Ode to Ben Joe Smith

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One of the great joys in life is making an unexpected friend. And a life’s great sorrow comes with losing that friend, especially suddenly and without warning.

Such a friend was Ben Joe Smith.

Back in 2006, I acquired a tract of land in Grays, South Carolina, which was to become
Hoota Woods Plantation. Part of the property, which had formerly been a Westvaco timber tract, abutted Ben Joe’s farm. To Ben Joe, property lines were only incidental, and when I bought the land, he’d been hunting it for years.

Grays, and particularly the area around Hoota Woods, is the province of the extended
Smith family. They are all kin, and they care deeply about their land and heritage. After all, in the rural South, families such as the Smiths have been on their land in one way or another for generations. Then, along comes an outsider, me, to assume control of important hunting land smack in their midst.

Such occurrences, not unlike dogs in their first encounter, require significant butt-sniffing.

Ben Joe and I first met a few weeks after I had acquired the property. I was poking
around trying to figure out where to put some access roads and maybe a pond. Ben Joe had been plowing his post-harvest cornfield and saw me driving down the gravel road past his farm. As is typical in farm country, he simply drove his tractor, a massive John Deere, onto the road and followed me to my property.

We greeted each other cordially, and Ben Joe welcomed me to the neighborhood. He
wanted to know my intentions for the land, and, to his great relief, I told him I would run it as a farm and hunting preserve. I sensed he was obliquely inquiring if he’d be able to hunt it in the future. There was no doubt in my mind he would.

He spoke with the distinctive Lowcountry patois that defines the region’s cultural legacy. In less than a generation, we won’t ever hear it again. It’s the old-school voice rolling raspy off the tongue like speaking through a mouthful of marshmallows and marbles. It is something to be treasured, and losing one of those authentic voices is a loss to all humankind, even though most folks won’t even know what they’re missing.

Ben Joe immediately came across as a generous and friendly fellow. He told me he’d be
boiling (“cooking”) cane syrup in a few weeks (mid-November), and he hoped I’d stop by. “And bring the missus.” Clearly, we had been invited to the ultimate butt sniff because the entire neighborhood would be at the cooking.

Ben Joe’s cane boils are legendary, and they’re a throwback to the rural South of long
ago. Ben Joe cherished the old ways, and everything he did was a respectful acknowledgement of deep Southern cultural heritage. Ben Joe ground his cane on a century-old mill that would have originally been powered by a mule walking in a circle harnessed to a long wooden beam. The mule substitute for Ben Joe’s rig was a 75-year-old Farmall “Cub” with its steering wheel set to drive in a circle. If you were feeding cane into the mill, you had to duck every time the beam passed overhead…a lesson I learned the hard way when my enthusiasm for grinding cane led to a lapse of attention. The resulting “thunk” was one of those indelibly memorable life teachings.

Ben Joe fired his syrup kettle with fat lighter; the resin-rich wood found in the roots of
dead pine trees. Keeping the boiling cane juice at the correct temperature is a skill developed over years of doing it. Lesser souls like me at Hoota Woods, we boil our cane with a gas flame in deference to our lack of skill and our reliance on more modern technology.

Thanks to Ben Joe, that first cane boil was our introduction to the Grays community, and the Thornes had been granted probationary membership.

Over the years, Ben Joe and I deepened our friendship. He was welcome on our property any time, and he regularly cruised the plantation in his four-wheeler. He’d always let us know if something was out of order. We borrowed each other’s farm equipment, and shared ideas and wisdom. He ignited my interest in old Farmall tractors. I own four of them. When Ben Joe was courting a lady who liked to fish, my pond became a romance-enhancing amenity. I’m not sure the relationship went much beyond fishing, but I was happy to do my part in giving Ben Joe his best shot.

How could any woman resist a fish like that?

In recent years, Ben Joe endured a plethora of health ailments, but he soldiered on. When he could no longer climb ladder stands, I helped him set up a ground blind for deer hunting. He didn’t hunt it much, but I think it gave him comfort knowing he could continue to hunt on the land. It made me feel good, too.

Ben Joe left us in early August this year (2025), and it was a sad day in Grays. He died
accidentally, doing what he loved. He was a farmer in every sense of the word, and he was buried in his overalls. Some of the spirit has gone out of the Grays community, and it will be up to us, Ben Joe’s family, friends, and neighbors, to bring it back.

We’ll do our best to figure it out, but in the meantime, there’s a big hole in our hearts.

23 thoughts on “Ode to Ben Joe Smith”

  3. Tammy Duryea

    Great article!

    Enjoyed reading it and learning about the old southern ways.. my granddaddy was a big farmer in Marion county SC. I miss him taking me to the farm..

  4. Trish Altman

    We’ve known him for years. I did Physical therapy with him. We would talk about Troy who was fighting cancer. Of course they knew each other since kids playing baseball. He definitely is going to be missed.

  5. SUZANNE Taliaferro

    You are a very cordial and kind gentleman, Landon…as your neighbor elsewhere,
    We know both you and Ben Joe had a lot of fun together loving and living the land!
    And making damn delicious cane syrup🥰

  7. Charles Finch

    Lanny- that was wonderful. Felt like I knew the man after your writing . Bless you and Ben Joe

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