Bear Grease - Ep. 292: Render - Black Patch and Black Panthers

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

On this episode of the Bear Grease Render, join host Clay Newcomb, Gary "Believer" Newcomb, Terrell Spencer, and Josh "Landbridge" Spielmaker along with special guests Jeff Gardener and Drew Harrington, who are natives of the Black Patch region of Kentucky as they discuss the Tobacco Wars series. Plus, Gary receives a special gift from a listener. If you have comments on the show, send us a note to [e-mail] Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. First Lights fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days and real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season.

Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware Gear at firstlight.com. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called the Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual Bear Grease podcast. Presented by FHF Gear, American Made, Purpose Built, Hunting and Fishing Gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. Well, I've been looking forward to this render for a while.

We kind of got off schedule. We did the first Night Rider Tobacco War episode. Then we usually have a render where we talk about it immediately, but we kind of had a fill-in render with Rich Froning, but this works out perfect. Never heard of them. Never heard of the fittest man in the world, Rich Froning. So we had, we've now played these two.

Night Rider Tobacco War episodes. So that's what we're here to talk about. And we have a pretty good guest list here, a varied assortment of guests. Yes.

We got my dad, Gary Believer Newcomb, who I have some, someone sent you a gift. Oh, good. I'm going to go ahead. Money? I'm going to go ahead. Better than money. I'm going to go ahead and introduce everybody.

Then I have Jeff Gardner. Now, you're not from Kentucky. I am from Kentucky. You are from Kentucky. Born and raised. Yeah. Currently don't live in Kentucky. Correct.

Currently in Oklahoma. But Jeff, Jeff did something that's very rare in the Bear Greece world is that he basically like hand delivered this podcast to us. For real. I'm not kidding. People all the time suggest stuff, which I love. I mean, keep them coming. A lot of times the suggestions are about stories that maybe people don't have the full

grasp on and maybe it's a great idea. It's not someone's fault if they send me an incomplete. But when somebody goes, this is a great story, here's the book about it. I know the author, here's his number, also know a secondary guest that you could interview about. I think this would fit. Who happens to be my wife's grandpa. Right. I mean, he just like hand delivered the whole thing. And then, so we ordered the book. And we were just like, yeah, this is. great. And so anyway, thanks, Jeff. Hey, happy to help. Have you help. Big fan. Love what you guys do. And like I said, you know, I'm sure we'll get into it. But I read the story and was like, I literally was sitting there in my wife's grandfather's house and I went, man, I just, I bet you could make a

killing with a podcast of this. I said, I, but then I was like, you know, I would love to hear somebody do this. And then it just clicked. I was like, this is exactly what these guys do. Yeah, yeah. And I was able to find a, you know, email for you and get it to you. worked out. Here we are. So your grandfather is Dr. Lloyd Murdoch. Is that correct? So my wife's grandfather. Yeah. Your wife's grandfather. I, you know, selfishly consider him a grandfather. He's been like

grandfather to me. So I may refer to him that. And you may hear us refer to him as Bubby, because that's what the rest of the world calls him outside of academia. So he was on the first episode, and he's essentially a agronomist and was a tobacco expert. So he was, was the one real soft-spoken guy that spoke on the first episode. So

that was great. And then so your brother-in-law, so you are married to sisters whose grandfather is married to my sister. I'm just not going to worry about our connections. These guys somehow are family relations. Dr. Murdoch is Drew's grandfather. He is my grandfather. He's your grandfather.

We're from Kentucky. Family trees get messy. I heard the motto Kentucky was 15 million people, 15 last names. Wow. Wow. I like it. I like it anytime we can jab somebody else.

Exactly. Yeah, that's all right. You know? Where in Kentucky are you all from? So I was actually born in Princeton where one of the raids happened. And where my, that's where my... Like the Vatican of the Knight Rider story. Yep.

My grandparents still live there. It's where Josh came down and did the interviews with my grandfather. And one county over was where Bill Cunningham was. and but now I've since shifted I'm in Lexington Kentucky now okay okay awesome man well I'm from Louisville born and raised in Louisville are both you all so both y'all are Louisville fans we are yes okay yes we all sad to see Calipari go it didn't make any difference to me they're not doing they're yeah I mean I kind of wish he was still there because they'd be they'd be one and five one in the SEC instead of me doing our yeah maybe one and five everybody

loves Mark Pope with the wow hey that's a Rub it in. Rub it in. But we are actually two Cardinals and a family of Wildcats. Okay. And now I got a little one of my own that it's tough, Clay. Man, they're wearing him out. They're bringing him over to their side.

But he loves his uncle Drew. So I got a feeling the more we start running around together, he'll be all right. He'll be all right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, to finish out introductions, this is my neighbor, friend, the best chicken farmer that I know,

Terrell Spencer, known as Spence. And, man, I just, do you mind picking up your tea jar? I have deep respect for a man that would drink tea out of a pickle jar. Man, this is a spaghetti sauce shot. Spaghetti sauce jar. Spence comes to our church every week with a different jar. Showing out, huh? And I get called out.

This is like, you know, when he talk about honorary farmers on this podcast, you call a farmer out, he's just going to dig in, right? Well, it's funny because everybody brings water bottles now. This generation is obsessed with hydration. I mean, back when I was a kid and dad, you'd be the same. I mean, we watered like cattle like once a day, you know? Yeah. And now everybody has like huge water bottles.

Stanley Cubs and all. But this is acceptable in my book, like just like a jar, you know, rather than a big water bottle or something. Tea tastes better out of a jar. I agree. Spence is a farmer and he He kind of had some insight into the farm side of it So wanted to have Spence here

But what I haven't told you If you haven't figured it out already Is that there's a federal officer amongst us Jeff works for the FBI What? What? I do that's... Dad wouldn't have come if I'd have told you.

What's your hiding, Gary? Oh man. What's your hiding, Gary? I drove from me up here in 35 minutes So. Outside of my jurisdiction. Nothing that I can do about that. No, and I know we don't have to go into detail about it, but that's interesting.

How long have you worked for the FBI? It'd be five years this summer. Okay. Yeah, so I'm fairly new, you know, to the career as a whole, but it's been good. Do they call you, kid? Come in, Utah. Utah. Utah.

From Kentucky. That's right. Now, yeah, about five years. And like I said, it's how we ended up out in Oklahoma. Were you in law enforcement before? Like, what's the career path? Tell you what, Clay. It's been an interesting ride.

So, me and Drew met in college. We both played college baseball at University of Louisville. And then graduated there, kicked around the minor leagues for a little bit. And then literally was finishing playing, was getting married. To his sister. To his sister. So I studied. criminal justice in college and then in 2017 I was just gotten engaged to to drew's sister

Chelsea and needed something to say at Thanksgiving other than I was going to go play independent league baseball again for you know 1100 bucks a month for four months like okay it's so it's so you know I was always interested in law enforcement my dad was a police officer my mom's dad it was a police officer and it's always been big in my family so I looked into it my dad had always mentioned you know trying to go the federal route and so I started looking some of that up on USA jobs and I was like man you can just apply for the FBI check this out so I kind of just did it on a whim and made it through the first couple steps and then got denied didn't get in but the more I looked at it thought man I think this is what I actually want to do so I had to wait a year like I said

I finished playing baseball one more year, came back home, got into, believe it or not, like trying to sell advertisements and tickets for a minor league wrestling outfit. So if you look at...

