Explore every episode of the podcast JoCoYo

Find me someone that does not like the TV show Young Sheldon… Actually, don’t. I don’t want to meet that person. It seems like a stretch, but there’s so much of a connection to eastern North Carolina, including Johnston county. Makes me love the show even more.

I absolutely love it when we uncover almost uniquely geological marvels that exist under our feet, and in our backyard. Johnston County, and East, North Carolina, are home to thousands of lakes. You’ve never seen them, you say? You would know if we had thousands of lakes? Well, let’s take a trip.

Death at an early age was fairly common and colonial and early North Carolina’s history. So were multiple marriages as a result of the death of a spouse. It’s because it didn’t have doctors back then, right? Wrong.

This is the story about the Hunter family, two members of which were instrumental in the creation of North Carolina, although in very different ways

Turning a person into a hero is not doing anybody any favors. It gives you unrealistic expectations of that person and paints an untrue biography. Such as the case with Ralph Lane.

For all of our talk about colonial leaders and shapers of North Carolina history, they were millions of people who are not spoken about have not been spoken about and without hermit their contributions could not have happened.

By all accounts, Josiah Martin was not a bad guy. Just the absolute wrong guy… In the absolute wrong place… At the absolute wrong time.

John Hinton and his family, along with thousands of other North Carolinians in the colonial period, faced an identity crisis and some very hard choices.

John Hinton was loyal to the crown. It seems even to a fault. For new students of the regulator conflict in North Carolina, it would be easy to spot seeds of the revolution in it. So imagine being neighbors of the regulators while also being a law maker for the British government. This is where we find John Hinton.

The first recorded land deeds and land owners in the modern day county of Wake Meant that John Hinton was playing an outsized role in the development of the colony and later state Of North Carolina.

Before there was Johnston County, Wake County, or even a Carolina, North or South, there was Nansemond County and the forgotten people that it was named for.  Before the English came, this is partly their story.

Another gold rush, a shipwreck, a hurricane, and an overlooked cause for war. All here.

This is episode number 100… Wow… This episode gives us no new historical information. It is a look back at the most listened to episodes and some of the stuff that went into making them. It is commemorative episode of me just saying thank you.

What do you do when opportunity comes your way? Do like Johannes Reith and grab onto it like it's going to run away. What happens when another one comes? Use both hands and grab again. This is a success story if I've ever heard one.

"Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb". 

Wise words from Smashmouth. Admittedly, that band wasn't known for its wisdom, but it certainly works here. What kind of wisdom have we lost in our desire to gain knowledge? This is a story about a Greek fable, once widely known, that shaped American history in good and bad ways.

If there has been a person with more of a whirlwind life than Maggie Williams...Well, I’m not actually sure that person exists. But I guess that’s what happens when you marry a person that treats the line between genius and insanity like a jump rope. Spoiler alert: Big crossover event.

The Meadow/Newton Grove area of southeastern Johnston County has stories to tell.

This one involves the old Whig Party and a man that acted on his conscience, changing the religious aspect in Johnston County and eastern NC permanently. A Monk that wasn't a monk, but was deeply religious, nonetheless.

How does Johnston County keep producing music legends?

What does this legend have to do with the Battle of Bentonville? In a word: Everything.

This episode is about how the wheels go round and round, but these are not on the bus.  Well, that's not entirely true.  But these wheels are the wheels of history, so to speak, and how things tend to just happen over and over. In this episode, we find that Cary, the pre-Civil War South, and Old England are on a stage in which each must play a part. In this case, the same part.

How does a living legend when awards for a song 40 years after he died? What does that have to do with eastern North Carolina? Listen and you’ll see. It’s a good story.

Being a trailblazer and Mapmaker has its costs. It may well get you into the history books. It may well get you killed, start the deadliest war in North Carolina’s history, As well as result in wars that establish a new country. Hello, John Lawson.

What does an atomic bomb have to do with the grocery store and check out times? What are you talking about?? Yep, We’re in the middle and connecting it all together.

Johnston county has produced exactly 2 governors, even though it is one of the oldest counties in the state. One of them had to move away to become a governor of a different state. Depending on who you ask, he was either very good or very bad.

No one would ever accuse central North Carolina of being a hotbed of science-fiction history. Yet, here we are.

North Carolina politics, an affair, a tragedy on the University of North Carolina campus, the UNC/Duke rivalry, two area lakes, and one very controversial statue. This one is packed, y’all.

American literature could’ve been very different had it not been for one of Johnston County’s own. Not really in a positive way. It appears that being a Rhodes scholar does not really qualify you to teach future literary giants.

