Talking Turkey

Wherein, we pay homage to the magnificent creature that Ben Franklin declared to be "a bird of courage."

John James Audubon, artist, The Birds of America, c.1838.

by John B. Green III

As you go to your local food mart this week to select one of those frozen behemoths, too overgrown in life to walk or fly, remember, please remember, that the grocery store turkey is descended from a stronger and nobler breed - the American Wild Turkey.  Nearly extirpated in North Carolina in the 20th century, by 1970 there were estimated to be only 2,000 Eastern Wild Turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) left in the state.  Fortunately, through a decades-long project of live-trapping and relocating turkeys from other areas, North Carolina's turkey population has been restored to more than 265,000 birds today.  What follows is a selection of accounts by North Carolina writers of encounters with the wary, elusive, and beautiful Wild Turkey. 

Artist unknown, John Brickell, The Natural History of North-Carolina, 1737.

The wild Turkeys I should have spoken of, when I treated of the Land-Fowl.  There are great Flocks of these in Carolina.   I have seen about five hundred in a Flock; some of them are very large.  I never weigh'd any myself, but have been inform'd of one that weigh'd near sixty Pound Weight.  I have seen half a Turkey feed eight hungry Men two Meals.  Sometimes the wild breed with the tame ones, which, they reckon, makes them very hardy, as I believe it must.  I see no manner of Difference betwixt the wild Turkeys and the tame ones; only the wild are ever of one Colour, (viz.) a dark gray, or brown, and are excellent Food.  They feed on Acorns, Huckle-Berries, and many other sorts of Berries that Carolina affords.   - from A New Voyage to Carolina by John Lawson, 1709

Duane Raver, artist, Wildlife in North Carolina, April 1977

We flushed a wild turkey hen and seven or eight half-grown young ones up out of a thicket of reeds.  They flew up so suddenly that we all just sat gaping at them.  I didn't have any idea turkeys could fly so swiftly - the tame ones are so clumsy.  But those wild ones sailed off to the woods like bullets and flapped their wings but once or twice.   - from Down Goose Creek by William Seeman, 1931

David Williams, artist, Wildlife in North Carolina, October 1986

A sudden roar of powerful wings and a crash of branches from a group of trees on the creek bank almost abreast of the canoe - and seven great turkey gobblers left their roosting place and winged their way back into the depths of the swamp.  A wild turkey is always grand, but that fact is never impressed on me more strongly than when a big gobbler unexpectedly takes wing from a tree near at hand.  Multiply that by seven - and you have a real thrill!.  - from A North Carolina Naturalist, H.H.Brimley: Selections from his writings, 1949

Ken Taylor, photographer, The Wild Turkey in North Carolina, 1989

The Old Man whispered, "As soon as it comes gray light you're going to see some turkeys.  They may fly in, light in trees, look around, and then come down.  They don't do it so much in the morning, but I never trust a turkey.  He's smarter than you are most of the time.  Likely they'll walk.  If it's a little flock, there'll be a gobbler and mebbe three, four, five hens.  If it's a big flock, there'll be more'n one gobbler and a whole passel of hens. I want you to shoot whatever's biggest that's closest to you, when I punch you, and not before."  - from The Old Man and the Boy by Robert Ruark, 1957

Charles L. Ripper, artist, From Laurel Hill to Siler's Bog, 1969

The big gobbler had become a legend long before I saw him.  Black as a crow, and with his small blue head raised to its full four-foot height above the ground, he was the most magnificent wild animal - furred or feathered - I have ever seen.  There is something noble and touching in the pride of a wild thing.  I saw it in the black gobbler, in his aloneness and in his defiance, mixed with an uncanny keenness of eyes and ears that made even those who hunted him look upon him with awe.  There was mystery about him, too.  Perhaps it lay in his strange disappearances and his wild cunning that made him invulnerable for years to even the smartest turkey hunters.  - from Laurel Hill to Siler's Bog: The Walking Adventures of a Naturalist by John K. Terres, 1969

Mr. Truman keeps a promise

or, Why Harry Truman attended church in New Bern on the first Sunday after his 1948 election victory

President Truman waving to the crowd, First Baptist Church, New Bern, Sunday, 7 November 1948.

By John B. Green III

Running for an unprecedented fourth term in 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt chose Senator Harry S. Truman, Democrat from Missouri, as his running mate and prospective Vice President.  Roosevelt won reelection handily and on January 20, 1945 took the oath of office as president for the fourth, and what would prove to be, last time.  Eighty-two days later on April 12, 1945, Roosevelt died  of a cerebral hemorrhage in his cottage at Warm Springs, Georgia.  Truman became president at Roosevelt's death and was sworn in as such that evening in the White House in Washington. 

Harry Truman completed Roosevelt's term and in 1948 announced his intention to run for president in his own right.  Truman was given little chance of defeating the Republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey, especially with the Democratic electorate divided by the Dixiecrat candidacy of Strom Thurmond of South Carolina.  Undeterred, Truman conducted a vigorous campaign which included a whistle-stop tour of much of the country.  On Election Day, November 2, 1948, Truman fooled all the pundits by defeating Dewey with 49.6 per cent of the popular vote to Dewey's 45.1 per cent and with 303 Electoral College votes to Dewey's 189 votes.  

For some time, Harry Truman had maintained a "Little White House" in the Commandant's residence of the U.S. Navy base at Key West, Florida.  There Truman could exchange the pressures of Washington for the relaxing atmosphere of Key West, although these visits always proved to be working holidays.  Truman had planned just such a vacation for the week following the 1948 election, which brings us to Mr. Truman's promise.

Headline, New Bern Sun-Journal, Monday, 8 Nov 1948

Some months earlier, the Rev. Thomas W. Fryer, pastor of First Baptist Church of New Bern, had enjoyed a brief meeting with President Truman in Washington.  In the course of the meeting, Rev. Fryer invited the president to visit New Bern and First Baptist Church if he were ever in the area.  The President replied that he just might do that.   Rev. Fryer thought no more of the promise until Thursday, November 4, when a Secret Service agent arrived to inform the startled Baptist minister that the president would attend church at First Baptist in three days.  The President was flying to Key West but would stop in New Bern to fulfill his promise to Rev. Fryer

President Truman's motorcade approaching on Middle Street, New Bern, Sunday, 7 Nov 1948

On Sunday, Nov. 7th, Harry Truman's presidential plane, the Independence, touched down at Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point.  A motorcade swept the President the sixteen miles to New Bern and First Baptist Church.  Hundreds of New Bern citizens lined Middle Street as the motorcade approached. Waiting to meet the president were Rev. Fryer and his family, North Carolina Governor R. Gregg Cherry and Governor-elect W. Kerr Scott.  The president was accompanied by members of his administration, military aides, and his Chief of Staff, Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy.  An invitation-only congregation awaited Mr. Truman inside the church. 

The President pausing before entering the church, Sunday, 7 Nov 1948.

The president was escorted to his seat by Craven County Superintendent of Schools and fellow Mason, Rev. Robert L.Pugh.  Truman and his party sat on the right-hand side of the church, five rows back from the front.  After joining in the hymns and attentively listening to the sermon, President Truman declared "It was as good a sermon as I have ever heard." 

President Truman and Reverend and Mrs. Fryer, following the service.

The president posed for photographs on the front steps of the church following the service.  He was then whisked back to Cherry Point to continue his flight to Key West.

And that is how Harry Truman kept his promise.