Mountain Mulekick: A Novel of Moonshine in Cades Cove and Chestnut Flats

By Catherine Astl

Cades Cove is known to millions as a beautiful mountain valley tucked within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. But before its eventual inclusion in the parks opening in 1937, this stunning place saw a successful and industrious society for 119 years. And in its southwest corner, a suburb cropped up called Chestnut Flats, whose legacy of moonshine and illicit activities would steer the two communities through decades of conflicting ideals, each having vastly different interpretations of the American spirit of freedom.
Moonshine has a way of tugging at people’s emotions. Some say it’s evil, some sympathize with the idea of doing what one wants on one’s own land. Some say it’s good and even patriotic to rail against the government’s taxation; some say it’s wicked and wrong. Which is it then? Within the pages of Mountain Mulekick, readers are tasked with the heavy choice between the pull of peaceful and orderly freedom and the equally inspirational glamour of free will; the same choices that faced the people of Cades Cove and Chestnut Flats so long ago.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brighton Publishing LLC
• Release date: Sep 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781621836155

Catherine Astl

Catherine Astl holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English-American Literature from the University of South Florida and is a graduate of the International Summer Schools Shakespeare and Literature program at the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England. She also holds an Associate of Science Degree in Legal Assisting and has been a civil litigation trial paralegal for over twenty years. Catherine is also the author of two non-fiction books used in college/university paralegal programs throughout the country: Behind the Bar-Inside the Paralegal Profession and Behind the Bar-From Intake to Trial, as well as having authored over twenty-five published articles.A lifelong writer and reader, she is drawn to history, science, the classics, and historical fiction with compelling, deep-rooted relationships. And of course, Shakespeare is her absolute favorite, devouring every book, article, and piece of news about the famed Bard and Elizabethan England.Catherine lives in Wesley Chapel, Florida with her son and husband. In her spare time, which is spare indeed, she reads, writes, scrapbooks, exercises, travels, and scours bookshops to add to her personal library which is always expanding. She is hard at work on her next novel.

Book preview

Mountain Mulekick

A Novel of Moonshine in

Cades Cove and Chestnut Flats

Catherine Astl

Brighton Publishing LLC

435 N. Harris Drive

Mesa, AZ 85203

www.BrightonPublishing.com

Copyright © 2022

ISBN: 978-1-62183-615-5

eBook

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher or copyright owner.

Dedications

To the freedom loving people of Chestnut Flats and Cades Cove, each of whose vastly different lessons on life are equally worth preserving.

***

To my most beloved son, Dean, and to my most beloved and supportive parents, Nick and Cathryn Abernathy

***

To Randy, for one of life’s most wonderful surprises.

Note and Acknowledgements

When I wrote Oliver’s Crossing - A Novel of Cades Cove, and Gatlin’s Gateway-A Novel of Gatlinburg, I knew I had finally found my writing niche - writing historical fiction about my beloved smoky mountains. Having visited the Great Smoky Mountains National Park so many times, and having many family members nearby, I fell in love with honoring their special history and how they lived. Those were simple times, hard times, but they certainly embraced the American spirit of freedom. One theme that kept arising in my research was the legacy of moonshine. To be sure, the vices of humans have a wonderful flavor to them, but also a violent and sad bitterness that can never be washed away. It is both sides that I wanted to bring to life.

Moonshine has a way of tugging at people’s emotions. Some say it’s evil, some sympathize with the idea of doing what one wants on one’s own land. Some say it’s good to rail against the government’s taxation; some say it’s wicked and wrong. Which is it then? According to history, it’s good and evil at the same time, but there’s a whole lot of answers between those two extremes and those in-betweens are what I am interested in. Motivations, mindsets; humans trying to make it in the world; sometimes doing good and sometimes bad, but always adapting to life’s challenges. It’s how we adapt that’s the difference.

As my readers know, I love to bring in animals to honor both the Cherokee and the settlers’ histories, and to observe and teach us the lessons of exactly how and why coping with life’s obstacles is so important. Here again, we meet special spirit animals of the Cherokee who will navigate for us, the complicated legacy of moonshine and how, exactly, to move with the changing times.

This is my newest work of smoky mountain historical fiction, with exact quotes and real events from some of the best sources; the people are real, as are all events. But being a work of fiction, I acknowledge that, while taking meticulous pride in conducting research, all errors, omissions, mistakes, and creative liberties are my own.

Thank you to Randy S., who is the most supportive partner in life I could have ever hoped for. A huge thank you, as always, to my beloved and wonderful son, Dean Alexander Astl, for patiently listening during the many days of reading drafts, writing, revising, and sifting through research, and for taking such inspirational photographs for the covers of my books and social media posts, etc. A huge thanks of support to my sister, Caroline Fielding, nephews, and many other family members who always ask what I’m writing next. Thank you also to my beloved parents, Nick and Cathryn Abernathy, for instilling a love of the mountains, a love of family, and the importance of honoring one’s ancestry and heritage, while also looking towards the future. It’s a fine balance, and they do that perfectly. I am ever so thankful for their lessons. And, I think this very balance of honoring the past while embracing the future is what makes the history of moonshine so interesting and allows us to learn from its various people and experiences.

