Bear Grease - Ep. 162: Pure Americana - The Plott Hound, Origin Story (Part 1)

Episode Date: November 15, 2023

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 MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware gear at firstlight.com. Well, you used a good word there, story. I call it a saga. And I sure hope I don't disappoint you. We can't prove this.

We can't. Some stories are so sacred, so old. You almost have to earn the permission to tell them. This is one of those. 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 plotman myself. Well, 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 specializing in bear hunting, developed deep in the mountains of southern Appalachia, specifically Haywood County, North Carolina. Unique to the breed is they carry the family name of plot. They were kept in isolation from the wider nation for nearly 150 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 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 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 going to want to miss this one. Not everyone's been born in North Carolina. Not everyone lives in western North Carolina. Not everyone has been around a plot dog. Unselfishly, I will tell you that.

It is a pride that I have that not everyone. has. My name is Clay Newcomb 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 fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. There's where Plot Creek begins right up there. This, see that old log house right there? That's the remnants of the Henry Plot cabin.

It's got to be back to about 1803. And that house there was built in 1903 by Montreville Plot, and his son, John Plott, moved into it 1924 after Mont died. And that's where little George Plot lived as a boy. I'm in western North Carolina. The mountains in places are so steep and thick it's intimidating, or at least when I think about traveling long distances of foot in them. I'm riding in a truck with a man whose last name is Plott, P-L-O-T-T.

You see, this isn't just a story about dogs. It's a family story. This is my friend Bob Plott, a direct descendant of the people who lived in that cat, and bred and built what's known today as the American plot hound. This creek here, you see there, had dogs all lined up down. They watered the dogs. They had dogs all up that runs, all in a run where they could be water.

I've seen that a lot over here in the Appalachians where there's these little springs, like a spring maybe, and they'll stake their dogs out. A passerby might 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 holla 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 be unnotable or even an eyesore, archaic, maybe hillbilly and the derogatory sense of the word. But not to me or the people on the inside.

A plot hound is a muscular-built dog with males averaging 60 to 70 pounds and females in the 50-pound range, often with a saber tail, short to coarse hair, and 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 are this kind of grayish black stripe-looking dog. But the most rare is the buckskin plot, colored almost like a golden retriever or a yellow lab. Intelligence, trailing ability, grittiness to stick with rough game. I've actually heard plot men in East Tennessee refer to them as nervy and their strong tree dogs.

Plot 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 25 plot hounds right through there. That was the beginning of the plot breed. And there were. I mean, that right there is where they were. And I mean, I've got pictures.

And that was his house. The bigger house there, the White House, was built in 1903 by Mop Plot. He didn't have any running water in it until probably the 4.5. and didn't have an indoor bathroom in it until the 40s. John Plott said he wasn't going to go to the bathroom inside a house he lived in. So, but there was a great picture of him and his wife standing right there with two of the prettiest plot hounds you've ever seen. 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 ways already developed. 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 1900s, this dog just emerged out of the hollows of the Great Smoky Mountain region, fully developed, uniquely suited, and deeply tied

to the region's interior circle of bear hunters. These dogs became the symbol, of Southern Appalachian ingenuity, tailor 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 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. story that I tell. This is serious business. And what I've always loved about plot people is their passion. 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. I haven't told you yet, but the plot hounds is the state dog of North Carolina. There's a strong case that this was our first made-in-America hound, but kind of like building a Ford truck in 2023, we had to bring in some overseas materials. We're going to jump right into the story with Mr. John. Where did these dogs come from? So Mr. John, there's such a rich history of plot hounds in North Carolina, which is where they got started. Tell me that story. Well, you used a good word there, story. I call it a saga. In 1760, 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 colonial America. And the story, The saga goes that 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 Brendan. This is the foundation piece of the plot hound story known far and wide in plot circles. The two brothers from Germany, 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 Mr. John referred to these as plot dogs, as in D-A-W-G-S. That's a term of endearment. It means something. I now want to go back to the man I just wrote around with with the interesting last name of Plott. This is Bob Plott, and he's jumping in right where Mr. John left off. The story we always told, and was told generation after generation was

my fourth great-grandfather said, man, this country's 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 were supposed to be brought. Randall-colored dogs, two of them are supposed to be light-colored or buckskin-type dogs. 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 Mr. John was talking about. But this is going to get dramatic real quick. So brace yourself. His brother died because, you know, the conditions on his ships took two months. 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, 16 years old at most. And he's like, man, all along five dogs gets to Philadelphia. He's got to go and does. The version I always heard was that they were coming to America to be contract hunters in Newburgh, North Carolina, which at that time was the largest German settlement on east coast. But they didn't have, you'd think, oh, it's the frontier and it was, but they had blacksmiths and wheel rights and all such, but they didn't have hunters.

