Rabbit Lore #20 (1913)

The avatar this backwater blogger claims for himself now once practically served as a brand for the county. People inside Chatham county built snares for the rabbits and bred dogs to chase them; people outside the county identified the place and the people with a rare quality of rabbit that tasted particularly sweet and succulent. The Chatham rabbits swam in gravy on the table and converted readily to change for a boy's pocket, yet they remained untamed and elusive, humble but a delicacy on the most discriminating palates. Maybe the rabbit served as mascot for so long because the county was like that as a place, rustic and simple, difficult to get at, yet distinguished by a certain refinement of country living.

Since we began scampering in this blog-space we've taken care to note references to the eponymous bunny as we come upon them. These quotations went into a single ongoing post, "Rabbit Lore", and included items from the Chatham RECORD, but also the Washington Post and a transcript from the Southern Oral History Project. It was a delicious stew full of tasty bits of meat, but the problem was, the tiny link from the sidebar wasn't prominent enough.

I decided for this reason to break "Rabbit Lore" into individual posts. Now "Rabbit Lore" is a blogger label that ties the series together, and new Rabbit Lore items will appear as individual posts. Several were added in the last two days; the reader may notice the use of material from the Siler City GRIT. Chatham RECORD editor Henry A. London's Son Isaac published the GRIT 1904-1920. While reading the GRIT the lore of the Chatham rabbit crops up even more frequently than in the RECORD, including, as a closer to this post, this following advertisement from W.S. Durham, a produce merchant who bought rabbits for export.

Siler City GRIT, 1913 OCT 29: