04/12/2025
The Thanksgiving the Revenuer Got Baptized, 1933
Puncheon Camp Creek, North Carolina, November 23, 1933
Prohibition was breathing its last, but the federal boys still rode hard looking for one final big bust before Repeal. Treasury Agent Clyde Hunnicutt from Asheville (city suit, shiny shoes, and a face that never smiled) got word of the best corn liquor in Jackson County running somewhere up Puncheon Camp. He rode in alone on Thanksgiving Eve, figuring the family would be too busy eating to notice a stranger.
He was half right.
The Ledbetters were indeed busy: thirty-seven souls crammed in the dogtrot, tables groaning with turkey, ham, nine kinds of pickles, and a washtub full of iced tea strong enough to float a horseshoe. Agent Hunnicutt walked up bold as brass, badge flashing, and announced, “I’m shutting this operation down.”
Old man Jonah Ledbetter looked him over, looked at the sky (rain coming), looked at the table, and said, “Son, you picked a poor day to go dry. Sit down and eat. We’ll talk liquor after pie.”
Hunnicutt opened his mouth to argue, but Jonah’s six grown boys were already pulling out a chair the size of a courthouse bench. Before the agent knew it, he had a plate piled higher than his hat and a cup of that “tea” in his hand.
Three cups later he was singing “Barbara Allen” with tears running down his cheeks. Four cups and he was dancing with Aunt Dovie, who weighed two-eighty and could clog like thunder. By the time the blackberry stack cake came out, Clyde Hunnicutt was standing on a stump confessing he’d never had a real Thanksgiving in his life.
Jonah Ledbetter filled a fruit jar with the clearest white lightning you ever saw, corked it, and handed it over. “Baptism,” he said. “One dip and you’re one of us.”
Clyde took a swig, eyes crossed, then hollered, “I reckon I just got saved!”
He left the next morning on foot (his horse had drunk from the branch downstream of the still and was still seeing angels). Badge in his pocket, jar in his saddlebag, and a promise never to come back unless invited for supper.
Repeal came two weeks later. Clyde sent the Ledbetters a postcard from Asheville: “Best baptism I ever had. Still floating. Happy Thanksgiving forever.”
They still set an extra jar on the table every fourth Thursday, labeled “Revenuer’s Reserve.”