“Bloom where you are planted. “Ignorance is sin.” The here and now are more important than the elsewhere. These maxims define the Coates family , whose labor kept this county afloat in the years it needed them the most. Later, the state and nation came to benefit from their service

Tractorcades, High Knockers, and imaginary explosives. Feeling like a rebel? Had enough? Crank up a John Deere or Super A...or not. Esse quam videri, y’all.

"Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery" - Jack Paar "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" -Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus" Here's to you, Rabils, Abdallas, Josephs, Davidians. For more on the topic after listening, check out NCSU's Khayrallah Center for Lebenese Studies

Being accessible is a blessing and a curse. It can bring in money, ideas, friends, family. It can also get you killed. (At least) Three times, Johnston's location on travel routes resulted in war coming to it. Once was a massive explosion, another was a plane crash that narrowly (just a few miles) missed disastrous results, and the third...well...wow. That could have been pretty bad.

Salem, Massachusetts and Smithfield, North Carolina have waaay more in common than meets the eye. Colonial era? ✅ Dependent on a water source?✅ Strong early religious presence? . ✅ Witches? ? 😳

German POW's...here? Whatchoo talkin bout? Here. In Johnston. Multiple times.

She would be the first to tell you that you didn’t have to protest, you didn’t have to hold up signs, you didn’t have to picket, And you didn’t have to go on strike. If you really wanted to change something, you had to just simply get to work. And, boy, did she work.

Have you ever heard of Pineville in Johnston County? You can be forgiven if you haven't.  It wasn't really a community. It was the name of one of the only plantations that Johnston County had. But, wow. This plantation produced a couple of pretty important people...and moonshine. Maybe it was something in the water.

There’s a place in Johnston County that’s older than the hills… Quite literally. It is completely out of place and a freak of nature.

Johnston County's musical heritage is rich. Richer than most of us know. Heck, it's richer than I knew just 2 weeks ago. Country legend...One of the most legendary country artists ever. No kidding.  A rising country star. A gospel legend. A blues legend. And a...classical composer??? What?? We need a Johnston County Musical Hall of Fame. 

This is Part 1 of a series that shows just how Johnston's strongest connections to its neighbors came to be. In the late 1800's and early 1900's, so many things (and people) outside of Johnston, wove the web, so to speak. This episode sets the stage for soooooo many connections and tells the story of a barefoot traveller...

Johnston county has seen different crops be in control of every aspect of life. Or the lack of them, anyway. Most recently it’s been tobacco. But its history has been shaped more by the boss that it did not have.

There are many places around the country where celebrities have met their end prematurely. Rarely does a place have two. Welcome to Smithfield.

Do you remember Christmas shopping in a catalog? No? I feel sorry for you. Not only did Sears deliver toys to hopeful kids (and clothes, of course), but it could also deliver hope... Especially in rural areas like Johnston

Richard Caswell, Benjamin Williams. What do they both have in common? Both Governors of the State of NC and residents of Johnston County. Smithfield hosts the very first Provincial Council of the state of North Carolina and Johnstonians whoop some British butt at Moore's Creek Bridge.

This episode sort of piggybacks the one about Gabriel Johnston, sets up settlement of some of our neighboring counties, delves into British royal politics, and explains why extreme south western Johnston county maybe just a little bit different than the rest. It also sets up a couple of later episodes that contain both heroes and villains.

There’s so much talk about Johnston county growing so much so fast and how change is coming with it. Talk to any multi generational residents And you’re likely to hear something about it. It may be that you hear them say that Johnston has never changed as much as it has over the last decade. Well, let’s put that to the test.

This episode has Sam Smith... Don't get too excited. Not THAT Sam Smith. But I would argue perhaps more important than the one you might be thinking of because he  (and a bunch of Johnston County landowners) are on record using a (soon to be) very famous phrase, two years before the Revolution with which it is associated.

Not all of Johnston County’s famous residents were heroes. We had our share of villains, too. This is the story of one who was a particularly slippery devil. Johnston county had its own Benedict Arnold and his name was David Fanning.

This is the case where a tree likely change the course not just American, but also world history. In 1844, Henry Clay of Kentucky, sat under an oak tree in Raleigh and wrote a letter.

There’s always somebody that likes to claim that their great-grandmother was a Cherokee princess or something like that. You may even think that. If you’re from Johnston County (or anywhere else for that matter), here is why it’s not true. This episode is about what is much more likely.

Why are some sausages called frankfurters, wieners? Why are the hotdogs in Johnston county red? And don’t even get me started on barbecue.

Have you ever wondered if lawmakers were drunk when they passed some laws? Bars, taverns, public houses, inns, ordinaries… Whatever you want to call them, have been instrumental in our nation’s, state’s, and county’s histories. One might say our world would be different if lawmakers hadn’t gotten together over a pint or two.

Tryon Palace, the Regulator War, Tennessee, Daniel Boone, and Andrew Jackson. What do they all have in common? James Robertson of Clayton, NC.