Murder and Mountain Justice in the Moonshine Capital of the World
Murder and Mountain Justice in the Moonshine Capital of the World

Author: Phillip Andrew Gibbs

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2023-07-17

Total Pages: 156

ISBN-13: 1439678413

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A Story of Hard Spirits and Defiant Souls Franklin County, Virginia has long been known as the Moonshine Capital of the World. That history can seem romantic, but the county has a dark and violent past. The descendants of the Scots-Irish who settled its rugged mountains openly defied the law and employed their own notions of justice to defend their traditions and livelihood. During Prohibition, the production of moonshine skyrocketed, but the liquor didn't stop flowing from the mountains when the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed. County and state officials struggled to maintain order in a region where unsolved murders, strange disappearances, and senseless killings were a way of life. The peak came in 1978, with nine murders linked to moonshine and drugs in the county. Historian and Virginia native Phillip Andrew Gibbs tells story of that horrific year and the history behind it.

Spirits of Just Men
Spirits of Just Men

Author: Charles Dillard Thompson (Jr.)

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2011-04-20

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 025207808X

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"Following the end of Prohibition in 1933, demand for moonshine remained high due to taxes imposed on large liquor producers. Seeking to answer this demand were the distillers of Appalachia who, having established illegal networks of moonshine distribution under Prohibition, continued their activities and effectively skirted the federal liquor tax scheme. Spirits of Just Men chronicles the Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935, held in Franklin County, Virginia, a place that many still refer to as the "Moonshine Capital of the World." While the trial itself made national news, Thompson uses the event as a stepping-off point to explore Blue Ridge Mountain culture, economy, and political engagement in the 1930 illustrating how participation in the moonshine trade was a rational and savvy choice for farmers and community members struggling to maintain their way of life amidst the pressures of the Great Depression and pull of the timber and coal-mining industries in Virginia. Through Thompson's prose, local characters come alive as he pays particular attention to the stories of a key witness for the defense, Miss Ora Harrison, an Episcopalian missionary to the region, and Elder Goode Hash, itinerant Primitive Baptist preacher and juror in a related murder trial. Thompson explores how local religious belief both clashed with and condoned the moonshine trade and how stills and the trade enabled a distinctive cultural formation in the region that goes far beyond the hillbilly stereotype alive today. Not only is his work is based on extensive oral histories and local archival material, but Thompson himself is from the area and his grandparents were involved in not only the moonshine trade but the trial as well"--Provided by publisher.

The Wettest County in the World
The Wettest County in the World

Author: Matt Bondurant

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2009-12-29

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 1416561404

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Bondurant weaves a compelling tale of violence, desperation, and greed, as three brothers run moonshine in Virginia during prohibition, in this story that is based on a true story about the author's grandfather and two uncles.

Moonshine, Murder and Mountaineers
Moonshine, Murder and Mountaineers

Author: Allen Cook

Publisher:

Published: 2014-09-24

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9780990865742

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Around the turn of the twentieth century, a rural county located in the backwoods of the Blue Ridge Mountains made national headlines as the most lawless place in America. Winner of the North Carolina Society of Historians' Willie Parker Peace History Book Award, Moonshine, Murder & Mountaineers: The Wildest County in America recounts a time when moonshiners and desperadoes faced off against lawmen in epic battles that made national headlines. The book focuses on actual events from an area in western North Carolina that held the reputation as the wildest county in America. With a masterful blend of entertaining stories supported by historical documentation, the reader is given an exciting account of true events.Moonshine, Murder & Mountaineers also provides readers with historical and genealogical reference points. The names of real people are used throughout the book. An index of names is provided for ancestry research. Old newspaper and court documents are quoted on numerous occasions and provide a solid historical reference point to the accounts. The book is written in a format to both entertain and inform. Entertaining and exciting stories are followed by a chapter documenting historically accurate research. This format takes the reader back in time through vivid short stories and allows one to make their own opinion of the events based on the facts. Moonshine, Murder & Mountaineers: The Wildest County in America will prove to be a fun and informative read!

A Nip of Murder
A Nip of Murder

Author: Carol Miller

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2014-12-16

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1250019273

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"As Daisy McGovern knows all too well, it isn't easy being a young, small town waitress at the local diner. And it becomes even harder just as she's trying to stitch her life back together and salvage her job by converting the diner into a bakery when a mysterious robbery occurs and one of the thieves ends up dead on the bakery floor with a chef's knife in his chest"--

Lawless
Lawless

Author: Matt Bondurant

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-09-11

Total Pages: 323

ISBN-13: 1451699700

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With a Foreword by Director John Hillcoat Based on the true story of Matt Bondurant’s grandfather and two granduncles, Lawless is a gripping tale of brotherhood, greed, and murder. The Bondurant Boys were a notorious gang of roughnecks and moonshiners who ran liquor through Franklin County, Virginia, during Prohibition and in the years after. When Sherwood Anderson, the journalist and author of Winesburg, Ohio, was covering a story there, he christened it the “wettest county in the world.” Anderson finds himself driving along dusty red roads, piecing together the clues linking the brothers to “The Great Franklin County Moonshine Conspiracy,” and breaking open the silence that shrouds Franklin County. In vivid, muscular prose, Matt Bondurant brings these men—their dark deeds, their long silences, their deep desires—to life. His understanding of the passion, violence, and desperation at the center of this world is both heartbreaking and magnificent.

Killings
Killings

Author: William Lynwood Montell

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 1986

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 9780813127972

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" ÒA woman was sitting on the witness stand, and the lawyer asked her, ÔDid you, or did you not, on the night of June 23rd have sex with a hippie on the back of a motorcycle in a peach orchard?Õ She thought for a few minutes, then said, ÔWhat was that date again?ÕÓÑfrom the book Lawyers have long been known as master storytellers, and those from Kentucky are certainly no exception. Veteran oral historian and folklorist Lynwood Montell has collected tales from dozens of lawyers and judges from throughout the Bluegrass State, ranging from the story about the tough Jackson County judge who fined himself for being late to court to unwelcome dogs in the courtroom. Recorded just as they have been told for generations, these stories are sometimes funny, sometimes sad or frightening, sometimes raw and harrowing, but always remarkable. Far more than collection of lawyer jokes, Tales from Kentucky Lawyers recounts the most insightful, entertaining, and occasionally heartbreaking stories ever told by and about Kentucky lawyers and their clients, covering the spectrum from arson to homicide, domestic disagreements to sexual abuse, and everything in between. Tales from Kentucky Lawyers is a valuable resource for folklorists as well as an entertaining and vivid account of the often-surprising legal world.

Killers of the Flower Moon
Killers of the Flower Moon

Author: David Grann

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2018-04-03

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 0307742482

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history, from the author of The Wager and The Lost City of Z, “one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today."—New York Magazine • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • NOW A MARTIN SCORSESE PICTURE “A shocking whodunit…What more could fans of true-crime thrillers ask?”—USA Today “A masterful work of literary journalism crafted with the urgency of a mystery.” —The Boston Globe In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. One of her relatives was shot. Another was poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more Osage were dying under mysterious circumstances, and many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll rose, the newly created FBI took up the case, and the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including a Native American agent who infiltrated the region, and together with the Osage began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history. Look for David Grann’s latest bestselling book, The Wager!