Howling Moon Distillery

     Moonshine Liquor has flowed freely from the Smoky Mountains of Western North

Carolina ever since the first Scott’s-Irish settled here. The recipe for moonshine has been

past down in my family from generation to generation, as in most families. Moonshine is

a big part of our family’s history, not only from my father’s side, but my mother’s family

too. Isaac Ledford, my maternal GGG Grandfather was listed in the1800 census in

Madison County, North Carolina as owning a distillery and having paid a $12.50 liquor

tax. 

     My parental GG Grandfather, Samuel McGaha, was a surveyor and moonshiner. Samuel

was born in 1798 in Buncombe County, NC, In 1808 Haywood County, near the

Tennessee line, was formed out of Buncombe County, and this is where Samuel lived, a

rough and lawless place still inhabited by the Indians. At first timber was a way for the

settlers to make money, but after all the timber was cut the only way they could survive

was to make moonshine. Samuel owned over two hundred acres of land, half in North

Carolina and half in Tennessee, where he had many stills. Sam closed down his

moonshine stills when he joined the confederate army. After the war ended Sam returned

home to his family and his stills on Mount Sterling, NC, This was during the Civil War

and many of the men there were killed by the home Guard. My g grandfather lived there

and used to tell how the men dressed in women clothing so they could tend the crops and

the liquor stills. How Capitan Teague’s army had killed George and Henry Grooms. How

they made Henry play his fiddle before they shot him. He remembered how Kirts Raiders

raided the homes and stole the moonshine, food and whatever else they could find. Mount

Sterling was rugged, wild and lawless. This would have been the same time, and the same

trail that Inman took when he trudged the long and rugged path home in Charles Frazier’s

novel, Cold Mountain. 

     In 1929 at the Big Bend, near Mount Sterling, on the Tennessee border my Grandfather,

father, and uncle were in the middle of making a big run of moonshine when they were

interrupted by two men looking for their wives, whom they thought were with my uncle.

Having been discovered they had but one choice, and that was to kill the two men. It

didn’t matter that one of the men was a nephew of my grandfather, and a first cousins to

my uncle and dad. My grandfather, uncle, and some say, my father shot the two men as

they begged for their lives. My uncle responded to their pleas, “Dead men tell no tails’

after, making sure they were dead, they buried them beneath the still. There their bodies

laid for over a year until they were discovered by detective Scott O’Malley form New

York City. My father, Grandfather, and uncle were jailed and after several months,

released because no proof could be found that they had been involved in the

disappearance of the two men. But, later on my uncle was jailed and found guilty of the

murder of Mims White and Scott Brown. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison, of

which he spent ten at Caledonia Prison Farms in Halifax County, North Carolina. After

he was paroled he went back to making moonshine. 

     Moonshining back then was a dangerous job, not only for the moonshiners but also, for

anybody that had the misfortune of wandering in on a moonshiner’s still, be it a revenue

officer or someone just out hunting.

     After grandfather Riley got too old to tramp through the mountains, Daddy setup his own

still and started making moonshine. We lived way back in the mountains, in the shadows

of a mountain named Dirty Britches, the perfect place for making moonshine. Daddy

worked in the fields during the day, for these people whose land we lived on, and traded

at their store. Whatever he worked out in the fields would go towards paying of the bills

at the old country store where he bought coffee, flour and sugar. What he made from

selling moonshine, our main source of income went to buy school clothes for us children

and other necessities, such as we would have not had. 

     Daddy’s stills were made from pure copper and he proofed his liquor with clear mountain

spring water. He would save the first few jars, which were pure alcohol, and slowly add

the water to the other jars until it beaded just right. If the beads were sudsy looking,

meaning the liquor was too weak, he would add more from the first saved jars of liquor.

He would keep mixing until the bead was big and clung to the jar and slowly died away.

Liquor too weak won’t bead and liquor to high won’t have a bead. It had to be just right

for the big beads and he could tell the proof by how long it took the beads to disappear.

After proofing the liquor Daddy would pour the liquor into clean mason jars that I had

washed and dried really good. Daddy always told me to be sure and dried all the water

out for just drop would ruin his liquor. My hands were little and I could reach the towel

into the jar and dry all the water out. I loved helping Daddy as we sit at the old spring

mixing his liquor. 

