The Bethlehem innkeeper deserved respect

One of the featured contributors to the collection of Christmas stories published in The Mailboat in the early 1990s was Capt. Josiah William Bailey II of Morehead City, N.C. 

These small storybooks are now of a prized collection at the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum & Heritage Center on Harkers Island, located in Down East section of Carteret County, N.C. 

Capt. Bailey, by bringing humor to his writing, made a case that the Bethlehem innkeeper was not a Christmas curmudgeon. 

Rather, the innkeeper was a fellow who should go down in history as a “kindly, generous good man,” Capt. Bailey asserted.

 

After Baby Jesus was born in the manger, Capt. Bailey acknowledged that angels, shepherds and wise men arrived to celebrate the Savior’s birth. However, his version of the story includes the presence of a few other notable yuletide characters. 

As Capt. Bailey told it: “A little boy with a drum came by a-beating the dang thing and singing ‘a-rumpa, dum, dum, me an’ my drum.’ While all this was going on, a dern reindeer with a red light up his nose was prancing around outside trying to direct traffic.”

 

“The folks up there in the inn must’ve thought it was an all-night tent revival out back there. But the innkeeper never uttered a word. He just put up with it. This sort of thing went on for several days, people coming and going, milling around, angels singing, sheep a-bleating and that youngern and his drum…a-rumpa, dum, dumming.” 

“Seems to me,” Capt. Bailey said, “when you think seriously about it, he (the innkeeper) should be revered, not reviled (for having ‘no room in the inn’).” 

By offering shelter in his stable, the innkeeper “was the first to offer hospitality, kindness and compassion – in short, LOVE – to Jesus, even while in His mother’s womb, and he did it not knowing it was HIM, not in hopes of any reward (earthly or heavenly).” 

“It was an act of unself-conscious, sublime purity. Impelled only by a sense of identity with fellow humans in distress, he did what he was able to do in the circumstances; it was a generous and benevolent gesture from the heart.” 

“That is the very embodiment of the message for which that little baby was born, lived and died. The innkeeper, whose name is unknown…was the foreshadow of the ministry of the haloed infant born in his stable.” 

“This year, as you hear and sing “Away in a Manger,” remember kindly the generous, good man whose manger it was,” Capt. Bailey said.

 

Capt. Josiah Bailey was a fun-loving coastal North Carolina guy who chose a laid-back lifestyle. His primary business was operating a 55-foot sailing vessel to transport tourists from Morehead City over to Harkers Island and out to Cape Lookout National Seashore. 

Capt. Josiah Bailey died in 1993 at age 71. Among his many accomplishments was qualifying as a storyteller worthy of being included in the exclusive group of “Fish House Liars.” 

Bailey’s father, Josiah William Bailey, represented North Carolina in the U.S. Senate from 1931-46. 

 

Today, Carteret County’s most celebrated storyteller is Rodney Kemp of Morehead City, one of the charter members of “The Fish House Liars.” 

One of his favorite Christmas yarns, also included in the The Mailboat collection, embraces the rural heritage and culture of Carteret County.

 

The story begins on the Harlowe farm of Harry Lee Taylor, located in the “northern reaches of Carteret County.” 

As Rodney tells it: “Mr. Harry Lee Taylor’s shoulders hunched forward to protect against the bone chill of an early 1900s December morning. He whistled for his horses, Old Baldy and Charlie, to commence the annual trip from Harlowe south to Beaufort.” 

The buckboard would carry him about 14 miles into Beaufort to “do his buying and trading for his family’s Christmas gifts.”

 

“Mr. Harry always said ‘buggy time was thinking time’ and his thoughts this morning were on his wife, whom he always referred to as Miss Aleta, and his nine children.” 

Taylor pulled to a stop in front of the Carteret County Poor Home and Orphanage, located some three miles outside of Beaufort. He noticed a young boy standing away from the others. He was sobbing. 

