From A HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY NORTH CAROLINA CONTAINING SKETCHES OF PROMINENT FAMILIES AND DISTINGUISHED MEN WITH AN APPENDIX BY REV. JETHRO RUMPLE PUBLISHED BY J. J. BRUNER SALISBURY, N. C. 1881 Copyright DMK Heritage 2004 The following are excerpts from the above-mentioned book. Pages 142-143 Later in the, fall was the time for pulling and shocking the corn. A huge long heap, or straight or crescent-shaped, containing thirty, 143 HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY fifty, or a hundred loads of corn in the shucks, was piled up in the barnyard. On a given day a boy was sent out to ask hands to come in to the shucking on a night appointed. Fifty hands perhaps, might come just at dark. A rail would be placed in the middle, and the hands divided by two captains who threw up “cross and pile” for first choice of hands. Then came the race, the shouting, the hurrahing, and the singing of corn songs if any negroes were present. And generally a bottle of brandy was circulated several times and was sampled by most of those present. Quite a number would sometimes get excited by the liquor, but it was considered disgraceful to get drunk. Sometimes a fight would occur, especially if the race was a close one. The winning side would try to carry their captain around the pile in triumph, but a well-directed ear of corn, sent by some spiteful hand on the beaten side, would strike a member of the triumphal procession, and thereby b ad blood would be excited, and a promiscuous fight occur. But these were rare accidents. After the corn was shucked, and the shucks put into a pea, came the shucking supper-loaf, biscuits, ham, pork, chicken pie, pumpkin custard, sweet cakes, apple pie, grape pie, coffee, sweet milk, buttermilk, preserves, in short a rich feast of everything yielded by the farm. It required a good digestion to manage such a feast at ten or eleven o’clock at night, but the hardy sons of toil had a good digestion. Or if anything were wanting, a tramp of four or five miles, on an opossum or coon hunt, lasting till one or two o’clock in the morning, would be sufficient to settle the heartiest shucking supper that ever was spread on the farmers’ tables in bountiful Old Rowan County.