     Daddy always grew enough corn during the summer to help make the moonshine. He

would dry the corn and shell it and keep it in a dry place. When it came time to make the

liquor he would fill a tow sack, burlap bag, with the corn and put it on the creek bank

where he covered it with damp leaves so the corn would sprout. When the corn had

sprouted just right he would grind the corn up and use it to top of the mash. 

     I don’t remember how much Daddy got for a jar, or case of his liquor, but I do remember

that some of his best customers were lawmen. I remember one evening, about dusk, I saw

a car come up the rocky dirt road towards out house and it had a big star on the side. As

the car came closer I could read “US Marshall” on the side of the car. The two men were

dressed in uniforms and had badges on. When they got out of the car they greeted Daddy

like they were old friends and talked for a while, then they came into the house and started

carrying out cases of moonshine and loading them into the trunk of the car. As the car

pulled out of the driveway the back end of the car dragged on the rocks in the road. Later

on I learned they were US Marshall’s that had come to get the whisky for a big lawman’s

ball that they were having in Florida.

      Another time, Daddy had picked-up another still and had it in the back of his car when he

got stop by a deputy sheriff. Once in a while daddy did take a little drink and that night he

was kind of weaving going through town. The deputy asks him had he been drinking and

Daddy said, nope the wheels are out of line. The deputy just grins and said ok Slick, get

on home and don’t be out again tonight.

     One time a new deputy stopped Daddy for something, I can’t remember for what, but

anyway, the deputy wrote him a ticket. When Daddy got to court that morning the judge

that was to try him was also a good customer. The Judge charged Daddy a $200.00 fine.

But after court recessed for lunch the Judge called Daddy into his chambers and told him

just to clean out his basement for the fine. The Judge gave Daddy lots of good stuff from

his basement and paid him $200.00 to boot, Daddy was happy to work for the judge. 

      Election Day was always a good day for selling. Daddy was off in the mountains working

with his still and I remember car after car kept come up our old dirt road and by the time

Daddy got home that night for supper Momma had already sold over a thousand dollars

worth of moonshine. Back in them days a thousand dollars was a lot of money. 

     To keep up with demand, Daddy needed to get a bigger still so he got this man that

owned a sheet medal business to make him a big, pretty copper still. The man was to

meet us at the gate, that the landlord kept lock to keep his horses and cattle from getting

out. Well, we were at the gate on time, 12; OO Midnight, but the man didn’t come. After

waiting an hour or so daddy decided to drive to his house in Waynesville to see what was

holding him up. When we got there no one was home, so daddy decided we had better go

on home and contact the man in the morning to see what had happened. When we got

back to the gate daddy’s keys wouldn’t fit in the lock. Daddy thought this was strange so

he tried all his keys, but none of them fit. It was getting late and we were very sleepy so

daddy drove over to the landlord’s house and woke them up to get their key. After daddy

got them awake they told him that someone had sawed the lock off the gate and went to

our house, sawed the lock off our door and put a big still in the kitchen. They also told

him that the sheriff had found a man in our bed asleep and they took him and the still to

the jail house. Well that was the end of the big still for it was such a nice still that the

sheriff kept it on display at the court house for many years, could still be there.  

     One time in early winter, just about dark, we were all sitting around the big fire in the

chimney when we heard a knock on the door. Daddy opens the door and there stands the

High Sheriff, with a search warrant in hand. Daddy invites him and the deputies in out of

the cold. The Sheriff asks daddy if he could look around and daddy tells him yes. The

Sheriff and his deputies shine their flash lights around the room, that was only lighted by

oil lamps, and, then shines them up the stairs, not finding anything the Sheriff ask daddy

what was in the jar cases under the stairs and daddy tells him to go head and look, but

there’s nothing but jars of canned food that momma had put up for the winter. After

moving two or three cases of soup, tomatoes’ and green beans, the Sheriff tells the

deputies to go wait on him, that there’s nothing to be found. They turn off their

flashlights and put the canned food back. The deputies go wait in the car on the sheriff.