Rodney said that Taylor approached the caretaker and inquired about the boy. The caretaker said the boy arrived about a month ago; both parents had died unexpectedly. “He’s 12, small for his age. He don’t eat much. He just stares down the road and cries. Name’s Norton.” 

Taylor adopted Norton on the spot, telling the boy: “I need somebody to help me drive that team of horses. You interested?” 

In Beaufort, the first stop was at the Davis House on Front Street, where Miss Sally Ann Davis had hot baths in the back for a nickel. “Norton needed about a quarter’s worth,” Rodney said. 

After a day of shopping in Beaufort, Norton guided Old Baldy and Charlie back to Harlowe. It was late when they arrived but one of the Taylor boys was still awake. He peeked out his window and announced: “Daddy’s letting someone drive his horses. You’ve got to be mighty special to get to drive Old Baldy and Charlie.” 

“Mr. Harry lifted Norton down off his seat and placed him on the porch in front of his wife…and said: ‘Miss Aleta, for your Christmas present I’ve made you the mother of a fine son.’” 

“She smiled that approving smile of love and said, ‘I thank you for a painless delivery.’” 

“Then, she opened her arms and took Norton into her heart as great tears of Christmas joy burst from both of them,” Rodney wrote. 

“Of all of Harry Lee Taylor’s five sons, the old-timers used to say that Norton was the one who was most like him.”

Christmas of 1941 disrupted by outbreak of World War II

Thanks to the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum & Heritage Center on Harkers Island, a gathering place in Down East section of Carteret County, N.C., for preserving collections of “Christmas Memories” that were published from 1990-92. 

The stories were submitted by readers of The Mailboat, a much-loved publication dedicated to the heritage and culture of Down East. Now, the museum is endeavoring to introduce new generations of readers to these treasured holiday traditions that bind together the county’s communities, rural neighborhoods and seaside, fishing villages.

 

The late Alida A. Willis of Harkers Island commented that the Christmas of 1941 was like no other for the people of Carteret County, because World War II was being fought right off the North Carolina coastline in the Atlantic Ocean. 

Alida began her essay with events leading up to Dec. 7, 1941, and the Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. 

“In Carteret County change had been slow, almost imperceptible, until world events began to loosen the paralyzing grip of the Great Depression of the 1930s,” Alida wrote. 

“In gradually increasing numbers, fishermen had put aside their nets and skiffs and snappers to take up jobs with steady wages now available in a nation gearing up for war. With others from across the county, they helped to build the giant military bases at Camp Davis, at Camp Lejeune and at Cunningham Field (later named Air Station Cherry Point).”

 

“There were few doubts that war was coming,” she wrote. “But for many, life continued much as it always had in this small, relatively isolated community. Until that December at Pearl Harbor.” 

“Notes made from contemporary issues of The Beaufort News tell the story of those pivotal days when an old familiar order was ending, and an unknown world was pushing in on the tides of war,” Alida said. 

“In October 1941, M.T. Gaskill and his crew from Stacy made a record catch of 145,000 pounds of spots, netting them more than $3,000.” 

Alida reported that the A&P Store was advertising its 8 O’Clock Coffee for 19 cents a pound, bread for 8 cents a loaf, four bars of Lux soap for 24 cents and cabbage for 4 cents a pound.

 

“Marines were arriving at the Onslow base of Camp Lejeune, and the first colors were raised at Montford Point. In Morehead City, Navy landing boats were under construction at the Bell-Wallace shipyards. (The business had been formed by John F. Bell and was later purchased by Charles S. Wallace.) 

“And in a move affecting thousands of persons on the North Carolina coast, the U.S. Coast Guard was transferred to the U.S. Navy.” (President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s announcement was significant, because the United States was not yet at war, but more and more American ships were nevertheless becoming war casualties while attempting to provide necessary supplies to Great Britain and the Allies.)

 

In December 1941, the News had reported that a USO Council was formed in Carteret County…and then came the big story.