My highest hope is that this book honors those memories, and the futures, of the people of these smoky mountain communities and their very special way of life.

Chapter One

History and Settlement—Early 1800s

The eagle and raven waltzed in the wind, neither one yielding, neither one fully committed; their dance lasted the entire day. Their sharp eyes caught the wooden barrels and boxes down below, the ones with ground corn cooking down, wisps of smoke coming from the small structures, chute-like pipes running to and fro, all under the light of a full moon. The two birds twisted in a tug-of-war in the heavens, until they both tired and returned to their favored branches, spreading their wings to cool down. Eyeing one another, they reflected on the day; the raven stole food from the eagle and the eagle threatened the raven youngsters. Do what you must to make it in this harsh environment. All animals have immense survival instincts and the two birds of prey recognized this trait in the men down below, to which they now turned their attention. Checking the chutes, tightening a rivet here and plugging a leak there, the craggy men with long beards and blue overalls constantly tasted their special drink they were always making, doting on it like their lives depended on it.

Some were better at it than others. Some lay down beside their stills all day, ignoring most others, waking only to check their product. Others checked at a more reasonable pace, working their fields all day, eating with their large families in the evenings, walking to neighboring cabins and playing banjos on a long porch on Saturday nights. Only once a night did these men check their smoking stills. So many different ways to live, these men have! Every man runs his life differently. Which is happiest? Most likely to adapt and survive? Later, as the two large birds settled into their nests, they pondered and watched the nighttime activities of these men who cooked corn deep in the woods of the mountains, and listened as most of them laughed heartily under the moonlight.

***

As far back as the 1600s, one hundred thousand Scottish and Irish people heard the spark of talk about the wonders of the New World. The one where anyone could live near beaches, meadows, marshes, forests, mountains, or in the growing towns of Albany, Plymouth, or Boston. These Scots-Irish, yearning for new earth and a fresh start, vowed to undertake the journey and indeed, traveled over treacherous Atlantic waters to find the Promised Land. Once there, with just a sliver of time to get acquainted with the fertile soils of opportunity, they initially stayed near where they’d landed, in the north, settling along the abundant Atlantic coastline.

Toward the 1700s, they began to migrate south to the Appalachian mountain region of North Carolina and Tennessee. What lured them to these mountains? The ones with waves of green tenderly sculpting the sky and necklaces of mist surrounding their crowns? The wild cragginess was familiar to be sure—very reminiscent of the cliffs and rolling green landscapes of Scotland and Ireland; the fur trade was lucrative, the soil fertile. But the main draw was the ability and ease to maintain their familiar renegade individualism in the deep remoteness of the softly scalloped peaks. This raw, freedom-craving group from Scotland and Ireland have very long roots that perpetually reach towards liberty and muscle and fighting spirits. And when war and religious restrictions threatened, they uprooted and replanted, fighting in their very own fashion, and made their way down the spines of mountains where they could practice their personal honor by doing exactly as they pleased.

Many were urged to flee by wars, especially the Cromwellian Civil War when King Charles I, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, dared to tamper with religion—he married a Roman Catholic for goodness sakes!—and that was way too Catholic for the Scots’ Presbyterian views. That, and King Charles further dared to tamper with Scottish and Irish land titles. He fostered and supported disputes of land ownership in transferring their land to his favorites and those whose religion aligned with his own. Statesman Oliver Cromwell worked to eventually oust King Charles I during several English civil wars and the King was eventually executed. But not before many Scots and Irishmen within this melee, were either sold as slaves or followed their fleeing countrymen to the New World. The fleeing Scots-Irish tended to come over in full family groups, often led by a minister. It was a frequent occurrence that an entire congregation of an Ireland or Scottish church sailed together and thus, they made up a significant portion of settlers to what was known as British America.

No matter their reasons or circumstances, once these immigrants arrived in the New World, they linked up with family and friends and continued their staunch commitment to kinfolk and the strongest of familial bonds. This tight-knit clan mentality would remain central to their futures and those of their descendants, which constantly and tightly held hands with their equally savored individualism. That, and the collective Scots-Irish mindset had a built-in aversion to governments which were always interfering with everyday life and encroaching on their ways. After all, in order to finance the numerous and ongoing wars, King Charles’ Parliament did what most kings and governments did throughout history—passed an excise tax on luxuries and vices. Doing so guarantees thick stores of gold for financing a strong army because, they always reasoned, those who bought silks or drank liquor or bought spices or silver jewelry could bear the burden of a few extra dollars.

In this case though, the luxury and vice was whiskey. But laugh those shrewd Scots and Irish did when they quickly decided that taxes could be collected on whiskey only if the authorities knew about the whiskey. And just try to collect on unknown whiskey being made in the backwoods of mountains on the other side of an immense ocean! They slapped each other on the back and roared their deep disdain to dare the King of England to come find them.

