Ivory Joe Beagle: and Other Mostly True Tails from Hardin County, Kentucky

By Curtis Lee Songster

Travel back to a time before television, when good times came by way of an occasional coon hunt and the annual county fair, when friends carried out wild pranks on their friends but always had each other's backs.

Ivory Joe Beagle, the ever-present canine companion to all, weaves his way in and out of these mostly true "tails" of Hardin County, Ken

• Language: English
• Publisher: Beagle Books
• Release date: Jan 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9780989048019

Book preview

1

Ivory Joe Beagle

Ivory Joe was somewhat of a Beagle, about half, to be as precise as possible. The rest was Bulgarian Biscuit Hound with a little Redbone thrown in on top and lightly stirred. He was not a yellow dog, a black-and-tan, or even a Blue-Tic Hound. Nevertheless, he would prove to be an icon—a local legend among coon hunters and their coonhounds as well. This treatise is the story of Joe’s adventures and escapades that I witnessed while I was a growing up in Hardin County, Kentucky, those many years ago.

I first met Ivory Joe at Colonel Hodges’s Auction Barn in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, during a Saturday sale. Elizabethtown is known by several names—from Betty’s Town to the more colloquial E’town.

Everyone wants to know about E’town, and it was like that long before Elizabethtown, a Cameron Crowe movie starring Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, and Susan Sarandon, premiered in its namesake town in late 2005.

Elizabethtown owes its birth to an event that occurred on the Fourth of July in 1797. On that occasion, a Revolutionary War veteran by the name of Andrew Hynes gifted to the local community leaders a plot of land, more or less thirty acres.

From such generosity, the seed was planted that would bloom into the Seat of Hardin County. But that seat required a name. To return the favor for the benevolent land gift, the place was named after Hynes’s wife, Elizabeth, and Elizabethtown was thereafter destined to become the County Seat.

For those who are unfamiliar with the typical Southern County Seat, it was defined by the Courthouse—with all its municipal, civil, and legal functions—located in the dead center of the Town Square. The Courthouse configured the Square, and all commerce proliferated around that prestigious location.

And the Square was just that. The Town Square—the epicenter—typically had four access roads, each at right angles to the others, forming a cross. The main road (later to become known as a street, most typically Main Street) usually ran north and south—the remaining road east and west. The bulk of traffic coming and going gave great opportunity to resourceful merchants to deploy shops and stores on all sides; the more central to the crossroads, the more favored was the seller’s location.

And it was also a benefit to the traveler, local or itinerant, having peddlers and purveyors so close at hand, though parking rigs and horses proved somewhat problematic. Later, automobiles would require similar considerations.

In lieu of an electric stoplight (yet to be invented), the locals built the Courthouse smack-dab in the center, where the roads made their crossings. This handily labeled the streets as North Main or South Main, depending on which direction one went when departing the Courthouse. East and west streets were named accordingly. Thus, the Courthouse served as a zero milestone.

Since it was impossible to drive horse or any other manner of transportation through the Courthouse, one had to circle or go around the Square until the road of choice was accessible. Just like most four-way intersections today, there were sidewalks and crosswalks on all sides of the intersecting roads for pedestrians to cross the street safely.

What a perfect place it was to relocate all local businesses and purveyors of products! Each merchant who wisely set up shop there had a view of the Courthouse, albeit those vantage points were different for each vendor. Parking lanes had to be established in front of the stores and shops to accommodate the horse-and-buggy traffic.

Dogs, including hounds that might have been Ivory Joe’s ancestors, were on their own, forced to fend for themselves amidst all the horse, buggy, and pedestrian traffic. Sidewalks were also installed between the roadway and the stores to allow complete shopping around the entire perimeter of the Square, and pedestrians of the human and canine variety had to take care when crossing the four intersections.

Traffic was not regulated, per se, but even when it was, common courtesy prevailed. One always yielded to the walking parties circling the Square, and vehicle flow always moved to one’s right. As in any roundabout, the roads flow into the circle (or Square) at right angles to each other. One road would come in from the north and exit out the south, and likewise for east and west. As if to rebel against the British way of clockwise, the Square traffic flowed counterclockwise; Square traffic always had the right-of-way, yielding to walkers; feeder roads patiently waited their turns. The introduction of the automobile was easily accommodated.

