Article From The Carroll County Newspaper About New Book To Restore The Sidna Allen House

Fancy Gap, Virginia: Local author Thomas D. “Tom” Perry’s new work, Murder In A Rear View Mirror looks to help local history preservation based on one simple principle. A lot of people just love a good murder story. A portion from the sales of the books will go to help the ongoing restoration of the historic Sidna Allen House, which adorns the front cover of the new book.

“The title of this book, Murder In A Rear View Mirror, means two things. It means looking back at the past, obviously, a rear view. It came from one of my authors I publish other people’s books. We were at a book festival, a lady whose children’s books I publish, and I were talking. You run out of things to talk about at a festival, and we were talking about murders. She said, “I saw a murder once.” I said, “You…what?” Perry said. “She said I saw a murder, over in Collinsville, Virginia. She was at a stoplight, in a parking lot and she saw a man go over after his estranged wife and kill her. She saw it in her rear view mirror. I thought, murder in a rear view mirror. That was where I got my idea for the title.”

Perry said he had been letting the idea simmer on his creative back burner for a while and had written stories about different murders and crimes but hadn’t thought of putting them together under one title. Last fall at Draper Mercantile, Howard Sadler’s program The Last Witness (about the Hillsville shootout) drew him and local history enthusiast Mark Harmon. They discussed the “murder book” in progress. Just like a coincidence in a whodunit, a chapter already included Hillsville.

“The question I would get at almost every book event I’d go to was, ‘Do you have anything on the Hillsville shootout?’ I never did. Most of my books are about Patrick and Henry counties and J. E. B. Stuart. Now I can say, “Yes I do!’” Perry said, “it’s important in the books I do they help preserve history. I’ve donated the proceeds to non-profits over the years from several of my books. I started the J.E.B. Stuart Birthplace thirty years ago. One thing led to another, and I said, ‘How about I give you some of the proceeds from every book I sell?’”

Perry said the main thing is drawing attention to restoring the home. He said one lesson he’s learned from previous projects is to “keep the PR going,” making sure people know what is being done.

“Each chapter is a different murder or crime story. There’s two in Ararat where I grew up, three in Mount Airy, a couple in Martinsville, and of course, the Hillsville Shootout. Things that had always interested me. It’s my take on it. I don’t pretend to be an expert on all these things,” Perry said. “The chapter that was the hardest to write was about Virginia Tech, and that one hit close to home if you are an alumnus. I hate to say some of them were fun to write but some were. You kill people over money, over politics, you kill people over love, and I’ve covered almost all of that.”

He said the last one is about embracing the Virginia Tech shootings.

“I go from the Hillsville Shootout to what happened at Virginia Tech. I use Frank Beamer as my connector,” Perry said. “Frank, of course, is an Allen I believe he wrote a high school or college term paper on the shootout, an interesting take. Frank talked about one of the hardest things he did in his life was going to meet the survivors and the families of people who died. It’s in the book. I found a great interview with him. I go from the end of the shootout to how you embrace, if you can embrace, the tragedy of something like Virginia Tech, and I used Frank as my bridge. I don’t know how Frank’s going to feel about that, but I sent him a lot of my Mayberry books.”

Perry noted the power of a good story to move from narration to becoming a folk tale which is why he included a story from Ararat, Virginia about the “murder in Lynch Hollow,” so named because a Lynch mob took justice into their own hands there following a girl’s murder.

“One of my friend’s fathers growing up took that story and turned it into a kind of why a boy should be home before dark,” Perry said. “If you didn’t get home before dark the monster in Lynch Hollow might get you. If you’re down on the river fishing, swimming or whatever and you don’t get home in time…He had the whole thing worked out where this monster was called Raw Headed Bloody Bones, an old Scottish boogeyman. He had sound effects and the whole shebang going on. He used to scare some of my buddies to death when he would tell the story. It’s in the book. This is serious stuff. I hate to make light of it, but after a hundred years or more, everyone has a theory. These are my theories, and it’s my take on it. The idea is to bring attention to the history and to help them save this house. If my book does that, then I’ll be pretty pleased with it.”

Carroll County Historical Society President Ed Stanley said they appreciate any funding they can get to help restore the historic Sidna Allen Home. Stanley said beadboard for the front porch ceiling and front porch columns had been purchased but installing this is on hold, while repairs are made to the roof.

“You know, as long as I can remember, they’d say I wish they’d do something with this house. I wish they would save it. Okay, folks here’s something you can do about it. You get this book, and it gives them money, and maybe you’ll give more money if you’re really interested,” Perry said. “I know some people don’t want this house saved and didn’t want to hear about the Hillsville Shootout. It’s like Mount Airy. There are people who don’t want to hear about Andy Griffith, but Andy Griffith keeps Mount Airy going. You can say what you want about him, but the tourism is real. This could potentially be a showplace that would draw people to Carroll County.”

This story, written by David Broyles, was published in The Carroll News on page four of the June 13, 2018 issue. Since it was NOT available online, I have edited the story and present it here corrected.

R. J. Reynolds Changed The World

Remarks At Down Town School 8^th Grade Graduation at First Presbyterian Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on June 11, 2018.

 Statue of young R. J. Reynolds riding into Winston, North Carolina, in 1875, located in front of Wells-Fargo Building in Winston-Salem.

When I was a teenager, I loved history. I still love history. I read books. I listen to books. I write books. All about history. Today, I wanted to share a story about another teenager.