So that was a theory and what we were always told. But now, the other theory is they arrived in Philadelphia and just went down the wagon road and went straight to the Piedmont of North Carolina where we know they did end up. But the story I was always told was the very poignant story was his two brothers, my third great-grandfather George, his brother, they're en route. They've got five dogs with them. They can't even speak English. 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 them as the old German because they still had these strong German accent, still spoke German.

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. 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. It's believed that the 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 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. Here's Mr. John. Here's where we've got to stop him in it.

And I sure 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. His name would have been George Plott. George Plott Senior.

There's a George Plut Jr. He came, he and his family together. They were well to do. They paid their manumission fee, and they came down the old wagon road to Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. That's where Charlotte is. He would have settled in what is now Cabarris County,

which used to be part of Mecklenburg. Now, so you're saying the story of Johannes plot 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 plot isn't Johannes plot. This is a semi-wealthy guy.

Okay. He was not a poor. So this is the traditional story was Johanna's plot and this boy, his dad sent him with dogs, and you're saying that's not necessarily what the problem. I can't prove. It's what I'm saying. What he's saying is this. They've never found written record of a love.

lone teenager named Johannes Plott bringing dogs from Germany to fully corroborate the traditional story. However, would lost or inaccurate records from the mid-1700s be all that surprising? Written records of that time would undoubtedly have 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 Plot has to say 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 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. Here's Bob.

Now, the other version is, and it may be true or may not be true, is that his parents took him, that the family came together as a family unit. Again, all I'd ever heard from the time I was this tall was the first story. It's being convoluted from the start.

You know, in 1959, first yearbook came out about plot pounds. There were 10 different stories in the first yearbook, and all of them were different. Like, how can you put 10 different stories in the same yearbook? I mean, one of them's got to be true. There's got to be.

And so all I knew was, was what they had told me. My father told me this was a story. Vaughn had told me this was a story. My grandfathers, you know, all these, my uncle, my grandfather died by then, but my uncles, 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 Plott who founded the breed, you know, who bought him over here from Germany, supposedly. And most people are five, six, seven great-grandson. some, but see, my grandfather was born in the Civil War. Really? Yeah. So he died in 1944. 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. Wow. So they knew this stuff, you know. Yeah.

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 a very, very easy to document. Until they got there, it was a little more difficult. 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 story holds some water for me simply for this reason, and he just clarifies. 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 Plott arrived and quickly appeared with the unique line of hunting dogs, not found anywhere else in the colonies.

And these dogs that they had 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 option one. There were definitely hounds, cures, 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 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 in almost all dogs. If you mix up a bunch of dogs,

it isn't long before you get that Brindle coat. So maybe this unique brindle stuff isn't entirely relevant. Regardless, Bob, Mr. John, and the whole lot of plot connoisseurs agree the period between the 1750s and 1803 is a mystery. But Henry Plot, we just saw his old cabin in North Carolina. By the time he showed up, 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's story is correct, and the stock did come from Germany, what were they doing with the dogs over there? Here's Bob. So I think these guys are like, that works, that works with put it 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 1742, 1750, depending on... The Germans were using these dogs for what over there? Boar hunting mostly and anything. They were multi-purpose 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 was really unique was it was the Germanic origins because most of American purebred dogs come from their British Isles, whereas this plighound came from Germany. but they're all plight. And what's interesting at that time is he would have been sending his sons to a new world that was known for hunting and wilderness. So it would have made sense that he would have given, he would have sent his kids with tools that they would have needed to survive and thrive in this place. I really want to believe this version of the story and many do, but some don't. But nobody complains about it not being a good story. 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 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 1800s, 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.

