The press warned of a repeat of the “Hillsville incident of 1917.” That, of course, sent me back to my sources to discover what had happened in Hillsville, a little town in Carroll County, Virginia, not far from Mt. Airy, North Carolina. It was, I learned, a eruption of violence that ended in a cross-county investigation and two deaths in the new-fangled electric chair. It held the country’s attention until the sinking of the Titanic one month later.
It’s Día de Muertos, and I’ve been thinking about ways to honor my ancestors. For my grandfather Gaston Means, I offer this calavera literaria which, unfortunately, in not in verse.
As I am sure you are aware, greatness of mind comes from a knowledge of the facts, and that knowledge can only be gained through correct thought processes. That old faggot will never get what he wants because his thoughts are always mingled with his emotions. He’s a bureaucrat by nature and has to live his life in a filing cabinet because he fears a man who can transcend the rules with his knowledge.
The thing that gets under my skin, that really bothers me, is the small-mindedness of Mr. J. Edgar Fucking Hoover. Here I sit in a ten-foot-by-ten-foot cell in Leavenworth, Kansas, and I can’t even have a fountain pen. Or paper. Fortunately, I have an exceptional memory. I will list for you a few of the anecdotes I plan to publish as installments under the headline, “Man of Mystery Tells His Secrets.”
He’s coming here tomorrow. He won’t be happy after that letter I wrote to the wife about the place in Maryland where we used to picnic. I know he reads all my mail. I made it sound like that old farm was some kind of secret, and since he has no imagination, he thought I was telling her where the money is. His divers spent a week pawing through the mud at the bottom of the Potomac
But I want to discuss my boy. I told Mr. God-damned J. Edgar that I wanted to see a Catholic priest, and he sent in a special agent in a dog collar, but it didn’t fool me. If I ask to see Billy, he’s sure to bring him out here. He’ll think I’ll tell my son where the money is. You can see who really is in control here.
What I want you to know is that when a man has a superior education and a superior mind, his task is to gather all the facts and to arrange them properly to reveal the truth. There are two great advantages to a term in prison. First, only in a penitentiary can one come into intimate contact with men of all kinds and degrees – day laborers, steel workers, farmers, bridge builders, gamblers, gunmen, soldiers and sailors, tradesmen, bell hops, doctors, lawyers, preachers, politicians, and sexual perverts – with the leisure to learn their true philosophy of life. Secondly, the quiet of a penitentiary cell enables one to escape the distraction of petty conversations and pursue the truth. So, you see, I really have nothing to complain about. Except the God-damned fountain pen. And paper.
Like what you’ve read?
After my grandfather Gaston died in December of 1938, his wife and my father, then just 21 years old, were left penniless and sharing a rented room in Washington, DC. That was when she decided to tell the story of her life with America’s favorite scalawag.
The result was a five-part saga published in newspapers throughout America on consecutive Sundays from September 10 to October 8, 1939. From these episodes come some of the tall tales still in circulation about the adventures of this consummate teller of tales.
I’ve transcribed the original articles, keeping the spelling and punctuation of the day, I’ve added footnotes where needed to provide historical context, and I’ve inserted my own commentary based of family knowledge and recent research.
You can order a copy here at Amazon. I hope you enjoy the roller coaster ride!
Just found this little video about my grandfather Gaston. It tells the standard version of his story, including a few errors that crept in along the way. Enjoy! America’s Greatest … Continue reading No Redeeming Quality?
I’ll be reading a short piece about Gaston’s first documented adventure. I’d love to see you there.
“Gaston B. Means. I think he was the worst crook I ever knew….He was a complete scoundrel. But he was the type some people liked — a sort of lovable scoundrel.”
So said J. Edgar Hoover in one of his last interviews as quoted by Curt Gentry in J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets. Gaston’s roller coaster career as America’s most likable scoundrel was fueled by his tall tales told with absolute conviction and a cherubic smile. But much of Means’ story remains a puzzle to those who know him from Boardwalk Empire or who speculate about the truth on conspiracy web sites.
Gaston was my grandfather, and now, 100 years after his first trial, I’ve come to believe that Gaston cannot be understood except in relation to his beloved wife, my own grandmother and namesake.
What follows is a portion of his story as told in my work in progress, The Ring of Truth: The Private History of Gaston B. Means.
On November 14, 1897, when Gaston Means was confirmed in the new All Saints Episcopal Church, Concord was a bustling town in the red clay hills of piedmont North Carolina. Cotton was the staple crop, the railroad was running again, and J.W. Cannon’s new mill was up and producing the housewife’s favorite Cannon cloth. After the disruptions of Reconstruction, this was a good time to be a young man in the South.
After the service, the family assembled in their North Union Street dining room for Sunday dinner. When the table had been cleared, Gaston called to his brothers, “Let’s head downtown to see what’s doing, boys.”
Brandon Means and Gaston walked together down Union Street toward the businesses south of Cabarrus Avenue. Large young men, they walked as thought they owned the sidewalk, and as sons of the mayor, perhaps they did. Afton, the youngest and always called Tony, stuck close to Gaston, and Frank as usual brought up the rear.
The boys stopped in front of the Cannon & Fitzer windows, and the older boys gazed at the display of hats and shoes while Tony kicked a stone into the street. Gaston jingled the change in his pocket and frowned.
“What’s eating you, Bud? You sure don’t have much to say today.”
“Just thinking about the bishop, Brandon. By rights, he should have had dinner with us today.”
“Aw, you know the Gibson’s dining room is bigger, and they can afford to make a fuss over him, I guess.”
“But with all the time Mother has put into that damned church, and Pop being the mayor, it should have been our place, I’m thinking. That’s all.” He glanced around. “Things are pretty quiet today. No chance of a ball game on a Sunday, I suppose.”
“Bud, you’ll be out of here before any of us,” said Frank. “Wish I was going along to Chapel Hill with you,” he added softly.
“Wait your turn, Frank. Meanwhile, I could use some amusement!” His eyes swept the all but empty streets and closed storefronts. “I’m going home. How about some horseshoes?”
Brandon spat. “Might as well,” and he headed back up the street.
“Will I be able to visit you at college, Bud?”
Gaston looked down at his youngest brother and smiled. “Sure, Tony, and I’ll be home in summer and for the holidays. Meanwhile, you’ll have to keep these two out of trouble.”
“Aw, Bud, you know Frank never gets up to anything, and Brandon’s bad as you.” Tony grinned and ran ahead up the walk.
The Means boys were known around town as great fun but mean as snakes when crossed. Word was, they got that from their grandfather, “General” William Cresswell Means, now buried beside his wife, Catherine Barringer, in Oakwood Cemetery. The General had been the largest landowner in Cabarrus County before the War, an innovative farmer and instrumental in bringing the railroad to Concord. He had married well and was prosperous enough to provide his six sons with university educations.
Emancipation and then the death of his wife had been his downfall. He took to squabbling with his neighbors, and finally his son William Gaston Means was called home to manage his affairs. W. G., “the Colonel,” had been practicing law in Memphis when he brought his wife, Corallie née Bullock, and their three daughters back to the home place at Blackwelder’s Spring. Gaston was born there in 1879.
When W. C. died in 1880, there was little left of his estate but land. The farms were divided among his children, some were sold to pay expenses, and the Colonel moved his family into a three-story house on the east side of North Union Street.
Gaston was a bright boy with charming manners and deep dimples. His father was pleased to take him along to the office and often used him to run notes to clients in town and to the courthouse one block away. The boy soon found that the best entertainment to be had was listening to the grown men around him chewing over their neighbors’ affairs, both business and personal. If there was something puzzling to his young mind, he took the story to his father for explication, and the Colonel often found these tidbits helpful in court. When Gaston’s Uncle George Washington Means went to work for the Secret Service in Washington, D.C., the boy made up his mind to pursue a career as an investigator and began the habit of carrying a small notebook in which he recorded the habits of those around him.