This picture it can't be read. My daughter watched Nacho Libre for a birthday the other day. Okay, so if you go on Netflix and you watch, there's a documentary called like wrestlers or something or wrestling, and it's a documentary where they follow Ohio Valley Wrestling.

Well, a buddy of mine who had told me whenever I was done playing, he'd offered me a job in medical sales, which is what he did. And from my locker of my last game, I sent him a text and said, hey, dude, just finished up. I'm getting married in a month. I need a job. Like, is that still open? He said, yeah, come see me on Monday.

So I did. And I'm expected like, all right, we're going to start talking about this whole medical sales thing. Well, now he says, I got a job. for you. He says, I just bought this minor league wrestling. You ever heard of Ohio Valley Wrestling? Yeah, which like if you follow wrestling, it's huge because like a lot of the greats from the old days came up through this. Through Ohio. Yeah, Ohio Valley Wrestling. And so it's, look at it on Netflix. There's a pretty interesting documentary. You could see a little insight to that world. Okay. I did that for a few months and then he finally let me in on the medical sales side.

And so I was in and out of spine surgeries for about a year and a half and then had reapplied to the Bureau and ended up getting in. Okay. So it's been a wild ride. Wow. And here I am. Here I am on Barry's. Now you're a professional podcast scout.

It's good to be here. It's not far from wrestling. Let us know if you have anything else going on. Well, that's interesting. Yeah. Very interesting. So, anyways. So, Dad, a guy sent this to you.

We have his name. We get that little letter right there, that little handwritten letter. It's torn in half, not don't know why. get the top part. So, yeah, Jeff Dwyer out of Washington sent this to Gary Believer-Nukum.

Wow. And, man, it's so old that it has a plug that's like a quarter inch and has two little plugs, but it actually... It used to work. You may get shocked. It's disco lamp.

It'll cause a seizure. It pretty much works. Yeah. But unfortunately, it was broken. broken. In transit, it cracked. He did a great job of packing it. But do you mind if we keep this here, though? You can. Do you mind? You think Judy wants that? It's a lamp, but it's also like an ashtray. Yeah, or an ashtray or like a catty, like put your bedside sundries in there. You put your pocket knife and your wallet in there at night. Yeah, that could be dangerous. Well, this is a throwback to the, to the Black Panther. The first,

episode of Bear Grease. We did a, we did an episode called the, the myth of the Southern Mountain Lion. And at the end of it, we talked about Black Panthers. And not a week goes by. I'm without exaggeration, but someone doesn't send me something online about Black Panthers. Because Dad believes them. Yeah. Just spurning the science.

So anyway, you've got a new lamp. Are you sure that's a Panther? That might be a Salaman. I appreciate it. That looks like a Salaman. Yeah, the artwork on this is just terrible. It hardly even looks like a panther. But you can see his tail curled right here.

I mean, like the person that made that, I mean, I don't know. But it's wonderful. So congratulations. Thank you, Jeff. Styelized. Yeah. Thank you, Jeff. That's pretty awesome.

I've never had a gift that I would treasure more, I don't think. He wrote in and sent me a picture of it and said, I'd like to send this to Gary Believer-Nook him. And I said, I got an address for it. We'll take it And I had my believer had in the truck And I forgot to put it on Oh man

So anyway That's very nice Well The Night Rider Tobacco War Of Tennessee and Kentucky Two-part episode So would y'all have grown up Knowing about this story?

I didn't learn about it Until You know I married into the family I think my first trip to Princeton Was actually during the Black Patch Festival Yeah First time I was going down there

So Princeton still holds the Black Patch Festival every fall and around the time that they're smoke, fire, and tobacco. And I went to that festival ever since I was two, three. Really? What do they do there? Oh, it's just they shut down Main Street. They have all kinds of little tents and things set up, selling stuff. I remember when I was super young, we would always do like a frisbee contest where accuracy

distance and stuff like that, so I was always geared up for that. They do a pancake breakfast and serve the town. So how big is Princeton, Kentucky? probably four or five thousand people maybe something like that yeah yeah when you when you can you smell the dark fire tobacco when it's oh yeah does it smell like hickory smoke or does it smell like tobacco smoke it's very very unique i will say that um you you you get the smell of hickory you know much like you you know if you throw something in the smoker and put put hickory chips in it right it's a lot like that kind of smell but it does have a have a distinct smell because i get i mean the

No, no, it's not burning. No, no, it's not. It's the woods are, the wood on the bottom of the floor of the barn are covered with sawdust, and it's just that smoke that rises up. Did you have family that grew tobacco? Nope. Nope. No, I don't have any, we don't have any other than Western Oklahoma.

We don't have any farmers out in our family. Yeah. I went to basic with a guy that their family grew tobacco. I was thinking about it. And I'm not sure, just in Kentucky, isn't it? Big old dude named Rectin. He'd talk about going in the tobacco patch, and if it was wet, like they'd get sick. Like when they worked it, I guess, because of the nicotine.

So anyways. Oh, really? It was like brushing up against them? Yeah, I guess just working in the, you can't go in there when it's wet. But I just randomly remember that the other day. So listening to this. That's my time. Interesting.

It used to be all over, too. I mean, even in there, I can recall, I grew up in basically in the city in Louisville. And so there would be times where you'd drive through and you'd see patches of open land, you know, within city limits where people were growing tobacco in. And it just. In your lifetime. Absolutely. Yeah. I remember in fourth grade, it was still, like, that's the grade in Kentucky where you learn all about Kentucky history and all that.

And I remember learning that that was like the number one cash crop back then. I doubt it is now. I'm sure it's poor. Per acre, it still is. Is it? So, I mean, it's always been huge. You know, it's, Kentucky's kind of funny. We're just known for man's vices, like tobacco, bourbon and horse racing.

You know, like, man, if you want to, you know, get drunk, have a cigarette and bet on some horses. It is a one-stop shot. Man, I started, you know, I don't think they grew a lot of tobacco here in the Ozarks. It certainly, I think it was grown at times, but this was not known for that. I really started learning about tobacco when I started going to East Tennessee and running around with Roy Clark, who's a guy that Roy's still alive is in the 70s. And they had tobacco allotments. They just sold their tobacco allotments, as I understand it, in the last 20 years. But, you know, that's the way it went that.

I don't know if you knew it. We didn't really get into the modern tobacco stuff, but back in the day, just people grew it and there wasn't a lot of regulation. But after about the time of the tobacco wars and a lot of federal regulation came in on the tobacco market, and they started doing allotments for tobacco. And basically, the government would say, like, you can grow five acres of tobacco, period, every year. But you could sell your allotment to a farmer. and so if you didn't want to grow it. Is this right?

Do y'all know some of that stuff? Yeah, so my grandfather knows obviously a little bit more about the allotment, but from what I've gathered, that sounds pretty accurate, yeah. Yeah. And so Roy Clark grew up, and now they call it backer. I'm sure that's – I can't believe I went through this whole episode without saying backer, but that's the way they say it in East Tennessee. Like, they're not joking or trying to be cute.

It's just – it's backer. Backer or tobacco? Tobacco. Tobacco. Bill Cunningham said it several times. Tobacco. Tobacco. Yeah.