 

Alida wrote: “WAR” was the 3-inch headline above the masthead in the Dec. 11 issue of the News. The front page carried a photo story of a Beaufort boy at Hickam Field (the Army Air Corps station in Hawaii): ‘Sergeant Harry Tyler, son of Mr. and Mrs. C. P. Tyler of Beaufort, cabled his parents today that he is safe. Young Tyler is an aerial photographer and bombardier aboard a Boeing Bomber.’” 

The same issue of the newspaper listed the names of 15 local men in the Pacific war zone as well. 

Yet, there was still local news to cover. The newspaper also ran an article about Capt. Kelly Willis, master of the Harkers Island mailboat, who had shot and killed a seagoing bear about halfway between Beaufort and Harkers Island near Shep’s Shoal. 

Another article written by Aycock Brown told about North Carolina’s smallest school – in the Village of Portsmouth that served four pupils. 

Navy sailor Edwin Bonner McCabe was reported to be the first Carteret County casualty of World War II. He was serving aboard the U.S.S. Oklahoma in Pearl Harbor. His parents were William Z. McCabe and Annie Virginia Teasley McCabe. Edwin’s grave marker is in the Wildwood Community Cemetery.

 

Alida said that in the same issue of the local paper, “little Jimmy Modlin’s letter to Santa Claus was published. The 6-year old Beaufort boy declared he had been a good boy, that he liked very much going to school every day, and would Santa please bring him a pair of gloves, a wagon, a Lone Ranger gun with caps and a coat. And, “PS – Please remember my brother who is in the Army.” 

* * * *

 “On that Christmas Eve in 1941,” Alida wrote, “all the county lay dark and watchful inside the line of fragile barrier islands of the Outer Banks…Portsmouth Island, to the east, deserted save for the few families at Portsmouth village and the Coast Guard Station there… and to the south, Shackleford Banks – once a whaling community of some 500 people – long deserted, barren, silent….” 

“But across the inlet at Fort Macon, a small band trudged in silence up a rough, dark hillside – a local choir to sing for troops garrisoned inside the fort. As the traditional old carols rang out into the cold, still darkness, a pinpoint of light appeared across the empty moat, then another, and another. One by one, the soldiers of the 244th Coast Artillery had come to stand atop the worn parapet, their presence betrayed only by the glowing tips of cigarettes.” 

“Descendants of the old Cape Bankers had come to offer comfort and cheer to these strangers who, like the county’s own, stood in peril and far from home that Christmas Eve.” 

“While westward, along Bogue Banks, the Salter Pathers stoically waited – and watched – and stayed their place. Further west, a lone Coast Guard Station kept vigil at Bogue Inlet. 

“And in Beaufort, safe inside the barrier, little Jimmy Modlin dreamed the Christmas dreams of children everywhere.” 

Alida A. Willis’s Carteret County Christmas story of 1941 is a treasure to be passed along from generation to generation.

 

Just FYI: On July 13, 1944, The Beaufort News ran a front-page article about Staff. Sgt. Harry S. Tyler being awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross Medal with two oak leaf clusters for heroism and meritorious service in the air. The ceremony was conducted in Wilmington, N.C.

Author recalls Christmas traditions in Morehead City, N.C.

During the Depression years in Morehead City, N.C., as Christmas approached, everyone got involved in the preparations, recalled Shirley Wade Lucas. 

She was one of 12 children born to Howard Jesse Wade and Sallie Daniels Wade. Their house on the corner of 8th and Bay streets in Morehead City was built on land acquired by the Wade family (Martin Thomas Wade and Martha Davis Wade), in 1890.

 

Shirley was a local author who contributed her writings to “Christmas Memories,” a collection of essays published during 1990-92 in The Mailboat publication. The stories have been preserved for future generations by the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum & Heritage Center on Harkers Island. 

In the 1930s, “my daddy would bundle up the smaller children and walk to the Crab Point area to find our Christmas tree,” Shirley said. “In those times, everyone knew everyone, and the farmers would gladly give permission for a tree, some yaupon, holly, cedar and pine to be cut.”