The Sheriff tells daddy that he had a complaint, but not to worry that everything was ok. I

am pretty sure that the Sheriff knew that if he had removed any more jars from the stack

of cases that he would find twenty or more cases of moonshine behind the stack of

canned food. The Sheriff and daddy talk for a while and Daddy calls him by name and

tells him to come see him, the sheriff says he will, and for momma to save him a case of

that good soup. The sheriff tells momma if we need anything to let him know. They get

in the patrol car and drive away. 

     In the early 1950’s, I can’t remember the exact year, a man got mad at my dad and uncle

over moonshine for what reason I don’t know, but I suspect that it was because daddy

business was growing and he thought they were taking his business. But, anyway, while

Daddy, momma, my aunt and uncle were in the house visiting with my great aunt and

uncle, all us kids were outside playing. It was getting pretty late in the night, about 10:30

PM, when I heard my cousin, who was the same age as me, start screaming. I started to

run back towards the house, but when I saw her running towards the porch covered with

blood, and saw her pretty pink dress cut to shreds, my knees turned so weak I couldn’t

move. She had been cut in the face, hand and stabbed in the stomach several times.

Daddy and my uncle heard her screams and ran out of the house with their guns drawn.

My great-uncle, sitting at the kitchen window, saw a man run behind his shed and run

into the woods. He gets his rifle and runs out the back door. My aunt grabs my cousin up

and wraps her in towels while my uncle runs to get his car. Daddy and momma grab my

little brother, and me and we get into our car and follow them to the hospital. While my

cousin is being tended to at the hospital, we all head back to the house with the sheriff

and his deputies. They have the bloodhounds with them. When we get to the yard they

turn lose the bloodhounds and they head up the mountain towards this man’s house. The

man’s wife answers the door and tells the sheriff that her husband is in bed and has been

all evening. They bring the bloodhounds back to the yard, and again they follow the scent

back to the man’s door. The wife tells the sheriff again that her husband hadn’t been out

of the house all evening. But, just inside the door is a pair of muddy shoes, shoes that are

covered with fresh mud. The sheriff is suspicions of the man’s wife claim as the rain

didn’t start until about 9:00 PM that evening, but since he had an alibi there’s not much

that the sheriff can do. The sheriff tells daddy and my uncle to keep us inside and they

will continue to investigate, but they never could get enough evidence to charge the man. 

He dodged my daddy and uncle and would turn the other way when he saw

them coming.

      Many years later, I had to take my son to the hospital with a cut knee. As we were

following the nurse out the cubical to x-ray, she told us not to look at the man in the next

cubical. Well, I couldn’t help but look and I saw this man with his face and head beat into

mush. I didn’t recognize him since his face and head was in such bad shape, but when we

got back to the ER someone was there with him and called him by name. He was the man

with the muddy shoes and a local guy had beaten him with a hammer until he was

unrecognizable. I thought that finely he got what he deserved.

 

Shirley Fairchild 2012

“The hardest thing i’ve ever done was carry a empty oak whiskey barrel up a steep mountain through laurel thickets and over rock cliffs at night without any light” (Raymond Fairchild)

When near Brevard, just four years ago, while Redmond, the famous moonshiner, lived in the neighborhood, and a little blockading was still going on in the Balsams, I made a midnight journey, the details of which may be of general interest. One afternoon, during a deer drive through the wilds and over the rugged heights of the Tennessee Bald, I advanced far enough in my month’s acquaintance with a fellow, Joe Harran, to learn that he was formerly a distiller, and even then was acting as a carrier of illicit whisky from a hidden still to his neighbors.

After the hunt, as we walked toward my boarding-place, I expressed a wish to go with him on a moonshine expedition. He readily agreed to take me. We were to go that night.

I retired early to my room, ostensibly for the purpose of a ten-hour sleep. At nine o’clock there was a rap at my door, and a moment after Harran was inside. He had a bundle under his arm, which he tossed on the bed. Said he:

” The clothes ye hev on air tu fine fer this trip. My pards mout tak’ ye fer a revenoo, an’ let a hole thro’ ye. Put on them thar,” and he pointed to the articles he had brought with him.

“Is it necessary?”