Tobacco. Yeah. But, you know, Roy was in his lifetime plowing with a horse, like hand plowing tobacco. But it was such a convenient crop because you could grow a small acreage and make that much money. Yeah. Which was astonishing. We had a couple of corrections on this episode, and one of them, there was a modern tobacco farmer that, told me actually the the yield ton per acre yield that we said was way off we said it was

4,000 pounds per acre and he said even today in like the best case scenario you don't get that much he said you get like 2,000 so anyway but point being you could grow a small amount of the of tobacco and it just had this enormous value and I mean when you start doing the math and you see that you could almost like, if you were just a subsistence guy making, well, from what, Joe Scott said 25 cents a day to a dollar a day. Dr. Murdoch said you could make a dollar a day. Joe Scott was talking about making 25 cents a day. Did you all hear that?

Yeah. And so essentially you're making that range of money for just an uneducated labor. And then you could like double your income by having three or four. records of tobacco. Yeah. And you just, you kind of get the sense of how important that would be. Yeah.

You know. And moving from subsistence to like where you can actually buy things. Yeah. That's one of the problems on a farm is you can produce a lot, but converting it into cash is a big deal, you know. And I don't know. That was just, I understand where they're coming from,

you know, like just to have something you can grow and just there's a ready set market. Man, It just, that kind of thing is extremely rare in ag. Yeah. You know, so, especially on that small of an acreage, it's just, I understand, like, a lot of why people got upset and blood and all that stuff, you know, like, it really was kind of a unique situation. Yeah. Compared to, like, cotton or something else where, you know, by that, you need so much land to do it and the labor, you know, a small family could, like you said, double their income.

and he gave all that like put a calico dress for Easter and have shoes and yeah and that like i don't know it's just it's kind of a unique situation he's really cool to hear about yeah last spring clay newcom 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 contests, 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 do.

did and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy to use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. I think I'll start off by just asking you guys what stood out to you. Jeff, I might start with you. Just like the whole podcast, because there's a hundred things. I want to talk about the Joe Scott interview. I want to talk about Bill Cunningham. I mean, there's a whole, there's a hundred different things I want to talk about.

but usually that's what we do is just kind of like go around the room and just be like what's what stood out to you or what was your favorite thing or something new you learned but what's that to you Jeff tell you what man I think the biggest thing is it's you know I think I said this whenever I first sent it to you all it's such a challenging

story you know you have these people who felt like they were you know being taken advantage of and by all means they were and so they you can't blame them for wanting to you know eventually, like you're saying, eventually getting to the point where there's bloodshed because they're upset. But I think I sent you all the email to this thing after I read the first chapter of that book.

And the way it had always been painted to me was obviously from the local standpoint of who the night writers were, why they were standing up against Duke. Well, if you read the first chapter that book, I mean, he was an American success story too. Yeah. You know, his daddy limped home from the Civil War to, I think he had lost his wife. You know, they were kids living with either an aunt or an uncle, something like that. And all they had was one mule in a patch of tobacco. You know what I mean? And that was Washington Duke, James, James Buck Duke's dad.

Exactly. Who became the Duke trust. And Buck hops on the trailer behind the mule and they go start selling this tobacco. And next thing you know, you know, Buck is growing this thing. and he's moving to New York, and he's the, you know, he's the rebel now in,

in New York City, trying to make a name for himself. And so, you know, in America, we celebrate that person, too. Yeah, yeah.

But then at what point does it become where it gets too much? And that's where you saw Washington Duke, you know, there's a quote he has in the book where he says something along the lines of, you know, there's two or three things I've never understood in this world. The Trinity and my son,

my son Buck. I remember that now. He says that and it goes, you know, and Judge Cunningham mentioned the same thing in there that, you know, a successful entrepreneur sometimes is in the DNA. And so you have this guy who built this company up

and probably reached a point where he could have started giving back and, you know, at some point in his career, he forgot what it was like to be the farmer and to be the guy grinding every day. but then you also have this other side and what challenges me is you have a guy like David Amos where I hate to say it like this

because I haven't had this thought until recently but I go this was an educated man who rallied up a lot of probably uneducated people to go do his bidding to was he fulfilling a desire or a dream to be this war general that he never got to carry out?

out from his days and I think he went to like Hopkinsville military school. Yeah. So you kind of wonder that, right? Like, was this two

egos that ultimately were collided? Yeah. Or is it even not that being? Am I over thinking that? You know what I mean? Like, I don't know

if that even answers your question. It's great. It's just a lot. We don't really ever see really why David Amos did what he did.

Yeah. Like he never really tips his hat completely. Yeah. I mean, Judge Cunningham, who I probably should have referred to him as Judge Cunningham of the podcast.

Sorry, sir. I called him Bill. He kind of painted the picture of him being this well, it was just easy to buy into, being this kind of guy that was just looking out for

his people. With the freed slaves, he'd treat the freed slaves. Yeah. Yeah. And it makes sense. And I think the way the book reads is that that's the case. But I don't know. I just,

my mind started going there a little bit. And that probably is partly to do what I do for a living. You kind of try to examine both sides and go, all right, what's the motive behind this? But I can't help but think was that potentially part of it. Well, man, that's the same thing that happens in every story we tell.

Yeah. Like we have in our mind a narrative that fits something inside of us. Because I was thinking the same thing is like David Amos, a villain or a hero. And I honestly don't know still. Like what I think about him. So it makes it a good story.

Yeah. Because he could have, I mean, if you could have just met him and talked with him, you probably could have got a sense of, does this guy really feel sorry and empathetic towards people being take advantage of by this like corporate criminal? Or was it

there ulterior motives? Indictive. But if you saw him like a bunch of guys whooping up on someone with his kids screaming and his wife in their front yard and beating them senseless, he'd probably, it'd probably be pretty easy to make a judgment. You know, I mean, like, there's some real violence in this thing. And he absolutely had seemingly everything to do with that. Yeah, oh, yeah, because, I mean, that was a whole organization. You're going to have captains and you're going to have squads and, you know, I mean, just. And I guess that part, and I apologize for cutting you off.

I guess that part's what does it for him. It makes me go there because, you know, it makes a point to mention that in the book of how this guy was raised. And I think his daddy was a doctor too. Yeah. So you go, is this one, you know, you see this in movies and all that where you see people who their family wants them to continue down the family line or what have you.

But did he inside always want to be, you know, in this other world? And now this was his opportunity too. Yeah. And that's speculation. You know what I mean? I don't know. But, well, and it was said in the book, we didn't, maybe we said it, but he, he, he idolized these Civil War military generals. So maybe we said that.

But, yeah. No, that's, that's a great point. Drew, what stood out to you? So first, phenomenal job on the podcast. I've heard, like I said, heard about this story since I was young, young. and growing up in that area and region of Kentucky, these guys have always, Nightwriters have been idolized. David Amos, he still has signs in Cobb, Kentucky.

I think Josh saw one of, you know, home of David Amos. I mean, he's still here. They're proud of it. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And so I was always one-sided towards the Knight Riders, but then once you start having experiences, you get older, you kind of are like, I don't know if they should have been. didn't do it all this.