The Courthouse, constructed of masonry, was typically three stories tall, purposely built as an imposing structure. Generally, there were stone or concrete steps on opposite sides, ten or twenty feet wide and as many steps high, allowing access into the Courthouse; hence the old common Kentucky saying Meet you on the Courthouse steps.

Those steps served as a place for many a politician to make extemporaneous speeches or as a site of monetary gain for vagrant musicians, pickin’ and fiddlin’, singing and mooching for their supper. Often, man’s best friend, a hound dog or other canine variety, positioned him- or herself as guardian next to the beckoning hat or open fiddle case, looking up with sad eyes, hoping as much as their masters that some generous passerby might show benevolent appreciation for local talent.

The basement was used mostly as a storage area for records and archives. The elevated first floor housed administrative offices: county clerk, sheriff, tax assessor, etc. The second floor consisted of the courtroom proper, with the judge’s bench, witness stand, jury box, and fixed seating for spectators. All local government functions occurred in the same building, including judicial activity such as murder trials. The elected County Magistrates who took care of civil needs also regularly convened their meetings on the premises.

A sidewalk surrounded the building, with a green space in between. The road ranged around the Square between the Courthouse and the shops, forming a loop-like path: I always thought it a subliminal or direct take on the British circus or roundabout so common in London and other European cities.

To conduct business or buy wares, one went to the Square. The bank, the druggist, the lawyer, the jeweler, the upscale clothier, the physician, the hotel, the prime restaurant, and, of course, Western Union were all located there. It was even the station of the auctioneers. In later years, the movie house, the dime store, the chain store, and the ubiquitous Western Auto Store flourished there.

Indeed, the Square was the city center, the focal point of happenings. If there was a parade, it went around the Square. When one died, they made one more pass around the Square in their hearse while onlookers respectfully bowed their heads as the deceased went off to the marble orchard.

Today, Southern Squares have faded somewhat, making way for malls and suburban superstores. But still, even now, if you venture into an old County Seat Square and eat at the restaurant there, you won’t be disappointed. Just know that dogs are not welcome inside.

That said, let us now return to Elizabethtown proper. Remarkably, E’town has changed little in more than a century. The Courthouse and the Square remain fixed, as history has marched on around them.

George Armstrong Custer, of last stand fame, was billeted in E’town in the late 1800s for a two-year stint. Sent to suppress illicit distilleries and evaluate the Ku Klux Klan, Lt. Colonel Custer went on ahead to procure accommodations. He did so at what is now known as the Brown-Pusey House. Dr. Pusey was a sometime president of the American Medical Association.

On February 9, 1873, Custer wrote his wife, Libby, a few cogent sentences about the town: Dear Libby: This place is called Elizabethtown, but that is a mistake. The town is here, but not Elizabeth. Custer’s disdain for such a mundane assignment and a less-than-exciting town was duly communicated.

Nonetheless, the celebrated Custers remained there for nearly a two-year tour of duty. Historians will recall that Custer died at the hands of Indians at Little Big Horn in southeastern Montana, on June 25 in the year 1876, not long after his E’town tour.

No less famous than Custer was Colonel Henry Hodges—at least in E’town, where he was a local celebrity. In his heyday, the colonel was one of Kentucky’s best auctioneers. Predictably, his office was on the Square. On one fateful Saturday, he found himself offering up Ivory Joe Beagle to the highest bidder at his auction barn on St. John’s Road.

Looky here at this dog! Double guar-on-teed to be the only ring-tailed coondog in Hardin County. He’s sweet-mouthed, coon savvy, and broke to drink moonshine out of a tin cup. He can lick his weight in wampus cats! was how the Colonel started. Folks, his keen sense of smell can spot a hot coon trail from a colder-older. His bay is melodious, and he’s opera-voiced. Why, he’s got a baritone bark. Not only that, but he can stop on a dime and show eight cents change. He’s a wide-ranger. He don’t run no trash, and he’s a sticker at tree. Look at his tail! He carries it with an adequate sufficiency of flag. Why, he’s got three brown napkin ring marks at the tip. He’s got a spot of Treeing Walker, crossed over and twice’t removed, went Colonel Henry’s spiel.