It wasn't. So, I mean, these stories have, like oral tradition does hold a lot of relevance to these kind of stories. And obviously there's documentation of land records and all this stuff. Like these people did actually exist. And 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 200 years from now will know it. They'll say Clay Newcomb was in North Carolina with Bob Plott on the morning of July 7th.

man back in those days that wasn't the case no and that's a great point because up until 1800 passengers 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 five dogs now and that they were listed as three brenda or tiger striped 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. Greater mysteries have been solved. But at this point, it's unlikely this ever will be. Paper products from the 1750s 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 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 12, 1750 on a ship called the Precest. There is documentation of a signature G-plot on that cargo manifest, just no dogs. And to give a big-time fast-forward high-level view, this George plot would die in Lincoln County, North Carolina in 1810 at the age of 76. 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 had then moved to the Great Smoky Mountains. Bob and I were just at Henry's 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. 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 Berner. These 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 1760s, they were there. There's land grants. There's marriage certificates. There's death certificates.

There's court records signifying, yes, George Plott was here. George Plott got married here. George Plott started having a family here. And there's records of other people talking about these dogs. Sometimes they just called them Brendel Bear Dogs. Sometimes they talked about dogs on the frontier literally defending households. Because this was a Cherokee country and Cataba country at that time. I mean, this was where they were living on the east side of the Cataba River was frontier.

This was before the French and Indian, right about 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 were born there in what's now Cabarris County around Concord. Well, again, like this great manifest destiny of American history, it's like, we've got to find something better. So they go a little bit further. They go into Ardardot County and they go across the Cataba River and become the first white settlers across Catabah 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, 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 1803 with the mine to settle. And supposedly they took the dogs with him. And here is Haywood County. Haywood County, yes. So there's an area of there called Pleasant Garden, beautiful, beautiful area along the Pigeon River. And he thought, man, this would be a great place to set up homestead, plant a proper corn.

And that's what his brother-in-law did. Had the dogs with them. Well, the corn crop failed. They 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. Well, Henry, being stubborn plot, goes, no, I'm staying, man. I'm keeping my dogs with me.

And so he later credits dogs of keeping him alive during that first winter, you know, helping him put food on the fire. Well, then again, following that Rutherford Trace, he goes up over Pigeon Gap, comes down into what's now Wainsville, down into what's now Hazelwood, and then goes, follows the creek up this beautiful valley to the confluence of Richland-Dicks Creek and says, man, we'll build a house right now.

there and builds a cabin there. 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 Mr. John with another unique location name. Amos Plot was the brother to John Plot.

Henry Plott would have been his father. He had a line of plot dogs that were just superb. One was called Porter. Porter Lossed his life in Porter Di Gap. He's dog in a bear. Porter DiGap. On the map, you could find Porter Die Gap. Can't now. It's Water Rock Knob. Okay.

Get on the parkway. Go water rock knob. Porter Di Gap is there. Well, I had to go to Porter Di Gap because I wanted to feel the history. Didn't want to read it. won't feel it. And, you know, you visit these places, and it's hallowed ground. It's hallowed ground to a person who likes to bear hunt and run a coon and tree opossum

or something like that, you know. It's hallowed ground. It is. That's the thing that endears me to the plucked hog. It's just tremendous, overwhelming pride and what we have been bequeathed. 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, and deeply American.

Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contest.

right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did and you'll find out that the Steve Rinella cut is an easy to use cut

for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. Here's Bob with more on Henry Plot down in Plot Valley. Well, by the 1810 or so, he had honed pretty much the whole valley. The dogs were becoming famous. They were, you know, people made brandy to make a living to. They did that.

He had a steel, steals in his will. He signifies that. Really? Yeah. And he too had a prolific family. I mean, multiple sons. 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 acquire game for food on his table. I mean, that kind of stuff quickly gets out. Oh, yeah. So, I mean, someone with a pack of hounds. And the other thing is that this is not recreational hunting. No. 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. Yes. When Daniel Boone's... Daniel Boone lived right up the river from the Plot family in the Yackin Red Out Valley. Yeah. Yeah. And so, I mean, to be a hunter was a widespread, cultural, very much a compliment. Yeah.

Like, these guys are good hunters. I mean, that was essentially like saying, this is a good family that is well off. And not only that, but the good hunters usually had the good dogs. That's right. And so those dogs had value. I mean, we've got a... In our plot family, we've got a bean rock. which today would sell for probably hundreds of thousand dollars that was sold that was traded

for a dog in the early 1800s and a flintlock rifle and there was Stanley Hicks a deer friend of mine has passed away now his third great grandfather sold an entire valley for a rifle a sheepskin and a dog so I mean probably felt like you got the better end of the deal absolutely bragged about it you know so you start hearing this reputation people started talking about these Some of them just called them Rendell Bear dogs. Some of them started calling them plot dogs because the plot family had them. Right. You know?

