, who was born in seventeen seventy.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
We've been to his home place.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
He was a hunter and as the story goes, he
was handed down his father's dogs. Henry had eleven children,
one of which was John Plott. Who was born in
eighteen thirteen and was a big time hunter. He had
a son named Montroval Plot, who was probably the first
to be recognized as having plot dogs. Montraval had a
bunch of kids, but the most famous of his kids,
(35:42):
and maybe the most famous plot hunter of all, was
von Plott, who lived into the nineteen sixties in Heywood County,
North Carolina. Bob Plott, the guy I'm talking to right now,
knew Vaughn personally when he was a kid.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
It was one of his uncles.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
However, to be fair and to throw a wrench in
our story, it's not entirely known how these dogs arose
into modern history.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
With the plot name attached to them.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
It seems evident the trail is clear that this family
had a unique fingerprint on these.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Dogs, like no doubt.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
But could they have just been the most prominent folks
using these brindle bear dogs that were developed by a
wider community. Here's mister John and he's going to give
his opinion on the development of the plot hound in Appalachia.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
I asked him where he thought they came from.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Now, to your question, not every plot dog came from
the Plot family. Taylor Crockett has told me that they
were a type of dog rather than a breed at
one time, and they were numerous breeders, numerous hunters. You
couldn't have very many dogs because they weren't some dog food.
(36:57):
Back thee it fed them scraps. We watch you feed
them normally dog corn bread. There are three types of
people that settled western North Carolina. One where to be
the townsfolk settled in towns. The other would be farmers
who owned the best low lying bottom land farming land.
(37:21):
And then there were folks. There were three types. There
were folks, and I smile when I say this. They
were folks I call the Branchwater Mountaineers. They lived up
the hallows at the head of the branch. To get
to their cabin you had to take a slid rode in.
There was a log cabin there with the dog, truck, kitchen.
(37:42):
Dog slept under the house. Everywhere that man went, his
dog went with him. He took his rifle if he
was working. If he heard the dog, tree picked up
the rifle, left to work and went to the dog.
That was the supper for that night. But the Branchwater Mountaineers,
those old families I think a lot in a large
(38:04):
part responsible for what eventually became the Plot dog.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Mister John appreciates the story of the German origins of
the Plot hound stock, but doesn't fully buy it.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
He believes the dogs.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Were likely developed from stock that was here, and that
this breed of brindle bear dogs weren't the sole doing
of the Plot family. And just to clarify, it wasn't
necessarily the Plots who claimed one hundred percent ownership of
this brendle bear dog. It just kind of happened, and
people often believe what seems to be an easy narrative.
(38:37):
There's an argument to be made that the Plot simply
became the dominant spokesman for this type of dog. As
John's mentor Taylor Crockett told him, it's important to remember
that there was no United Kennel Club, and these people
weren't trying to start a breed.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
These hill folk families simply.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Needed dogs that could get the job done on bears, hogs,
and coon and these brindle dogs were doing it.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
It was only.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Later that we got interested in where they came from.
I've now got a question for Bob, so tell me
about from eighteen hundred to nineteen hundred, what happened with
the plot hound breed, because at this time it's not
even called no, no, it's not a plot hound breed.
It's just this kind of regional phenomenon. This family talk
(39:22):
to me about how they like the dogs became distributed
and how that happened.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Two things happened there that I really think played a
huge role in making the plot hownd what it is today.
I think because we were in that time capsule, so
to speak, it allowed the dogs to get skipped better
and better and better, you know. And von Platt talked
about his father, Montreville Plot was born in eighteen fifty.
He talked about what he called the Toasac network. I
(39:47):
think I actually named that. But settlers from upstate South Carolina,
North Georgia, East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia would come riding in
on horses and mules with toasacks and get puppies. And
the understanding was that, you know, we get you a puppyre,
we sell you a puppy, or we trade puppies. Is
that we work together. You know, you got to keep
(40:08):
this bloodline as close as we can. We're gonna there's
gonna be stuff introduced into it at times, but the
most part, we're will try to do a lot of
line breed and we're gonna try to do some things
to keep this what's working. Yeah, And so they really had.
And then of course then you had other families who
took that and said, well, I want to go this
direction with it, and they did and they did well.
But you had this network of people that were doing
(40:31):
this that were not named. Some of them were related,
some of our cousins and whatnot. But that time between there,
between eighteen hundred and nineteen hundred, the breed was continuing
to evolve. But even then it was still more kind
of I think what I have been a regional phenomenon,
except for around nineteen hundred, people started coming in here.
Once a train was in here, the train was train
(40:51):
changed everything. You can take a train end all the
way to Murphy. You could get off in Proctor, you
go up on Hazel Creek and hunt and all these
communities had hunting camps. All these some of them were
affluent people, some of them were just common people. So
branch Ricky, who was arguably the most famous or one
of the top probably three or four famous athletes, in
(41:12):
the world at that time. You came here and hunted,
you know. He was credited with later signing Jackie robertson
the professional Baseball contract Integrating Professional Baseball in nineteen forty seven.
But he came here in thirty five and was working
for the Saint Louis Cardinals then. And I've got a
letter on Saint Louis Cardinal letterhead of Ricky writing back
(41:33):
to Vonplat saying, man, you guys got the professional stamding
of professional athletes, you know, running these dogs, and I
want to buy these dogs. I want to get these dogs.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
And so basically, when this area opened up, these hunters
started getting some national attention because of their their prowess
as hunters. People started coming in here. There started to
be writers, big name people coming in and talking about
and they were like, hey, there's these hunters down in
(42:03):
North Carolina and they've got these dogs. And again, up
until this point, this isn't a recognized This is still
just kind of this regional phenomenon, these guys with dogs.
And obviously by the nineteen hundreds it would have spread
beyond the Plot family most definitely.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
It would have. It would have been dogs all over
the country.
Speaker 4 (42:23):
Yeah, I've got shipping receipts from early nineteen hundreds of
plot hounds being shipped Arizona. You know, plot howns being
shipped different parts of the country. By the nineteen thirties,
those dogs were going for one hundred and twenty five
dollars each, which was a lot of money at that time. Yeah,
but backing up a little bit to your point. By
nineteen hundred, early nineteen hundreds, when these train was here,
(42:44):
people could get here a little bit better. Writers were
coming here. You know. Raymond camports writers, sports writers. Raymond
Camp was a writer for the New York Times. So
imagine this New York Times. You don't think about New
York Times that way. New York Times had a full
time out door commns named Raymond Camp who wrote three
articles a week.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
So by the nineteen hundreds, the dogs are getting national
attention and they're being called plot hounds. But where are
the first written accounts of them being called plots Because
to my knowledge, there is no record of the early
plot family in the seventeen hundreds and into the middle
eighteen hundreds calling them plot hounds. They might have simply
(43:26):
been referred to as the plots hounds, as in the
Plot family has some hounds, not as in a proper
noun plot hounds. But at some point there was a
big shift in ownership. Here's mister John.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
I have found as early as the nineteen hundreds of
New York Times articles about plot dogs, yeah, and hunting
plot dogs and hunting paar in western North Carolina. So
believe it or not. As early as that was this
national publicity about the Plot family and their plot dogs.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
So by the early nineteen hundreds they're referring to them
as proper noun plot hounds, which is pretty compelling evidence
that they'd probably been calling them that for a long time.
The first known photograph of a plot was taken in
nineteen oh six. A handsome, dark hound looking dog with
a frosty muzzle sits happily.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
In an old school family portrait. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
You can see that photo along with countless other incredible
images in Bob's book Striking Stay. You really should order it.
Every one of you should have a copy of Striking Stay.
But the dog in that first plot photo came from
the stock of Montraval Plot, who would have been the
great grandson of the original immigrant Johannas or George Plot
(44:47):
and Montreval would have been Bob's great uncle.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
And not to throw a possum and the egg house
of our beautiful story. But it's just too relevant to ignore.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Montrovale Plot, who's known as one of the modern patriarchs
of the Plot story. He's the first one we really
know a whole lot about, primarily because of his son Vaughn.