But as far as the podcast goes, what I really loved about it was the book, and I think Judge Cunningham talked about it a little bit that, you know, he was trying to be unbiased when he wrote the book. But that the last monologue of the second one where he really gives his, expresses his opinions, and especially what he did for a career his whole life when, you know, he, he swore to uphold the constitution and the law. and to really get his perspective on it all where he sympathizes with him, but he can't approve of it. I love that whole last 12, 15 minutes, whatever it was,

where he kind of ran down his thoughts of it. That was a really good perspective. Yeah. It was. You know, he brought such authority on this subject. He was a perfect guest. Like, really, he was. and we didn't get into his background a ton

other than just I kept saying that he was a Kentucky Supreme Court judge he was more than that though I mean he was a Supreme Court justice justice yeah yeah yeah but but yeah him him saying what he said was like a pretty balanced view of it and then his interpretation is conclusion of how kind of the country handled the situation I wouldn't have thought of because he said he said the corporate criminal got dealt with and and right you know the monopoly was broken up excuse me and uh but also david amos didn't get didn't even go to prison which you know you could look at that and say well that's being soft on a pretty hard criminal but he saw it as kind of like this this balance and then

when he talked about jury no nullification yeah which was a misconduct stake that we made, someone sent it in, I said, I thought Judge Bill Cunningham said jury notification, which didn't make sense to me. He said, he said jury nullification, which that makes sense when a jury knows someone's guilty and basically just like, let's the guy off. And he was saying that that was like this kind of balance, which now that is, the jury nullification you could clearly see how that could be used in a good old boy system and totally be misused. At the same time, sometimes somebody does something they don't really deserve what the law prescribes. And so it's kind of a gray area probably.

But it sounds like it happens all the time. Yeah. And probably usually used in a positive way. But yeah, I liked it when he said, he said, I've sent a lot of people to the penitentiary that I sympathize. with, yeah, yeah. For some reason that gave, kind of like humanized the law. Yeah. Almost like, not that it makes any difference to the guy who's going to the pen for 20 years

to know that the judge sympathized with him. Yeah. But it makes you feel a little bit better. Yeah. It was interesting how much faith he put in the judicial system. Even if there were things like jury notification, like that person went through the proper channels and was dealt with and now it's done. You know, it was interesting.

Well, and also we have, you know, we have the book or we have the two-hour podcast to refer back to. But at the time that the jury nullified, this was 1911, and it had been over for two to three years. So, you know, in the way when I heard Judge Cunningham talk about it, he's like, we're just going to put it into this. It's done from here. Let's just bury the hatchet and move on. Right. Yep. Yeah. Spence, what stood out to you about it? there was a part where the gentleman

I get all the names mixed up but the guy that was the Supreme Court Justice that's someone's grandpa I apologize I can't keep the straight y' I'm sure somebody's I just know what's parents my marriages and my kids are the tall blonde ones

that's how I go by life but it's the just when he talked about like you know the 30 there's that lady he got the 35,000 and it's like but Duke was worth 200 million didn't even know if he even knew of the tobacco war.

Yeah, that was kind of a let down, wasn't it? Yeah. And I thought about like Solomon when he's like, vanity of vanities, all things are vanities. Yeah, you know, and it's just like, like, man, all this, people beat, people ruined, you know, just these lifetime of terrible memories,

all the towns burned down. And the guy that it was all fighting against didn't, may not have even known it was happening. Yeah. And just like, Golly. But I don't know. And also just there, so there was that part of just like, and I don't know what to do with that.

Just it's a thinker. Yeah. You know, like, and you ask questions of like, which side would you would have been on? And I would have been on the vigilante side as a young guy, but I wouldn't now. Like, because I've changed. Like looking at myself hard in the mirror. You know, I probably would have turned Narc. You know, like at some point the first time I watched some guy.

You would have been a hillbilly. Yeah, well, just watching some guy get beat in front of his kids. Like, that's not cool. You know, it's one thing. You're fighting someone that wants to fight, but. So I don't, it just, and I think it's like that with a lot of American history, because it's our history, you know. It's complicated.

It's not one side. It's mixed. And I think that's what makes these stories so powerful, Clay, that you go about is it's okay that it's complicated because we're complicated and we're flawed. And a guy, you can respect a guy, but really hate something he did. Yeah, you know, and just like us, like, there's things I'm ashamed of in my past, and I hope they don't define me. Yeah, you know, so there's that aspect.

And then also just like, I've been on the receiving end to something similar to this. Mm. And like I was listening to it. The next Bear Creek Wars podcast. Yeah. It's probably, it's probably not that big. But, you know, I sent you a text to like, man, it really hit home. And Carlo was my wife.

we were sitting there. I was having coffee. And when it, it was really cold. And so, like, it's a great way to stay inside by talking to your wife, you know, once in the teens. But and just like, we were kind of reminiscent over that, you know, stuff that happened like a decade ago. And it is hard being an independent farmer, you know, and farming's just hard. And so much of, like, the, you know, farmers are great folks generally. I mean, it's a slice of society. You got your dirt balls and that. but like there's a reason we romanticize them like you talked about that but it's just like I just feel like sometimes the farming community throughout the at least in American history because I don't have a you know I don't have a viewpoint to look at other countries

but golly like you know like you were talking about that 200 million what if he would have made 100 million and all these other lives could have been radically changed like kids could have went to school with shoes on and no one's towns were burned but there's that thing that always just like you know the average farmer gets five cents of a dollar or something you know like and it's just that there it's so easy to extract from agriculture and those guys so rarely get what's deserved from something that we all do three times or maybe more a day you know so it's just it's just a thinker man yeah this was really impactful good analysis man i like what you said about A young you would have been a vigilante, but an older you wouldn't have.

And it's, you know, the luxury that we have today is that we get to hear this whole story. And we're not really emotionally involved with it. I mean, even if you're from there, you know, you weren't there during that time. Right. And we can like, you know, historical revision. We can look back on it and be, think we can understand it. There's stuff going on today that they'll be making, you know, turkey grease podcast about you know 50 years from now that maybe we're a part of you know

I think about that it's like what would be an equivalent today of something like this it's but it's pretty extreme I mean violence is violence whether it was done 3,000 years ago or today in in the but but human nature is still the same so people still still are violent and do crazy stuff even with the law and perhaps it's perhaps it's less than it would have been anyway point being i i i'm with you i think i think i would have sided with the farmers 100 percent but i would have hoped i would have been a voice of reason but which set of farmers oh got you got the association farmers yeah i really would have because i just would have been like you know the the the corporation getting that much just seems unjust and what they were

doing but i think i would have been i would have been like hey there's a better way to do this you know and I would hope that's the best version of my interpretation which I don't know if it really would have been true but I also think that um also think going back to your question of did it really matter and essentially Bill Cunningham's conclusion was that it really didn't like this the black patch is like 30 counties out of how many maybe 100 plus counties that maybe grow tobacco in the country I don't know. It was, yeah, probably more than that. Probably more than that. Because you got Virginia and North Carolina and all. Tons of counties. I mean, maybe it's like, I'm just guessing, 10% of the tobacco country might be the black patch, maybe, or maybe less. So, you know, how would this have affected these guys and maybe it didn't really affect them at all? James Buck Duke wouldn't even know what was going on. But it seems like it did get the attention of the nation at the time, as was evident.

by articles being written in national publications. Right. And you can't help but think that it would have brought attention to the powers that be, that had the, you know, that were changing some of these things. So maybe it had more impact than you would think. To break up the monopoly and. Yeah. Yeah.