Richard Joshua Reynolds was sixteen years old in the spring of 1865. Born on July 20, 1850, R. J. Reynolds lived in Patrick County, where I grew up, which is about an hour north of us in Virginia.

            In April 1865, as the American Civil War was ending, United States Major General George Stoneman rode into Patrick County with nearly 4,000 cavalrymen. R. J.’s father sent him up on No Business Mountain, you have no business going up there, with the family’s livestock to keep the Yankees from getting them.

            One thing R. J. Reynold’s father, Hardin Reynolds did not consider was what would happen to the many African-Americans he held in bondage on his Rock Spring Plantation, which is preserved as an historic landmark and operated by my alma mater, Virginia Tech. Many of the slaves followed George Stoneman’s United States cavalry Hardin Reynolds told his other son, Abram, “My son the Yankees have been here and torn up everything and my Negro men have all gone with them.”

Upon arriving in Danbury, North Carolina, Stoneman felt the number of former slaves following the raid endangered the future safety of all involved. Stoneman sent “several hundred” under guard to East Tennessee, where many of the men enlisted in the 119th United States Colored Troops. The regiment organized at Camp Nelson near Nicholasville, Kentucky from January 18 until May 16, 1865. George Gray, Peter Gray, Edmond Hylton, Jacob Reynolds, Miles Reynolds, and Samuel Tatum of Patrick County served under Colonel Charles G. Bartlett and Lieutenant Colonel Thomas R. Weaver. The regiment mustered out of the service of the United States on April 27, 1866. They all received pensions from the United States government for their service in the Civil War. These men had the courage to change their world.

Stoneman’s raid continued down into Piedmont North Carolina going through Germanton and Bethania on the way to Salisbury. On April 10, the mayors of Winston and Salem came out to surrender their towns. The Moravians and Quakers of Piedmont North Carolina, who favored peace and the Union, were happy to see them. These pacifists had the courage to change the world. A soldier wrote, “Here we met with a most cordial reception, very different from the usual greetings we receive. The ladies cheered us, and brought out bread, pies, and cakes…The people showed much enthusiasm at the sight of the flag we carried, and many were the touching remarks made about it.” Not everyone was happy to see the Yankee cavalry here. One Confederate bragged to the blue horsemen that they would never find their livestock because he was hiding them in the basement of his house.

Ten years after R. J. Reynolds hid the livestock, he made an important decision in his life. He sold his share of his father’s lucrative tobacco business and went out on his own. He thought he could make it as an entrepreneur, but what he needed was a railroad for transporting his product, which in 1875 was chewing tobacco. There was no railroad in Patrick County, Virginia, and would not be for more than a decade. He looked at a map and saw his two choices were Danville, Virginia, and Winston, North Carolina. Since the latter was closer, R. J. Reynolds came south through Stokes County, where his mother was from, and rode into Winston, reportedly reading a New York Times newspaper somewhere between 5 and 10 thousand dollars in his pocket, which would be over 200K in 2018.

R. J. Reynolds had attended Emory and Henry College, like Patrick County’s other famous personage Civil War General JEB Stuart in 1870. He had Dyslexia and stammered, but he had large appetites for work. He was not alone in the tobacco business in Winston, North Carolina. I believe there were eighteen other factories operating, but R. J. Reynolds changed the world. He spent $388 for a 100-foot lot near the railroad. He sweetened his chewing tobacco to make it more appealing, and he refined the process to make cigarettes in 1913. He made pre-rolled cigarettes, whereas before people rolled their own cigarettes. He named one of his cigarette brands, Camel, because it used Turkish paper and in one year, he manufactured $425 million cigarettes.

He saved money by living in his tobacco factory until he married Katherine Smith of Mount Airy, North Carolina in 1905. He built her a house where the Forsyth County Library sits on Fifth Street today. They had four children: R. J. Reynolds, Jr., Mary, Nancy, and Zachary Smith Reynolds.

Before R. J. Reynolds came here, Winston and Salem were two separate towns. There was no dash and no Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Reynolds supported using property tax to pay for public schools. The Reynolds Family is responsible for making this city what it is today. Without them, there would be no Wake Forest University, Guilford College, or Winston-Salem State University here or in their present state. There are Smith Reynolds Airport and Reynolds Coliseum at North Carolina State University. There are Reynolda and Tanglewood here just to name a few along with the Down Town School.

All of this because R. J. Reynolds left Patrick County to find a railroad. He died on July 29, 1918, of cancer. It is not my place to judge him or his company for what tobacco has done to the health of many who used its products. I am here to report on his history without the emotion that clouds history today. His family continues to contribute to the vitality of this community.

I worked thirty years in computers as my vocation, but from a young age I loved history, and it was my avocation. In the last ten years, I started my own book business to publish my books and my friend’s books. I hope you find a vocation that you enjoy and make a successful life from and I hope you find an avocation that you love. Maybe you will get lucky like I have and turn your vocation and your avocation into the same thing and be happy.

A few blocks away from us here today in front of the giant Wells-Fargo, used to be Wachovia building, where I did contract work several decades ago is a statue. At lunch, I would go out and look at the statue of young R. J. Reynolds riding into Winston on a horse. The base says the following. “Richard Joshua Reynolds 1850-1918. In 1875, this young Virginian, aged 24, rode into Winston in search of a town in which to build his first tobacco factory. Through the generosity of the citizens of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, this memorial has been erected to honor a successful businessman and public benefactor.” I encourage you to go have a look at the statue and when you do, let me leave you today with an idea. Like Richard Joshua “RJ” Reynolds and the others I mentioned in this talk, you too can change the world.