Western Kansas world., 1886-10-30

q 3 'ss
rnE NORTH CAROLINA MOONsHINER.
An Interesting Occupation Carried on In
tho Blue Ridge Mountains.
An Asheville, N. c., correspondent OF
the Charleston Nescs and Courier
writes: Among the backwoods In the
Blue Ridge mountains of the Old North
state is sturdy population, which, es-
pecially in localities remote from the
growing towns, has for generations re-
NAMED unmixed with the sea OF human
ity whose waves, forever ebbing and
flowing, have never disturbed the area
dian serenity of these primitive people.
In the heart of these everlasting Mills
the shuttle of the mountain made loom
has scarcely hushed its music which
marked the manufacture of the high
lander's jeans. His shoes not long ago
he made for himself as his forefathers
lad done. His hat had waved as golden
staws in harvest sunshine, and the i'm
plements with which he felled the forest
or turned the virgin soil were forged by
his own Drawn or his neighbor's. Thus
these mouDtaineers, self-reliant, manly,
and industrious, had lived for nearly q
century, when they were more or less
disturbed by the civil strife which con.
vulsed the country in 1861. But after
the last gun had been fred and the first
internal revenue law made in regard to
the distillation of whiskey and brandy
the trouble in the life Of many q noun
taineer began. Then originated that
mystic craft of the highland. Its men,
bers are called moonshiners, and their
lives are invested with novel interest
refreshing picturesqueness.
They are not the ordinary criminal
class that crowd the dockets of the
courts, although their names are on the
records as defendants by the scores of
every semi-annual session of the federal
court for the district in which they live.
Their offense comes not Of depravity and
criminal intent, but is born of the noun
taineer's love of liberty and his mistak-
en-, but honest, opinion as to what con-
stitutes the liberty and the rights of the
citizen. He has toileds and had ihis
women to aid him, in making his corn
on the mountain eide.
Why may he not do as he chooses,
and turn the product of his labor into a
commodity which may be carried beyond
the Businesses and disposed Of? He has
watched, with tender solicitude, the
growth of his peach trees, why may not
he turn the short-ived but blushing and
luscious fruit into what has such ready
sale down in the settlements? Are not
these crops bis? and can not free man
do as he pleases with his goods? This
is the way the average mountaineer
looks at the question, and it seems to
him oppression and tyranny. This he
will not stand. The ideas Of '76 have
been instilied into his mind by his ar
cestors, and the occasional crossroads
political luminary, and disregard of the
statute Is the result. Up the mountain
side further back into the untrodden
wllds, half mile or a mile into the dense
timber and among the high peaks the
moonshiner finds his way with his nei 9h-
bors, and in the most out-of-the-way
quarter imaginable they select a site for
BLOCKADE stirl'' as they call it. The
logs are hewed, the board rived, the
house built, perhaps ten feet wide and
twenty feet long, close beside crystal
irook away out in the solitude of the
unfrequented mountains, and here is
born the illicit dewdrop-the faverite
beverage of the highlander and his fam
lily. Away down the creek, at the most
of mills, he has his corn
ground into meal. Then on the ox's
back it is born as near the distillery rs
may be, and then is packed" as they
cali it, upon the broad shoulders upon
which rest the responsibility OF provid-
ing for the household. When the p1e-
cious liquid has been slowly made in
jugs and small kegs, it is carried down
the mountain to the house. A pole,
some six feet long and two inches in
diameter, is selected for this purpose,
and it being placed, each end on strong
mans shoulder, the keg is suspended by
q rope from it, and thus they find their
way down the declivities to the cabin
they call home. When enough has
been thus accumulated to make up q
load for a yoke of oxen, it is placed in
the covered wagon, in kegs, and these
are covered up with Irish potatoes or
apples, which the moonshiner is ostensi-
bly, taking to market.
Away down the mountain roadway,
along down the rushing, roaring creek,
over the country road, up another creek
acrces the mountains into South Caro-
lima, goes this mountaineer with his con-
tribution to the commerce of the world
His extravagsnt prices asked for potatoes
or apples allow him to keep his appar Int
load, and it thus continues to serve him
the purpose for which he bought it. In
to the cotton fields of the Palmetto state
slowly rolls the treasure-laden OK wagon,
and the thirsty planter halls with delight
this canvas covered harbinger from the
skyland dells of the dimly seen, far away
Rlue ridge. The snowy cotton for the
spinning wheel and Icons Of the noun
tains is exchanged for the crystal dew
drop with its potent energies, and the
rude ox-driver seems to the lowland