But then, but I guess the main thing was just the economic factors, you know, that changed. Just like people started smoking more. So just like the demand just kept skyrocketing. but all pretty wild. Did y'all think I did a good enough job of like shaming tobacco users? That you bring that up. I think there's a story that you need to clarify that I would love to hear more. You said you thought you heard the voice of God tell you not to dip anymore.

And I've got to hear that story. Well, I mean, unless you were saying for the podcast. When I say the voice of God, I didn't hear the audible voice of God. Yeah. But just, and I'm very serious. I mean, I was probably 19 years old and dipped skull behind Juju and Paw Paul's back over here. Did you know, Gary? I knew.

You knew. I knew other things, too, that you don't know that I knew. Let's hear. I know. I can't. I can't tell you. Maybe I don't know. Did Juju know?

I might tell you privately. Did you do you know? Do you know. Okay. Well, I'm very interested to hear what you know because I don't know if I know anything else. As soon as you stop wearing tennis shoes, he knew. That was the moment. No, no.

But I just, it was the time of my life when I started to just walk closer with God. And I just, I mean, I literally remember one time driving down the road, chunking a can of skull. I was littering. FBI agents are right here, but I'd chunk a can of skull out the window. Too wrong, so make a right, close. Nullified. Yeah, yeah, thank you. It's official.

And I just knew it was bad. I just knew that like this is not something I wanted it. So when I did this story, I'm kind of joking, I didn't want to glorify tobacco. Because in a way, I mean, the agriculture and the farming of the tobacco is really cool. It's an interesting. It's a neat tradition. But then when you dive into it and it's like, yeah, this is really like something. The seedy underbelly.

The seedy underbelly of the world, I mean, you know, and I just don't, I just didn't want people to get the wrong idea. I don't view personally tobacco use is just like something casual that is like okay. I mean, I have lots of great friends that chew tobacco. Probably have people to listen to this podcast. and they should stop. So, I mean, period. Like, so that's just the way I feel about it. Dad, what did you think about it?

Is that okay? Hey, when you have your own podcast, you can be preachy sometimes. You're in the FBI, am I right? What's that? I said, you're an FBI agent. Yeah. What I'm saying is right, right?

Yeah, it's all you, man. You're a podcast. I'm the guest here. No, I was looking for the FBI stamp of approval. Like, Fourth Amendment says you kick me out whatever you want to. Like to Dare McGruff the Crime Dog, wasn't that like back in the ages of FBI? That's me.

We're going to have a branch of bear grease. I have anti-tobacco. My middle boy is like head over heels with hunting, all that stuff. So hearing Clay, like, as a strong role model saying, don't do tobacco. You know, like, sometimes you have that kid. I need a little, like, hand puppet. Or the. So I could talk to these grown men and be like, hey, guys, I'm, I'm, I'm, Mr. Burgaries.

Here you go, use this bad boy right here. You shouldn't do tobacco. People are going to have a lot of mixed emotions about this podcast. Well, I mean, I do too, but it's just sometimes the truth hurts. Yeah, but, uh, dad, what stood out to you? Well, I tell you, it was an amazing deal. But when you think about it, our country is made up of a lot of. amazing deals. I mean, you can just take this, take the personalities out, and stick it in

any place, you know, the way the Indians were treated. It just keep going all the way through. And, uh, but I think about Meriloo. Don't monkey with Merrilloo. Remember Mary Lou? Yeah. I mean, she was pretty. The women didn't like her. She was opinionated. The men didn't like her. And, and she ended up getting wealthy over this deal. And, uh, she pretty much put a shot. to it. Quite a bunch, though. I mean, she was the first step in stopping it. Wouldn't she?

Couldn't you say that? That's the way Bill described it. Yeah, she was the first litigation against the Knight Rider. So if you got something going, you know, you need to veer from Maryland. And then you think about our country being so new and young. I mean, it hadn't developed. We didn't have really strong unions. So they have vigilantes.

So, you know, I get upset sometimes with union stuff, but they really served a purpose in our country. Yeah. They established the worker to have a voice. They didn't have a voice. Yeah. Antitrust. I mean, all it would have taken was a few years later and have a law passed where, hey, if you get so big, man, we're going to bust you up and we're going to take care of you. You're going to make sure things, you know, so a lot of legal things developed out of this.

that kind of put a quietus on the, I love the vigilantes. When I was young, I used to think, man, somebody ought to take that kid right there, take him out behind the barn, and just beat the snot out of it. But you couldn't do it because you might have five good ideas, but you could have four bad ideas, you know, so you need the law, the Constitution to come in and establish all this. And I think we did a great job of doing that to keep our country on track. And this story just absolutely puts a magnifying glass on all that.

Yeah. Because we didn't have a lot of that stuff established. And because of this and many other stories, you know, the law developed, the antitrust, the break it up monopolies, the unions have where the workers have voices and so forth and so on. It was really insightful to me to hear Bill Cunningham talk about how this very issue has overthrown a lot of countries. Yeah. Because, you know, like when the government would, and I feel like what he's talking about is like when the government saw that these monopolies had so much power and they came in and said, we're going to take some of that power away from you. I mean, that's like a step towards communism in a way. I mean, it's like government control of business.

Right. But they did it just enough that it allowed people. to still be massively successful without, without, it just, you know, totally crippling their workers. So they kind of did it like just enough. And then, yeah, the unions, I agree with what you're saying. Like, you know, you kind of have sometimes the union stuff, I don't understand fully, but it does, it has helped a lot of people in the country. And so they just did everything kind of just right that set America up for the next hundred years, which would, you know, make us, you know, so successful in many ways.

And you had like, it, they touched on it and I thought it was really good. Because, like, if you back out a, you know, sometimes you look at little something to get an idea, but you back out and this story was playing at that time. Like, it was a really turbulent time, right? Like, you had all the barons, like the robber barons or whatever, like Vanderbilt and all them. You had railroads going up. You had Upton Sinclair's The Jungle with,

like people falling into pickle vats or meat packing plants. You had all the like the automotive stuff like where they're fighting cops and stuff and gunfights. You know, you had all the Al Capone and, you know, like Bonnie and Clyde. And like that was all in this time period coming off the Civil War. The, you know, Tulsa was burned. You had the sharecroppers and like desegregation. all these things this country was just roiling and it's all messy yeah you know and and and i think it's it's just it's just messy and it could have gone a lot of different ways it could have

and it kind of moved towards stability to some degree and you know there's different groups of people that would argue that it didn't and and but in general it moved towards stability at least as you compare to other parts of the world you know but um yeah it's such what i love about these stories. So this book, I've got Bill Cunningham's book right here. This book, as I understand it, it would have been kind of a regionally known. I mean, this wasn't like a New York Times bestseller. But it's a fantastic, fantastic book, fantastic story that many people outside of the Black Patch would have never heard. People inside the Black Patch haven't heard it. Yeah. But if you do, read i would encourage anybody listening to read it because there's so much you guys just can't cover

in a podcast like there's small little you know yeah anecdotes and different things in there about some of the other experiences that were going on out there that are just unreal you know and you really get that feel for how violent it was you know yeah at some points and you know like he mentions and um you know it was just disgusting there like it just at some point this thing became more violent than it probably was even intended on on becoming you know and I think that's we see that happen all the time in you know in history and in today's where people join in on something and then all of a sudden somebody else comes in to escalate it because they're not really worried about the mission anymore yeah they're just looking to crack some skulls right and you had some

of that infiltrated right in there well that and that was something that uh I'm glad you brought that up because I wanted to say that on here you know sometimes in a episode of so you just don't have enough space or time to say everything. For sure. But there was some accusation of the Knight Rider's being a racist organization because, I mean, it would have been probably at the pinnacle of like Clu Klux Klan, Kuklux Klan. Do you know it's the Q. Ku Klux Klux K.

Kru Klux Klan. Isn't it KKK though? It is. According to the Ramones song, KKK, took that baby away. has mocked me before overseeing the Clue Clucks Clan. It was founded in your state, wouldn't it? Well,

wouldn't it, Arkansas? Hey, now, I don't know about that. But there was, there was, there was, there was some talk of that. And basically, in Bill's book,

which is my source, they, he was, he had a section where he talked about how that there were a lot of African Americans in the association,

not necessarily Knight writers, though, because that was a very segregated society. So they kind of lived in different places. But as the thing went further and further, people would under the name of the Knight Rider's probably do some stuff completely off mission.

And so there probably was some racist stuff going on that kind of was like this overlap between these groups of people. So that was something that was talked about. But then there were a lot of people, guys that just kind of under the hood of a black mask, just started doing crazy stuff that had nothing to do with tobacco. But they were kind of lumped in with Night Riders. So it wasn't just all this like really clear-cut mission. Is that a good description? I think so.

No, I think you're right on with it. Yeah. And a lot of bad things happen under anonymity. Yeah. You know what I mean? Anonymity seems to be a fuel for fire sometimes. Sure. You know, it happens all the time on the internet.

You know what I mean? People even comments and saying horrible things that I guarantee most of them would never say face to face to another person. That was kind of that time period's version of that where they felt the freedom to go do that. Maybe not freedom, but they felt the protection or just that anonymity to go and do things that they wouldn't do. You know what somebody should make fun of me for in this episode is how many times. I said clandestine. What's wrong with that? Well, I just felt really smart when I said it.

So I think I just kept saying it. And I actually said it yesterday in like casual conversation with someone. It's a good one to mix in if you can. They were like, what? And I said, clandestine, just like secret. And they were like, that word makes me uncomfortable. You just look at them square in the eye, you go, it should. What are you hiding?

On Blood Trail. the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed. And there was a full of blood. Oh my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors.

Where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going to be right there. Going deeper, from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwards. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something.

I'm Jordan Sillers. Season two of Blood Trails premieres April 16. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Maybe the last thing I want to talk about. We can continue talking about certainly something I wanted to talk about was the Joe Scott interview. So for a Bear Grease podcast, and now going back to Jeff giving us this one like all watered up in a little bundle, we didn't know about this Joe Scott interview, which to me is so cool. Anytime that you can reach back into history and actually hear. someone that was there in an interview format is really unique.

It reminded me of back in the late summer, we did a series on the formation of the Buffalo National River, which was over here in Arkansas. And in the process of interviewing these people, we had talked about this lady named Granny Henderson, and I found out there was this long interview with Granny Henderson that essentially nobody had hurt. I mean, somebody did,

but it was very obscure. And I was able to go into that interview, and you could hear Granny Henderson's voice, this woman born in the 1800s and hear her talking about her life. It's super interesting. This was like that. And so this Joe Scott interview,

he was 97 years old in the 1980s. Bill Cunningham interviews him when Bill's a young man. Bill's in his 80s now probably. He's 82. Yeah, so Bill would have been in his 40s, I guess. he interviews Joe Scott and yeah

that's El Primo El Primo stuff when you get to hear from the guy and it was a long interview it was hard to go through and pick out which sections

to use but I mainly just wanted people to kind of hear his voice and what he Joe became kind of like this focal point of Joe was a night rider and he was doing all this stuff I just couldn't quite put it all

I didn't want to villainize Joe either for being the last guy and just being willing to talk. But he said the only thing that he really ever did in one of the raids was like shoot his gun in the air. Like he was just kind of there. Now, he did insinuate that he was on some of the visits, but he didn't ever specifically say like I beat somebody. But if you think about it, an 18-year-old kid, and they're just looking for warm bodies to kind of write. with them and just kind of be there. I have a feeling he didn't actually do much. He was just kind of present.

Kind of there. That was the insinuation I got because he never got super specific. But you might, I mean, at 87 years old, I mean, you might not remember everything. I think those are the things you remember when you're 87. Yeah. Like that kind of stuff, I think you remember it. Just like when you talk like war vets or whatever, like those are the things that are burned into your brain. Yeah.

Like you burn. Because I think that was it Hoganville? Hopkinsville. He said he was there. Yeah. Like, I mean, that town burned down. You don't forget about burning down. Okay.

They specifically asked him. They said, what did you do it? Maybe Hopkinsville. Yeah. And he said, oh, I didn't do nothing. I just rode around on my horse and shot my gun in the air a couple times. Your house is burning down. You probably don't take that viewpoint of it.

But then again, you know, you wonder how. truthful the guy was being. I mean, here he is. It seems so not innocent, but it seems so like, like it just was inconsequential him at his age

talking about it. It's not like they're going to sit in prison or something. But he was very worried about that, actually. You know, there were parts of the episode when he was like, maybe I shouldn't be talking. But, a interesting

view of this would be what would have happened back then had Dr. Amos had not been there with his leadership skills. You know, it probably would have just flondered around and the same thing would have happened. It would just take a different route, probably a better route. I don't know. Probably a better route. Yeah. Yeah.

So the way to handle it as you look back would be through the courts. Hey, we got this big guy out here that's monkeying with us. Let's levelize the playing field. This isn't fair, you know, and they didn't have those tools to go to. The only tool they had was, you know, vigilante stuff. Well, because the courts, you ain't going to win against a guy with $200 million. I mean, like, that's also part of the American experience. And when you don't even have money to buy shoes for your kids, you know, over the time and you need to be working.

Well, what they did was probably what they sort of had to do. I mean, they didn't have avenues like we have today. So it's just like, hey, hey, just fold up, fold your tents up, let them take advantage of you, or we're going to fight. It's hard to judge somebody from a position you've never been in. Yeah. Right. And I think that's part of what, you know, Judge Cunningham was getting to when he says, I've sent people to the pen that I had empathy for. Yeah.

And, you know, in our line of work, it's, you see it every day, too. I mean, I remember my dad telling me, you know, when I was a kid that, you know, in police work and in law enforcement, the vast majority of people that you're going to interact with, they got themselves caught up in something they never meant to get caught up in. And there's plenty of people that it's all they've ever known. Sometimes it's a lifestyle of all they've ever known. Or like Cunningham said, you know, I knew the guy's dad. I knew his dad was abused. name his whole life. And you have empathy for people. And it doesn't make it right that they broke the

law. But you're a human being and that's what's going to happen. And so I think it's hard to make a judgment on somebody for any kind of situation if you've never been in it yourself. And that's something I, you know, I think that's what this podcast does so well. And you guys did it with this story. And as a Kentuckian, I'm honored that you all did it. But it's, You know, the beauty of this deal you all have going on here, man, as you make people think. And we are constantly in today's world just find ourselves in echo chambers and never having to think critically. And you have to remember, man, life is just history is messy. Yeah.