In the fall of 1898, he left Concord for the University of North Carolina. By all accounts, Gaston was a middling student and, although suited to the football field at six feet and two hundred pounds, a lackadaisical athlete. His sharp wit and dimpled smile, along with his willingness to laugh at his own failings, made him a star of the Chapel Hill social scene, however, and in his sophomore year, he was elected to the Dialectical Society, Theta Nu Epsilon, and Zeta Psi.
By his third year, Gaston was tiring of his pre-law classes, and with Brandon at the Bingham School in Mebane, North Carolina, money for tuition was tight in the Means family. Word that the new Albemarle Graded School was looking for a superintendent brought him home, and a whisper in the right ear from his father secured him the position. He took up residence at the Hearn Hotel and worked hard, even returning to Chapel Hill for summer courses. He was well respected, but by 1902, Gaston was restless. The town of Albemarle was too small and his position too prominent to allow much personal scope. The trip back and forth to Concord was tedious over the unimproved dirt road, and his social life had been reduced to an occasional Sunday dinner with the family. When his father’s new client James Cannon mentioned his plans to expand his sales efforts into the northeast, Gaston was ready to assist.
The Cannon Manufacturing Company was a powerhouse in the South, and James Cannon was its driving force. His vision and skill had given the housewife Cannon Cloth, sturdy enough for sacking and fine enough for fashion, and had opened the Chinese market to American cotton fabric. Through these innovations, Concord had weathered the economic depression of the 1890s with barely a hiccough. An early proponent of vertical integration, in 1903 Cannon created his own selling agency, Cannon Mills, Inc., and sent John C. Leslie from Concord to open an office in New York City. Gaston accompanied him as a traveling man.
The new sales office was a grand success, and by 1905, Gaston was wearing custom-made suits and silk bow ties and contributing articles on the cotton business to industry publications. He stayed in touch with a cadre of Tarheels now living in New York, including Phillips Russell and the brothers Ralph and Louis Graves who had moved their entire family north while they pursued careers in journalism.
On a warm September evening in 1908, Gaston returned to his rooms on West 16th Street from a successful trip through the Midwest. As he stood in the foyer thumbing through his mail, he was greeted by his fellow lodger Milano Tilden. “Bud, you’re home! Were the Detroit shopkeepers in a mood to buy?”
“They were when I got though with them,” Gaston laughed. “Where are you headed all buffed up like that, Miles?”
“A few of us are taking in that revue at the Casino Theatre, The Mimic World. A chum of mine is in the production and says it’s closing soon. Say, why not join us and we can get some supper after?”
“I need to get out of these duds and send off a note or two first. I’ll meet you in the lobby at eight.”
“Fine! We’ll see you there. I hear there are some remarkable young women on show,” he added.
Gaston grinned and waved him out the door.
After the show, Gaston accompanied Tilden and his friends to Café Martin and ordered drinks while they waited for Tilden’s acquaintance from the revue to join them. When he arrived, he had two choristers in tow. They were introduced to the party as Frank Thomas, Miss Mavis Johnson, a pretty blond with a rouged and pouty mouth, and Miss Edith Poole, a slender, Juno-eyed young woman who looked all the better for her seeming lack of make-up.
The conversation was general as they ate, but when the table was cleared, the coffee poured, and the brandies ordered, Gaston leaned back from the table, looked around at the little party, and smiled.
Leaning to his left, Tilden whispered, “Prepare yourself, Miss Johnson, to be entertained. Mr. Means tell the best tales you are likely to hear.”
