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Henry Handy Jr. was born in 1938 at Tayloe Hospital in Washington to Henry Handy, and his wife Olivia Barrow Lee. Handy’s father ran the Pure Oil service station by the bridge on Bridge Street. His mother, one of ten children, grew up on a family farm on the way to Williamston, right across from Whispering Pines. His great-grandfather, Henry Overing Handy, was responsible for creating the first geodetic survey map of Washington and the Pamlico River and sailed the world with U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant. His grandmother lived across the street from St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. “To this day I remember going to her house for family gatherings where we would visit with my aunts, uncles, and cousins,” said Handy.

At the age of six, Handy and his family moved to Williamston where his father had taken a job with the postal service. But for Handy, his roots back in Washington came calling every summer. “My aunt Elizabeth and her husband Bernie Goodman Watson owned a farm just outside of Washington on the way to Greenville,” said Handy. “I couldn’t have felt more at home there as they treated me as if I was the son they never had. I would visit during the summers and work on the farm, helping to put in the tobacco and working in their vegetable garden harvesting the sweet potatoes. It was just a wonderful life and I enjoyed it tremendously.”

Handy began his life of service at a young age when he became an Eagle Scout in 1957. After graduating from Williamston High School he went to Chapel Hill. That was during the beginning of the Vietnam War. Self-admitting that his grades were not that good because of more play than study he was not entitled to a draft deferment. “When my number came up in 1961, I went into the Army,” said Handy. “Ironically my mother ran the local draft board.”

Little did Handy know at the time that his service in the Army would lay the seeds for what would become a 21-year career in the FBI. “I reported to Fort Jackson for basic training, took a bunch of tests, and they decided to send me to Army Intelligence School,” said Handy. “I eventually ended up at Fort Bragg where my job was to run background investigations for security clearance at the post. After leaving the Army I ended up in Asheville where I worked for the military in a civilian capacity, handling security investigations for the seventeen westernmost counties of North Carolina.”

As the war began to wind down, many of the military agents began returning home and as a result, he lost his job due to a reduction in the workforce. Fortuitously he received an offer to work for the FBI as a result of his military connections. “I was hired in 1971 while the FBI was still under the command of J. Edgar Hoover,” said Handy. “I wound up being assigned to the organized crime squad. My job was to seek out individuals, befriend them, and see if they would make for a good snitch, and provide confidential info on an ongoing basis.”

Handy said one of the most memorable cases he ever worked on involved a mafia hit-man, Charlie Allen, who had spent 16 years in prison for bank robbery. “Allen grew up as a street fighter and a punk in Philly,” said Handy. “He would travel from town to town with mobster Blinky Palermo who essentially ran the boxing industry in Philly. While in jail, Allen became friends with Jimmy Hoffa after he saved Hoffa’s life while the two were in jail together. Hoffa told Allen when he got out of prison to come see him in Detroit. He did and essentially became Hoffa’s muscle-man up and down the East Coast.”

Handy said when Hoffa was murdered Allen was subpoenaed by a Detroit grand jury which was trying to determine who had killed Hoffa. “When I saw that subpoena, I requested to be the officer to serve it,” said Handy. “After serving Allen, we befriended each other over time and I gained his trust. He shared a lot of information about the split of the Philly mob family. In 1978 Charlie was arrested by the DEA at a New Jersey meth lab. He told me he didn’t want to go back to jail and agreed to work with us on another ongoing investigation. Over the next year, we wired him on 90 different occasions which resulted in many arrests. Because of his help, we were able to keep him from going back to prison, and placed Charlie in the witness protection program.”

This is just one of the countless stories of Handy’s 21 years with the FBI, but they will have to wait until another time. But, it is safe to say, that it has been quite the life for 85-year-old Henry Handy Jr. who was born in Washington and enjoyed working in the tobacco fields of his aunt and uncle as a child. “Not in my wildest imagination would I have thought this would have been my life,” said Handy. “I was able to mix it up with the ‘big boys’ on many different occasions. I guess you could say I was a risk taker but never reckless. But it always got your adrenaline going.”

Handy and his wife currently reside in Richmond, Virginia.