Mr. Joshua Percy Flowers is second only to Ava Gardner in notoriety anywhere near Johnston County, North Carolina. The Saturday Evening Post declared Flowers “King of the Moonshiners” in 1958, when it was estimated he was earning one million dollars annually in untaxed revenue from the sale of white liquor up and down the East Coast. He was also “one helluva fox hunter.” This film attempts to cover the ground between the two pursuits and reveal a picture of the man apart from the legends.
Created by: D.L. Anderson
Audio Production: Kavanah Anderson
Original Soundtrack: Phil Cook and His Feat
Storytellers: David Lee Bailey, Captain Craig Fish, Pauli Boykin, Richie Creech
Thanks to: Carter Rabil, James Larry Pittman, Johnston Co. Heritage Center, Johnston Co. Sheriff’s Department, N.C. State Archives, Andrew Synowiez, Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, Randy Benson and Jason Arthurs
All rights reserved © 2011 D.L. Anderson
—–
Moonshine Bust, Johnston County, 1951
Finding Mr. Percy or How This Film Came to Be
There are plenty of people in and around Johnston County, North Carolina who can tell you a tale about Mr. Percy Flowers. Some of the tallest tales include an account of a submarine capable of distilling whiskey under water and the human finger he kept in a jar as a means of intimidation. Most of these tales began from slivers of truth and immense amounts of adoration for Mr. Percy during his own lifetime. After he passed on, well, the legends continued to grow, as well as the number of people who claim to have either worked for him or that knew him personally.
I’ve always been taken with the way we Americans revere an outlaw, but how do you make a film about someone who’s been dead for as long as I’ve been alive and did mostly illegal things during their lifetime? Those who really knew Mr. Percy were quite inclined to stay silent, including his daughter, who strongly suggested that I drop the idea all together. Her request had the opposite effect though; I wanted to find a way to document his legend in a way that even she could find suitable.
A few early leads dried up as soon as mention of a camera or recorder was made. “No way buddy,” one man said, after telling me about an encounter with Mr. Percy, his Rolls Royce Silver Cloud and a Thompson sub-machine gun he was known to carry. “I don’t want this coming back to me.” Loyalty to Mr. Percy still runs deep. Even though I was not out to make a tawdry exposé on the man, many people felt that sharing details on the moonshining operation would undermine their fervent gratitude toward him. I learned that his operations provided income for a surprising number of people up and down the East coast. In order to profit on the scale that he did, you would have to distill a tremendous amount of white liquor — something on the order of a tractor-trailer load, daily.
Thanks to a chance encounter at the Johnston County Heritage Museum, I was introduced to a string of people who knew Mr. Percy and understood that I was trying to document their stories before all that was left were tall tales and falsehoods, colorful as they may be. My deepest thanks goes out to each of them. Since screening this film at a number of locations in the area, I’ve heard even more stories of the man and have occasionally entertained the idea of adding to the piece if the right person should come along. So if you’ve got a story to share about Mr. Percy, please feel free to leave a comment or send an email my way. If you’re ever in Northern Johnston County, do stop in at the Flowers Store and have a hot dog or two, all the way. Then walk outside and visit the state-run ABC liquor store now attached to it.
Related posts:
