Murder And Mountain Justice In The Moonshine Capital Of The World
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Murder and Mountain Justice in the Moonshine Capital of the World by Phillip Andrew Gibbs Pdf
A Story of Hard Spirits and Defiant Souls Franklin County, Virginia has long been known as the Moonshine Capital of the World. That history can seem romantic, but the county has a dark and violent past. The descendants of the Scots-Irish who settled its rugged mountains openly defied the law and employed their own notions of justice to defend their traditions and livelihood. During Prohibition, the production of moonshine skyrocketed, but the liquor didn't stop flowing from the mountains when the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed. County and state officials struggled to maintain order in a region where unsolved murders, strange disappearances, and senseless killings were a way of life. The peak came in 1978, with nine murders linked to moonshine and drugs in the county. Historian and Virginia native Phillip Andrew Gibbs tells story of that horrific year and the history behind it.
Author : Charles D. Thompson Jr. Publisher : University of Illinois Press Page : 304 pages File Size : 41,9 Mb Release : 2011-04-20 Category : History ISBN : 9780252095269
Spirits of Just Men by Charles D. Thompson Jr. Pdf
Spirits of Just Men tells the story of moonshine in 1930s America, as seen through the remarkable location of Franklin County, Virginia, a place that many still refer to as the "moonshine capital of the world." Charles D. Thompson Jr. chronicles the Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935, which made national news and exposed the far-reaching and pervasive tendrils of Appalachia's local moonshine economy. Thompson, whose ancestors were involved in the area's moonshine trade and trial as well as local law enforcement, uses the event as a stepping-off point to explore Blue Ridge Mountain culture, economy, and political engagement in the 1930s. Drawing from extensive oral histories and local archival material, he illustrates how the moonshine trade was a rational and savvy choice for struggling farmers and community members during the Great Depression. Local characters come alive through this richly colorful narrative, including the stories of Miss Ora Harrison, a key witness for the defense and an Episcopalian missionary to the region, and Elder Goode Hash, an itinerant Primitive Baptist preacher and juror in a related murder trial. Considering the complex interactions of religion, economics, local history, Appalachian culture, and immigration, Thompson's sensitive analysis examines the people and processes involved in turning a basic agricultural commodity into such a sought-after and essentially American spirit.
The Wettest County in the World by Matt Bondurant Pdf
Bondurant weaves a compelling tale of violence, desperation, and greed, as three brothers run moonshine in Virginia during prohibition, in this story that is based on a true story about the author's grandfather and two uncles.
Be it Moonshine or Country Music, Franklin County has something for everyone and a story to entertain anyone In the fall of 1785, the Virginia General Assembly voted to create a new county in the southwestern part of the state. The new county, named after Benjamin Franklin, was formed from parts of Bedford and Henry Counties. In January 1786, the first court in Franklin County convened and the county government was established. Native sons who have risen to national prominence include African American educator Booker T. Washington and the only Confederate commander to lead an attack on Washington, DC, during the Civil War, Gen. Jubal A. Early. With an area of 712 square miles, the county includes the communities of Ferrum, Endicott, Sontag, Glade Hill, Snow Creek, Henry, Penhook, Union Hall, Burnt Chimney, Callaway, Wirtz, Redwood, Scruggs, Sydnorsville, and the town of Boones Mill. The county seat of Rocky Mount was incorporated after Rocky Mount and another village, Mount Pleasant, combined in 1873. Having acquired the title of the Moonshine Capital of the World during Prohibition, Franklin County is also the eastern anchor of Virginia's music heritage trail, the Crooked Road.
With a Foreword by Director John Hillcoat Based on the true story of Matt Bondurant’s grandfather and two granduncles, Lawless is a gripping tale of brotherhood, greed, and murder. The Bondurant Boys were a notorious gang of roughnecks and moonshiners who ran liquor through Franklin County, Virginia, during Prohibition and in the years after. When Sherwood Anderson, the journalist and author of Winesburg, Ohio, was covering a story there, he christened it the “wettest county in the world.” Anderson finds himself driving along dusty red roads, piecing together the clues linking the brothers to “The Great Franklin County Moonshine Conspiracy,” and breaking open the silence that shrouds Franklin County. In vivid, muscular prose, Matt Bondurant brings these men—their dark deeds, their long silences, their deep desires—to life. His understanding of the passion, violence, and desperation at the center of this world is both heartbreaking and magnificent.
Madison County in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina is a place of ear-popping drives and breathtaking views. It is also where federal antipoverty worker Nancy Dean Morgan was found naked, hogtied, and strangled in the backseat of her car in June 1970. An inept investigation involving local, state, and federal law-enforcement agencies failed to find a clear explanation of the motive or events of her murder. The case was left unsolved. Years later, after most of the material evidence had been lost or mishandled, one of Nancy's fellow VISTA workers--the last person known to have seen her alive--became the prime suspect, based on the testimony of one of the town's most notorious resident criminals. Did he kill Nancy, or was he another victim of the corrupt local political machine and its adherence to "mountain justice"? Met Her on the Mountain: A Forty-Year Quest to Solve the Appalachian Cold-Case Murder of Nancy Morgan is a tangled tale of rural noir. Author Mark Pinsky was profoundly struck by Nancy's story as a college student in North Carolina in 1970. Here, Pinsky presents the evolution of his investigation and also delves into the brutal history of Madison County, the site of a Civil War massacre that earned it the sobriquet "Bloody Madison." Met Her on the Mountain is a stirring mix of true crime, North Carolina political history, and one man's devotion to finding the truth. -- amazon.com.
Moonshine, Murder and Mountaineers by Allen Cook Pdf
Around the turn of the twentieth century, a rural county located in the backwoods of the Blue Ridge Mountains made national headlines as the most lawless place in America. Winner of the North Carolina Society of Historians' Willie Parker Peace History Book Award, Moonshine, Murder & Mountaineers: The Wildest County in America recounts a time when moonshiners and desperadoes faced off against lawmen in epic battles that made national headlines. The book focuses on actual events from an area in western North Carolina that held the reputation as the wildest county in America. With a masterful blend of entertaining stories supported by historical documentation, the reader is given an exciting account of true events.Moonshine, Murder & Mountaineers also provides readers with historical and genealogical reference points. The names of real people are used throughout the book. An index of names is provided for ancestry research. Old newspaper and court documents are quoted on numerous occasions and provide a solid historical reference point to the accounts. The book is written in a format to both entertain and inform. Entertaining and exciting stories are followed by a chapter documenting historically accurate research. This format takes the reader back in time through vivid short stories and allows one to make their own opinion of the events based on the facts. Moonshine, Murder & Mountaineers: The Wildest County in America will prove to be a fun and informative read!
“A fresh, authentic, and eloquent new voice in American fiction.” - Robert Morgan, New York Times bestselling author of Gap Creek In Gods of Howl Mountain, award-winning author Taylor Brown explores a world of folk healers, whiskey-runners, and dark family secrets in the high country of 1950s North Carolina. Bootlegger Rory Docherty has returned home to the fabled mountain of his childhood - a misty wilderness that holds its secrets close and keeps the outside world at gunpoint. Slowed by a wooden leg and haunted by memories of the Korean War, Rory runs bootleg whiskey for a powerful mountain clan in a retro-fitted '40 Ford coupe. Between deliveries to roadhouses, brothels, and private clients, he lives with his formidable grandmother, evades federal agents, and stokes the wrath of a rival runner. In the mill town at the foot of the mountains - a hotbed of violence, moonshine, and the burgeoning sport of stock-car racing - Rory is bewitched by the mysterious daughter of a snake-handling preacher. His grandmother, Maybelline “Granny May” Docherty, opposes this match for her own reasons, believing that "some things are best left buried." A folk healer whose powers are rumored to rival those of a wood witch, she concocts potions and cures for the people of the mountains while harboring an explosive secret about Rory’s mother - the truth behind her long confinement in a mental hospital, during which time she has not spoken one word. When Rory's life is threatened, Granny must decide whether to reveal what she knows...or protect her only grandson from the past. With gritty and atmospheric prose, Taylor Brown brings to life a perilous mountain and the family who rules it.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history, from the author of The Wager and The Lost City of Z, “one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today."—New York Magazine • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • NOW A MARTIN SCORSESE PICTURE “A shocking whodunit…What more could fans of true-crime thrillers ask?”—USA Today “A masterful work of literary journalism crafted with the urgency of a mystery.” —The Boston Globe In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. One of her relatives was shot. Another was poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more Osage were dying under mysterious circumstances, and many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll rose, the newly created FBI took up the case, and the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including a Native American agent who infiltrated the region, and together with the Osage began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history. Look for David Grann’s latest bestselling book, The Wager!
If you fell in love with 1960s North Carolina when reading Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, Donna Everhart’s The Moonshiner’s Daughter will transport you right back. Everhart’s sensitive and expert storytelling will capture you in this Southern coming-of-age novel! Set in North Carolina in 1960 and brimming with authenticity and grit, The Moonshiner’s Daughter evokes the singular life of sixteen-year-old Jessie Sasser, a young woman determined to escape her family’s past . . . Generations of Sassers have made moonshine in the Brushy Mountains of Wilkes County, North Carolina. Their history is recorded in a leather-bound journal that belongs to Jessie Sasser’s daddy, but Jessie wants no part of it. As far as she’s concerned, moonshine caused her mother’s death a dozen years ago. Her father refuses to speak about her mama, or about the day she died. But Jessie has a gnawing hunger for the truth—one that compels her to seek comfort in food. Yet all her self-destructive behavior seems to do is feed what her school’s gruff but compassionate nurse describes as the “monster” inside Jessie. Resenting her father’s insistence that moonshining runs in her veins, Jessie makes a plan to destroy the stills, using their neighbors as scapegoats. Instead, her scheme escalates an old rivalry and reveals long-held grudges. As she endeavors to right wrongs old and new, Jessie’s loyalties will bring her to unexpected revelations about her family, her strengths—and a legacy that may provide her with the answers she has been longing for.
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR and THE WASHINGTON POST "Compelling, insightful and important, Beneath a Ruthless Sun exposes the corruption of racial bigotry and animus that shadows a community, a state and a nation. A fascinating examination of an injustice story all too familiar and still largely ignored, an engaging and essential read." --Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy From the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller Devil in the Grove, the gripping true story of a small town with a big secret. In December 1957, the wife of a Florida citrus baron is raped in her home while her husband is away. She claims a "husky Negro" did it, and the sheriff, the infamous racist Willis McCall, does not hesitate to round up a herd of suspects. But within days, McCall turns his sights on Jesse Daniels, a gentle, mentally impaired white nineteen-year-old. Soon Jesse is railroaded up to the state hospital for the insane, and locked away without trial. But crusading journalist Mabel Norris Reese cannot stop fretting over the case and its baffling outcome. Who was protecting whom, or what? She pursues the story for years, chasing down leads, hitting dead ends, winning unlikely allies. Bit by bit, the unspeakable truths behind a conspiracy that shocked a community into silence begin to surface. Beneath a Ruthless Sun tells a powerful, page-turning story rooted in the fears that rippled through the South as integration began to take hold, sparking a surge of virulent racism that savaged the vulnerable, debased the powerful, and roils our own times still.
First, there were ten—a curious assortment of strangers summoned as weekend guests to a little private island off the coast of Devon. Their host, an eccentric millionaire unknown to all of them, is nowhere to be found. All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they're unwilling to reveal—and a secret that will seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder. A famous nursery rhyme is framed and hung in every room of the mansion: "Ten little boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were nine. Nine little boys sat up very late; One overslept himself and then there were eight. Eight little boys traveling in Devon; One said he'd stay there then there were seven. Seven little boys chopping up sticks; One chopped himself in half and then there were six. Six little boys playing with a hive; A bumblebee stung one and then there were five. Five little boys going in for law; One got in Chancery and then there were four. Four little boys going out to sea; A red herring swallowed one and then there were three. Three little boys walking in the zoo; A big bear hugged one and then there were two. Two little boys sitting in the sun; One got frizzled up and then there was one. One little boy left all alone; He went out and hanged himself and then there were none." When they realize that murders are occurring as described in the rhyme, terror mounts. One by one they fall prey. Before the weekend is out, there will be none. Who has choreographed this dastardly scheme? And who will be left to tell the tale? Only the dead are above suspicion.
Murder, Moonshine & General Mayhem in Shotgun County by R. L. Murray Pdf
Uncle Dave Macon, made the county of Cannon quite famous when he sang about those Cannon County Hills from the Grand Ole Opry stage. Later on, it was Porter Wagoner who recorded the King of the Cannon County Hills song and even Grandpa Jones sang about being the King of the Cannon County Hills on the Hee Haw show in 1969. Maybe the tale of Al Capone supplying his speakeasies with Cooper Melton's moonshine from Short Mountain gained the county it's notoriety or it could be the county's nickname of Shotgun County. No matter which claim you are taken by, you'll find murder, moonshine and other general mayhem aplenty. Read through newspaper articles and old court documents that take you through a timeline of the stories of convicted murderers John Hollandsworth, Dillard Warren, Albert Jetton; the first county lynching of Tom Lillard, the death of moonshiner Cooper Melton or the robbing of the Bank of Auburn...all three attempts. Scan through old sworn testimonies where neighbors swear to the illegal activities of each other involving Lewdness, Carrying a Pistol, Selling Liquor and Disturbing Public Worship to Running a House of Ill Fame or read about the Cannon County son who became Sheriff and then on to U. S. Deputy Marshal and was called 'one of the most successful officers in the country.' These were the times when words like desperado and assassin were frequently used and it all happened in those Cannon County Hills. A few of the more notable stories and various court documents are compiled here in Murder, Moonshine and General Mayhem in Shotgun County.
The gripping new history of the most famous blood feud in American history, by the bestselling author of Skeletons on the Zahara. For more than a century, the enduring feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys has been American shorthand for passionate, unyielding, and even violent confrontation. Yet despite numerous articles, books, television shows, and feature films, nobody has ever told the in-depth true story of this legendarily fierce-and far-reaching-clash in the heart of Appalachia. Drawing upon years of original research, including the discovery of previously lost and ignored documents and interviews with relatives of both families, bestselling author Dean King finally gives us the full, unvarnished tale, one vastly more enthralling than the myth. Unlike previous accounts, King's begins in the mid-nineteenth century, when the Hatfields and McCoys lived side-by-side in relative harmony. Theirs was a hardscrabble life of farming and hunting, timbering and moonshining-and raising large and boisterous families-in the rugged hollows and hills of Virginia and Kentucky. Cut off from much of the outside world, these descendants of Scots-Irish and English pioneers spoke a language many Americans would find hard to understand. Yet contrary to popular belief, the Hatfields and McCoys were established and influential landowners who had intermarried and worked together for decades. When the Civil War came, and the outside world crashed into their lives, family members were forced to choose sides. After the war, the lines that had been drawn remained-and the violence not only lived on but became personal. By the time the fury finally subsided, a dozen family members would be in the grave. The hostilities grew to be a national spectacle, and the cycle of killing, kidnapping, stalking by bounty hunters, and skirmishing between governors spawned a legal battle that went all the way to the United States Supreme Court and still influences us today. Filled with bitter quarrels, reckless affairs, treacherous betrayals, relentless mercenaries, and courageous detectives, THE FEUD is the riveting story of two frontier families struggling for survival within the narrow confines of an unforgiving land. It is a formative American tale, and in it, we see the reflection of our own family bonds and the lengths to which we might go in order to defend our honor, our loyalties, and our livelihood.
An “evocative and often lyrical” (San Francisco Chronicle) novel about a young American couple who win a pub on the southernmost tip of Ireland and become embroiled in the local violence and intrigue. The Night Swimmer, Matt Bondurant’s utterly riveting modern gothic novel of marriage and belonging, confirms his gift for storytelling that transports and enthralls. In a small town on the southern coast of Ireland, an isolated place only frequented by fishermen and the occasional group of bird-watchers, Fred and Elly Bulkington, newly arrived from Vermont having won a pub in a contest, encounter a wild, strange land shaped by the pounding storms of the North Atlantic, as well as the native resistance to strangers. As Fred revels in the life of a new pubowner, Elly takes the ferry out to a nearby island where anyone not born there is called a “blow-in.” To the disbelief of the locals, Elly devotes herself to open-water swimming, pushing herself to the limit and crossing unseen boundaries that drive her into the heart of the island’s troubles—the mysterious tragedy that shrouds its inhabitants and the dangerous feud between an enigmatic farmer and a powerful clan that has no use for outsiders. The poignant unraveling of a marriage, the fierce beauty of the natural world, the mysterious power of Irish lore, and the gripping story of strangers in a strange land rife with intrigue and violence—The Night Swimmer is a novel of myriad enchantments by a writer of extraordinary talent.