 

“Daddy would load the greenery in the arms of the children and hoist the tree on his shoulder and home we would come. The greenery was placed over pictures, on mantles, over doors and around the front door. The big tree was placed in a bucket filled with dirt and tied to the wall to keep it upright. All the decorations were handmade by all the family members.”

 

“Mama cooked on a wood range with an oven and a firebox that burned cord wood. About a week before Christmas, Mama began her baking of pies and cakes. Daddy built shelves on the back porch to hold all the pies and cakes, then covered them with mosquito netting to keep out dust and insects.”

 

Shirley remembered going caroling to bring some Christmas joy and cheer to the sick and shut-ins. She said, “We walked the town over, with people joining us along the way. When we would get so cold we couldn’t sing, back home we trod to find big pots of steaming hot chocolate, prepared by Mama.”

 

“On Christmas Eve, we went to church at First Methodist where a program for young and young-at-heart was held.” She said that Charles S. Wallace, who served as the church’s Sunday school superintendent for 51 years, assured that everyone received a red or green cloth bag filled with an orange, tangerine, apple, nuts, gum and hard candy.”

 

Tangerines are known as the Christmas orange. The tangerine’s peak season is in December, and the fruit was once a common gift for children’s Christmas stockings. It is named for the city of Tangiers in Morocco, where it originated. In Asian culture, mandarin oranges and tangerines are symbols of abundance and good fortune.

Charles S. Wallace, who was born at Portsmouth village on North Core Banks, was one of Morehead City’s most prominent citizens at the time, having amassed great wealth in the commercial fishing industry in the early 20th century, operating fish processing plants in Morehead City and Smyrna as well as in Florida. 

Historians said that in order to ensure a local supply of ice to preserve and transport the seafood on the railroad, by ship and by wagon to markets along the East Coast, Wallace helped start up the Carteret Ice and Transportation Storage Co. in Morehead City, believed to be the first ice-making plant in eastern North Carolina. 

He invested in a multitude of other business interests, ranging from banking and boatbuilding to real estate and gasoline and oil wholesaling. 

Wallace served as Morehead City’s mayor from 1898-1908 and then represented Carteret County in the North Carolina House of Representatives from 1909-14. He served on the Carteret County Board of Commissioners from 1918-20. 

Education was Wallace’s true passion, and it is reported that he served on the Morehead City School Board from 1906-33, and was board chair from 1908-33. When the town built a modern graded school in 1929-30 on Bridges Street, it was named the Charles S. Wallace School.

 

 

 

In 1917, Christmas in Carteret County was ‘frozen solid’

Core Sound in Carteret County, N.C., froze over in the winter of 1917, when Bessie Willis Hoyt was 11 years old.

 

She wrote about that experience for “Christmas Memories,” a collection of stories assembled by The Mailboat publication in 1990-92. The small booklets have been preserved by Core Sound Waterfowl Museum & Heritage Center on Harkers Island.

Bessie said the family Christmas custom was to travel from their home in New Bern to Morehead City and then take the mailboat to Davis in the Down East section of Carteret County to spend the holidays at her grandparents’ house there. 

In late December of 1917, “each night the weather got colder, and soon Core Sound began to freeze. It was three miles wide with a deep channel, but in a week, the ice was so thick the daily mailboat could not come. Papa had arrived on the last trip.” 

“The marshes where wild fowl lived were frozen, and ducks and geese came up into the gardens searching for food,” Bessie said. “Every garden had rows of collards, but they were frozen stiff and had to be cut with an axe.” 

“We had stewed ducks every day. My uncle said he was afraid that if he opened his mouth too wide, he would quack. Every night the grown folks sat around a tub in the kitchen and picked the mallards, red heads and black heads. Often there were geese. The supply of feathers for beds multiplied fast.”