But old man Montraval was adamant that his dogs weren't
hounds at all, but rather plot curs. He corrected anyone
(45:17):
that called them hounds. Bob told me that kerr is
the transliteration of the Welsh word key, which is a
purebred and highly coveted hunting dog. So Mantraval, only two
generations removed from Europe, had some allegiance to the idea of.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
A cur dog.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Today, however, the modern usage of the word cur is
multi layered.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
Some might use that like a curse.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Word for a dog that's nothing but an old cur or,
you know, like a mixed breed mutt. But there are
also some legitimate breeds like black mouth, stephens, curd and
tree and curve. It's complicated, but this is bear grease.
Did you expect the day off from complicated drama?
Speaker 3 (46:00):
I hope not.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
I want to get back to mister John and ask
him a pointed question about why the dogs carry the
name Plot. Remember, what we're in search of is the
authenticity of the general arc of this story as it
relates to the Plot family, because it's wildly interesting and
just to be frank, mister John is skeptical of the
origin story of the Plot hound and these boys bringing
(46:24):
over five dogs from Germany. So my question to him is,
why is this breed named after the Plots if they
weren't the sole creators of them?
Speaker 3 (46:35):
Man, I hope I don't get in trouble for this.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
What you're telling me doesn't surprise me. Like the traditional
story I've known and I mean just kind of believe
was probably for the most part true. But one thing
I know that humans do very well is streamline stories
to kind of make it fit an easy narrative. Would
you say that that's happened place?
Speaker 1 (46:58):
And also, the Plot family were the most identifiable, the
better known of the hunters and we're written about, and
at that time the family members were getting out in around,
serving in the military, serving in World War One, for example,
they just were better known and could communicate better. I know,
(47:24):
I tried to explain to some folks. I said, I
know it may be disappointing to you, but there's an
other side to this too that's just as fascinating, if
not more intriguing than that. I've just I used the
term here first on this couch pure Americana. It's just
(47:45):
a very intriguing account and story about Plot dogs.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
Pure Americana. That's a good phrase.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
What I'm hearing mister John say is that the Plot
family might have just risen as the most prominent family
hunting these Appalachian brindled bear dogs, and thus the dogs
were named after them, and that in and of itself
would be completely fair and reasonable. They deserve to have
this dog named after him. That's not what we're trying
(48:17):
to get at. But what I'm also hearing him say
is that it really doesn't matter. And that's really what
I'm hearing Bob say too. He's just interested in preserving
the traditional family story, which he's done an incredible job at,
and the story absolutely deserves.
Speaker 3 (48:35):
To be saved.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
We just don't know how it all happened, but we
still have this hound or this cur as old Montrable said,
that was developed here in an incredible fashion. Regardless of
intent or who did what. Bob and mister John are
on the same team. They're actually friends. Bob quotes mister
John in his books Striking Stay. These men both have
(49:00):
dedicated their lives to plot hounds and their history. And
to go back to this idea about the plot family
being dominant, this kind of stuff happens all the time
in life. Some activity is happening and gaining popularity. In
this case, it was hunting these brindled dogs, and then
a prominent person arises and the activity becomes deeply associated
(49:21):
with them. For example, think about bow hunting legend Fred Bhaer.
He didn't invent bowhunting. He was just a guy that
came around at the right time, was incredibly good, was
a good businessman, a good marketer, and genuinely ushered us
into the modern era of bowhunting. But he didn't create
bow hunting. It's possible the plot family was this for
these dogs. Now, I still think it's kind of risky
(49:44):
to fully buy into what mister John is saying. I mean,
the data points are extremely compelling and It's undisputed that
this family had a unique line of dogs that stretch
back to their patriarch, George Plot. It all goes back
to the question, did George or Johannas have the these
five dogs on that ship or did careless record keeping
delete that from history? Or is it a fabricated myth?
(50:07):
And if it's a myth, who and why did they
make it up? And man, it is a good story
if they made it up. I love this kind of stuff.
It's really in the realm with the Black Panther Bigfoot.
Are you a believer or not? I have a feeling
Gary believer. Nukem will believe those dogs were on that ship.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
And if Brent Reeves would have been around, he'd have
been an undercover warden.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
On that ship, dressed like a pilgrim trying to catch
some outlaws. Maybe by the end of this you'll have
a sense of what you think actually happened.
Speaker 3 (50:41):
But what's not disputed is that the.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
Plot family were the most prominent, well known plot dog
hunters in Appalachia when the calendar rolled into the nineteen hundreds.
Here's Bob bringing us into the finish line of the
official formation of the Plot hound breed.
Speaker 3 (50:59):
This this is big.
Speaker 4 (51:01):
So that's all of a sudden, be like, man, I
want to hear more about this. I want to see
more about this, you know, And so they come here.
So by thirty five, the Ricky thing kind of exploded.
By then you got guys in the Midwest who are
coming here after, Like a senator from Wisconsin came here
and he went back and started telling people about it. Well,
all of a sudden, guys from Michigan and Illinois and
(51:23):
all over the place are saying, man, I want some
of those dogs. And like you said, and you're so correct.
Without all that it would have, you know, as much
as I love my family, as much as I love
the history of the breed, it would have been really
nothing more than a regional phenomenon without that sort of recognition.
But when it did, man, it took off. And then
(51:43):
all of a sudden there became a crime of crusade
for to get the dog registered as an official breed.
And so that happened in nineteen forty six when the
UKC finally sanctioned that and approved that. And if you
look at the first I think there's about one hundred
dogs registered at that time eighty seven of them roughly
(52:03):
were all either owned by Vane Plot, John Plott, Taylor, Crockett, Gola, Fergus.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
All those guys would have been from right here, yeah,
right here, yeah, North Carolina.
Speaker 4 (52:13):
Taylor was living in Macon County at that time. Vaughn
John were living right here in Haywood. Gola was living
right over in Jackson.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
So nineteen forty six, yeah, the plot Hound became a
United Kennel Club UKC official breed.
Speaker 3 (52:29):
And these guys right here.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
In western North Carolina were the ones who defined what
the breed was. They presumably presented a case to the
UKC said we've got two hundred years history, We've got
two hundred years of breeding.
Speaker 3 (52:45):
They had to prove that, I.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
Mean some of the stuff that you have today, like
these old records of what these old men said and
what their dogs look like, and old pictures and like,
they basically built a case for this breed, its own
specific breed.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
And that was a big, big moment for huge for
the plot Hound.
Speaker 4 (53:06):
Huge, huge. You can't you can't put that in really
any perspective, how big it was. I mean it was
because here you got the guys, the original family members
I say original dating backed. I mean, Henry Plott would
have been Von's great great grandpa. Henry Plott was my
great great uncle. So you had that direct connection. You
had these multiple generations, and like I say, of the
(53:28):
first one hundred dogs, a eighty seven of them came
from those guys. And guess what, the rest of them
were all bought from them by people in the Midwest.
So it all came from the same thing. Now, give
the Midwestern guys credit. Once they got them, boy, they
marketed them. Man, all of a sudden, it became like,
let's start advertising, let's start doing this. I started doing it.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
And so when in the late forties when this happened,
this is like such a powerful time too in American
hot Yeah, world War two.
Speaker 3 (53:55):
Yeah, world War two is ended.
Speaker 2 (53:57):
All these guys come back with these young guys come
back from war, and there's there's money here, there's time
that they've never had. America's kind of popped.
Speaker 4 (54:07):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
There became a big demand for the plot Hound, huge
all across the country.
Speaker 4 (54:13):
And but yeah, that's the thing. I mean, you come
back to this, just this greatest generation the guys are
coming back from the war. Economies booming. People have a
little bit of disposable income. You've got a railroad system.
Now the roads are actually getting in here where you
can drive a car in pretty much anywhere. And so
that network across the country which is boom, you know. Yeah,
(54:33):
And those Midwestern guys give them credit. They were like, man,
we want to promote this. You know, magazines start coming out,
you know, yeah, the full Hunter's Horn, Yes, yes, yes,
and so people start subscribing to them, and then it
just became this big push for we got to find
a way to support this even more. And so by
(54:55):
I think it was late fifties, the National plotoun Association
was formed to kind of promote the breed. You know.
Speaker 2 (55:03):
In nineteen forty six, the UKC recognized the plot hound
as an official breed. In eighty seven, of the first
one hundred dogs registered were from a very tight circle
in western North Carolina, and a bunch of them had
the last named plot. By the late nineteen fifties, the
fame of the plot hound as a bear hog and
coon dog was soaring across the country. You've got to
(55:25):
wonder if those old Branchwater mountaineers carrying away brendle puppies,
and toasacs had any sense they were building something that
would become a mainstream breed of American hound, I think
we can undoubtedly say they didn't. As we closed down
on this first episode of this series, I want to
(55:45):
ask mister John a question, a personal one. I think,
to me the most the most special thing about plot
dogs and being here in North Carolina, regardless of the history,
which really will never know all the details because it
was during a time when records just weren't being taken
(56:07):
very well, and.
Speaker 1 (56:08):
Fact it becomes legend, legend becomes fantasy.
Speaker 2 (56:11):
But the thing that is special that can't be taken away.
And I want to ask you, what does a plot
dog mean to you? Being here in the mountains of
North Carolina, being a bear hunter, knowing some of these
old old guys that dedicate their lives to the plot
breed like you have.
Speaker 3 (56:28):
Now, what does it mean to you?
Speaker 1 (56:29):
Well, to the person who never hunts, never has hunted,
it wouldn't mean anything. But in my view, it is
a tremendous pride. Unselfishly, I will tell you that it
is a pride that I have that not everyone has,
because not everyone's been born in North Carolina. Not everyone
lives in western North Carolina. Not everyone has been around
(56:53):
a plot dog. Not everyone has had an interest in
the history of this fabulary, breed of dog. And so
it's a tremendous overwhelming pride. It's a state dog in
North Carolina.
Speaker 3 (57:10):
Do you know what a plot dog is?
Speaker 1 (57:11):
No, don't believe I do. I said, well, I'm gonna
teach you. It's a state dog in North Carolina.
Speaker 3 (57:17):
A lot of kids, you know, Uh, it's.
Speaker 1 (57:19):
Usually grocery store cashiers. I get you. But it's a
tremendous overwhelming pride. And I can go places where these
events took place, and Clay, this is just funny feeling
comes over you. That's a funny feeling like you're right
(57:39):
back in time.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
The most compelling thing about plot Hounds for me, from
the very first time I heard this story was the
deep history tied with these dogs. Their story is kind
of a hound version of America. On the next episode,
(58:10):
we'll hear more of the modern story of the plot
hound and hear from some of the people who've dedicated
their lives to them. I can't thank you enough for
listening to Bear Grease. Please tell a friend about our
endeavors here and leave us a review on iTunes, and
be sure to order Bob Plott's book Strike and Stay.
You can find it all over the internet. Bob's actually
(58:33):
a prolific and very good writer and has written all
kinds of history books about Southern Appalachian.
Speaker 3 (58:39):
Be sure to check out the meat Eater.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
Dot com for just about all of your outdoor gear needs,
ranging from optics to rifles, to coolers, boots, backpacks, tents, knives,
and outdoor cooking supplies.
Speaker 3 (58:53):
We've got it all.
Speaker 2 (58:55):
I can't wait to talk to all those hillbillies on
the render next week.
Speaker 3 (59:00):
We'll see that
Well, I used a good word their story. I call
it a saga, and I sure hope I don't disappoint you.
We can't prove this, We can't.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Some stories are so sacred, so old, you almost have
to earn the permission to tell them.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
This is one of those.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
I don't think it could be told by an outsider
by like a visiting journalist. The only way to tell
the story is from the inside. The audacity of my
attempt comes after nearly a decade of curiosity, hunting with
and meeting some of America's top plot hound families and historians,
and maybe most critical, being a plot man myself. Well,
(00:49):
that is even if I qualify. But I feel like
I'm ready. We're talking about the saga of the American
plot hound, which is a breed of big game hounds
special lising and bear hunting, developed deep in the mountains
of southern Appalachia, specifically Haywood County, North Carolina.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Unique to the.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Breed is they carry the family name of plot They
were kept in isolation from the wider nation for nearly
one hundred and fifty years while being refined by the
frontier mountaineers of Appalachia. We've beaten around the bush of
the plot genesis story, but we've never told it in
its entirety, nor included the controversy of its authenticity. I'd
(01:32):
be remiss to say if I didn't say that plot
people are usually outsiders, a little bit quirky, often opinionated,
and perhaps unsatisfied with the mainstream trends of the hound world.
And I think they're quite content with this identity. The
plot hound is anything but mainstream. In my extensive travels
(01:53):
to meet plot hound men and women in this country
over the last decade, I've met some of the finest
salt of the Earth people in America. But this is
not a story without drama and debate. This is a
fascinating story of true Americana, and I really doubt that
you're gonna want to miss this one.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Not everyone's been born in North Carolina. Not everyone lives
in western North Carolina. Not everyone has been around a
plug dog. Unselfishly, I will tell you that it is
a pride that I have that not everyone has.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
My name is Clay Nukelem and this is the Bear
Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search
for insight and unlikely places and where we'll tell the
story of Americans who live their lives close to the land,
presented by FHF gear, American made, purpose built hunting and
(03:00):
fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the
place as we explore.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
There's where Plot Creek begins right up there.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
This see old log house.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Right there, that's the remnants of the Henry Plot cabin.
He's got to be back to about eighteen oh three.
And that house there was built in nineteen oh three
by Mantraville Plot and his son John Plott moved into
it nineteen twenty four after Mott died. And that's where
(03:44):
little George Plott lived as a boy.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I'm in western North Carolina. The mountains and places are
so steep and thick it's intimidating, or at least when
I think about traveling long distances of foot in them.
Right in a truck with a man whose last name
is Plot P L O T. T. You see, this
isn't just a story about dogs.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
It's a family story.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
This is my friend Bob Plot, a direct descendant of
the people who lived in that cabin and bred and
built what's known today as the American Plot Hound.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
This creek here you see, there had dogs all lined
up down they watered to dogs. They had dogs all
up that run, all in a run where they could.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I've seen that a lot over here in the Appalachians,
where these there's these little springs like a spring maybe
and they'll they'll state their dogs out.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
A passerby might.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Be in jeopardy of missing the beauty history the legacy
of such a scene. One of the most striking images
of Appalachia is a narrow hollow full of handsome, dark
brindle hounds tethered to wooden dog houses, with their lead
extending far enough for them to have free access to
fresh spring water. It's common to the uninformed it might
(05:06):
be unnotable or even an eye sore. Archaic may be
hillbilly and the derogatory sense of the word, but not
to meat or the people on the inside. A plot
hound is a muscular built dog, with males averaging sixty
to seventy pounds and females in the fifty pound range,
often with a saber tail, short to coarse hair, and
(05:29):
moderate length ears not reaching past their nose when outstretched.
Their classic color is brindle with a brown undercoat and
dark stripes, but some appear almost black at a distance.
There are two rare color variations of plots. Number one
the Maltese brindle or this kind of grayish black stripe
(05:50):
looking dog. But the most rare is the buckskin plot,
colored almost like a Golden Retriever or a yellow lab
intelligence trailer in ability, grittiness to stick with rough game.
I've actually heard plot men in East Tennessee. You refer
to them as nervy, and they're strong tree dogs. Plot
(06:10):
Hounds are traditionally used on raccoons, hogs, mountain lions, but
most importantly and core to their identity, bears. In many circles,
they're known as plot bear dogs. Imagine there being twenty
five plot hounds right through there. That was the beginning
(06:30):
of the plot breed.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
And there were I mean that right there is where
they were, and I mean, I've got pictures that big house,
the bigger house there. The white house was built in
nineteen oh three by Mott Plot and he didn't have
any running water in it till probably the forties, and
didn't have an indoor bathroom in it until the forties.
John Plott said he wasn't going to go to the
bathroom inside of house he lived in, but there was
(06:55):
a great picture of him and his wife standing right
there with two of the grediest plotthounds you've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
The story of the plot Hound goes way back to
before America was America. The reason this story is unique
is that most of the hound breeds came here from England,
in many.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Ways already developed.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
But the origin story of the plot is surrounded by mystery,
cloaked by faded time, geographic isolation, and scant documentation congruent
with the hill folks ways. But in the early nineteen hundreds,
this dog just emerged out of the hollows of the
Great Smoky Mountain region, fully developed, uniquely suited, and deeply
(07:39):
tied to the region's interior circle of bear hunters. These
dogs became the symbol of Southern Appalachian ingenuity, Taylor fit
for the rugged landscape, its people, and its beasts. The
most interesting thing to me about plots, though, is their
cult like following and this deep connection to place. No
(07:59):
other hound breed has this. It's a phenomena unlike anything
I've ever seen. And because of that, there is great
risk in telling this story. If I die a suspicious,
untimely death. It might be related to the version of
the story that I tell. This is serious business, and
what I've always loved about plot people is their passion.