Life is messy. There is not a single thing out here that any of us, you know, in my opinion, there's been one perfect person walked this earth and we put him on a tree. You know what I mean? And so. you know, I think it just, you guys do such a good job of that, of causing your listeners to think about it to go, man, what, how do you digest this story and how do you see both sides of it and then come to your best? Well, and to piggyback off that, not only do we not know what life was like in that time being a farmer who was getting taken advantage of by this trust, but much like Joe Scott, I can't tell you what I would have done if somebody would have came to my, to my house, stuck a gun to my face and said, let's go. Yeah.

I mean, that's the best line in it. Yeah, from that point on, I'm probably like, let's go. Yeah. I mean, and, you know, you think about the night riders, and a lot of times the night riders and the association will get put one in the same, but you had 25,000 members of an association, and at most probably 500 night riders. So you're talking 2% of this massive, you know, association that a lot of times will get tied in together. and as we heard later on as they continued with the raids and then some of the beatings and stuff

it probably wasn't even association stuff that they were doing so um but you know i've i've never had somebody point a gun at me and tell me to do something but i can imagine that'd give me to react a little bit different well that's exactly joe scott's answer wasn't it yep when they say he said why did you join the nightriders and he gave such a great pointed clear answer he said what would you do if they took a gun in your face and told you to go you'd probably go let's go where we're going but it's not just random people either it's your neighbors or the holler you know like it it's if you say no well you're going to be looking over your back for a long time because you live right next to it it's your community clear too why these guys weren't

getting in trouble because you know when i when we first got to that point in the podcast where we're talking about they couldn't prosecute these guys like in some world you'd kind of be like, well, how the heck could they not prosecute them? They're doing all this criminal activity. But, oh, gosh, you would have been, you'd have been narcan on your, on your family, on your neighbors. And man, part of the, here's one thing that I thought about when, like, what would I've done? I think in the right scenario, you could have just navigated yourself out of the situation. and not been on either side.

I mean, I don't know how, but I know in my life I'd do that a lot. But where would you sell your tobacco? No, but in a, in a, I don't know, I don't know the answer, but I just, I just feel like you can, you could, you could, you could, you could just like slide under the radar. I just don't know that I would have been the guy that had been coming to beat because I was making a big deal about selling to the,

to the Duke trust, but also, I don't know, There's ways to do it. Like there's, there's, there's social ways to not be a target. You know, I, I was thinking about two,

I was thinking about too, because Duke hadn't probably, I mean, likely had no knowledge of the details of what was going on there. And I had to think about, like, what was causing them to drop price, you know,

to start paying, paying, I mean, you must have had these regional buyers that were making, on-the-fly decisions about what they were going to pay people, and they were the ones who were really beaten up on them, you know, financially. And it, you know, a lot of that stuff was probably had to do with that middle management. You know what I mean?

These guys that are, how are we going to get the best price for this tobacco and without this big oversight of the Duke, the big Duke trust? And so it's, you have to be able to see the small details of this. and this was their best response was to create this Planner's Protection Association and to fight this, what they perceived as greed. So, you know, there's just so many, so many minute things that you just don't know about to say who the good guys or bad guys. I think that's the title of the podcast, The Blurred Lines, Good Guys versus Bad Guys,

I think is really fitting because it's, it is hard to know. You know what I mean? And I think that, I think that bleeds over into a, a lot of the, a lot of the, um, the things that we deal with even in modern times. You know, it's so easy to jump on a bandwagon and not know the details of a situation. And I think it, you know, probably people in New York would have had they heard about this, they would have said, you know, you got these rebellious farmers down there just doing these horrible things. And then you've got these small, small town farmers saying, you know, we got, we're getting taken advantage of. And I

I think it has to cause people to stop and evaluate and to like try to learn more. You know, I think about political situations. I think about, you know, how things are perceived there. You can't just like you talked about echo chambers or talked about echo chambers. You can't just listen to an echo chamber. You have to really be on your guard for what you hear and what you believe. Let's play trivia. Yeah.

We're going to end with trivia here. Does that sound good? you guys think you're all black patch experts these guys are let me clear while he's handed out boards I want to clarify what I said a minute ago basically what I was saying was you don't have to pick you don't have to be in every fight that's being fought

yeah yeah because when I said you can navigate around something an old believer said what that's what I mean it's like you don't have to you don't have to fight every fight wise as serpents harmless as doves

There you go. There you go. There you go. All right, we're going to play a little trivia. Josh has seven questions. The winner gets the Panther lamp. Not true. Not true. We're keeping that one. Everybody's wives just breathe the sigh of relief. Got one for me there. Yep. Hey, I tell you what, here's what I am going to do. Not even a baseball player. This is what we're doing on this episode.

The winner of this trivia, which I'm not playing. I'm just going to be commentating. When's this Maltry Trail Cam? Oh, wow. Silas, I'm trying, buddy. Stakes are high. Stakes are high. And I can probably even get you like a subscription from Maltry to be able to run this bad boy,

because this is a cell camera. Is Josh Elable? He's already got some. And Gary, that would be nepotism. So really, it's just three. There's true. There's three people. We're down to three.

Okay. Yeah, okay. So the winner is getting a Maltry Trail game. All right, Josh. Okay. First, we got some questions that you, that everybody should know. We got a couple that you really had to be on your game to catch. Did you use the one that I said was going to be on here?

Or were you paying attention? Oh, I forgot about that. I knew, I knew when I said it, it wouldn't be on here. You can ask that question. I said, on the episode, I said, this will be on trivia. Go ahead, carry on. We'll move through this pretty quick. Okay, big question.

Who was the founder of the American Tobacco Company? Don't be misled by... Okay, go ahead. I think it's Christian later. I have nothing to say. Christian later. Do you think people got that joke? Oh, they got it.

They got it. I appreciate it. Guys, I don't know that like my 20-year-old son would, or 19-year-old son would have got it, though. They don't know who Christian later is. No. No. Okay. Terrell Spencer. Duke.

Duke. James Buck Duke. James Buck Duke. Duke. I put Washington Duke. It is Washington, Duke. That's got to be the answer. Y'all are right, but it's Washington Duke.

I think the more we back this out, the better for me. That's what I was trying to allude in my preamble. It's got to be specific. I don't even, did we even say that on the podcast, though? Did we say Washington Duke? Actually, I don't know that is that. You may have been cheated. You should join a union.

Okay. Second question. Everyone should get this one. Who is the, who was known as the leader of the Knight Riders? Oh, this is, come on. Everyone should get this one. Okay. Everybody should get a gimmy.

Okay, Drew, we're starting with you. David Amos. That is correct. David Amos. Ph.D. It's actually MD. Do I still get the points? Yes.

It's okay. David Amos. Gary. Sorry, size. I just couldn't pull it up, man. K. Zero. Famous Amos. You think that's the same guy as a cookie guy?

Probably. No, there's actually a story about that. I know. Their cookies are addictive, though. He's in the office. Okay, here's a bit of an obscure question that was mentioned in there. Okay. Who was known as the Moses of the Black Patch?

That one's a bit obscure. I'm terrible at names. I just need... That one's a bit obscure. Yeah, he was only mentioned once. It's a tough question. Sorry, Silas. We've got a couple ringers in here. Us Arkansas.

We're at, Gary, we're... Okay. Drew. Felix Ewing. Felix Ewing. Felix Ewing. Felix Ewing. Felix Ewing.

