In the early 1950s, many people who lived in Anson, Richmond and surrounding counties called Lockhart Gaddy “Father Goose.” Lockhart and his wife Hazel lived near Ansonville in Anson County.

Lockhart started out as an avid goose hunter. The story goes that in 1926, he bought five wild geese, clipped their wings, and used them for decoys each winter to attract geese that migrated from Canada to North Carolina. Later, as the practice was outlawed, Gaddy kept his geese as pets on his farm just east of N.C. 52 in Anson County.

It seemed his mother-in-law loved to fish, so Lockhart built a one-acre fish pond about a mile from his house. It didn’t take long for his pet geese to find the new pond and there they made it their second home.

It turned out the next fall in 1934, these one-time decoys, enticed nine of their wild relatives to settle on the pond. Mr. Gaddy got so much enjoyment from watching these geese that he started bird watching instead of hunting them.

The following year, the wild geese returned bringing five more additional geese. Within five years, at least 100 geese were returning to the pond each winter. From deep into Canada they came to feed on the free corn and enjoy the safe haven Gaddy was offering. Not only did Mr. Gaddy plant grain to keep the geese coming, he enlarged his pond to more than four acres to make room for all his feathered friends.

By 1952, an estimated 10,000 Canadian geese used Gaddy’s pond to spend the winter months. This didn’t even count the thousands of ducks and other types of geese that came, as well.

Before long, the word got out and people from all over our nation and eleven foreign countries started coming to see the geese. It didn’t hurt that an article with a full color picture about all the geese on the pond was published on the inside cover 0f Life magazine in Dec. 1953 Why, it became an attraction few could pass up.

Along with the visitors came wildlife experts who were amazed that anyone could get within arms-reach of the unusually wary geese. Geese that would have nothing to do with humans off the refuge, would literally come and eat from your hand.

If my memory serves me right, some Sunday evenings in the 1950s, my family would ride over to Bowman’s Restaurant in Wadesboro, eat lunch and head on over to Ansonville to feed and watch the geese at Gaddy’s Goose pond. I remember my dad paying 25 cents for a small bag of corn that was sold by Mrs. Gaddy to feed the geese. Sometimes you could carry old bread and the geese would take it right from your hands and gobble it right down.

Everything was going well at Gaddy’s Goose pond until one day in 1953. While feeding the wild geese, Lockhart Gaddy fell dead beside the pond. His wife, who was standing close by, said there was complete silence over the pond; not even a goose made a honk.

Mr. Gaddy was laid to rest alongside of his beloved goose pond. As the preacher asked for prayer at the funeral, silence prevailed not just among the people present but among the geese as well. Why, few even moved. When the funeral was over and folks had gone home, except for the family, the geese silently came one-by-one as if paying their last respects to their fallen benefactor.

Hazel Gaddy kept the pond open till around 1972. When she passed away, she was buried alongside her husband, close to the pond.

The pond and land still remains in the family but is grown up and off-limits to the public. Not many geese come and settle on the pond anymore because the conditions have changed and no one is there to protect and feed them. The great flocks of geese that still fly over are headed to what is now the Pee Dee National Refuge not far down the road.

An old wooden building still sits along the shoreline of the pond, once a concession stand, where folks could buy sacks of corn to feed the geese. Two lonely graves still lie beside the pond. They are surrounded by trees and tall grass where deer and rabbits graze along the pond’s banks that once were a haven for flocks and flocks of geese. Somehow, though, as the winter nip comes, you can still look up into the sky and see the V-shaped flocks of Canadian geese all honking as they fly over and give their respects to the man that had the insight to start Gaddy’s Goose Pond.

J.A. Bolton is a member of the N.C. Storytelling Guild, Anson Co. Writer’s Club, Anson and Richmond Co. Historical Societies and the Sandhills Rod and Gun Club.

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J.A. Bolton

Storyteller