(08:22):
I've always been attracted to passionate people who dedicate their
lives to narrow windows of expertise. One such man is
John Jackson of western North Carolina. He's an old style
Highland gentleman, a pastor, a schoolteacher, but most uniquely for
my interest, a plot historian.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
I haven't told you yet, but.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
The plot hound is the state dog of North Carolina.
There's a strong case that this was our first maid
in America hound. But kind of like building a Ford
truck in twenty twenty three, we had to bring in
some overseas materials. We're going to jump right into the
story with mister John. Where did these dogs come from? So,
(09:09):
mister John, there's such a rich history of plot hounds
in North Carolina, which is where they got started.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Tell me that story.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Well, I used a good word their story. I called
it a saga. In seventeen sixty, there were two brothers
who came from Germany, a Palatinate area of Germany. There
was a great mass migration of Germans from that area
to colonbial America, and the story. The saga goes that
(09:44):
they were the sons of a German gamekeeper. They brought
with them some what we would call plot dogs, the
ancestors of plots, one of which was yellow and the
rest were brown colored, which means they were brendled.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
This is the foundation piece of the plot hound story
known far and wide in plot circles.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
The two brothers from Germany.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Their father was a gamekeeper, a guy who took care
of the large property of some type of royalty, and
he sends his boys to the English colonies future America
with some of his prize hunting dogs, brindle and yellow
colored hunting dogs. If we were building a car, the
dogs would be the engine and the brothers would be
the power train. And please note how mister John referred
(10:32):
to these as plot dogs, as in dawgs. That's a
term of endearment. It means something. I now want to
go back to the man I just rode around with
with the interesting last name of plot. This is Bob
Plot and he's jumping in right where mister John left off.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
The story we always told him was told generation for
generation was my fourth great grandfather said, man, this just
there's no future here for my kids. I'm sending my
two boys and the only thing of real value I
have to America, and it's these five of these dogs.
And three of them are supposed to be brindle colored dogs.
Two of them are supposed to be light colored or
buckskin type dogs.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Did he just say my fourth great grandfather, Yes, he did.
Bob's fourth great grandfather would have been the father of
the German brothers that mister John was talking about. But
this is going to get dramatic real quick, so brace yourself.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
They his brother died because you know, the conditions on
the ships took two months to get to America. They
were terrible, bad food, bad water. Anyway, legend has it
that he died buried at sea. So here's this kid,
sixteen years old at most, and he's like, man, all along,
five dogs, gets to Philadelphia, He's got to go and
(11:57):
then does The version I always heard was that they
were coming to America to be contract hunters in Newburn,
North Carolina, which at that time was the largest German
settlement on the East Coast. But they didn't have you'd think, oh,
it's the frontier and it was. But they had blacksmiths
and wheelwrights and as they didn't have hunters. So so
(12:19):
that was a theory and what we're always told. But
now the other theory is they arrived in Philadelphia and
just went down the wagon road and went straight to
the Pied Mine in North Carolina, where we know they
did end up. But the story I was always told
was the real poignant story was his two brothers, my
third great grandfather, George, his brother, they're in route. They
got five dogs with them. They can't speak English, you know,
(12:42):
they're Germans. When George got here, they still referred to him.
Even his son Henry, who came to Haywood County later,
they referred to him as the Old German because they
still had these strong German accents, still spoke German.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
We've just covered a ton of ground really quickly. Enoch,
one of the brothers, has died. Johannes lives and brings
the five dogs from Germany with the intent of becoming
a professional hunter in the colonies. Even two generations later,
Bob said they called his great grandfather the Old German.
(13:15):
Bob actually wrote an incredible book about the history and
story of the plot Hound called Strike and Stay the
story of the plot Hound. In it, he details this
plot genesis story, which was handed down in his family.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
It's believed that the.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Modern plot hound was bred and evolved directly from these
five dogs that were on that ship. Some believe they
were never outcrossed from those original five dogs. However, I've
never personally met anyone who confessed to fully believing this.
It's kind of like believing the most extravagant version of
a fairy tale. It's just not really that functional. But
(13:54):
I have some interesting news for you, and of all people,
I hate to cast doubt on such a great story,
but I'd advise you to not get too attached to it.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Here's mister John.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Here's where we got to stop him in it, And
I surely hope I don't disappoint you. We can't prove this,
We can't. I have worked on it and worked on
it and thought I had found him, and it's not him.
There is, to my knowledge, there is no Johannes plot.
(14:30):
His name would have been George Plott, George Plutt senior.
There's a George Plutt junior. He came he and his
family together. They were well to do. They paid their
manumission fee and they came down the o' wagon road
to Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. That's where Charlotte is. He
(14:52):
would have settled in what is now Cabaris County, which
used to be part of Becklenburg.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Now, so you're saying the story of Johannes Plott and
his brothers, you're saying that's not necessarily true, right, And
you're saying this is true. Is that George Plot And
so George Plott isn't Johannes Plott.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
This is a semi wealthy guy.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Okay, he was not to So this is the traditional
The traditional story was Johannes Plott and this boy's his
dad send him with dogs.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
And you're saying that's not necessarily what he can prove.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
It's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
What he's saying is this, they've never found written record
of a lone teenager named Johannes Plott bringing dogs from
Germany to fully corroborate the traditional story. However, would lost
or inaccurate records from the mid seventeen hundreds be all
that surprising. Written records of that time would undoubtedly have
(15:48):
been a dim record of reality. There is, however, record
of a man named George Plott coming over with his family,
just no dogs. I want to see what Bob Plott
has this about this, and don't think for a minute
these are trivial matters in Appalachia. If I go mysteriously
missing after this series, I'd like to commission Brent Reeves
(16:10):
to come out of retirement and lead a reconnaissance team
into the Great Smoky Mountains, not to avenge my death,
but to do even more research so that we can
get to the bottom of this.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Here's Bob.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
Now. The other version is, and it may be true,
it may not be true, is that his parents took him,
that the family came together as the family unit. Again,
all I'd ever heard from time I was as tall
was the first story. It's been convoluted from the start,
you know. Nineteen fifty nine first year book came out
about plothounds. There were ten different stories in the first
(16:46):
Year Book, and all of them were different, Like how
can you put ten different stories in the same yearbook.
I mean, one of them's got to be true. And
so all I knew was was what they had told me.
My father told me this was a story Bonne and
told me, this was a story my grandfather's. You know,
all these my uncle, my grandfather, my grandfather died by them.
(17:06):
But my uncle's this is what my daddy told me.
This is what his daddy told him. And so and
I also had a kind of unique situation in that
I'm just a third great grandson to George Plot, who
founded the breed you know, who bottom over here from
Germany supposedly, and most people are five six seventh great grandson.
(17:28):
But see, my grandfather was born in the Civil War.
Really yeah, So he died in nineteen forty four. I
didn't know him, so, but my dad was at D
Day he died, you know, when I was just still
a kid too. So I was around all these old guys.
So you don't have to go back, you know, just
three generations and you're there.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
So they knew this stuff, you know, and it all
made sense, It all tracked when I started researching it.
So and I tried to document as much as I could.
And once the Plot family got to North Carolina, it
was very easy to document. Yea, they got there, it
was a little more difficult.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Bob believes that the name Johannes was anglicized to George,
and so we're talking about the same person. Bob's grandfather
was born during the Civil War, and Bob's father had
him later in life. Bob is a rare fellow. You
feel like you're touching history just by talking to him.