“In course. Ef hit war’nt, I wouldn’t say so. Ef ye’r goin’ moonshinin’, ye must be like a moonshiner. Hurry an’ jump in the duds, fer we’ve got nigh onto seven mile ter go ter git to the still, an’ ef we don’t make tracks, the daylight ’11 catch us afore we gits back.”

I took off an ordinary business suit, and a short space after stood transformed into what appeared to me a veritable mountaineer, after the manner of Harran, except that my friend had granted me a tattered coat to cover the rough shirt, and my pants were not tucked in my boots, because the latter were not exactly of the pattern most suitable for the occasion.

“I reckon ye’ll do, tho’ ye don’t look ez rough ez ye mout ef yer har war long; but pull the brim o’ the hat down over yer eyes, an’ I ‘low when I tell ‘em yer a ‘stiller from Cocke county, over the line, they’ll believe hit, shore.”

We went outside, climbed the rail fence, and found ourselves in the road.

“Hold up,” said Harran, “we mustn’t fergit these things,” and from a brush pile he drew out two enormous jugs and a blanket.

“You don’t mean to say,” said I, in amazement, as he stood before me with a jug in each hand, “that you intend carrying those things seven miles, and then bring them back that distance filled with whisky!”

“In course. I mean that they’re goin’ to the still an’ back with us, but I don’t reckon me or you are goin’ to tote em.”

“What then?”

“Wait an’ see.”

We wound along the crooked valley road for several rods, until, in front of a cabin, my companion stopped, sat down his jugs, and unwound from his waist something that looked like a bridle.

“Hist!” said he, in a low tone, ” I reckon they be all asleep in the house. Ji’st ye stay hyar, an’ I’ll catch the filly in yan lot.”

This was more than I had bargained for. The expedition we were on was bad enough, but horse-stealing was a crime of too positive a kind. Of course I knew Harran only intended to borrow the horse for the evening, but if we were caught with the animal in our possession, and going in an opposite direction from the owner’s farm, what was simply a misdemeanor, might, from attendant circumstances, be construed into a crime to which no light penalty was attached. But Harran was over the fence and had the filly in charge before I could prevent him. Talking was then of no use. He had done the same thing a hundred times before. He said there was no danger. I was not convinced, but, having started, I determined to proceed, let come what might. He let down the rails of the fence, led the filly through, threw the blanket over her back, and, tying the jugs, by their handles, to the ends of a strap, slung them over the blanket. . •

“Now git up an’ ride ‘er,” said he, “an’ I’ll walk fer the first few mile.” p

“No riding for me until I get out of this locality,” I answered. “I have no intention of being seen by chance travelers on a stolen horse, with two demijohns hanging before me, and in the company of a moonshiner. It would be a little too suspicious, and next fall there might be a case in court in which I would be the most important party. You may ride.”

Harran laughed long and rather too loudly for safety; but seeing I was in earnest, he mounted. We started. It was a clear, moonlight night. The air was just cool enough to be comfortable. We followed the country road for four miles without meeting a person, and only being barked at once by a farmer’s dog; then we turned into a narrow trail through a dense chestnut forest. At this point my fellow traveler dismounted and I filled his place. He walked ahead, leading the way along the shaded aisles, while after him I jogged with the two jugs rubbing my knees with every step the horse made. We were to ascend and cross the ridge that rose before us, and then wind down through the ravines on the opposite slope until we reached the still. The top was gained by a steep climb of two miles, during part of which ascent the filly carried nothing but the earthenware luggage. On the summit we found ourselves in a dense balsam forest.

Down the opposite side, as we descended, even with the bright light of a full moon overhead, we were surrounded by a darkness, formed by the shadows of the trees, that made the path almost imperceptible to me. Harran seemed to have no trouble in tracing it.

“Almost thar,” said the moonshiner, as he slapped my leg, while the filly stopped for a drink at a cold, bubbling stream coursing along the roots of the laurel: ” Now, swar by God and all thet’% holy, ye’ll never breathe to a livin’ soul the whereabouts o’ this hyar place.”

I swore, reserving at the same time all an author’s rights of revelation except as to the whereabouts.

“The spot’s not a hundred yards from hyar.”

We turned into a ravine, and went upward along the stream. The sides of the ravine grew steeper. Suddenly I heard a coarse laugh, then caught a glimmer of fire-light, and by its blaze, for the first time in my life, I saw the mountain still of an illicit distiller. We paused for a moment and Harran whistled three times shrilly.

“All right. Come ahead!” yelled some one. A minute later, obedient to this return signal, we had stopped at our destination. The ravine had narrowed, and the sides were much steeper and higher. The place was well shut in. An open shed, roofed, and with one side boarded, stood before us. At an Illicit Still. 361

Within it was a low furnace throwing out the light of a hot fire. Over the furnace was a copper still, capable of holding twenty-five gallons. Several wash-tubs, a cold water hogshead, and two casks, evidently containing corn in a diluted state, stood around under the roof. Close to this still-house was a little log cabin. The two distillers, who greeted our arrival, ate and slept within this latter domicil. The smoke from the still curled up through the immense balsams and hemlocks that almost crossed themselves over the top of the ravine.

The two distillers looked smoky and black, and smelled strongly of the illicit. They, like my friend, were in their shirt sleeves, and dressed as he was. Their hats were off, and their long brown locks shaking loosely over their ears and grizzled faces, gave them a barbarous appearance.

“We’lowed ye would’nt come, Joe, afore to-morrer night. Who’ve ye got thar on the filly?” inquired one of the pair.

“He? thet’s John Shales, a kin o’ mine. He’s started up a still over’n the side, an’ not knowin’ exact how tu run hit, he kum along with me tu see yer’s an’ pick up a bit,” answered Harran by way of introduction, as I jumped from the horse, and he, removing the jugs, tied the animal to a post of the still.

“Thet’s all right. Glad to see yer,” said the first speaker in a hearty, good-natured voice, extending his hand to me for a fraternal grasp, which he received, continuing at the same time, “My name’s Mont Giller.”

“And mine’s Bob Daves,” sang out the second of the pair as he clinched my hand.

“Hev ye enny o’ the dew ready fer my jugs, an’ fer my throat, which is ez dry ez a bald mounting?” asked Harran.

“I reckon we kin manage to set yer off,” answered Daves.

One of the casks in the shed was tipped, a plug drawn from its top, and a stream like the purest spring water gushed into a pail set below it. This was whiskey. The jugs were filled. Each of us then imbibed from a rusty tin dipper. In keeping with my assumed character, I was obliged to partake with them. We took it straight, my companion emptying a half-pint of the liquid without a gurgle of disapproval or a wink of his eyes.

While the men worked in the light of the furnace fire, and talked in loud tones above the noise of the running water flowing down troughs into the hogshead, through which wound the worm from the copper still, I listened and “j’ined” in at intervals, and this I learned:

One of the men was a widower, the other a bachelor. It was two miles down that side of the mountain to a road. The corn used in distilling they bought at from twenty-five to fifty cents per bushel, and “toted” it or brought it on mule-back up the trail to the still. They had no occasion to take the whisky below for sale. It was all sold on the spot at from seventy-five cents to one dollar per gallon, according to the price of corn. Those who came after the liquor, came, as we had, with jugs, and thereby supplied the tipplers in the valley, usually charging a quarter of a dollar extra for the trip up and back—nothing for the danger incurred by dealing in it.

The older man, Giller, I noticed, had been eyeing me rather suspiciously for some time. His observation made me rather uneasy. At last, while I was seated on a large log before the fire, Giller approached me, and, as though by accident, brushed off my hat. Not thinking what he was up to, as I naturally would do I turned my face toward him.

“By—!” exclaimed he. “Hit’s all a blasted lie. You’re no moonshiner. You’re a revenoo; but yer tricked right hyar.”

1 saw a big, murderous-looking pistol in his hand and heard it click. I suppose I threw up my hands. “Hold on, hold
on!” I exclaimed. “Don’t shoot! for heaven’s sake, man, don’t shoot! it’s a mistake.”

“Wal, I don’t know ’bout thet.’ We’ll hev Harran explain this thing while I keep a bead on yer head.”

Of course, Harran and the other moonshiner were by us immediately.

“What’s the matter with you, Mont, yer goin’ to shoot my cousin? That’s a perlite way to treat yer comp’ny. What to hell air ye up to?”

He had grabbed the excited and suspicious moonshiner by the arm.

“Let go ‘c me,” said the latter, “I know thet man thar is no kin o’ yours, Joe Harran. He’s cl’ar too fine a sort fer thet, and ef ye don’t prove to me thet he haint a revenoo an* ye haint a sneak, I’ll shoot him first an’ then turn ye adrift on the same road.”

Daves, on hearing this speech, surveyed me critically with an unfavorable result for myself, and then, in turn, drew a horse pistol, and cocked it swearing as he did so.

I saw the game was up as far as my being John Shales was concerned, so I decided to come out if possible in true colors, and also as wholly antagonistic to revenue officers. It took some time for an explanation; but on Harran’s vouching in decidedly strong terms as to the truth of what I said, they lowered, uncocked and slipped their “shootin’-irons” into their pockets.

They were by no means satisfied, though, and we left them with lowering countenances and malicious muttering, against my companion for daring to bring a stranger into their camp.

We made a safe trip across the mountain, and at 2 o’clock in the morning struck the road. I was riding.

“Hold on hyar,” said Harran.

I held in the horse. We were before an unpretentious farm house. The moon had just disappeared behind the western ranges, and the landscape was dark and uncomfortably cheerless, for a chill wind had sprung up. Harran went up to the yard fence, reached over and lifted up a jug. He brought it to me, shaking it as he did so. A ringing sound came from it. ” That s silver,” said he.

“What does that mean?” I inquired in a curious tone.

“Why,” he returned, while he turned the jug upside down in his hat and shook it, “here’stwo dollars an’ a half in dimes. I reckon thet Winters wants two gallon o’ the dew, an’ this hoi’s two gallon, jist.” He said he ‘llowed he’d be wantin’ some soon, an the jug, he sed, would be in the ole place. Ye see, now, he’ll find hit thar in the mornin’ but he’ll never know how hit cum thar, or who tuk his money.”

“What is the object of being so secret about it?”

“Why, what ef I’m arrested, ah’ he’s hauled up ez a witness. What kin he swar to about buying whiskey o’ me? Nothin’. He’ll hev the whiskey all the same though, won’t he? Ha, ha!”

He filled the jug and four others on the way down. All had money with them, either inside or lying on the corn-cob stopper. It was a cash business. At the proper place he turned the filly in the barn lot, and a few minutes after we were at my boarding-house. Before we parted for the night—it was almost daylight—I reckoned up for him his account of purchases and sales for the expedition. He had a profit in his favor of two dollars and a quarter, and a little more than a gallon of the “dew.” All I had gained was experience.

page 357-364. Copyright, 1883

“Major” Lewis Redmond, a late 19th century mountain outlaw and bootlegger. Redmond had gained such national fame as a romantic hero that he had a “dime novel” border romance based on his life by the time he was 26-years-old, and a book-length biography at age 28. He provided copy for the National Police Gazette and most major newspapers of the day, eventually making page one of the New York Times. Here’s his story.

Redmond was born in the mid-1850s, in the Maple Springs section of present Swain County, North Carolina His family was residing in the Middle Fork community of Transylvania County by 1856, at which time the future hero-villain was two years old.

He was given the honorary nom de guerre “Major” as a youth while hanging out around army camps during the Civil War. “The complimentary nickname stuck, and was said to be most appropriate in later years because of his extraordinary ability to lead and organize men,” observed Brevard writer Jim Bob Tinsley in an overview of Redmond’s life .

Tutored by Wash Galloway and his father, Redmond was an experienced distiller of moonshine by the time he was 21. When in 1876 he began making home deliveries of the product, federal revenue officers obtained an arrest warrant. On March 1, he was apprehended at gunpoint by Deputy U.S. Marshall Duckworth while driving a wagonload of the stuff across the Lower Creek ford of Walnut Hollow Road in the East Fork section of Transylvania County.

After Duckworth read the warrant, Redmond told him, “All right, put up your pistol, Alf. I will go along with you.”

As Duckworth lowered his weapon, Redmond produced a small derringer and from point-blank range gunned the officer down with a bullet that entered his throat, carrying with it a collar button.

As Redmond fled, “Duckworth staggered to the ford … and bent over for a drink, but the water leaked out through the bullet hole in his throat.” The 24-year-old officer died shortly thereafter.

