THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 29, 1996 TAG: 9605250222
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: 97 lines
Virginia Beach has its legends of yore - the dastardly pirate Blackbeard, the intriguing Witch of Pungo Grace Sherwood - but there are some modern-day folks who are sure to go make the roster of local legends, too.
``Speed'' Fentress, notorious Princess Anne County moonshiner and gun-wielding labor camp operator, is bound to be one of them. Speed began compiling an arrest record in the 1920s and didn't fade off the public scene until after his arrest for murder and the subsequent dismissal of the charge in the 1950s.
Early on in his career, Speed was larger than life to the county folk. He was nicknamed for the speed with which he drove his big Cadillac to evade federal revenue agents. Railroad ties were lashed to the front of the car, it was said, to make it easier to run down anybody or anything that was in his way.
It also was said that Speed could drive as fast as 60 miles an hour which was quite a feat back in the '20s and '30s. There was a discussion among the residents as to whether one could catch their breath or not if they were going 60 miles an hour!
To look at Speed's record, the tales of his behavior might not be but so exaggerated. The man was arrested close to 50 times in a 30-year period. Charges ran the gamut from operating a car without lights to violating whiskey laws, reckless driving, ``assault with auto'' and even manslaughter and murder.
Speed was arrested for one assault with auto charge in 1930 after he rammed his Cadillac into a patrol officer's car to prevent the officer from following another automobile running moonshine. Over the years many charges were dismissed, as that one was.
Speed also was acquitted of murder and his manslaughter charge was reversed by a higher court. To hear some tell it, Speed had the local law in his pocket in those days, not unusual for bootleggers during Prohibition.
Speed, a Pungo native, was born around the turn of the century. His given name was innocuous enough, Alonzo Eric Fentress. But by the time he was in his 20s, he was known simply as Speed.
Although he did his prime bootlegging during Prohibition, Speed was known for his white lightning right on up to the '50s when he sold to the migrant workers in a labor camp he operated on Indian River Road.
Hundreds of workers lived in little bunk houses, said Agriculture Director Louis Cullipher. Speed would sell them liquor in the evening taking back the money he had paid them earlier in the day.
``He was a big, muscular man,'' Cullipher said, ``and I remember his Cadillac convertible with a .45 lying on the seat.''
Turns out Speed carried the gun legally. In applying for a gun permit, he wrote that he was ``in the trucking business which uses quite a number of men in my employ. I am out all times of the day and night. Also I live by myself.''
Was there a double meaning to ``trucking business?''
Speed was recommended for the gun permit by Guy W. Capps. Capps, known as Pungo's potato king, owned a huge potato farm that was the main source of work for Speed's labor camp workers.
Today Dennis McClenny and his family live in Speed's house, which was right across the street from the camp, but they never knew the man himself. Fentress was dead by the time they purchased the 100-year-old farmhouse a couple of decades ago. But McClenny has heard the stories.
``Speed had a trap door where the bathroom is now,'' McClenny said. ``He'd let the revenuers see him through the windows in the front of the house, then he opened the trap door and dropped down into a little room and crawled out (to make his liquor deliveries.)''
A little storage area in the house was said to have held more than 100 gallons of liquor. Speed also kept liquor in the smoke house that still stands out back and in what might be described as Virginia Beach's first Brew Thru, folks could just drive up and honk, McClenny added.
For many years Speed also carried on a legitimate house-moving business along with his other enterprises. In the early '60s, he moved a house for Addie Vandermel who works down at the municipal center.
``Our oldest daughter was 2 at the time,'' Vandermel recalled, ``and I remember seeing him with one of her dolls, sitting on the porch rocking that little doll baby and talking so sweet to my daughter. And I remember thinking how out of character that was.''
Stories like that are the stuff legends are made of.
P.S. A moonlight canoe trip will take place from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. Friday at False Cape State Park. Call 426-7128 for reservations.
City Gardens in Ghent Square is the theme of Norfolk Botanical Garden's Gardeners in their Gardens tour from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Critters 'n Kids: Wildlife Education Day is from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the botanical garden. To find out more about both events, call 441-5838.
KIDS FISHING DAY for ages 12 and under, is from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday at Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Call 721-2412 for reservations. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen this week? And what do you know
about Tidewater traditions and lore? Call me on INFOLINE, 640-5555.
Enter category 2290. Or, send a computer message to my Internet address:
mbarrow(AT)infi.net. ILLUSTRATION: Today Dennis McClenny and his family live in Speed
Fentress's former house, which was right across the street from his
labor camp on Indian River Road. Fentress was dead by the time they
purchased the 100-year-old farmhouse a couple of decades ago.
Photo by
MARY REID BARROW by CNB