My Moonshining Kin

[dlester]

I'm just east of Springdale. Great old pictures, really shows off the old architecture of the original cabins.

relations: Spurlocks, Drakes, Cornetts, Sizemore's

DL

 

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[Gypsy Heart]

Yes Spurlocks,Ledbetters,Bowens,Cain........

 

[Monty]

No, I was talking Missouri. Aren't Arkansas and Missouri the same place? Monty

 

[Gypsy Heart]

No, I was talking Missouri. Aren't Arkansas and Missouri the same place? Monty

Dang it Monty...now you had me confused...I did mean Missouri ...hahahah ...not Oklahoma ....
And yes according to those living on the state line they are....hahaha

 

[stefen]

In the 60's and 70's, I use to give my Papa a crock bottle of Platt Valley Moon for his birthday...still made today.

In fact, I have had a 1/2 crock full that I pop the cork on ocassion...(optomistic view)

Gotta take your teeth out first unless you want to be known as Gummy.

 

[stefen]

In the 60's and 70's, I use to give my Papa a crock bottle of Platt Valley Moon for his birthday...still made today.

In fact, I have had a 1/2 crock full that I pop the cork on ocassion...(optomistic view)

Gotta take your teeth out first unless you want to be known as Gummy.

 

[arkhunter]

Monty, I think you are talking Missouri...and I am talking Madison County Arkansas
But My gg-uncle Thomas Elsey (married Susan Ledbetter) founded the city of Elsey Missouri.He and his brother Harrison ,were with the first group of pioneers into Arkansas in 1836

I do alot of research throughout Missouri and that Fulp name comes up alot.

hey miss gypsy
is brother harrison...THE harrison....also love to talk about some stories in the huntsville area.

john in little rock

 

[Arky 1]

been reading forums on metal detecting and this is the first one I have find where there is a lot of people from Arkansas my relatives have been in Arkansas sense before the civil war uncle ran moonshine in the 40's

 

[Gypsy Heart]

Thanks everyone...Would love to see any pictures of early Madison County Arkansas ,Especially.... Aurora,Huntsville,etc....People pics also....

 

[clump63]

Hey gypsy, my grandma was a Ledbetter. Traced them back to the Carolina's.

 

[Gypsy Heart]

Hey gypsy, my grandma was a Ledbetter. Traced them back to the Carolina's.

Do you know what her first name was and who she married ....I have the Complete Ledbetter History .

 

[clump63]

Her name was Lucy, Her dad was George, His mom was Pheobe Coffin, Ledbetter. I have the history back to George and I found Pheobe's grave down by Richmond In (west river friends church). Pheobe died in 1878 I think and was born around 1806 if I remember right.

 

[OldBillinUT]

My old gramps had shackle scars from some incident that was never described and we didn't ask. He and his partner made Brandy till the sugar burned in the railroad tie shed. One hot fire they said. Gypsy I suppose this is off topic a bit but your pics conjured a memory. Went to see Rupe Wilcox in Reeds Spring Mo. I was invited to a shiveree that night but wasn't sure I wanted to go till I found out what it was I thought we were gonna need to take some axe handles.

I had a job once transporting movies to theaters and on my first run I was sent down in the MO hills there were 2 theaters 15 miles apart scheduled to open the movie on the same night. I would collect the ticket receipts and pay the theater owner his cut then drop the cash in the local banks night deposit in a bag obtained from the bank the afternoon before the show. Well the next morning when I went in to get the cash and transfer it to the home office everyone working at the bank was giving me the oddest looks like I was spooky or something. The teller helping me was sort of nervous so I had to ask em what's going on here something wrong ? They had concluded that I was some sort of drug smuggler because I wore my hair a bit long then and they had looked in and seen a fair amount of cash in the bag. I think someone was in the process of calling the law when I told what I was doing there then we all had a good laugh and I sent the transfer.

