Origins of Mason Dixon Border Morris

Convention 2007

23rd 6/8 Annual PajamaCon 200723rd 6/8 Annual PajamaCon 2007

Dr. Brad GrahamGeorge Mason University

Origins and History of the Mason-Dixon Border Morris Men, the Oldest Morris team in the Americas


Convention 2007

Overview

• Mason-Dixon Origins

• Team history• Sidebar Genealogy

• Modern Team Practices• Inter-dependent relations with Team History


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Civil war origins of Mason-Dixon

• Two wounded confederate soldiers met while laying in a union field hospital in Gettysburg after the battle, they had refused to reveal their names;• One was found saying, “I’ve just been shot.”• The other said, “I’ve been shot to bits.”• Thereafter they were called Jess Ben Shot

and Benshot Tubits. (people thought they were brothers, they may have been)


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Benshot and Jess Ben’s recovery

• Meet toothless Fred Thorn the grave digger• Assigned to help bury dead• Toothless played fiddle, was tired of dirges, learned

jigs and reels• Met “observer” British artillery officer from Hampton;

teach figures and stepping• They form the team (Mason-Dixon Border Morris); it

take them a decade before they start dancing in public (1880-1881 is the claimed start date)


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White Mountain Folk Festival 1935

Byrd Shot ofMason-Dixon

as Hobby-Chicken

Pine Mountain Settlement School

Sword Team


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Dance Interpretations

• The team, since it’s founding, has had a fascination with the Abbot’s Bromley Horn Dance

• Slow vs. fast dancing debate• If you are a deer being hunted you run away- fast

• If you are a deer and are comfortably munching grass and leaves, you take your time and go slow

Another interesting note about Mason-Dixon Border Morris’s interpretation of Abbots is that near the end of the dance the final deer will fall over “dead”; some claim this started when Just Shot was shot in the butt by Ida Shot two months before they were married, but Great Grandpa Byrd said he used to dance it that way when he was young and the team always did it that way even in his great grand father’s day.


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Team Genealogy


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The Shot family tree

Byrd

Round

Shure Bess Ida Jess

SlappBuck Lucky

GrapeMist

Team members in blue

Long

Sling

Total Lee

Nora Goode

Crack

Hot

Distant cousins

Bank

Ben

Pop

Jess Ben

Dear

Mary Lee

Bowled Lee

Barrel Lee

Dam

Chuck

Hed

* Source Shot family Bible

Trick CGona B


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The Thorn family tree

Haw

Prickle I Rosen


Poynt E

Aygooda

Fred

Emmet A

Shew

Sharpe

Barry

Andrew A

Black Barry

Barry Barry Sharpe

* Source Thorn family Bible

Darby A


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The Tubits family tree

Jess Maya

Maya

Blaine Git Mae

Eustace


Lub ya

Yore

Jess Shot

Heaven Les N

Shay Anna Hercutt

Own Lee

Torn

Total Lee*

* Source Tubits family Bible

Bett

* Now using his maiden name Shot-Tubits

Les N Tuppence

Devon Chwar


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Modern team

• Practices on Tuesday at the Coons lodge, next to Contrivance River in Gettysburg

• The Shot family homestead is in a trailer park outside of Gettysburg. (the Tubits clan lives there as well, the Thorn family live in real houses in town)

• Current kits: • Blue and Gray Rag coats for border, they use ketchup stains to

simulate blood stain that their ancestors had from the Battle of Gettysburg.

• Whites with Blue and Gray baldrics for the occasional Cotswold gig. (ketchup stains on hankies to remember their ancestors)

Note: there is a claim that Over the Water to Charlie was a contrived dance invented when Chuck Shot fell into the contrivance river and named for him, but they could have named the dance contrivance river dance or everyone would have thought it was a made up dance instead of a “traditional” dance, this dance has been reportedly danced the same way for over a hundred and twenty years.


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The Coons Lodge

* Sorry photo taken with my cell phone camera, it’s a little grainy


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Dancing with Foggy Bottom Morris Men, Arlington, VA 2007

Zak (FBMM)

Mason Dixon


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References

• David E. Whisnant, “All That Is Native and Fine: The Politics of Culture in an American Region ”

• Primary sources, discussions of team origins with Byrd Shot (1984) and Round Shot (2006), Prickle Eye Thorn (2004)

• Linda Oatman High, “The Cemetery Keepers of Gettysburg”, page 68.

• Shot, Thorn and Tubits family Bibles.• John M. Archer ,“East Cemetery Hill at

Gettysburg “The Hour Was One of Horror” “.


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Additional Back Ground Info

• Don’t dance during hunting season• Source of the fogg’s antlers

• All like NASCAR• Dream of being on a professional pit crew (one of them [Hed Shot] is in

a Class B NASCAR pit crew)• Don’t dance at dawn on Mayday

• because that’s when the trout run but they join us mayday afternoon after the creekers are done dancing

• Some have trouble with the internet (Lucky “helped” Brad with his spelling in school)

• Lucky knew Brad and Joe in Harrisonburg VA• One of the MDBM is a plumber (and out house distributor; it’s where the

porta-potties we get for some of our previous ales come from)• Lucky is on a “Quest” to prove that the Foggy Bottom Morris Men Really

Do Exist. (check out squireluckyshot on YouTube.com)

Origins of Mason Dixon Border Morris

Documents

hed shot

round shot

chuck shot

shot family homestead

team genealogy

dance contrivance river

team masondixon border

rosen team members