Alcoholic Beverage Control

Leach drowns while eluding ABC officers.

This editorial questioning the police powers of Alcoholic Beverage Control employees reveals the death of an unnamed black Wilson County man who jumped into the Tar River to escape arrest in Nash County. His body was not recovered for nearly three months.

Greensboro (N.C.) Daily Record, 16 April 1936.

A search of death certificates reveals that the decedent was Freeman Tump Leach. Leach was born 21 April 1902 in Rowland, North Carolina, to Jack Leach and Nellie Johnson; died 21 January 1936 in Cooper township, Nash County; lived at 900 Elvie Street; was married; worked as a railroad worker for Norfolk Southern Railroad; died “by falling in Tar River accidentally drowning”; and was buried in Wilson [probably, Vick Cemetery.] Jessie Leach was informant.

Wilson Daily Times, 24 January 1936.

Agents bust bootleggers.

Wilson Daily Times, 22 August 1944.

Until relatively recently, the basic facts being conveyed in newspaper stories could be hard to follow. To the make the scenario here plainer: for reasons unknown, the Alcoholic Beverage Control agents were at Clarence Barnes‘ house when R.N. Bottoms pulled up in his Oak Cab taxi. The agents found 19 gallons of illicit liquor in Barnes’ vehicle and 14 gallons in Bottoms’. By means not clear, Agent Barnes discovered the liquor originated ten miles southeast of Wilson. When the location was searched, ABC found five more gallons of liquor, 30 gallons of beer, and 60-gallon still. 

Wilson Daily Times, 23 August 1944.

Both men pleaded not guilty, claiming they were unaware their cars were packed with ‘shine.

Interracial cooperation in the bootlegging business.

Wilson Daily Times, 22 March 1944.

Briggs Hotel, like the Cherry, catered primarily to salesmen or other businessmen arriving to Wilson at the Atlantic Coast Line or Norfolk & Southern passenger rail stations. These men sometimes liked a good time, and taxi drivers and bellhops were a ready-made supply chain for after-hours liquor (and prostitutes.) Here, two white cabbies and three bellmen teamed up to resell at a sizeable mark-up liquor purchased at a local Alcoholic Beverage Commission store. (Probably the one in the 300 block of East Nash Street, recognized as North Carolina’s first ABC store.) 

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  • Theodore Burroughs
  • Prince Cunningham — Cunningham owned a sweet shop in the 500 block of East Nash in the 1930s.
  • Caesar Williams — in 1940, Caesar Julius Williams registered for the World War II draft in Wilson. Per his registration card, he was born 12 February 1912 in Wilson; lived at 209 North Ashe Street; his nearest relative was mother Daisy Williams, same address; and he worked at Briggs Hotel, Nash Street. 

Clipping courtesy of J. Robert Boykin III.