Gary? Seinfeld. Seinfeld? Felix Ewing is correct. Uh, okay. People back in the black patch are root. They're like, yeah. What?

Here's another question. Spence, you might remember this one. Thanks, yes. What was the term given to those who would scrape plant beds as an intimidation? Oh, Spencer will get that. Remember the first word. No, I ain't cheating. I'm a man of integrity.

Okay, Gary, we're going to start with you. Ho. Ho hands. Oh, hands. Okay. Close. Jeff. Hototers.

Hototers. Hooters. Hooters. Hototers. Hotos. Hotos. I think that's like a hostess. Like a, you buy them in the gas station.

They got these. Those are some kind of icing on top. Yeah. Yeah. Can I ask my question? Yes. Yeah. Okay.

So, wait, how many? Jeff, you've got, you've got. He's gotten all of them. Four. Has it been three or four? Three. Three. Three.

That's four, actually. Okay. So four, three, two and a half. Two and a half. Okay. Okay. Okay. So my question is, what was the original name of the Knight Riders?

There was, they were first known as the X, but then they later became known as the Knight Riders. You got people scribbling here. Every time, see, every time you say Night Rider, I think of the 80s car. Yeah. What was the thing? You could ask that. What was the name of that? That should have been the bonus question.

Sorry, Silas. Who was the star of Knight Rider? Tom Selling. All right, we're ready. David Hasselhoff. You think of Magnum P.I. That was it. Okay.

Drew. Possum hunters. Man, these guys are on that. I didn't know that was the question. He's from Princeton, though. Yeah, yeah. Born, born. I'm not from.

Jeff's wrong. Jeff's wrong. He is wrong. Oh, this is a awesome. Oh, this is a lot of. Oh, this is a lot of. This is a judgment call. Oh, Possum hunters?

I don't know when we, when did we just all come together and decide that O wasn't going in front of Possom anymore? It's too hard to say. I mean, it was a conference in 1887. Possom. In Nashville, Tennessee. Gary, did you get anything? Possum. Possum crew.

The Possum crew. You should get some points for that. Okay. Question number six. Why did Joe Scott want to tell his story so. late in life? Why was he willing? Why was he willing?

That's a better answer there. That's a better answer there. So late in life. He's mentioned a couple times. Yep. Okay, Spence. Statute of limitations. That might be the right answer.

That's fair. Drew, everyone else was dead. Same thing I put. Yep. Everyone else was dead. That's correct. That is correct. Mm-hmm.

Okay. Next question. We need to have another soils-based podcast. Yeah. I'm getting... I'm getting kicked, man. Where did the mayor of Hopkinsville seek refuge during the raid? Hmm.

From the god-fearing men. Yeah. Be specific. We're looking for a specific answer. Okay, Jeff, we're going to go with you. you. Colchute of the Baptist Church. Oh, wow. That was specific. Baptist Church. Methodist Church. Baseman of the Baptist Church down the coal shoot.

Man, these guys are good. The Baptist, the coal shoot down the coal shoot of the Baptist? I think we should accept Baptist Church. Yeah, Baptist Church. Absolutely. Not the Methodist Church. He was Catholic. He was all the same. Anybody different than us was just the same. Clay, what do you have against methods, by the way? If they had said any denomination, I would have said that same thing.

I've got nothing against the method. Okay. It was just an easy shot right in the kidney. Our last question. What was the reported net worth of James B. Duke in 1907? Spence, I like the confidence that you wrote that down with. I'm really like, I'm really calipari in this stuff right now. I'm right in the back of the conference, man, looking up.

Okay, Spence, we'll start with you. 200 million. 200 million? 200 million. 200 million. They all got it. And for our final question, we have all right answers.

Well done, everybody. Yeah, so that ends our trivia. So Clay said, you know, 200 million was an enormous amount of wealth back then. That's an enormous amount of wealth now. Yeah. No doubt. I mean, like, I wouldn't mind 200 million right now. I would imagine that would be like a billionaire today.

He'd be like Elon. He was the Elon Musk at his time. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Closing down here. The final little section of the podcast, we learned that James Buck Duke buys the name of Duke University.

Which probably, like, when I read that, I had a tendency to be like, Oh, come on. Rich guy. There's probably a bigger story, perhaps, or I wonder how the people at Duke feel about it. Like, is that, y'all might know. Is that a negative thing, or is that just like part of their history? It's funny. I think, you know, he touches on it.

Are you a Duke fan? I thought you're Louisville. No, I'm a little bit. Yeah. We can throw Duke under the bus? I don't care what you do, man. I'm just, you know. And no one from North Carolina.

That's right. Oh, there's some good folks over there. But it's, you know, it's interesting. He touches on it in the book that, like, when Duke first approached them about giving them this money and wanting to rename it, you know, it seems like it was a fairly devout, like, Methodist College. Yeah, it was called Trinity College. Yeah.

And it seemed like there were some administration that was like, you know, this guy's, you're just slinging cigarettes. We can't take any part of this. And then I think it's just kind of funny. You're like, like, $6 million. Yeah. I think the Lord forgives. Yeah.

Does he not? It's like Duke has a nice ring. Find nullification. That's right. I think the Lord can overlook this one. How many more souls are we going to save versus losing from here? So it was kind of funny the way he touches on that. But that seemed to be his brother was much more involved with that school.

And his dad. And his dad, right? And they both were fairly devout Methodist, I think. I think that was why it was troubling to them as they watched Buck kind of take off with this, you know, with the corporation. And so it's interesting because you said, his dad said the two things I don't understand are the Trinity and my son. And then his son buys Trinity College. Yeah. It's kind of like a.

Wow. Full circle. Full circle. It is, man. Well, and then the way the book ends with and the way you ended the podcast. Like, I mean, Amos's son goes on to be the first medical, you know, professor. Medical professor for the medical school.

Like, it's unbelievable. It's just such a crazy story with such unique, you know, characters. Yeah. It's incredible. So who won? Jeff won? Jeff one? Did you miss one?

I've missed the first one. I put James Buck instead of. Oh, well. Patriarch there. Congratulations. on this so Jeff you're gonna get

a multery edge two camera do you deer hunt yeah so this would be useful to you absolutely absolutely and I think I can hook you up with a three on it though

it's an edge two well this was this was actually my personal camera that and so the three is this is the third one I like it but yeah they're really good

that's awesome man I appreciate it you're undercover work too yeah this is gonna revolution he's gonna take that back to the FBI and they're gonna be like what's that?

Mulchee's going to get like truckloads of the federal government. It's all going to be good. You're going to get a slice. For about three times of price. This could be good. Thank you guys so much for coming. Man, came all the way from Kentucky. Much appreciated.

Yeah, thanks for having us. Yeah, really. And thanks for the suggestion on the podcast, man. Absolutely, man. Like I said, I'm honored you guys. I was not expecting, first off, even to get a reply, let alone you guys run with it. But I'm glad you did, and it's been great getting work with you guys and meet you guys through this, man.

It's awesome. And keep it up, man. People need it. Well, thanks a lot, guys. Keep the wild place is wild because that's where the bears love. There's no criminals there. The FBI's not there. Cajal, true.

On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed. and there was a full of blood. Oh my God, he doesn't have a head. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving,

the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper, from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness,

and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th.

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