Posted on 08/31/2008 6:32:21 PM PDT by Oklahoma
By Tony Thornton Staff Writer MUSKOGEE — The John McCain biographies are replete with information about his paternal grandfather, a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy.
His maternal grandfather, Archibald Wright? Not so much. Nancy Calhoun thinks she knows why. "This is one skeleton that the McCains probably wish would stay in the closet,” said Calhoun, who is director of genealogy and local history at the Muskogee Public Library.
Wright spent more than two decades in Muskogee. His twin daughters, including McCain's mother, Roberta Wright McCain, grew up in a three-story home that still stands at 1027 W Martin Luther King (then known as Fon-du-Lac).
Even in a town filled with colorful characters, Wright stood out.
He was, at various times, a bootlegger, oil wildcatter and operator of a gambling house. His antics frequently landed him in jail, but Wright never seemed to lack bail money.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsok.com ...
My daddy learned to drive from the local bootlegger in Rome GA back in the 30s.
Mr. 'bama, they all runned oft!
nope, the kennedy’s are able to afford their multiple homes and yachts because of old joe’s bootlegging
Obama’s dad ran out on his family. Which is worse?
The women learn cannin, and we learned shinin'.
Now days we use stainless steel weld tanks, on a two burner stove, copper tube down through a doh plug. Works like a charm.
Runs a lawn mower too.
LOL.
I'm not responsible for my greats, but I am responsible for today.
/johnny
this jumped out at me
Price was designated as attorney for the candidate’s mother, a prerequisite for obtaining her Oklahoma birth certificate.
they can get mccain’s mom’s birth certificate and obama’s is still a no show
We’re Scots.
Big deal! We still make it back here in the woods of PA.
My mailing address is Moonshine Road!
Same here, but if I ran the for office (which I won’t.. I have no desire too), I’m sure the media will probably use that against me..
Somehow I missed out on the cannin and my brothers never tried shinin, that is, far as I know.
Growing up we would hear a fre gun shots up in the mountain. My grandma would get us in the house in a flash. She said the revenuers have been spotted. Sure enough, in a bit we would see a car or two go up the mountain. That was some good times.
Now I still run my legit business making draperies. Don't drink or smoke.
Well my name's John Lee Pettimore
Same as my daddy and his daddy before
You hardly ever saw Grandaddy down here
He only came to town about twice a year
He'd buy a hundred pounds of yeast and some copper line
Everybody knew that he made moonshine
Now the revenue man wanted Grandaddy bad
He headed up the holler with everything he had
It's before my time but I've been told
He never came back from Copperhead Road
Now Daddy ran the whiskey in a big block Dodge
Bought it at an auction at the Mason's Lodge
Johnson County Sheriff painted on the side
Just shot a coat of primer then he looked inside
Well him and my uncle tore that engine down
I still remember that rumblin' sound
Well the sheriff came around in the middle of the night
Heard mama cryin', knew something wasn't right
He was headed down to Knoxville with the weekly load
You could smell the whiskey burnin' down Copperhead Road
I volunteered for the Army on my birthday
They draft the white trash first,'round here anyway
I done two tours of duty in Vietnam
And I came home with a brand new plan
I take the seed from Colombia and Mexico I plant it up the holler down Copperhead Road Well the D.E.A.'s got a chopper in the air I wake up sc
reaming like I'm back over there I learned a thing or two from ol' Charlie don't you know
You better stay away from Copperhead Road
Copperhead Road
Copperhead Road
Copperhead Road
“I should know — my gggg grandfather left Scotland under a cloud (and one jump ahead of the sheriff) and changed his name from MacGregor.”
Interesting. I did the Y-chromosome DNA test and discovered I had a bunch of matches with fellows named McGregor. They told me that c. 1600 the McGregors were prohibited from using their last name by the King of England. My branch just never went back to using it when the ban was lifted. Sometime after that they left Scotland and ultimately ended up in Virginia.
I wouldn’t be too hard on the librarian or genealogist researching the Wright Family. In my book the children aren’t responsible for the acts of their parents or grandparents. Taking McCain or even Obama to task for what their ancestors did would be silly.
And I don't need to make shine to live either.I just know how.So does my son. I play the pipes. My dad the fiddle.
You are lucky to grow up in those old times. I know the are likely gone now too.
Everybody is spread out all over the place.
But the blood runs true, and its Highland.
No matter where we come to, it is a blessing.
I bet your granma was quite the lady!
I still like a lick of shine once in a while.
Brings back old memories.
If you want to read a very good book in which the MacGregors figure largely, read R.L. Stevenson's sequel to Kidnapped (and read Kidnapped if you haven't already!) I think (in fact I'm sure) that Robin Og MacGregor appears in Kidnapped, when he and Alan Breck have an impromptu piping competition. But the MacGregors really come into their own in the sequel, which is called David Balfour in America and Catriona in Britain.
Kidnapped is an adventure story (and a very good one), but David Balfour is more of a political thriller (and a very good one too.) It will be necessary to be able to read "braid Scots", though, at least for the chapter about Tod Lapraik. But it's worth it (if you read it aloud to yourself it all comes clear).
I'm a bit of a genealogist myself (I inherited great-aunt Quennelle's notebooks) and that's just what I would think if I had unearthed something interesting like this! Like my gg grandfather who was so amazed at all the CSA veterans who promoted themselves to colonel, captain, etc. when they got home, he said he concluded that "he was the only private who had survived the War."
"From the lone shieling of the misty island
Mountains divide us, and waste of seas -
Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland,
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides."
Obama’s dad. But a man’s not responsible for what his father or grandfather or anybody else did. I’ll take full responsibility for everything I have ever done—but I’m not taking the blame for anybody else.
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