State

Old Dan Tucker lie was no mylli: lie was a liearly man. beloved by liis neighbors, null he lived in Randolph County. "Old Dan Tucker was a line old man. He washed his lace in the frying pan. On Christmas morning he got drunk, And fell in the lire and kicked up a chunk. Get out of the way old Daniel T ta ker, You come too late to get your supper. Old Dan Tucker ate raw eel. And combed his hair with a wagon wheel, He gave his neighbors the squares t deal. And died with toothache in his heel. Get out of the way old Daniel Tucker, You come too late to get your supper." The song has been sung through the ages since the middle of the eight¬ eenth century; and Old Dan Tucker is not a myth, he was once a real lifc- and-blood man who was reared in North Carolina. Dan Tucker was born in London, England in 1714. In 1720 when he was six years old he came to America with his parents who settled in the little town of Bath. North Carolina. Here Dan grew up into a strong and fearless man of brawn muscle. Twenty years after coming to Carolina he married Margaret DcVanc, a beautiful girl of French descent and with his bride mi¬ grated westward to what is Randolph County. This county was then a wilderness thickly inhabited with wild animals, rattlesnakes and bloodthirsty Indians, But Tucker, who believed in predesti¬ nation, was unafraid. “What is to be, will be. and I won't die before my time,” he often said. Located at Spcro On the spot where the little settle¬ ment of Spero now stands. Dan Tucker THE STATE, December 9, 1961 built his first shelter. It was a lean-to made of pine poles banked and roofed with pine and cedar boughs. The bed also was made of a heap of boughs. Here he and his bride lived until he could hew logs and build a cabin. The cracks of the cabin were chinked with a mixture of clay and dried moss, softened with water; the chimney was made of rocks and slicks plastered with mud. As he had no nails, the boards were attached to the walls and roof with wooden pegs driven into round holes which he bored with an auger. The only tools he had with which to construct this architectural job was an ax. two iron wedges, a hatchet, ham¬ mer. auger, gimlet and drawing knife. This cabin was built near a spring of clear water and was three miles from the nearest neighbor and a hundred miles from any store. It was here on an open fireplace that Margaret Tucker cooked the wild game Dan brought in from the woods; the fish he caught in the streams, and the corn bread made from the corn meal they brought with them from Bath. Their total supply of cooking utensils were a twelve-inch spider, a frying pan, and a three-legged iron skillet with a lid. Farmer and Hunter Dan owned a horse and wagon, but as there were few roads and nowhere to go. the wagon was of little use. He cleared a plot of ground and planted his corn, his only farming implements being a homemade plow, a hoe and pick. His hunting equipment consisted of a gun, hunting knife, pocket knife, and a steel tomahawk. Dan was a hunter and trapper as well as a farmer. The skins and furs from the animals he shot and trapped brought him in a fair income. Once a year he saddled his horse, took his stock of furs and skins and carried them to the store a hundred miles away where he sold them for a good price. Tucker was noted for his honesty, thrift, good humor and love for his fellow man. He never borrowed but was ever willing to lend; he always gave a square deal, and when the neighbors called him eccentric and made up funny songs about hint, he laughed and sang the songs with them, enjoying a joke on himself. As the years went by. the hunting trails became wagon roads and other pioneers came and settled in Tucker’s territory until a do/en or more cabins sprouted up like overgrown mush¬ rooms in the forests. It was these neigh¬ bors who laughed at Dan’s rigid thrift and peculiarities; made up the funny songs about his behavior, and com¬ posed the Old Dan Tucker song. On account of his thrift they accused him of washing his face in the frying pan and combing his hair with a wagon wheel. He often visited his neighbors in the evening but would never sponge upon them by eating a meal. By so doing there came into being the line of verse that he came too late to get his supper. Dan Tucker lived to be a hundred years old, still retaining the health and hardiness of his youth. It is said he would never have died had it not been for a stone. One day while plowing his corn he stepped on a sharp rock that imbedded itself deeply into his bare heel. Sitting down on a log he cut out the stone and bruised flesh with his pocket knife, then continued plowing. Three days later he died of lockjaw. The neighbors gave old Dan a gay and noisy burial, which was what he ( Continued on page 20) 1 1