Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-02-16

i Is an III W1n0 C1aG 0lOWS
nobody good. Prohibition has
found Hell Hole Swamp its
place in the sun. 1t is the
center of the whisky manu-
featuring industry of the South At
lantic Seaboard.
During the 1OENearS of prohibition
Hell Hole has had a checkered
career. 1t has been raided and probed
and investigated by everybody, In
GLIDING the United States Senate.
But the stream of white corn
whisky" still flows from that valley
of a thousand smokes, where nearly
every smoke marks still.
For those who are not acquainted
with Hell Hole Swamp, it may be
explained that this is the name Of
q low-lying section Of Berkeley Coun-
ty in South Carolina, which, since
the first settlers came 800 years ago,
has been an unproductive wilderness.
All around it other sections have
hourished. Charleston, a few miles
to the east, has always been a well
known seaport and center of culture.
The rice planters of South Carolina,
as proud an aristocracy as ever lived,
had vast and wealth-producing PLAN
tations on the banks of the Santee
and Edisto Rivers, between which
Hell Hole Swamp lies. Some of those
plantations were known as bar
OnieS," and they remain mute re-
minders of the only serious attempt
to create nobility in the colonies.
The country abounds in historic
interest. When the rice plantations
passed away wealthy mepa from the
North, representing a new industrial
civilization, bought the land for
hunting preserves. Bernard M.
Baruch bought Hobcaw Barony,
Ralph Pulitzer has a place near
Kingstree and Nicholas Roosevelt has
Gippy Plantation. There are scores
of other prominent Northern names
in the South Carolina low country
now. But nobody bought land in
Hell Hole Swamp. The Edisto and
the Santee carry much water to the
sea, but they do not keep Hell Hole
Swamp from becoming a Slushy.
muddy moraSs during the rainy sea-
son. Alligators and water moccasins
~~AASA AZ SooANA 6OAA6 tAInl1 uO ulCIi.
The inhabitants of Hell Hole
Swamp are race of people whose
ancestry goes directly back to the
original settlers, who from 1890 on
hewed their homes from the forests
and drove out the Indians. Their
stock, like that of the mountaineers
of Kentucky and Tennessee, is pure
American" Retainers of the lords
proprietorS, who came from England
70 new, untamed continent be-
cause OF offered opportunity, and
French Huguenots fleeing religious
persecution mingled in the Carolina
lowlands and their great-great-
grandsons are there today. They
have eked out a precarious living
from Hell Hole Swamp. A little
farming and, until the timber was
all gone, some numbering and tur-
pentine manufacturing provided
them with means of livelihood.
TIE world passed by in its parade
of progress, leaving He'll Hole
Swamp shut up in its secluded
wilderness, and people there became
q hardy. unkempt and illiterate race.
ignorant and superstitious, but with
pioneers jealous love of freedom.
Their little log cabins have leaky
roofs and dirt floors. Their food is
side meat" from razor-back hogs
and corn pone. Sometimes antique
hunters find beautiful old furniture
and Scared, in their homes, and on
of old things discovered an ancier
silver goblet measuring grain.
SeTsral families live In q sins
Mothers nurse their infants suuattiI
tiny fires to warm themselves viii
winds blow through the mud-cak,
In the porous walls. In the corner 1
jug-or maybe a f1ve-gallon demijoh
corn whisky with rusty tin cup Def
the nauseous spirits help bring hea
starved bodies when the fire fiickers
pie in Hell Hole Swamp have made wi
they first came from the old country
And then came prohibition. Hell H,
paid little heed to the law. Perhal
heard rumors Of 1t. anyway. News O
side filtered into the homes Of the d
rather haphazard fashion. Then OF
Of the more enterprising found that "
becoming valuable. People from {
who had always looked on white CO