The independent. [volume] (Elizabeth City, N.C.) 1908-1936, 1922-03-10
MOONSHINERS ARE THE
EASIEST SUCKERS EXTANT
James Pope Nixon, Just Out of Prison Tells How
He "Stuck Them Up In Seven Counties
and They Never "Squealed"

'oldlcS IIlSOT, WHO tells this
newspaper just how easy the
Moonshiners are. For more than
six months during the summer
and fall of 1918 Nixon, an ex-
service man, operated out of
Norfolk as a fake revenue Off
Ger, holding up Moonshiners all
over Northeastern North Caro-
lima. From Norfolk bootleggers
Nixon would get the names of
distillers in these Northeastern
counties and the location of
their stills. He would also in
form himself as to about when
certain stills would make run
and how much money he could
expect to find on the person of
the man operating the still.
and about how much liquor and money,
he would find. Nixon would come into
North Carolina in a Ford touring car
and was more expert at finding his man
nue. officers and sherifs are. When he
found his victim he would throw back
the lapel of his coat revealing reye-
nue. officers badge, while with the 9TH
er hand he displayed real business
like looking gun. But instead of ar
resting the Moonshiner. he let him off
by taking his liquor and what cash he
had. az so many real revenue officers
are suspected of doing. Sometimes
with as much as 80 or 60 gallons of
HOotch and a roll of money, Nixon
would make his way back to Norfolk
where he sold the hootch and blew in
the proceeds, having a high old time
until ready to make another raid. And
the beauty about his game was, his VIC
tins never squealed. He acted so much
like revenue officer and did just what
the average moonshiner expected rev.
enue officer to do, that the distiller
kept his loss to himself and made an
other run of hootch. 1t was great
game while it lasted. Nixon says he
operated first and last all over Curri-
tuck, Camden, Pasquotank,, Perquimans,
Chowan, Gates and Tyrrell Counties.
But Nixon says he was tired of play
ing it alone and took in company. He
engaged three other young fellows,
Tommy Saunders, Edward Parr and
Lewis Pennington, representing himself
to them as a revenue officer until he
had gotten them into the business
Nixon says that Saunders, Parr and
Pennington gummed his game. Taking
it all as a great lark and under the
influence of liquor the four soon began
to engage in all sorts of larcenies and
robbereis, not confning themselves to
the Moonshiners and Bottleggers. They
robbed an old Negro near Snowden sta
ton in Currituck County and then went
down to Maple, in the same county and
held A. B. Snowden up for his roll of
money. These robberies of honest cit
izens brought them to grief and the
bunch was arrested on Dec. Is, 1919.
The arrest of the quartette, following
series of startling hold-ups and rob-
berries in Currituck created a sensation
at the time. SO high did feeling run
in Currituck that the prisoners were
brought to this county for safe keep
ing and were held in Jail here until the
September 1920 term of the Superior
Court in Currituck.
Pennington and Parr eventually got
out of the scrape upon representation
that they were innocent parties to the
robberies. but Nixon and Saunders were
found guilty and sentenced to the PEN
itentiary; Nixon for two years, Saund-
ers for nine months.
Nixon says he, will never go back to
the old life, but is anxious to face the
world and make good as useful citi-
zen. He does not appear to regret his
raids on the Moonshiners, but is sorry
he got into the robbery of honest citi-
zens and he says he is determined to
make good every dollar, every penny
and every item of legitimate merchan-
disc he ever took from honest people.
He says the true extent of his robber-
lies has never been known, many peo-
pie never having made an outcry or
complaint, but that he remembers ev-
cry one of them. Nixon says he would
never have come to grief had he con-
fined himself to holding up Moonshin-
ers and Bootleggers.
Nixon Made Over.
Nixon showed up in Elizabeth City
yesterday looking like new man. Mix
on says he was released by order of
Governor Morrison this week, having
made an excellent prisoner and made
some money for himself while serving
his prison sentence. Nixon says that
his prison experience relieved him of
deadly drug habit and made him a
stronger man physically, mentally and
morally. He says prison conditions are
by no means as bad as they might be
and while there are many things in
the system to reform, he found the men
in charge of state prisoners kindly dis
posed and helpful to the prisoner who
appreciated kindness and helpfulness
4 Nixon says he leaves prison with the
highest respect for the State and with