The Plot's story holds some water for me simply for
(18:27):
this reason, and he just clarified a distinct line in
the story of what we're sure of and what we're
not sure of. Once the Plots got to North America,
the history is much easier to track, and it's clear
that a man named George Plot arrived and quickly appeared
with the unique line of hunting dogs not found anywhere
else in the colonies, and these dogs that they had
(18:49):
were uniquely different than these English strains of hounds. So
let's clarify the controversy and look at the options. It's
possible that no dogs came from Germany at all, but
the Germans who came here acquired hunting dog stock that
was already present in the colonies when they arrived, and
from this emerged what would become the Plot hound. That's
(19:11):
option one. There were definitely hounds, curves and all varieties
of mongrel dogs as potential stock. Here or number two,
the story is true, and they brought in a unique
strain of German big game hounds that developed into a
new identity in the New world under the guiding hand
(19:33):
of this isolated family on the frontier. I'd like to
note how quickly they emerged with a unique looking dog,
which was brindle, while most of these English hounds were
not brindle at all. However, as my friend Alvin once
told me, the brindle color is a recessive gene and
almost all dogs. If you mix up a bunch of dogs,
(19:53):
it isn't long before you get that brindle coat.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Hmmm.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
So maybe this unique brindle's stuff isn't entirely relevant regardless, Bob,
mister John, and the whole lot of Plot connoisseurs agreed
the period between the seventeen fifties and eighteen oh three
is a mystery. But Henry Plot we just saw his
old cabin in North Carolina. By the time he showed up,
(20:18):
he had a line of dogs fully established in the
region as reputable brindle bear dogs. So if option two
is right and the family story is correct, and the
stock did come from Germany, what were they doing with
the dogs over there?
Speaker 4 (20:35):
Here's Bob, So I think these guys are like that works,
that works together. And I think over multiple generations, going
back probably five or six generations before my family came here,
this breed was evolving into that. So sometime around either
seventeen forty two seventeen fifty, depending on.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
The Germans were using these dogs for what over there.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Boar hunting mostly and anything. There were multipurpose dogs because
they used them for herding, they used them for hunting,
but they were already on big game. Whatever they needed
to do, that's what they used them for, you know.
But they had great value. So all these dogs were available,
you know. But the most thing it was really unique
was most it was the Germanic origins because most of
(21:19):
the American purebread dogs come from their British house, whereas
its plihound came from Germany. But they're all applied.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
And what's interesting at that time is he would have
been sending his sons to a new world that was
known for hunting in wilderness, So it would have made
sense that he would have given he would have sent
his kids.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
With tools that they would have needed to survive. And
thrive in this place.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
I really want to believe this version of the story,
and many do, but some don't. But nobody complains about
it not being.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
A good story.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
But as we've seen in many of our other deep
dives into American history, myths can become told so many
times they become infallible truth. What's your gut telling you
right now with just this little bit of information you have.
You don't have all the info yet, but you're probably
leaning the direction. I really appreciate Bob's perspective, and of
(22:17):
all people, he's got the right to have one. This
is his family's story that he heard while sitting on
the knee of his family in a rocking chair in
North Carolina. He's kind of become the caretaker of this story,
which I'd say is very noble. But he's the first
to acknowledge that it's hard to know exactly how it
went down. However, once the calendar rolled into the eighteen hundreds,
(22:42):
the evidence is clear and undeniable. The more I understand
about history, especially that far back in American history there
just wasn't a lot of documentation was so, I mean,
these stories have like oral tradition does hold a lot
of relevance to these kind of stories, and obviously there's
(23:02):
documentation of land records and all this stuff, like these
people did actually exist. But so, you know, I want
to say that because it wasn't like it is now,
where every single thing we do is documented. I mean,
like if I go down here and buy a coffee,
somebody two hundred years from now will know it. Yes,
they'll say, Clay Nukam was in North Carolina with Bob
(23:23):
Plott on the morning of July seventh.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Man. Back in those days, that wasn't the case.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
No, And that's a great point because up until eighteen hundred,
passenger ships didn't have a cargo manifest supposedly, or some
of them did, but a lot of them didn't, so
sometimes you didn't know who was on there who wasn't.
But John Plot he had supposedly. I never saw it,
but I know people, reputable people who did, who said
there was a manifest, a cargo manifest that listed the
(23:51):
five dogs now and that they were listed as three
brenda or tiger stripe dogs and two solid colored buckskin dogs. Now.
Again I never saw that. I don't know, but again
that was oral tradition. But I know four people who
have never lied to me before, who swear to God
that they saw it.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Greater mysteries have been solved, but at this point it's
unlikely this ever will be. Paper products from the seventeen
fifties usually don't accidentally get preserved, and I want you
to hear these stories so you can make a decision
for yourself what you believe. But truthfully, what you or
I believe about the origins of these dogs really isn't
that relevant, because today what's not disputed is that plot
(24:34):
hounds are widely distributed across America and even much of
the world, and are a top notch big game hound.
So let's just take a time out for a minute
and clarify exactly what we do know. George or Johannes Plot,
without dispute, did come from Germany on September twelfth, seventeen
fifty on a ship called the Priscilla. There is documentation
(24:56):
of a signature G Plot on that car manifest.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Just no dogs.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
And to give a big time fast forward, high level view,
this George Plot would die in Lincoln County, North Carolina
in eighteen ten at the age of seventy six, So
all that adds up, and it's well documented that he
had a pack of hunting dogs, which he turned over
to his son, Henry, who would then move to the
Great Smoky Mountains. Bob and I were just at Henry's
(25:23):
home place. The mystery is simply, where did these dogs
come from. Here's Bob with a summary of the deep
Plot family history describing their movement through North Carolina.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
We know for a fact. Now up to that point,
we can speculate. You can have this camp over here
saying yeah, they went to New Bernard, the camp over
here saying no, they went from Philadelphia to the area
around Salisbury. Either one could be true, but we know
for sure that by seventeen sixties they were there. There's
lane grants, there's marriage certificates, theres death certificates, theres the
(26:00):
court records signifying yes, George Plot was here, George Platt
got married here, George Platt started having a family here.
And there's records of other people talking about these dogs.
Sometimes they just called them Brendle bear dogs. Sometimes they
talked about dogs on the frontier, literally defending households now
because this was Cherokee country and Kataba Country at that time.
(26:22):
I mean, this was where they were living on the
east side of the Kataba River was frontier. You know,
this was before the French and Indian or right bout
the time of the French and Indian War. So my
third great grandfather's there. He starts having, like everybody did
back then, a bunch of kids, and most all of
them are born there in what's now Caberts County around Concord. Well.
(26:43):
Again like this great manifest destiny of American history, it's like,
we got to find something better. So they go a
little bit further. They go into Idol County and they
go in across the Kataba River and become the first
white settlers across the Kataba River. And that's where George
settled there, and that's where his boys started really hunting
hard and doing a lot of different stuff. But Henry,
(27:05):
who was my great great uncle, he and his brother
in law, Jonathan Osborne, who was another German immigrant, they
came up here sometime around eighteen oh three with the
mind to settle and supposedly they took the dogs with me.
And here is Heywood County. Yes, so there's an area
there called Pleasant Garden, beautiful beautiful area along the Pigeon River,
(27:27):
and he thought, man, this would be a great place
to set up homestead, plant a proper corn and that's
what in his brother in law did, had the dogs
with him. Well, the corn crop failed, they could get
their first taste of a mountain winter, and they're like, man,
Jonathan's like, I'm getting the heck out of here, you know,
I'm going back down where it's a little bit warmer. Henry,
(27:47):
being stubborn, Plot goes, Nah, I'm staying, man, I'm keeping
my dogs with me. And so he later credits the
dogs of keeping him alive during that first winter, you know,
keep me helping him put food on the fire. Well,
then again, following that ruther of or Trace, he goes
up over Pigeon Gap, comes down into what's now Waynesville,
down into what's now Hazelwood, and then goes follows the
(28:09):
creek up this beautiful valley to the confluence of Richland
Dix Creek and says, now we'll build a house right there,
and builds a cabin there.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Where Henry lives became known as Plot Valley. It's pretty
cool how many locations in the region are named after
the Plots. There's even a range of mountains called the
Plot Balsam Range, which is on the Blue Ridge Parkway
in North Carolina. There's a historical marker there that you
can go and see. Here's mister John with another unique location.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Name Famous Plot was the brother to John Plot. Henry
Plutt would have been his father. He had a line
of Plot dogs that were just superb. One was called
Porter Porter lost his life in Porter Dye Gap.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
He's dog and a bear Porter dyed. On the map
you could find Porter Dye Gap.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Can't now, that's water Rock Knob. Okay, get on the parkway,
go water Rock Knob. Porter Dyke Gap is there. Well.