But Colonel, I said, his nose is running like a faucet. He’s sick. Besides, his tail looks funny with all those rings.

Nonsense, boy! Henry Hodges shot back. There’s not a damn thing wrong with that dog’s nose. He just smells a coon and cain’t locate it. And as fer those rings…damn it! They means he’s coon-marked, and just as smart.

Bids began, and, without much competition, I ended up with that hound, three-ringed, coon-marked tail and all. When we approached the cashier, Margaret Hodges, the colonel’s wife and a longtime friend of the family, I paid for the dog and she whispered to me, The dog’s name is Joe—not Joseph, just Joe. Since she didn’t hold with Christian names for animals, she had added the term Ivory on the front end to match one of the colors in his coat. Thus, I’d just purchased Ivory Joe, the beagle hound—or just plain Ivory Joe Beagle.

Ivory Joe went straight to the sorghum mill in Spurrier, located on the Nolin River about twenty miles from E’town and just eight miles below White Mills, Kentucky. The three rings encircling his tail tip served to elevate his hound status over all the other local dogs. His tail was a curiosity. Wash Blesset’s boys even said the dog was coon-marked, notwithstanding the Colonel’s ring-tailed narration.

Except to hunt or engage in canine escapades, Ivory Joe —that wide-ranger —divided his time between the two mill sites, though he far favored the rush and excitement of the Spurrier location over White Mills. When he died, he was buried next to the sorghum mill’s big cane stalk conveyor, a place he liked to sit, survey the situation, and, of course, sleep.

Joe, as some simply called him, was a true sorghum mill mascot. He would go into the cane fields and hang out—sometimes chasing a rabbit or maybe digging for a groundhog. He would flush an occasional quail or bobwhite and chase it along the riverbanks. The Nolin River ran alongside the river-bottom cane fields; this cooled him and most of us as well.

Ripley had declared that river in his Believe It or Not column to be the crookedest river in the United States. To make one believe it, one could stand at one of the dam sites in White Mills or Spurrier, choose any of the four cardinal points on a compass (east, west, north, or south), walk one-quarter or so of a mile in the chosen direction, and easily toss a rock into one of the many bends in the Nolin River. That was how truly crooked it was.

Joe looked very peculiar when he elevated his long tail, the three concentric rings in shades of brown accentuating the tail’s distal tip. As the auctioneer had suggested, the encircling rings looked like three antique napkin rings had been slid  over his tail, especially when he carried it at full flag. Those rings became his moniker—and ultimately caused the dog’s sad demise. His gait, if the stride of a hound can be so described, was likewise notable and immediately recognized at either mill site by any who worked or lingered there.

Joe might have ridden a tractor, jumped aboard a wagon of fresh-cut cane, or just trotted behind, down the lanes and roads, getting covered all over with the rising dust from the graveled county roads. Thanks to that filth, his ringed tail would finally blend into a single golden brown hue, the color of finished sorghum syrup.

He prowled the sorghum syrup evaporator house, warmed himself by the giant Leffel Scotch Marine stationary steam boiler, or just disappeared into a barn. He knew the lay of the land, and he was truly a mill-yard dog. There, Ivory Joe was in Beagle Heaven, if there was such a thing.

But his passion was to be the hunt—in particular, the Saturday night coon hunt in Hardin County, Kentucky. At that event, he would establish his legacy. He would be remembered as the consummate cooner. To this day, his stories are still told among relatives of families and friends in the White Mills and Spurrier communities. And the E’townians? Well, they, too, long to hear them told once again.

2

Hunting

Hunting in Kentucky was as natural as chiggers in a blackberry patch. Far before the warring Indian tribes savaged each other for control of that luxurious hunting ground, a primitive culture of mound builders inhabited certain river basins, seeking mussels and fish as their staple foods.

Those Native Americans came to be known as the Adena-Hopewell. They spanned the period from 100 B.C. till around 1000 A.D. Their culture was well documented in the early part of the twentieth century by Dr. William Snyder Webb, chairman of physics and anthropology at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.

Excluding the giant herds of buffalo that made their own trails, the Hopewells were among the first to devise paths between communities, to build and fortify, and to earn a name of historical recognition: mound builders, because they buried their dead in large mounds. It might be said, Dead men tell no tales, but the Hopewells disprove this theory, for it was the excavation of these mounds, by Dr. Webb and others, that allowed anthropologic discovery and study of their civilization.

