Chatham County's famous rabbits
As Snipes confirms that his family is as old as Chatham County itself, he remembers a curious piece of county history: the popularity of local rabbit in New York restaurants. He used to trap rabbits and ship them to New York City, he remembers.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with John W. Snipes, September 20, 1976. Interview H-0098-1. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- BRENT GLASS:
-
So the Snipes, then, have been in Chatham County ever since just about
the beginning of Chatham County?
- JOHN W. SNIPES:
-
Yes sir. Where our old house is sitting, up here, Chatham County has
given off a lot of land to Orange County and also Lee County.
That county line has been moved. Seventy-five or
eighty years ago that county line was moved over to Orange. We were
setting right on the edge of Orange County at that time. And Chatham
gave Orange oh, I reckon fifteen miles further on up. Chatham was a big
county at one time. And it's the only county in the world
that I've ever heard tell of (and the records bear this out)
that ever shipped a solid carload of rabbits to New York. Chatham
rabbits; we were known for Chatham rabbits. They caught them in hollows
and boxes. And you could go in New York seventy-five years ago and call
for Chatham rabbit on the menu in New York City.
[Laughter]
- BRENT GLASS:
-
Wow. I tell you, I didn't know that.
- JOHN W. SNIPES:
-
Rabbits run just like ants or grasshoppers. They shipped them by the
carload to New York.