I had to go to Porter Dyke Gap because I
want to feel the history. Didn't want to read it,
won't feel it. And you know, you visit these places
and it's Hallod Ground. It's Hallock ground. To a person
(29:24):
who likes to bear hunt, run a cone, tre apostle
or something like that, you know it's it's Hallod ground.
It is. That's that's the thing that endears me to
the pluck Hog. It's a just tremendous, overwhelming pride and
what we have been bequeathed.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I hope you're beginning to pick up from these men
just a fraction of what these bear dogs mean to
these people. When's the last time you heard someone speak
of being bequeathed the royal heritage of a mountain strain
of American bear dog. You haven't, my brethren, We've found
ourselves in the midst of something unique, unknown to the mainstream,
(30:08):
and deeply American. Here's Bob with more on Henry plot
down in Plot Valley.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
Well, by the eighteen ten or so, he'd honed pretty
much the whole valley. The dogs were becoming famous. That
they were. You know, people made Brandy to make a
living too, They did that. He had a steal steals
in his will. He's ignifized out. Yeah, and he too
had a prolific family, I mean multiple sons.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
And when you say the dogs became famous, let's describe
what that would mean to someone who wouldn't even understand
hunting culture. Maybe yeah, regionally, especially if these dogs are
helping this guy acchoire game for food on his table.
I mean that kind of stuff quickly gets out. Oh yeah, so,
(30:58):
I mean someone with a past of hounds. And the
other thing is that this is not recreational hunting, and
during that time as well hunters and the idea of
being a hunter. I mean this is right in the
time of Daniel Boone when Daniel Boone's.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
Daniel Boone lid right up the river from the Plot
family and yachtkin read out valley.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah, And so I mean, to be a hunter was
a widespread cultural very much a compliment like these guys
are good hunters. I mean that was essentially like saying,
this is a good family that is well off.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
And not only that, but the good hunters usually had
the good dogs, and so those dogs had value. I mean,
we've got in our Plot family, we've got a bean
rifle which today would sell for probably hundreds one thousand
dollars that was sold that was traded for a dog,
you know, in the early eighteen hundreds, and the flint
lock rifle. And there was Stanley Hicks, oh deer friend
(31:54):
of mine has passed away now his third great grandfather
sold an entire valley for a rifle, keepskin, and a dog.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
So I mean probably felt like you got the better
end of the.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
Absolutely bragged about it, you know. So you start hearing
this reputation. People started talking about these these some of
them just called them Rendel bear dogs. Some of them
start calling them Plot dogs because the Plot family had them,
you know. And what was really interesting about this area
at that time was between eighteen hundred and really about
(32:24):
really about World War two. Trains didn't come into Ashville
in eighteen eighty something was twelve hundred people living there.
By nineteen hundred, when the train was there, it was
the third largest city in North Carolina. But between that time,
between the time Henry Plot first got here in the
early eighteen hundreds and that time, it was kind of
(32:46):
a time capsule. You know, people here there was no
really connection to the outside world because trains didn't get
to Waynesville until eighteen eighties, didn't get the Murphy until
eighteen nineties. You couldn't get in here or out of
here except by a wagon or horse. Yeah, and the
roads were terrible. If it was raining and you could
forget it. Snowing could definitely forget it. Yeah, game was abundant.
(33:07):
There weren't many white people even living here then, and
the few that were were farmers, subsistence farmers, hunters, and
like you said, that was a big deal. Man. You
had to hunt It wasn't a matter of like, oh,
I just enjoy hunting, to go get me a trophy.
This was about I got to put food on the table.
We got to smoke some meat for the winter.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
These dogs had some real legitimate value.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
Most definitely, And people forget they were looking for multi
purpose dogs. Yeah, they were looking for dogs to defend
their homesteads from a time of the Indian Wars all
the way up to the Civil War when deserters were
coming back and you know, trying to attack homesteads and
that sort of thing. And then you have the fact
that you know, people think about fences. Back then, fences
(33:51):
were you used to keep livestock out. Yeah, In other words,
you build a fence around your garden to keep livestock out.
You let your pigs and your cows. You notched their
ears or gave them a mark, and they wentere range
and you kind of knew where they were, and you'd
go check on them two or three times a year.
But in the fall you'd go get the dogs, and
(34:11):
the dogs we hurt them back.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
So what I'm hearing you say is that these dogs
were guard dogs absolutely, so herding dogs, yes, and then
they would have been what we'll define later, but as
tree dogs, dogs that run game that can climb up trees.
This gets as caught up on the plot family history,
their frontier life, and how they were using these dogs.
(34:35):
And the term tree dog is an important distinction amongst hounds.
This means that the dog will stay and bark at
the base of the tree that the game they're pursuing
has climbed, or as Henry Plot probably would have said,
had clumb not all will do this. And it's a
badge of functional honor to be called a tree dog.
(34:57):
And as a quick lineage summary, I think we've got
to go through this plot history just real quick so
you can stay on track. George or Johannes Plott was
born in seventeen thirty four and immigrated from Germany. Interestingly,
Daniel Boone was born in seventeen thirty four too, so
George Plott had a bunch of kids. But one of
them was Henry Plott, who was born in seventeen seventy.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
We've been to his home place.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
He was a hunter and as the story goes, he
was handed down his father's dogs. Henry had eleven children,
one of which was John Plott. Who was born in
eighteen thirteen and was a big time hunter. He had
a son named Montroval Plot, who was probably the first
to be recognized as having plot dogs. Montraval had a
bunch of kids, but the most famous of his kids,
(35:42):
and maybe the most famous plot hunter of all, was
von Plott, who lived into the nineteen sixties in Heywood County,
North Carolina. Bob Plott, the guy I'm talking to right now,
knew Vaughn personally when he was a kid.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
It was one of his uncles.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
However, to be fair and to throw a wrench in
our story, it's not entirely known how these dogs arose
into modern history.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
With the plot name attached to them.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
It seems evident the trail is clear that this family
had a unique fingerprint on these.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Dogs, like no doubt.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
But could they have just been the most prominent folks
using these brindle bear dogs that were developed by a
wider community. Here's mister John and he's going to give
his opinion on the development of the plot hound in Appalachia.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
I asked him where he thought they came from.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Now, to your question, not every plot dog came from
the Plot family. Taylor Crockett has told me that they
were a type of dog rather than a breed at
one time, and they were numerous breeders, numerous hunters. You
couldn't have very many dogs because they weren't some dog food.
(36:57):
Back thee it fed them scraps. We watch you feed
them normally dog corn bread. There are three types of
people that settled western North Carolina. One where to be
the townsfolk settled in towns. The other would be farmers
who owned the best low lying bottom land farming land.
(37:21):
And then there were folks. There were three types. There
were folks, and I smile when I say this. They
were folks I call the Branchwater Mountaineers. They lived up
the hallows at the head of the branch. To get
to their cabin you had to take a slid rode in.
There was a log cabin there with the dog, truck, kitchen.
(37:42):
Dog slept under the house. Everywhere that man went, his
dog went with him. He took his rifle if he
was working. If he heard the dog, tree picked up
the rifle, left to work and went to the dog.
That was the supper for that night. But the Branchwater Mountaineers,
those old families I think a lot in a large
(38:04):
part responsible for what eventually became the Plot dog.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Mister John appreciates the story of the German origins of
the Plot hound stock, but doesn't fully buy it.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
He believes the dogs.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Were likely developed from stock that was here, and that
this breed of brindle bear dogs weren't the sole doing
of the Plot family. And just to clarify, it wasn't
necessarily the Plots who claimed one hundred percent ownership of
this brendle bear dog. It just kind of happened, and
people often believe what seems to be an easy narrative.
(38:37):
There's an argument to be made that the Plot simply
became the dominant spokesman for this type of dog. As
John's mentor Taylor Crockett told him, it's important to remember
that there was no United Kennel Club, and these people
weren't trying to start a breed.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
These hill folk families simply.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Needed dogs that could get the job done on bears, hogs,
and coon and these brindle dogs were doing it.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
It was only.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Later that we got interested in where they came from.