 

She said two large black bears came up out of the Oyster Creek swamp and “promptly became food for those families who were tired of duck.” Her grandmother got a share of the bear meat and stewed it all day. 

“The meat was stringy and tough, but we ate it. ‘Now, we can growl,’ laughed my wise-cracking uncle.” 

The cold snap went into its third week, and Bessie’s father had to get back to work at the bank in New Bern, so he walked across the still-frozen marsh to Jarrett’s Bay. His brother took him to Beaufort, “and he caught the train for home.” 

“No deaths occurred and no babies were born during the big freeze,” Bessie said. There were some arguments, however, that occurred at Uncle Frank Davis’ store, where people would come to sit around the pot-bellied stove to warm their hands. 

“People up the road were Democrats and Missionary Baptists; the ones down the road were Republicans and Free Will Baptists,” Bessie said. “The arguing sometimes erupted into quarreling and name calling.”

 

The Washington (N.C.) Daily News called this period, which extended into January 1918, as the “big freeze.” The entire coastal region was “in the ice box.” The larger Albemarle and Pamlico sounds also froze over.

 

Writing for Our State magazine in 2014, correspondent Bryan Mims shared a story about the December 1917 journey of a small sailboat named Clem, which carried three fishermen from Sea Level out to dredge for oysters into the Neuse River near where it forms the Pamlico Sound. They were J.E. Taylor, Louis Elliott and Edward Salter.

 

“Before setting out, they had no seven-day forecast to consult, no computer models to foretell of the impending ice invasion,” Mims said. They didn’t know they were headed into a “polar purgatory,” but they were experienced watermen who knew “just about every slough, bay, gut, inlet, cove, bend, ditch, tributary, estuary and spit of sand along the wide-open mouth of the Neuse River.” 

Snow kept falling and the temperature kept dropping. Mims said that the men knew of a place called Henry Hills Harbor along a remote stretch of northern Piney Island across from Raccoon Island. Here, they threw down their anchor to wait out the storm. 

Mims cited an account written by Allen Taylor (brother of J.E. Taylor) stating that after three dark and stormy nights, Clem “was held firm in an icy grasp. The men sheltered themselves from the winter tempest inside the boat’s cabin. They had a two-burner oil stove that they used for cooking and for melting ice from their water barrel.” 

“Temperatures during the day barely broke out of the low teens. The men watched, hoped and waited through the week,” Taylor wrote. “The freeze became worse instead of better, ice forming around their boat four or five inches thick.” 

“They had a grim decision to make: Stay with the boat to freeze or starve to death, or strike out across the ice, which could very well be a death march itself.” 

Mims said it was clearly time to abandon ship…but now the choice was whether to “take the route over land, with its great expanses of marsh grass and ice-encrusted undergrowth – land thoroughly devoid of human habitation between here and home – or trek across the ice, with air holes waiting to swallow them?” 

They selected to walk the frozen water route, said a prayer and drove nails through the heels of their shoes to avoid slipping on the ice. Mims said the men carried what little food they had left, a frying pan, a hatchet and a boat hook to gauge the thickness of the ice. They also had 10 yards of rope. 

J.E. Taylor held the middle of the rope and led the men in a V-formation – “as the wild geese fly” – so that if he plunged through thin ice, Elliott and Salter could pull him back out. 

The men crossed New Stump Bay and Long Bay, edging southward, toward Sea Level. It took them six and a half hours to walk to Sea Level, about a dozen miles in a straight line but longer by their water route, Mims wrote.

Memories of Christmas seasons past

Beginning in 1990, The Mailboat, a much-loved publication dedicated to preserving the heritage and culture of Down East Carteret County, N.C., started publishing a collection of articles labeled “Christmas Memories.” 

These small storybooks are now of a prized collection at the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum & Heritage Center on Harkers Island. 

Among Madge Guthrie’s favorite “winter memories” growing up on Harkers Island are: 

“Deep feather beds that have ‘sunned’ all day.” 