Next on the historical timeline came the warring tribes of the Six Nations. These American Indians were hunters. When not hunting each other, they certainly busied themselves hunting the abundant game that roamed the woods and meadows. Wild turkey, bear, deer, bison, and all types of small game thrived there. Salt licks, abundant streams, and limestone springs contributed to a perfect natural habitant. Later, these same limestone springs served as the nidus for the embryonic bourbon whiskey industry now so synonymous with Kentucky.

Historians remain divided about the meaning of the state’s name, Kentucky. Some contend the word meant meadow land. More probable was the Anglicization of the Indian term, kentakekowa, said to mean the dark and bloody ground.

According to historians, this was the word the Indian tribes used to describe the custom of controlled burn-offs to form an open space or barren for hunting the subsequent game that was naturally drawn to the meadow-like opening. The following new growth was a perfect enticement for game to forage and graze, thereby making it a perfect space for the hunter.

One can still find those who say Kentucky means the dark and bloody ground, purporting that it simply reflects the bloodshed during all the Indian fighting.

Yet another version of Kentucky was the Shawnee word Can-tuc-kee, the name for a sacred hunting ground upon which Indians could hunt but none could make permanent residence. It was boundaried on the north by the Ohio River, on the south by the Cumberland River, on the east by the Big Sandy River, and on the west by the mighty Mississippi River.

Reputed to be the first colonist into Kentucky, Dr. Thomas Walker built a log cabin on the Cumberland River. It was 1750, and the land was still a county of Virginia. An eloquent but perhaps exaggerated description of this incredible hunting ground was John Finley’s 1767 account, which served to drive eastern explorers into the uncivilized territory. It has been said that Finley—who spent many years in the wilderness of Tennessee and North Carolina—led several men into Kentucky through the Cumberland Gap.

His most famous follower, one who would eclipse Finley himself, was Daniel Boone. Boone and his Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap would lead to the occupancy of Kentucky and the expulsion of the red man.

My brother-in-law Harry Boone Nicholson Jr., a direct descendent of Daniel Boone, relates the story of Boone’s disappearance, one that lasted for several days. When Daniel finally came wandering back into Fort Boonesborough, great concern was expressed about his unlikely absence.

Dan’el, war you’s losted? they asked.

Lost? Hell no! countered Boone. Bewildered? You damn bet I was! snapped the frontiersman.

After Boone opened Kentucky up, famous and still-enduring settlements followed in quick succession. According to Norwood, Fort Harrod (later to become Harrodsburg) was founded in 1774 by James Harrod, John Crow, Jared Cowan, and fellow explorers.

Fort Harrod later served as the base camp for George Rogers Clark’s expeditions into the Midwest to expel the British. From this same wooden fort, Gabriel Jones trekked to Richmond to argue successfully before the Virginia House of Burgesses, wanting to include the Kentucky territory as a part of Virginia.

Boonesborough, of course, followed as the next town in 1775, with Louisville on the Ohio River in 1778 and Lexington, in the Bluegrass Region, popping up the following year.

Kentucky County was formed in 1776 as a part of Virginia. By 1780, only three other counties had been acknowledged: Jefferson, Lincoln, and Lafayette. On June 1, 1792, Kentucky became the first state west of the Allegheny Mountains to be admitted to the Union.

The area that comprised it was about the same size as the combined space of both Ireland and Wales. Expectedly, most of the early inhabitants were of English descent, so hunting with the assistance of hounds was a natural. The historical and cultural basis of hunting in Kentucky was thus established.

Coon hunting in Hardin County was indigenous. No family could recall when there was not such hunting nor ownership of hounds. It was only natural that coon hunting had evolved to function as a kind of men’s social club.

Membership was limited. You needed an acceptable hound dog, a pickup truck or the like with a truck-bed cage (unless you proposed to let the dog ride in the cab with you), and you needed certain social skills.

Those skills would likely have been tobacco chewing and the ability to spit through your front teeth with careful enough aim to  hit the Warm Morning cast-iron potbelly stove that heated the local general store. You needed to be a knife-carrying whittler—and that blade could only be