I've now got a question for Bob, so tell me
about from eighteen hundred to nineteen hundred, what happened with
the plot hound breed, because at this time it's not
even called no, no, it's not a plot hound breed.
It's just this kind of regional phenomenon. This family talk
(39:22):
to me about how they like the dogs became distributed
and how that happened.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Two things happened there that I really think played a
huge role in making the plot hownd what it is today.
I think because we were in that time capsule, so
to speak, it allowed the dogs to get skipped better
and better and better, you know. And von Platt talked
about his father, Montreville Plot was born in eighteen fifty.
He talked about what he called the Toasac network. I
(39:47):
think I actually named that. But settlers from upstate South Carolina,
North Georgia, East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia would come riding in
on horses and mules with toasacks and get puppies. And
the understanding was that, you know, we get you a puppyre,
we sell you a puppy, or we trade puppies. Is
that we work together. You know, you got to keep
(40:08):
this bloodline as close as we can. We're gonna there's
gonna be stuff introduced into it at times, but the
most part, we're will try to do a lot of
line breed and we're gonna try to do some things
to keep this what's working. Yeah, And so they really had.
And then of course then you had other families who
took that and said, well, I want to go this
direction with it, and they did and they did well.
But you had this network of people that were doing
(40:31):
this that were not named. Some of them were related,
some of our cousins and whatnot. But that time between there,
between eighteen hundred and nineteen hundred, the breed was continuing
to evolve. But even then it was still more kind
of I think what I have been a regional phenomenon,
except for around nineteen hundred, people started coming in here.
Once a train was in here, the train was train
(40:51):
changed everything. You can take a train end all the
way to Murphy. You could get off in Proctor, you
go up on Hazel Creek and hunt and all these
communities had hunting camps. All these some of them were
affluent people, some of them were just common people. So
branch Ricky, who was arguably the most famous or one
of the top probably three or four famous athletes, in
(41:12):
the world at that time. You came here and hunted,
you know. He was credited with later signing Jackie robertson
the professional Baseball contract Integrating Professional Baseball in nineteen forty seven.
But he came here in thirty five and was working
for the Saint Louis Cardinals then. And I've got a
letter on Saint Louis Cardinal letterhead of Ricky writing back
(41:33):
to Vonplat saying, man, you guys got the professional stamding
of professional athletes, you know, running these dogs, and I
want to buy these dogs. I want to get these dogs.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
And so basically, when this area opened up, these hunters
started getting some national attention because of their their prowess
as hunters. People started coming in here. There started to
be writers, big name people coming in and talking about
and they were like, hey, there's these hunters down in
(42:03):
North Carolina and they've got these dogs. And again, up
until this point, this isn't a recognized This is still
just kind of this regional phenomenon, these guys with dogs.
And obviously by the nineteen hundreds it would have spread
beyond the Plot family most definitely.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
It would have. It would have been dogs all over
the country.
Speaker 4 (42:23):
Yeah, I've got shipping receipts from early nineteen hundreds of
plot hounds being shipped Arizona. You know, plot howns being
shipped different parts of the country. By the nineteen thirties,
those dogs were going for one hundred and twenty five
dollars each, which was a lot of money at that time. Yeah,
but backing up a little bit to your point. By
nineteen hundred, early nineteen hundreds, when these train was here,
(42:44):
people could get here a little bit better. Writers were
coming here. You know. Raymond camports writers, sports writers. Raymond
Camp was a writer for the New York Times. So
imagine this New York Times. You don't think about New
York Times that way. New York Times had a full
time out door commns named Raymond Camp who wrote three
articles a week.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
So by the nineteen hundreds, the dogs are getting national
attention and they're being called plot hounds. But where are
the first written accounts of them being called plots Because
to my knowledge, there is no record of the early
plot family in the seventeen hundreds and into the middle
eighteen hundreds calling them plot hounds. They might have simply
(43:26):
been referred to as the plots hounds, as in the
Plot family has some hounds, not as in a proper
noun plot hounds. But at some point there was a
big shift in ownership. Here's mister John.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
I have found as early as the nineteen hundreds of
New York Times articles about plot dogs, yeah, and hunting
plot dogs and hunting paar in western North Carolina. So
believe it or not. As early as that was this
national publicity about the Plot family and their plot dogs.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
So by the early nineteen hundreds they're referring to them
as proper noun plot hounds, which is pretty compelling evidence
that they'd probably been calling them that for a long time.
The first known photograph of a plot was taken in
nineteen oh six. A handsome, dark hound looking dog with
a frosty muzzle sits happily.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
In an old school family portrait. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
You can see that photo along with countless other incredible
images in Bob's book Striking Stay. You really should order it.
Every one of you should have a copy of Striking Stay.
But the dog in that first plot photo came from
the stock of Montraval Plot, who would have been the
great grandson of the original immigrant Johannas or George Plot
(44:47):
and Montreval would have been Bob's great uncle.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
And not to throw a possum and the egg house
of our beautiful story. But it's just too relevant to ignore.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Montrovale Plot, who's known as one of the modern patriarchs
of the Plot story. He's the first one we really
know a whole lot about, primarily because of his son Vaughn.
But old man Montraval was adamant that his dogs weren't
hounds at all, but rather plot curs. He corrected anyone
(45:17):
that called them hounds. Bob told me that kerr is
the transliteration of the Welsh word key, which is a
purebred and highly coveted hunting dog. So Mantraval, only two
generations removed from Europe, had some allegiance to the idea of.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
A cur dog.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Today, however, the modern usage of the word cur is
multi layered.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
Some might use that like a curse.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Word for a dog that's nothing but an old cur or,
you know, like a mixed breed mutt. But there are
also some legitimate breeds like black mouth, stephens, curd and
tree and curve. It's complicated, but this is bear grease.
Did you expect the day off from complicated drama?
Speaker 3 (46:00):
I hope not.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
I want to get back to mister John and ask
him a pointed question about why the dogs carry the
name Plot. Remember, what we're in search of is the
authenticity of the general arc of this story as it
relates to the Plot family, because it's wildly interesting and
just to be frank, mister John is skeptical of the
origin story of the Plot hound and these boys bringing
(46:24):
over five dogs from Germany. So my question to him is,
why is this breed named after the Plots if they
weren't the sole creators of them?
Speaker 3 (46:35):
Man, I hope I don't get in trouble for this.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
What you're telling me doesn't surprise me. Like the traditional
story I've known and I mean just kind of believe
was probably for the most part true. But one thing
I know that humans do very well is streamline stories
to kind of make it fit an easy narrative. Would
you say that that's happened place?
Speaker 1 (46:58):
And also, the Plot family were the most identifiable, the
better known of the hunters and we're written about, and
at that time the family members were getting out in around,
serving in the military, serving in World War One, for example,
they just were better known and could communicate better. I know,
(47:24):
I tried to explain to some folks. I said, I
know it may be disappointing to you, but there's an
other side to this too that's just as fascinating, if
not more intriguing than that. I've just I used the
term here first on this couch pure Americana. It's just
(47:45):
a very intriguing account and story about Plot dogs.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
Pure Americana. That's a good phrase.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
What I'm hearing mister John say is that the Plot
family might have just risen as the most prominent family
hunting these Appalachian brindled bear dogs, and thus the dogs
were named after them, and that in and of itself
would be completely fair and reasonable. They deserve to have
this dog named after him. That's not what we're trying
(48:17):
to get at. But what I'm also hearing him say
is that it really doesn't matter. And that's really what
I'm hearing Bob say too. He's just interested in preserving
the traditional family story, which he's done an incredible job at,
and the story absolutely deserves.
Speaker 3 (48:35):
To be saved.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
We just don't know how it all happened, but we
still have this hound or this cur as old Montrable said,
that was developed here in an incredible fashion. Regardless of
intent or who did what. Bob and mister John are
on the same team. They're actually friends. Bob quotes mister
John in his books Striking Stay. These men both have
(49:00):
dedicated their lives to plot hounds and their history. And
to go back to this idea about the plot family
being dominant, this kind of stuff happens all the time
in life. Some activity is happening and gaining popularity. In
this case, it was hunting these brindled dogs, and then
a prominent person arises and the activity becomes deeply associated
(49:21):
with them. For example, think about bow hunting legend Fred Bhaer.