And what was really interesting about this area at that time was between 1800 and really about World War II. Trains didn't come in to Asheville in 1880 something was 1,200 people living there. By 1900, 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 1800s, and that time, it was kind of a time capsule. You know, people here, there was no really connection to the outside world because trains didn't get to Waynesville until 1880s, didn't get to Murphy until 1890s.

You couldn't get in here or out of here except by a wagon or a horse. Yeah. And the roads were terrible. If it was raining, you could forget it. Snow and definitely forget it. Yeah. Game was abundant. 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. So these dogs had some real legitimate value. Most definitely. And people forget, they were looking for multi-purpose dogs. Yeah.

They were looking for dogs to defend their homesteads. from the 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 were 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 notch their ears or gave them a mark, and they went free range.

Yeah. 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 the dogs would hurt them back. So what I'm hearing you say is that these dogs were guard dogs? Absolutely. So hurting dogs? Yes, yes. And then they would have been what we'll define later, but it's tree dogs. Yes. Dogs that run game that can climb up trees. This gets is caught up on the plot family history, their frontier life, and how they were using these dogs. 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 clum. Not all will do this, and it's a badge of functional honor to be called a tree dog. And as a quick lineage summary here, 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 1734 and immigrated from Germany. Interestingly, Daniel Boone was born in 1734 too. So George Plott had a bunch of kids, but one of them was Henry Plot, who was born in 1770.

We've been to his home place. He was a hunter, and as the story goes, he was handed down his father's dogs. Henry had 11 children, one of which was John Plott, who was born in 1813 and was a big-time hunter. He had a son named Montreville Plot. who was probably the first to be recognized as having plot dogs. Montraville had a bunch of kids, but the most famous of his kids, and maybe the most famous Plot Hunter of All, was Vaughn Plot, who lived into the 1960s in Haywood County, North Carolina.

Bob Plott, the guy I'm talking to right now, knew Vaughn personally when he was a kid. It was one of his uncles. However, to be fair and to throw a wrench in our story, It's not entirely known how these dogs arose into modern history with the plot name attached to them. It seems evident. The trail is clear that this family had a unique fingerprint on these dogs, like no doubt. But could they have just been the most prominent folks using these brindle bear dogs that were developed by a wider community? Here's Mr. John, and he's going to give his opinion on the development of the plot hound in Appalachia.

I asked him where he thought they came from. 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 there wasn't dog food back then. You fed them scraps or your table or what you could feed them.

Right. Normally dog cornbread. There are three types of people that settle western North Carolina. One were to be the townsfolk, settled in towns. The other would be farmers who owned the best low-lying bottom land, farming land. And then there were folks, there were three types. There were folks, and I say this, they were folks I call the Branch Water Mountaineers. They lived up the Hollis

At the head of the branch To get to their cabin You had to take a sled road in There was a log cabin there With the dog truck kitchen 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 Lift to work and went to the dog That was the supper for that night Yeah But the Branchwater Mountain

those old families, I think, in a large part responsible for what eventually became the plot dog. Mr. John appreciates the story of the German origins of the plot hound stock, but doesn't fully buy it. He believes the dogs 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. 100% ownership of this

Brindle Bear dog. It just kind of happened. And people often believe what seems to be an easy narrative. 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. These Hillfolk families simply needed dogs that could get the job done on bears, hogs, and coon, and these Brindle dogs were doing it. It was only later that we got interested in where they came from. I've now got a question for Bob. So tell me about from 1800 to 1900 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 to me about how they, like, the dogs became distributed and how that happened. Two things happened there that I really think play a huge role in making the plot how it is today. I think because we were in that time capsule, so to speak, it allowed the dogs to get better and better and better. And Vaughn Plott talked about his father, Montereville Plot, was born 1850. He talked about what he called the Toesack Network, I 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 tow sacks and get pulled. puppies. And the understanding was that, you know, we get you a puppy or we sell you a puppy or we trade puppies is that we work together. You know, you got to keep this bloodline as close as we can. We're going to, there's going to be stuff introduced into it at times, but, but the most part, we're going to try to do a lot of line breeding. We're going to try to do some things to keep this, what's working. Yeah. And so they're really, 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 this that were not named plots. Some of them were related. Some of them were cousins and whatnot. But that time between there, between 1800 and 1900, the breed was continuing to evolve. But even then, it was still more kind of, I think, would have been a regional phenomenon, except for around 1900, people started coming in here once a train was in here. Train was, train changed everything. You can take a train in 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 the world at that time, you know, came here and hunted. You know, he was credited with later signing Jackie Robertson to professional baseball contract, integrating professional baseball in 1947.

