JoCoYo

This is the story about the Hunter family, two members of which were instrumental in the creation of North Carolina, although in very different ways

Turning a person into a hero is not doing anybody any favors. It gives you unrealistic expectations of that person and paints an untrue biography. Such as the case with Ralph Lane.

For all of our talk about colonial leaders and shapers of North Carolina history, they were millions of people who are not spoken about have not been spoken about and without hermit their contributions could not have happened.

By all accounts, Josiah Martin was not a bad guy. Just the absolute wrong guy… In the absolute wrong place… At the absolute wrong time.

John Hinton and his family, along with thousands of other North Carolinians in the colonial period, faced an identity crisis and some very hard choices.

John Hinton was loyal to the crown. It seems even to a fault. For new students of the regulator conflict in North Carolina, it would be easy to spot seeds of the revolution in it. So imagine being neighbors of the regulators while also being a law maker for the British government. This is where we find John Hinton.

The first recorded land deeds and land owners in the modern day county of Wake Meant that John Hinton was playing an outsized role in the development of the colony and later state Of North Carolina.

Before there was Johnston County, Wake County, or even a Carolina, North or South, there was Nansemond County and the forgotten people that it was named for.  Before the English came, this is partly their story.

Another gold rush, a shipwreck, a hurricane, and an overlooked cause for war. All here.

What do you do when opportunity comes your way? Do like Johannes Reith and grab onto it like it's going to run away. What happens when another one comes? Use both hands and grab again. This is a success story if I've ever heard one.

"Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb".  Wise words from Smashmouth. Admittedly, that band wasn't known for its wisdom, but it certainly works here. What kind of wisdom have we lost in our desire to gain knowledge? This is a story about a Greek fable, once widely known, that shaped American history in good and bad ways.

If there has been a person with more of a whirlwind life than Maggie Williams...Well, I’m not actually sure that person exists. But I guess that’s what happens when you marry a person that treats the line between genius and insanity like a jump rope. Spoiler alert: Big crossover event.

The Meadow/Newton Grove area of southeastern Johnston County has stories to tell. This one involves the old Whig Party and a man that acted on his conscience, changing the religious aspect in Johnston County and eastern NC permanently. A Monk that wasn't a monk, but was deeply religious, nonetheless.

How does Johnston County keep producing music legends? What does this legend have to do with the Battle of Bentonville? In a word: Everything.

This episode is about how the wheels go round and round, but these are not on the bus.  Well, that's not entirely true.  But these wheels are the wheels of history, so to speak, and how things tend to just happen over and over. In this episode, we find that Cary, the pre-Civil War South, and Old England are on a stage in which each must play a part. In this case, the same part.

How does a living legend when awards for a song 40 years after he died? What does that have to do with eastern North Carolina? Listen and you’ll see. It’s a good story.

Being a trailblazer and Mapmaker has its costs. It may well get you into the history books. It may well get you killed, start the deadliest war in North Carolina’s history, As well as result in wars that establish a new country. Hello, John Lawson.

What does an atomic bomb have to do with the grocery store and check out times? What are you talking about?? Yep, We’re in the middle and connecting it all together.

Johnston county has produced exactly 2 governors, even though it is one of the oldest counties in the state. One of them had to move away to become a governor of a different state. Depending on who you ask, he was either very good or very bad.

North Carolina politics, an affair, a tragedy on the University of North Carolina campus, the UNC/Duke rivalry, two area lakes, and one very controversial statue. This one is packed, y’all.

American literature could’ve been very different had it not been for one of Johnston County’s own. Not really in a positive way. It appears that being a Rhodes scholar does not really qualify you to teach future literary giants.

“Bloom where you are planted. “Ignorance is sin.” The here and now are more important than the elsewhere. These maxims define the Coates family , whose labor kept this county afloat in the years it needed them the most. Later, the state and nation came to benefit from their service

Tractorcades, High Knockers, and imaginary explosives. Feeling like a rebel? Had enough? Crank up a John Deere or Super A...or not. Esse quam videri, y’all.

"Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery" - Jack Paar "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" -Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus" Here's to you, Rabils, Abdallas, Josephs, Davidians. For more on the topic after listening, check o...

Being accessible is a blessing and a curse. It can bring in money, ideas, friends, family. It can also get you killed. (At least) Three times, Johnston's location on travel routes resulted in war coming to it. Once was a massive explosion, another was a plane crash that narrowly (just a few miles) missed disastrous results, and the third...well...wow. That could have been pretty bad.