 

[Monty]

My Dad grew up in the City during the depression and had no garden or farm animals for food and nearly starved. Grandma made hominy and sold it and grandpa made shine and sold it. Until the day he died my Dad wouldn't eat cornbread because he said that's all he had to eat half of his life. My dad was a heavy man like me and said he didn't care because he remembered what it was to be really hungry and would never go hungry again even if it killed him.....and it finally did. There was still a lot of moonshine made and sold here in Oklahoma because it was a dry state up even into the 1970s. Every border town had drive in liquor stores on the strip just across the state line. On Friday nights the cars would be lined up for a couple of miles. Of course there was a bootlegger in nearly every town of any size. My uncle was a bootlegger when I was growing up. He lived next door to my Grandma and we had strange drunk men walking through the yard at all hours. None of them ever bothered me or my sister though because my uncle would have killed them. He was a mean dude and everyone for miles was afraid of him. One of his peers across town turned him in to the feds for a plea bargain and they found the guy floating in the Arkansas River a few weeks later. I don't know if Uncle Jake did it but he would just grin wickedly when anyone mentioned it. One night he shot it out with the police, was shot through the chest and crawled nearly 3 miles through the brush and got away. He hitchhiked to the hospital and lay in a coma for about a month but finally came around. The bullet entered his chest, took out a chunk of his heart and exited between his shoulder blades. The doctors said it was a miracle he lived but Dad said he was just too damn mean to die. They never did prosecute him for the shoot out as none of the cops were hit and as uncle Jake said, " Well, they shot at me first!" He kept his liquor in a big crock sitting on top of a trapdoor and if the feds came with a warrant he just tripped a lever and it dumped into the basement. They never were able to make a case on him in at least 35 years I know of. He never did learn to read or write but could sign his name perfectly. I use to do his income taxes for him even though he never had much income to declare, according to his records and he always drove a new Cadillac paid for with cash! By the time I was grown he was getting old and was pretty much harmless, but still no one who knew him would mess with him. The few who did got the holy crap beat out of them by a 70 year old man! When the state voted to go wet he was pretty much out of a job except that he ran a little parlay business on the side to supplement his social security. He died in a car wreck in the mid 1980s and you wouldn't believe the number of mourning old ladies that showed up at his funeral. He had three wives at last count. He never was unfaithful, just forget to get divorced between wives. I've got cousins I still have never met. So, even though my life is comparatively mundane I still have a great deal of family history around these parts. Hope you enjoyed my little Uncle Jake story, it's all 100% true except for the parts I made up. No, it is actually all true in this case, just funning you. Monty.

 

[TheSleeper]

I knew a man that use to do the deliveries. At that time they always had tail runners, there job was to wreck or crash any rev`s that were chasing the delivery vehicle. The driver of the delivery vehicle was the wild sort, he was a second generation mechinac having grown up in a garage working for his father. It was nothing for him to really hop up any vehicle, not many speed parts back then so everything was custom made, wasn`t odd to see a ford with a linc motor, or a chev with a caddie motor. Those caddies although heavy were hot machines big cubic inch engines, strip the weight out and stiffen the suspension and they made mean runner vehicles. Plenty of room for his deliveries, more deliveries more cash for him. Well he ran deliveries for some time, made friends with alot of tail gunners, his last run one of the tail gunners took out a rev`y in a high speed crash ended up as a fireball. That tail gunner had been a personel friend of the delivery driver having grown up together, so it hit the delivery driver real hard. They had, had many close run ins before but always eluding the rev`ys and no one got hurt, but this time was different. The delivery driver couldn`t shake off that his friend had died to protect him, he ended up parking the caddy in the swamp and walking away, never to run them again.
He took up mundane jobs to support his starting family, but that itch for speed never left him, you could always see it in his eyes as he would talk about speed and always wanted to race but by then his family was growing and he could not afford to. One of his future sons took up racing and he lived his life though his sons racing.

That delivery driver was a great man, I`ll always miss him, but recken a son should miss his father.

 

[RevJoel]

Looks like some good double rectified busthead in those jugs. Wonder what kind a bead it held?

Pax Christi
Rev. Joel+

 

[JOe L]

Fantastic photos and stories, Thanks. I never imagined that moonshine was still being "cooked up"

 

[Monty]

Back when clear cutting of timber was fashionable, they clear cut a section next to a very busy state highway leading into a state park. Sure enough right out in the middle of where the trees once were was a little hut and all the fixins for a moonshine still! Someone had been cooking right there under the very noses of the law for no telling how long. There is still some moonshine cooking going on, mainly for personal use now. But if you contact the right people you can still get a jug if you can afford it. What once was hidden stills is now marijuana growers. Monty

 

[JOe L]

I already filled out my order forum for the Alaskan Bootleggers Bible. Figured I would kinda,,,,,look into it.

 

[BamaBill]

Monty, anybody ever search around where they found that still and the hut? Caches are not uncommon around old stills.