He didn't invent bowhunting. He was just a guy that
came around at the right time, was incredibly good, was
a good businessman, a good marketer, and genuinely ushered us
into the modern era of bowhunting. But he didn't create
bow hunting. It's possible the plot family was this for
these dogs. Now, I still think it's kind of risky
(49:44):
to fully buy into what mister John is saying. I mean,
the data points are extremely compelling and It's undisputed that
this family had a unique line of dogs that stretch
back to their patriarch, George Plot. It all goes back
to the question, did George or Johannas have the these
five dogs on that ship or did careless record keeping
delete that from history? Or is it a fabricated myth?
(50:07):
And if it's a myth, who and why did they
make it up? And man, it is a good story
if they made it up. I love this kind of stuff.
It's really in the realm with the Black Panther Bigfoot.
Are you a believer or not? I have a feeling
Gary believer. Nukem will believe those dogs were on that ship.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
And if Brent Reeves would have been around, he'd have
been an undercover warden.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
On that ship, dressed like a pilgrim trying to catch
some outlaws. Maybe by the end of this you'll have
a sense of what you think actually happened.
Speaker 3 (50:41):
But what's not disputed is that the.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
Plot family were the most prominent, well known plot dog
hunters in Appalachia when the calendar rolled into the nineteen hundreds.
Here's Bob bringing us into the finish line of the
official formation of the Plot hound breed.
Speaker 3 (50:59):
This this is big.
Speaker 4 (51:01):
So that's all of a sudden, be like, man, I
want to hear more about this. I want to see
more about this, you know, And so they come here.
So by thirty five, the Ricky thing kind of exploded.
By then you got guys in the Midwest who are
coming here after, Like a senator from Wisconsin came here
and he went back and started telling people about it. Well,
all of a sudden, guys from Michigan and Illinois and
(51:23):
all over the place are saying, man, I want some
of those dogs. And like you said, and you're so correct.
Without all that it would have, you know, as much
as I love my family, as much as I love
the history of the breed, it would have been really
nothing more than a regional phenomenon without that sort of recognition.
But when it did, man, it took off. And then
(51:43):
all of a sudden there became a crime of crusade
for to get the dog registered as an official breed.
And so that happened in nineteen forty six when the
UKC finally sanctioned that and approved that. And if you
look at the first I think there's about one hundred
dogs registered at that time eighty seven of them roughly
(52:03):
were all either owned by Vane Plot, John Plott, Taylor, Crockett, Gola, Fergus.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
All those guys would have been from right here, yeah,
right here, yeah, North Carolina.
Speaker 4 (52:13):
Taylor was living in Macon County at that time. Vaughn
John were living right here in Haywood. Gola was living
right over in Jackson.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
So nineteen forty six, yeah, the plot Hound became a
United Kennel Club UKC official breed.
Speaker 3 (52:29):
And these guys right here.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
In western North Carolina were the ones who defined what
the breed was. They presumably presented a case to the
UKC said we've got two hundred years history, We've got
two hundred years of breeding.
Speaker 3 (52:45):
They had to prove that, I.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
Mean some of the stuff that you have today, like
these old records of what these old men said and
what their dogs look like, and old pictures and like,
they basically built a case for this breed, its own
specific breed.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
And that was a big, big moment for huge for
the plot Hound.
Speaker 4 (53:06):
Huge, huge. You can't you can't put that in really
any perspective, how big it was. I mean it was
because here you got the guys, the original family members
I say original dating backed. I mean, Henry Plott would
have been Von's great great grandpa. Henry Plott was my
great great uncle. So you had that direct connection. You
had these multiple generations, and like I say, of the
(53:28):
first one hundred dogs, a eighty seven of them came
from those guys. And guess what, the rest of them
were all bought from them by people in the Midwest.
So it all came from the same thing. Now, give
the Midwestern guys credit. Once they got them, boy, they
marketed them. Man, all of a sudden, it became like,
let's start advertising, let's start doing this. I started doing it.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
And so when in the late forties when this happened,
this is like such a powerful time too in American
hot Yeah, world War two.
Speaker 3 (53:55):
Yeah, world War two is ended.
Speaker 2 (53:57):
All these guys come back with these young guys come
back from war, and there's there's money here, there's time
that they've never had. America's kind of popped.
Speaker 4 (54:07):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
There became a big demand for the plot Hound, huge
all across the country.
Speaker 4 (54:13):
And but yeah, that's the thing. I mean, you come
back to this, just this greatest generation the guys are
coming back from the war. Economies booming. People have a
little bit of disposable income. You've got a railroad system.
Now the roads are actually getting in here where you
can drive a car in pretty much anywhere. And so
that network across the country which is boom, you know. Yeah,
(54:33):
And those Midwestern guys give them credit. They were like, man,
we want to promote this. You know, magazines start coming out,
you know, yeah, the full Hunter's Horn, Yes, yes, yes,
and so people start subscribing to them, and then it
just became this big push for we got to find
a way to support this even more. And so by
(54:55):
I think it was late fifties, the National plotoun Association
was formed to kind of promote the breed. You know.
Speaker 2 (55:03):
In nineteen forty six, the UKC recognized the plot hound
as an official breed. In eighty seven, of the first
one hundred dogs registered were from a very tight circle
in western North Carolina, and a bunch of them had
the last named plot. By the late nineteen fifties, the
fame of the plot hound as a bear hog and
coon dog was soaring across the country. You've got to
(55:25):
wonder if those old Branchwater mountaineers carrying away brendle puppies,
and toasacs had any sense they were building something that
would become a mainstream breed of American hound, I think
we can undoubtedly say they didn't. As we closed down
on this first episode of this series, I want to
(55:45):
ask mister John a question, a personal one. I think,
to me the most the most special thing about plot
dogs and being here in North Carolina, regardless of the history,
which really will never know all the details because it
was during a time when records just weren't being taken
(56:07):
very well, and.
Speaker 1 (56:08):
Fact it becomes legend, legend becomes fantasy.
Speaker 2 (56:11):
But the thing that is special that can't be taken away.
And I want to ask you, what does a plot
dog mean to you? Being here in the mountains of
North Carolina, being a bear hunter, knowing some of these
old old guys that dedicate their lives to the plot
breed like you have.
Speaker 3 (56:28):
Now, what does it mean to you?
Speaker 1 (56:29):
Well, to the person who never hunts, never has hunted,
it wouldn't mean anything. But in my view, it is
a tremendous pride. Unselfishly, I will tell you that it
is a pride that I have that not everyone has,
because not everyone's been born in North Carolina. Not everyone
lives in western North Carolina. Not everyone has been around
(56:53):
a plot dog. Not everyone has had an interest in
the history of this fabulary, breed of dog. And so
it's a tremendous overwhelming pride. It's a state dog in
North Carolina.
Speaker 3 (57:10):
Do you know what a plot dog is?
Speaker 1 (57:11):
No, don't believe I do. I said, well, I'm gonna
teach you. It's a state dog in North Carolina.
Speaker 3 (57:17):
A lot of kids, you know, Uh, it's.
Speaker 1 (57:19):
Usually grocery store cashiers. I get you. But it's a
tremendous overwhelming pride. And I can go places where these
events took place, and Clay, this is just funny feeling
comes over you. That's a funny feeling like you're right
(57:39):
back in time.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
The most compelling thing about plot Hounds for me, from
the very first time I heard this story was the
deep history tied with these dogs. Their story is kind
of a hound version of America. On the next episode,
(58:10):
we'll hear more of the modern story of the plot
hound and hear from some of the people who've dedicated
their lives to them. I can't thank you enough for
listening to Bear Grease. Please tell a friend about our
endeavors here and leave us a review on iTunes, and
be sure to order Bob Plott's book Strike and Stay.
You can find it all over the internet. Bob's actually
(58:33):
a prolific and very good writer and has written all
kinds of history books about Southern Appalachian.
Speaker 3 (58:39):
Be sure to check out the meat Eater.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
Dot com for just about all of your outdoor gear needs,
ranging from optics to rifles, to coolers, boots, backpacks, tents, knives,
and outdoor cooking supplies.
Speaker 3 (58:53):
We've got it all.
Speaker 2 (58:55):
I can't wait to talk to all those hillbillies on
the render next week.
Speaker 3 (59:00):
We'll see that
Host
Clay Newcomb
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!