“You all will have heard of the 1799 North Carolina gold rush? As you will recall, a boy called Conrad Reed found a seventeen pound nugget of solid gold in a creek bed in Cabarrus County, just down the road a piece from my granddaddy’s plantation. Well, that big old hunk of gold sat right there on the floor in that boy’s home for three years, holding open the kitchen door, before his papa took it off to Fayetteville to find out what it was. And that’s how it all began.
“Well then, you can imagine how I felt some eighty-eight years later when I heard that story. A boy of nine, I was just all fired up. Every day after school, me and my brother Brandon headed down to Three Mile Branch and marched up and down its banks, searching for a gleam of yellow. This went on for three or four weeks, and you can believe we wore ourselves out with looking.
“This one afternoon, we had about decided to give it up, when I threw myself down onto a grassy spot on the bank and set to shying stones into the water. Well, what do you know! The very first stone I threw turned over a few pebbles in that stream, and that’s when I saw it. Gold! It was just a glimmer, but I waded in and got to digging around, and before I knew it, I had unearthed a nugget almost too big to lift out of the water.
“Brandon!” I called. “You come over here and help me lift this gold.”
We pulled and tugged, but that piece of gold was just too big and too slippery for two young boys to shift. Before long, we decided to give it up and head home for a shovel and tote sack. We kicked the mud and stones back over the gold in that creek bed, and I broke off two willow switches and stuck them into the bank to mark the spot. Then we set off for the house.
“But while we were running through the woods, the wind picked up and we heard the thunder of a coming storm. The sky behind us was black as night, and the rain kept getting closer. We just made it home before all hell broke loose – a real frog-strangler. There was no way our mother was letting us out of the house. The gold would just have to wait.
“Well, the next morning was a Saturday, and after our chores were done, Brandon and I grabbed that shovel and tote sack and headed back to the creek. First thing I noticed was the bare branches and all the leaves torn off by the wind. And then I began to look for our mark, the two switches stuck in the bank. We must have searched for a quarter hour before I figured out the problem.
“Brandon,” I said. “Look here. That damned storm has washed the bank clear away and our marker with it.”
“Well, we looked and we looked for some sign of the right spot. And we took off our shoes and used our toes to dig around in the mud of that creek all up and down. But we never did hit on that big old nugget. For all I know, it’s still in there yet.
“And that, my friends, is how I almost started the Second Great North Carolina Gold Rush.”
Gaston downed his brandy to the approbation of the men in the party while Miss Johnson pursed her lips and exclaimed, “Oh, what a shame! Why, Mr. Means, you would have been as rich as Vanderbilt, and you lost it all while just a little boy.
“Hush, Mavis,” Miss Poole said softly. She smiled at Gaston. “We’ll just have to make a trip down South, Mr. Means, to find that nugget. I met a few prospectors in Denver while I was at school, and I might know a few tricks.”
“Well then, Miss Poole, you and I will just have to explore the possibilities.” Gaston’s dimples deepened.
As the party broke up, Miss Poole shook Gaston’s hand and slipped something into his jacket pocket, then walked off arm-in-arm with Miss Johnson and shepherded by Mr. Thomas. Gaston and Tilden turned south and headed down Broadway toward their lodgings. As they passed under a street lamp, Gaston felt in his pocket and pulled out a small white card. “Miss Edith C. Poole,” he read, “151 East 32nd Street, New York, New York.”
“Aah,” he said, throwing a arm around his friend’s shoulder and beginning to whistle.
“A Historical Perspective Of Cabarrus County” by Clarence E. Horton Jr.
Gaston Bullock Means brief biography by Wikipedia
Gaston Means as a character on Boardwalk Empire
On the one side are the denizens of either coast, the globalists, the kumbaya singers, the educated and the intellectuals, accompanied by the newcomers and minorities who expect to flourish on the crumbs from the progressive table. (This is the side on which I reside.)
On the other side are the “real” Americans from the Southland, the grain belt, the rust belt and the mountains whose mixture of Old Testament Christianity, rough-grained chauvinism, hoplophilia, and distrust of authority propelled Donald Trump into the White House.