Bed sheets, pillows and pillowcases that are allowed to “go outdoors” and soak up some sunshine make for better sleeping.

 

“Cold linoleum that made me run tip-toe to the warmth of a ‘red-hot’ coal stove.” 

“Feet stuffed in paper and covered with paper bags, so I could play in the snow that was often wished for, but rarely seen.” 

“The smell of shortbread and sugar cookies from Mother’s oven when I came home from school ‘half-starved.’”

 

“Riding the mailboat to town (Beaufort) and keeping so very warm by the engines.” 

“Roasting oysters on an open fire protected by scrub-oaks and then helping Mama roast yaupon in a cracked iron washpot in the same shelter.”

 

Yaupon leaves make great tea, high in antioxidants and less bitter than green tea. Yaupon has the highest caffeine content of any plant native to North America.

 

However, don’t eat the berries of yaupon (and the other hollies), as they are considered highly toxic to humans. Eating as few as six yaupon berries can cause a child to vomit, and consumption of 20 to 30 berries can be fatal to children.

 

“Cleaning lamp globes each day to get all the soot off, and studying each night by the same oil lamps.”

 

“Watching Mother ironing starched shirts with irons heated on the stovetop.” 

Joel Hancock Sr. of Harkers Island reflects on one of the “more charming and evocative memories” of his youth – “when my father would take my brother Teff and me to Shackleford Banks in search of Christmas trees.” 

“We would head to Wade’s Shore, at the west end of the Banks, and the best place on Shackleford where cedars still could be found in abundance. Daddy had gotten the family’s Christmas tree from there since any of us could remember, and there was no reason to go somewhere else – a Wade’s Shore tree was pretty much a family tradition.” 

“Just to make sure that Mama wouldn’t be disappointed with his selection, Daddy usually cut a couple extra trees. The others could be shared with any of several other families in our neighborhood after Mama had exercised her preference.” (Smart man, that Papa Hancock.) 

“Our home would radiate with the smell of fresh cedar as Mama and my sisters began the trimming. Ella Dee would make a special concoction from Fab detergent that renders a garnishing of ‘snow’ to (place on) several of the higher branches. A few ceramic bulbs, two strings of lights and a big star to adorn the top were all that we needed to finish off…our Holiday decorations.” 

In later years, the Hancock family would abandon its practice of cutting trees on Shackleford Banks, choosing to purchase firs from “the Colonial grocery store in Beaufort.” Later, the Hancocks bought a synthetic tree “so void of fragrance that Mama had to buy aerosol cans of ‘evergreen’ scent to try and recapture some of the holiday flavor.”

 

Joel Hancock

“Christmas memories…are suspended in time and cannot be bought or sold. I can buy a fir tree many times larger and much more shapely than the stunted cedars that Teff and I used to pull through the sand hills. But none could ever (take) the special place in our hearts reserved for this and the many others of our Christmas memories.” 

Ellen P. Simpson reminds us that back when she was a girl, “Christmas was observed…in quite a different way than it is today.” 

“There were no electric lights in most rural homes, so tree trimming was done with what was available; homemade garlands and paper lanterns cut from colored construction paper and glued together.”

 

These were placed at intervals around the tree, as were “candy canes, gingerbread cutouts and glass balls. Then, candles in tinfoil holders were fastened to the tree with small wire. A homemade star, also covered in tinfoil, was hung from the top of the tree, representing the Star of Bethlehem.”

Ms. Simpson said, “An odor of baked sweet potatoes, mincemeat pies, smoked sausages and baked goose filled the air. Garlands of holly and cedar were placed over the fireplace, and cotton balls were used to resemble snow.” 

“Turkey was unknown at our house; goose, ducks, ham, oysters and sausage were the foods we were most familiar with.” 

“We had been taught that the ‘Christ Child Was Born on Christmas Morn’…still it was ‘Old Santa’ who filled our stockings on Christmas Eve, after we were safely tucked in for the night.” 

