“Tot” Goodwin and his Midland Crossbreds / Mary Kalergis photo
Jefferson “Tot” Goodwin and his wife Colleen have established a new hunt, the Goodwin Hounds, to hunt country in Inman, Statesville, and Union, North Carolina. The country was previously hunted by the Stonebroke Hounds which disbanded in the late 1990s. Landowners seem to be prepared to welcome the return of foxhunting to the area.
Not long ago there were there were four hunts in the Foothills area in the northwestern part of the state: Green Creek Hounds, Tryon Hounds, Greenville County Hounds hunting the Gowensville area, and Stonebroke Hounds hunting in Inman. The Greenville country has been assigned to Tryon by the MFHA, and Goodwin has permission to hunt from landowners in the old Stonebroke country. He plans to start small and has applied to the MFHA for Registration.
Goodwin retired recently as the senior Master and professional huntsman of the Green Creek Hounds (NC), which he helped to establish in 1989 and where he showed sport for nearly thirty years.
He grew up in Georgia in a large family, following hounds on foot and often contributing meat for table. “My granddaddy and dad always hunted dogs,” said Goodwin, “and I started hunting the beagles every weekend when I was about eight years old…. We hunted coons, rabbit, and deer on foot and ate everything we caught. There were sixteen kids in my family, so we never wasted any food.” (From Foxhunters Speak by Mary Kalergis)
Goodwin learned about mounted foxhunting under the late Ben Hardaway’s tutelage at the Midland Fox Hounds (GA). It was there he saw what it takes to breed and train a successful pack of foxhounds. Starting as a horse groom, he eventually learned to ride and began whipping-in to Hardaway. For a country boy who never had the opportunity to travel, working for Hardaway opened Goodwin’s eyes to the world. He traveled the Eastern seaboard where Melvin Poe and Buster Chadwell, two huntsmen now enshrined in the Huntsmen’s Room of the Museum of Hounds and Hunting, became two of his greatest inspirations.
He traveled to England and Ireland and figures he’s the first black person to ever have hunted in Ireland! While there, he’d whip-in to Elsie Morgan, MFH and huntsman of the West Waterford. Morgan was one of the great hound breeders of the twentieth century. Her bloodlines provided the answer to Ben Hardaway’s long quest for an outcross to his July hounds that would hunt hard yet be biddable to train off deer. Hardaway loved the July hounds’ manner of hunting, but no matter what corrections he had tried, or what outcrosses he had used, he could not maintain the both hunting style he loved and the steadiness off deer until he crossed with the West Waterford bloodlines.
Goodwin still loves the Midland Crossbred and the qualities of the July hound, the foundation of the Midland type. He and I got into a discussion of why the pure July just couldn’t be steadied off deer and whether it was a lack of sense or just plain hard-headedness.
“The July hound might just be too clever—too smart to be trained,” said Goodwin. “He’ll go off on deer and won’t even speak until he’s far enough away so there’s nothing you can do about it. Then he opens! He might have too much sense.”
“I’d still like to know half of what [Tot] knows,” commented Jordan Hicks, professional huntsman of the Piedmont Fox Hounds (VA).
Catherine Hunter, in the Tryon Daily Bulletin, wrote up the recent inaugural hunt of the Goodwin Hounds at Scott’s Grove Farm in Inman. Farm owner Leslie Scott was mounted and served an honorary whipper-in. Marc James was another honorary whipper-in, and Anna Dalton was honorary Field Master. Goodwin said that hounds treed a coon at the beginning, and later ran three coyotes.
“We’re working on improving the country, and anybody’s welcome to come and hunt,” said Goodwin. For more information about the Goodwin Hounds, or to be on the mailing list, email Colleen.
Posted August 28, 2018
Nina Schug contributed to this article.