But he came here in 35 and was working for the St. Louis Cardinals then. And I've got a letter on St. Louis Cardinal letterhead of Ricky writing back to Vaughnplot saying, man, you guys got the stamina professional athletes, you know, running these dogs. And I want to buy these dogs. You know, I want to get these dogs. So basically when this area opened up, these hunters started getting some national attention because of their prowess as hunters. Proules of people. 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 North Carolina, and they've got these dogs. And again, up until this point, this isn't a recognized breed. No, no, no. This is still just kind of this regional phenomenon of these guys with dogs. And obviously, by the 1900s, it would have spread beyond the plot family. Most definitely. It would have been dogs all over the country. Yeah, I've got shipping receipts.

in early 1900s of plot hounds being shipped to Arizona, you know, plight hounds being shipped in different parts of the country. By the 1930s, those dogs were going for $125 each, which was a lot of money at that time. Yeah. But backing up a little bit to your point,

by 1900, early 1900s, when the train was here, people could get here a little bit better, riders were coming here, you know? Raymond Camp. Sports writers. Sports writers.

Raymond Camp was a writer for the New York Times. I imagine this. New York Times, you don't think about New York Times that way. New York Times had a full-time outdoor columnist named Raymond Camp who wrote three articles a week. So by the 1900s, 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 1700s and into the middle 1800s, calling them plot hounds. They might have simply been referred to as the plot's 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 Mr. John. I have found as early as the 1900s New York Times articles about plot dogs and hunting plot dogs and hunting bear in western North Carolina.

So believe it or not, as early as early in the last year, as that was this national publicity about the plot family and their plot dogs. So by the early 1900s, they're referring to them as proper-known 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 1906. A handsome, dark, hound-looking dog with a frosty muzzle sits happily in an old-school family portrait. It's pretty cool. You can see that photo along with countless other incredible images in Bob's book Strike

and Stay. You really should order it. Every one of you should have a copy of Strike and Stay. But the dog in that first plot photo came from the stock of Montreville plot, who would have been the great grandson of the original immigrant, Johannes, or George Plot, and Montreville would have been Bob's great uncle. And not to throw a possum in the egg house of our beautiful story. but it's just too relevant to ignore.

Montreville 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 Montreville was adamant that his dogs weren't hounds at all, but rather plot curs. He corrected anyone 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 Montreville, only two generations removed from Europe, had some allegiance to the idea of a cur dog. Today, however, the modern usage of the word cur is multi-layered. Some might use that like a curse 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 Blackmouthed Stevens Kerr and Tree and Kerr. It's complicated, but this is Bear Grease. Did you expect the day off from complicated drama? I hope not.

I want to get back to Mr. 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, Mr. John is skeptical of the origin story of the plot hound and these boys bringing 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? Man, I hope I don't get in trouble for this. What you're telling me doesn't surprise me. Like the traditional story I've known and I mean just kind of believed was probably for the most part true. But one thing I know that humans do very well,

is streamlined stories to kind of make it fit an easy narrative. Would you say that that's happened in some ways? I would say so. And also, the Plot family were the most identifiable, the better known of the hunters, and were written about. And at that time, the family members were getting out and around, serving in the military, serving in World War I, for example. They just were better known and could come.

communicate better. I know. I tried to explain to some folks. I said, I know it may be disappointing to you. But there's another side to this, too. That's just as fascinating, if not more intriguing than that. I used the term here first on this couch, pure Americana. It's just a very intriguing account and story about plot dogs. Pure Americana. That's a good phrase. What I'm hearing Mr. John say is that the plot family might have just arisen as the most prominent family hunting these Appalachian brindle 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 them. That's not what we're trying 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 to be saved. 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 Mr. John are on the same team. They're actually friends. Bob quotes Mr. John in his book Strike and Stay.

These men both have 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 brindle dogs. And then a prominent person arises and the activity becomes deeply associated with them. For example, think about bow hunting legend Fred Bear. He didn't invent bow hunting.

He was just the 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 bow hunting. 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 to fully buy into what Mr. 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 Plott. It all goes back to the question. Did George or Johannes have these five dogs on that ship?

Or did careless record keeping delete that from history? Or is it a fabricated myth? And if it's a myth, who and why did they make it up? And man, it's a good story if they made it up. I love this kind of stuff. It's really in the realm of the Black Panther or Bigfoot. Are you a believer or not? I have a feeling Gary Believer Newcomb will believe those dogs were on that ship.

And if Brent Reeves would have been around, he'd have been an undercover warden 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. But what's not disputed is that the plot family were the most prominent, well-known plot dog hunters in Appalachia when the calendar rolled into the 1900s. Here's Bob bringing us into the finish line of the official formation of the plot hound breed. This is big.

So that's all of a sudden, people are 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 35, the Ricky thing, kind of exploded. By then, you got guys in the Midwest who were coming here after 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 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 recognition. But when it did, man, it took off. And then all of a sudden there became a crime of a crusade for to get the dog

registered as an official breed. And so that happened in 1946 when the UKC finally sanctioned that and approved that. And if you look at the first, I think there's about 100 dogs registered at that time, 87 of them roughly were all either on by Vaughn Plot, John Plot, Taylor Crockett, Gola Ferguson. All those guys would have been from right here. Yeah, right here.

Yeah. North Carolina. Taylor was living in Macon County at that time. Vaughn. John were living right here in Haywood. Gola was living right over in Jackson. So 1946, the Plot Hound became a United Kennel Club, UKC, official breed. And these guys right here in Western North Carolina were the ones who defined what the breed was.

They presumably presented a case to the U.K.S. UKC said we've got 200 years of history. We've got 200 years of breeding. They had to prove that, I 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 to be its own specific breed. And that was a big moment for the plot hound.

Huge. Huge. You can't put that in it really. any perspective how big it was. I mean, it was just because here you got the guys, the original family members, I say original, dating back to, I mean, Henry, Henry Plott would have been Vaughn'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 first hundred dogs registered, 87 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 and so when in the late 40s when this happened this is like such a powerful time too in american history oh yeah world war because these yeah world war two is ended all these guys come back these young guys come back from the war and there's there's money here there's time that they've never had america's kind of popped there became a big demand for the plot hound all across the country. Yeah. And 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 was just boom, you know? Yeah. And those Midwestern guys give them credit. They were like, man, we want to promote this. You know, magazine started coming out, you know. Yeah.

Full cry, hunter's horn. Yes, yes, yes. And so people started 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, I think it was late 50s, the National Plot Hound Association was formed to kind of promote the breed, you know. In 1946, the UKC recognized the plot hound as an official breed. And 87 of the first 100 dogs registered were from a very tight circle in western North Carolina, and a bunch of them had the last name Plot.

By the late 1950s, the fame of the Plot Hound as a bear, hog, and coon dog was soaring across the country. You've got to wonder if those old Branchwater mountaineers, carrying away Brindle Puppies and Toesacks, 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 close down on this first episode of this series, I want to ask Mr. John a question, a personal one. I think to me the most special thing about plot dogs and being here in North Carolina, regardless of the history, which really will never.

never know all the details because it was during a time when records just weren't being taken very well. Fact becomes legend, legend becomes fantasy. 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 dedicated their lives to the plot breed like you have now. What does it mean to you? 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 a plot dog. not everyone has had an interest in the history of this fabulous breed of dog and so it's a tremendous overwhelming pride it's a state dog in north carolina do you know what a plot dog is no don't believe i do i said well i'm going to teach you it's a state dog of north carolina you know a lot of kids you know it's usually grocery store cashiers i get on to but it's a lot of

It's a tremendous overwhelming pride. And I can go places where these events took place. And Clay, this is just a funny feeling comes over you. That's the funny feeling. Like, you're right back in time. 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, 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 Greece. 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 a prolific and very good writer and has written all kinds of history books about Southern. Appalachia.

Be sure to check out the meat eater.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. We've got it all. I can't wait to talk to all those hillbillies on the render next week. We'll see you then. First Lights Fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends.

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