“Typical gifts were: dolls with moving eyes and long curls, a tea set, a doll bed or carriage, crayons and coloring books and a child’s reading book; our stockings were always filled with apples, oranges, tangerines, nuts and candy; then topped with fireworks, sparklers and Roman candles.”

 

“Long before dawn, we were outside firing firecrackers, or lighting sparklers or Roman candles; soon we were joined by other children and older boys and girls with their air rifles and fireworks; by seven-thirty, we were glad to be called inside to a ‘big’ Christmas breakfast.”

 

Eggnog season is here; take a taste!

Right on schedule, as the calendar would flip to December each year, our next-door neighbor Bev would call on the landline telephone to announce that the season for eggnog and euchre had arrived. “So, come on over,” she would say. 

An evening sipping holiday beverages and enjoying a game of cards would then ensue. Bev’s aromatic, secret-recipe cold eggnog with just a splash of bourbon was optional. She was quite understanding, however, that not everyone savors the nutmeg-flavored, dairy-based drink. 

(A Canadian whisky-based old fashioned, laced with bitters and a slice of orange, topped with a long-stemmed maraschino cherry, is an acceptable holiday substitute.) 

Back to the eggnog. Michelle Darrisaw, a contributor to Southern Living magazine, said eggnog was concocted in Great Britain during medieval times by monks working in a monastery winery. 

They added whipped eggs and figs to their sherry, port or brandy, flavored it with cinnamon and warmed it up over the fire. The monks said they were searching for a tasty drink to ward off the flu. You bet.

 

Allen Tatman of Paddy Malone’s Pub in Jefferson City, Mo., said the American colonies were fertile ground for the spread of eggnog. “Lots of farms and plenty of eggs and milk and cream. But, the heavily taxed liquors of sherry, port and brandy were soon replaced with rum from the Caribbean, which was cheap and abundant during the colonial period.” 

Food history professor Dr. Frederick Douglass Opie of Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., said: “Colonists referred to rum as grog; bartenders served rum in small wooden carved mugs called noggins. Thus, the drink eventually became ‘egg-n-grog’ and over time ‘eggnog.’” 

America’s first president George Washington, a Virginian, was a fan of eggnog. Editors at The Old Farmer’s Almanac uncovered two eggnog recipes that may have been attributed to Washington. The “mild” one was spiked with a full bottle of bourbon.

 

The “industrial strength” version specified “one quart cream, one quart milk, one dozen eggs, half a cup of sugar, one pint brandy, one pint rye whisky, one pint Jamaican rum and one pint sherry.” After adding the other ingredients, let mixture “set in cool place for several days. Taste frequently.” 

An infamous “Eggnog Riot” occurred on Christmas Eve in 1826 at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. Approximately 80 cadets went berserk after consuming vast quantities of alcohol in their eggnog.

 

Carol S. Funck of the U.S. Army Heritage Foundation said the academy was established in 1802. Since its founding, administrators had historically “turned a blind eye to the ritual” of cadets celebrating certain holidays by judiciously imbibing in “spirituous beverages.” 

The rules changed dramatically in 1826, when Col. Sylvanus Thayer, the superintendent, “expressly forbid the purchase, storage or consumption of alcohol at West Point.” 

The cadets were not happy. Writing for Smithsonian magazine, Natasha Geiling reported that “some cadets set about smuggling in liquor from nearby taverns” for the annual Christmas Eve party. They amassed three to four gallons of hooch. 

The merriment got out of hand. Windows were smashed in the North Barracks. As a result, 11 cadets who were deemed guilty of the most serious violations were dismissed from West Point. Eight others were severely reprimanded. 

One of those involved but spared from punishment was Jefferson Davis, future president of the Confederacy. 

Another cadet far removed from the ruckus was Robert E. Lee, who became a general and commander-in-chief of the Confederate grays. 

Perhaps Lee and some pals were studying in the library…or off-campus playing euchre.