Thus began a violent and unlikely career during which Redmond became a national hero—a species of Robin Hood—for those who opposed federal revenue laws governing the manufacture of whiskey. Described as “a ladies’ man” who “was part Indian, having hawk-like eyes and raven black hair” and “a superb specimen of manhood, being six feet tall, stoutly built, very strong and active as a cat,” he was quite willing to play the romantic hero role in which he was cast.

“His name was a rallying cry, and fellow distillers were eager to ride with the man who was fighting the revenue officers and winning,” wrote Tinsley, who noted that “many of the influential state newspapers openly supported his activities,” while the less friendly northern pro- revenue press labeled him “the bloated brigand of the Blue Ridge.”

The lines were drawn and the stage set for a high country whiskey war. And, whatever one might think of Redmond as an individual, he was undeniably ready and able to carry on a pitched battle that raged across the Carolina mountains and front pages of national tabloids for five tumultuous years until the final bloody shootout on the banks of the Little Tennessee River in Swain County on April 7, 1881.

In January 1877, Redmond and his wagoner, Amos Ladd, were tricked to a house near Liberty, South Carolina, where they thought a delivery was to be made. While asleep with their boots off, they were arrested by officers who stormed the place.

The resourceful Redmond escaped almost immediately. Angry that he had been tricked, he hounded the officers from ambush with gunfire until Ladd was also free. Still fuming a week later, he invaded one of the same officer’s home and abducted his wife and two of his best horses. He subsequently returned the wife and one of the horses, but rode off on the other horse, after buying a round of drinks at a local bar.

Upward of thirty men rode with Redmond’s various gangs through the years. They were pursued “with a hail of bullets” by dozens of revenue officers through the Blue Ridge to little avail despite the $1,000 reward posted for Redmond’s arrest. As one of his specialties was raiding the homes of the officers who pursued him, he must have cooled off many a would-be captor.

Still, things were hot enough in his usual haunts around the junction of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia that in the spring of 1879 he moved three days west to Maple Springs on the Little Tennessee, several miles west of the little village of Charleston, North Carolina, which changed its name to Bryson City a decade later. So famous was he that a highly fictionalized account of his life by R.A Cobb was published in that same year.

With Redmond’s arrival illegal moonshine traffic made a quantum leap in Swain County almost overnight. Concerned citizens filed complaints in Washington, D.C. Three raids were made on his hideout, which consisted of a cabin set against a cliff with a view of the only approach and a canoe at a landing on the river below.

In 1879, having been forewarned, he headed downstream 20 minutes before his would-be abductors arrived. The second raid in 1881 found him going out a small escape hole in the rear of his house as the officers came in the front door. No doubt he once again used the canoe to escape downriver. During the third raid later that year, Redmond came out with a gun. Realizing he was surrounded, he attempted to run.

“Within a few steps he fell with six bullets in him,” read one account. The New York Times prematurely reported his death, but Redmond had a tough constitution that fully complemented his rowdy disposition. He survived to live another 25 years.

After the arrest, he was taken to Charleston (Bryson City), where his wife during a visit managed to slip him a pistol concealed under a pillow. The officers found out about it and confronted Redmond with the advice that if he moved he would be killed, which was exactly the sort of language he understood. After surrendering the pistol, he was moved to Asheville and then on to Greenville, South Carolina, for trial.

Redmond spent almost three years in prisons in New York and South Carolina until being granted a pardon by President Chester A. Author in 1884. He died near Seneca, South Carolina, in 1906, leaving a wife, two sons, and seven daughters, who had inscribed on his gravestone: “He was the sunshine of our life.”

Ironically enough, shortly before his death—as a law-abiding man during a period when whiskey production had become legal—he was hired by a government distillery at Walhalla, South Carolina, to oversee its production, which was of poor quality. Whatever his other deficiencies, Redmond was recognized—even by federal officials—as a man who knew how to make good stuff. For the government, he turned out a “special blend” distributed by a Charleston, South Carolina, company with a picture of the infamous “Major” Lewis R. Redmond right there on the barrel heads and bottle labels for all to see and contemplate.

story from www.chattoogariver.org

(See videos for clip from Outlaw Lewis Redmond documentary)