Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1908-10-14

Mary Fouts was distressingly peace
able and industrious. She attended
strictly to her own business.
Mary Fouts did not come to town
nor haunt highways. But she GER
tainly did know how to guard her
property, particularly her still, This
had natural barricade Of rocks, and
behind this barricade Mary Fouts
kept collection of Winchesters and
ammunition which meant fight to
the finish-and 1t is'a sorry thing for
a posse Of men to find themselves
fighting against one intrepid woman
who had been guilty of no greater
offense than turning the product of
her own land into cash according to
the methods followed by her ances-
tors for generations. And Of these
ancestors she was as proud as the
scions Of English nobility of the an
cestors who fought under William
the Conquerer.
But something had to be done.
There were seven counts against Miss
Fouts. The government felt that
patience, even with a fair woman
had ceased to be a virtue. The dig
without bloodshed, If possible, with
bloodshed If necessary. But first di-
plomacy. )
A revenue officer sent to Miss Fouts
a Tor fpin Nf ha
this message in writing:
Meet US at the school house
on Beaver Creek Thursday and
promise you will never violate
the law, never moonshine any
more, and we will see to it that
you are fully pardoned for ALL"
81 will never meet you," was her
curt reply, and to her mother she
said:
There's no use talking-I will
keep this still going in spite of all
the government. 1t is duty to you
| mean to fulfill. Father stilled all
his life and stilled good whiskoy.
There is no reason why we shouldn't
keep up the family reputation. They
will never take me alive" she Is said
to have added.
For you see, Mary Fouts, for all
her contempt of government and the
law, Is no rude mountain woman of
uncouth bearing and rougher speech.
She is the embodiment of the twen-
a-bloom in Kentucky hills.
So the quaint old Fouts homestead
was put in a state Of siege. The Win
chesters were cleaned, loaded and
made ready. The revenue men were
sure to come after that bold defiance.
And come they did, headed by Uni
ted States Marshal F. NJ. Blair, one
Of the most determined and success
full men in the revenue service. With
him was a picked posse-and before
him, well barricaded by natural
reast-work of impenetrable rock,
was Mary Fouts, the moonshine
maid, with Winchesters and ammuni-
tion enough to stand off an army.
According to the officers story
they pressed forward, and then Mary
Fouts fired. She deliberately, say the
revenue men, opened the fight and
made 1t possible for the revenue men
to do their duty. They returned the
fire, to man, but Mary Fouts was
safe behind the powders. Onward
they pressed, and for half an hour the
mimic, one-sided battle ragged, then
Deputy Marshal Hiram Day fell sore.
ly wounded, and was carried away
on a stretcher by his baflied compan-
ions.
What will happen to Mary Fouts
depends upon the outcome of Days
wound. If it proves fatal, as the
doctors predict, Mary Fouts will nave
to face charge Of murder without
the mitigating plea Of self-defense,
and Uncle Sans sense Of chivalry
will not be violated. But at the time
Of writing Mary Fouts, the moon
shine maid, reigns undisturbed in the
Kentucky hills, calmly "stilling" the
corn-colored brew that is the pride
and the joy of Kentucky connois-
&C