Thanks so much to Belly for finding out just who Cootie Brown really was!
According to the Farmer’s Almanac, Cooter (Cootie) Brown lived along the Mason-Dixon Line at the start of the Civil War. He had family on both sides. Not wishing to be drafted by the North or the South, he decided to get drunk - and stay drunk - so that he wouldn’t have to fight in the war. Drunkenness has been measured against him ever since!
July 25th, 2006 at 9:50 am
That is awesome!
I talked to my Dad last night, finally, and he pretty much confirmed what I knew. That Cootie Brown was the town drunk, supposedly in the town where my grandfather grew up. My Grandfather grew up in Point Of Rocks, MD, which is near the Mason Dixon line.
Things that make you go hmmmmm?
July 25th, 2006 at 9:55 am
The problem with that explanation is that the Mason-Dixon Line separates Pennsylvania and Delaware from West Virginia and Maryland. Maryland was a slave state but didn’t secede. West Virginia was part of Virginia at the start of the Civil War but broke away and formed its own state because it did not wish to be part of the Confederacy. Anyone living on the Mason-Dixon Line or directly below wouldn’t have been likely to have torn allegiances. Loosely, the Mason-Dixon Line has come to mean the boundary between the slave and free states. But it’s still unlikely Cooter Brown lived along that border because all the northernmost slave states – Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware - did not secede. Either way, for him to have lived on the Mason-Dixon Line and the rest of the story to be true, the Southern part of his family would have lived considerably south of him.
July 25th, 2006 at 10:21 am
Thanks for the history lesson.
July 25th, 2006 at 11:02 am
But If Cootie moved north after the Civil War, but didn’t want to go into Yankee territory he could very well have gone to just below the Mason-Dixon line to raise his family. The legend could have continued there from his family throughout the years.
These small towns in Maryland tend to keep to themselves and maybe this is why I thought it was something directly from my family????
Maryland, Virgina & Pennsylvania are where the majority of the battles of the Civil War occured (e.g. Antietam, Manassas, Gettysburg). These territories were more like neutral zones stuck in the middle. This would then be a sensible choice for Cootie to move to.
Hell let’s just make up our own story about this man. Hahahaha
July 25th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
I love history lesson too!
July 25th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
Tish, I’ve put out another feeler looking for more info in the DC area. Check my blog.
July 25th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
Good… that was keeping me up nights. Now I can drink with piece of mind again.
July 25th, 2006 at 5:21 pm
Guys named COOTER are always a bad idea.
July 25th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
That is a typical Southern story, you people are just this side of completely nuts.
July 25th, 2006 at 7:13 pm
I’ll be damned!
November 16th, 2006 at 3:10 pm
Thanks! I’ve been trying to find the answer myself as well.
December 7th, 2007 at 8:11 am
Cootie-Brown has never been seen, other that in a drunks mind. Anyone can be Cootie-Brown at anytime as long as they add enough spirts into their system and are located in a southern party setting. So when someones states you are “Drunker than Cootie-Brown” watch the hell out you could go blind!