The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1911-06-01
MOUNTAIN GIRLS SHOT TO KILL.
Daughters of Kentucky Moonshiner
Defeated a Revenue Posse.

ereign State of Kentucky as Pike
county has produced tween sessions,
two girls from the mountains will be
put on trial for murder. They are
Fannie Tackitt. aged Is, and Bette
Tackitt, aged 1S-sisters.
A new-made mound in the burying
ground back of town marks the
place where lies the body of Charles
Smith-Charlie, the deputy mar
shal-a bullet still embedded in the
muscles of his heart. The sisters
are charged with killing him. One
or both may admit it, which is diff
ferent from confessing, and one or
both will tell the story of tragedy
such as even Pike county, schooled
alike to civic and official quick trig-
ger, has not seen since the last
feudist slid from his horse in the
shadows and died like a snake in
the first warmth of the dawn.
There's no harm in being strictly
fair to the Tackitts. Revenue nostrils
which catch the scent of stewing
mash, even as a cow finds a salt
lick, discovered a still on the side
hill in which corn was being con-
verted into whiskey in violation of at
least seven pages of government stat
utes, and of course it had to be raid
ed. The job was assigned to Depu-
,ty. Marshal J. Mart Potter, who pick
ed Levi Smallwood and Charlie
Smith for such moral support and
physical participation as the occasion
might require a-trio of men with
nerve. They crept up the gulch
while the scrub oaks and walnuts
were still dripping with dew, and
came to a mountainside clearing at
midday.
"Uncle George" Tackitt, head of
the family, was away from home
unimportant where Charlie Tackitt,
who learned how to coil a worm for
a still and vaporize spirits before he
could bound Kentucky, was carrying
water from the spring, and in the
direction of the mashtub. Mother
Tackitt was in the kitchen. Fannie
sat in swing screeching song
about some one who loves me ever
true, and Betty, was busy working
a yellow cupid on red tidy on the
porch.
In an instant this domestic scene
shifted. Charlie Tackitt, down in
the gulch, cried, They're coming!"
and the three revenue men emerged
from the roadside brush. Two of
them grappled with young Tackitt,
who at 20 was as strong as a bull,
and as. unmoved by fear as the
mountain pines. Three to one is
losing odds, and the nippers were
snapped on Tackitt's wrists.
Smallwood and Smith ran around
to the rear of the house, expecting to
capture Uncle George. They came
face to- face with Mother Tackitt,
who was carrying an armful of
stove-size wood in from the shed.
They laid hand on her and she de-
Tended herself we'll and ably with a
billet. Much occurs in an incredibly
short time on occasions of this kind
action is swift, intermission brief.
There was a pistol shot and Mother
Tackitt's gray hair became crimson.
"a bullet had coursed along her
temple, just breaking the skin. Then
another bored it's way into her shoul-
der, and she sank on the threshold.
The next puff of smoke came from
q rife, the muzzle' of which showed
under the kitchen window sash.
Fannie Tackitts finger pressed the
trigger. The bullet opened an air
hole in the crown of Deputy Small
woods hat one inch above his think
ing machinery, which he ducked
naturally, knowing the revenue
method.
Charlie Tackitt had been thrown
on the grass by the deputies after
he had been handcuffed. They ex-
pected him to lie there, but he didn't.
AS the conflict became warmer the
deputies recognizing in him nom
combatant, massed for the larger
struggle. Then Charlie crawled to
a protected place behind a rock
where he could make signs to his
fighting party.
Two shots cut fnger-size holes in
the window pane, and Smallwood
backing away toward tree, was re-
loading when a bullet from another
window entered his left arm, which
supported his rife. He knotted his
handkerchief above the wound and
returned the fire.
Mother Tackitt was at this moment