Setting up their homesteads in the embrace of the mountains that stood tall and free, their rolling snow-capped crowns nailed to the bluest of skies, these Irish and Scottish people got to work building homesteads, humble cabins, planting crops, and tending cattle. They brought with them their religion, folk traditions, music, food and drink. Especially their drink: When the English would arrive in the New World, the first thing they would do would be to build a church. The Germans would build a barn, but the Scots-Irish would build a whiskey still.

***

They called it moonshine because they had to whip up their batches at night under the moonlight in order to hide the smoke coming from the boiling process. It is not an American invention, or even an American word. Britain is responsible for that. From the 1780s, the British Isles were home to the term ‘moonshine’—illegal liquor. But lest you think Britain has the monopoly on illicit liquor, every culture has had their own version of moonshine, liquor made under cover of darkness, hidden from authorities. And all share one main reason for doing so: to avoid taxation. The vices of humans are extremely lucrative, but it’s tough for a simple individual to pay all that money, especially when liquor was so heavily taxed, much more than other products. Besides, in this new land of the free, why should they pay taxes on money from their hard-earned product? What were the taxes doing besides financing one pointless war after another? Hostility towards the authorities fueled the foundations of this particular time in America: freedom, independence, small government, pursuit of happiness, don’t tread on me.

Despite their pride in bringing a large part of their heritage over to the New World, liquor and distilling weren’t invented by the Scots-Irish, nor even a certain investor, landowner and educator from Britain named George Thorpe who, in 1620, as pilgrims from England were stepping off the Mayflower and onto the soil of the New World, began distilling the new land’s first corn whiskey in Virginia. No, none of these men or groups was responsible for the first alcohol made by man. Mesopotamia artisans are responsible for that distinction of inventing what is arguably one of the best products of human history, or the worst, depending on if you were drinking it for cheer, relief, and courage or trying to profit from it by taxing despairing and poisoned men.

These ancients of Mesopotamia, in the southwest Asia Tigris and Euphrates River system, invented math, the wheel, maps, writing, and the concept of time, and were also known to be the first ones who understood distilling; the process in which liquid is heated to create a vapor, and then condensed back into a liquid again. Nature was the inspiration: puddles of rainwater evaporate into invisible vapor after a hot, sunny day, and then a cool evening reverses this process, causing droplets of water on grass.

Evidence shows that Mesopotamians had a working knowledge of distilling in ancient 3500 B.C.; jars found were of the lower part of a distilling apparatus used for both perfumes and alcohol. We know this because cuneiform, the earliest form of writing, says so. Four thousand years later, the Arabs heated wine and coaxed the essence or spirit of wine from the condensed vapors. Fast forward to the 12th Century and North Africans introduced the process to Moor-occupied Spain, where it spread to France, Germany, Italy, the British Isles and the Dutch, who were known as mad commercial distillers.

The Romans had a Latin word for it: aqua vitae, the water of life. But who actually invented what we all know now as whiskey? Well, the Irish and Scots are still fighting in pubs across their green and craggy lands over that answer, both claiming fame and discovery. The true answer lies in mysterious peace with the monks who traveled to Scotland and Ireland with their knowledge of distilling, but lacking the grapes and vineyards of England, turned to fermenting grain mash. Monks were among the rare few who could read or write in medieval times, scribbling down on parchment made from sheep or goat skin. Perhaps they did write down their drink recipes, but as they worked mostly on biblical writings, there wouldn’t have been many examples if they had. Thus, the old monks’ white bones are the only ones that hold the dusty secrets; no one has a solid record of where they went first, Ireland or Scotland, and so, history still holds the answer in her strictest confidence.

***

Making alcohol was the easy part for those early Scots and Irish settlers who now lived in young America’s Appalachian region. Trees and deep woods hid their stills, some of them very cleverly disguised just inside the mouths of caves, or around corners of crevices high up in the mountains where the manufactured smoke blended with the natural blue smoke of the misty range. No roads led to them, and the self-sufficient settlers knew the hollers and caves and places where nobody ever went unless you were invited. Indeed, making the product was relatively easy in these early days. It was the delivery of the product, where one had to go on roads and be out in the open, which was the hard part. The constant tussling of supply and demand factored in as well; demand was so high, the moonshiners could barely keep up. And more deliveries meant more chances at getting caught. Men had to be careful. Men such as Wilson Wilse Burchfield in the valley of Chestnut Flats, Tennessee, who hid his enterprise from other men such as John Oliver of Cades Cove.

Chapter Two

Late 1800s—Chestnut Flats, Cades Cove, and White Oak Flats

Late 1800s Appalachia was sparsely populated and that included the community of Chestnut Flats, Tennessee. The Revolutionary War was now behind the fledgling nation, but it was long from being forgotten by the now-free citizenry. On the contrary, new personal liberty was the very driving force behind many lifestyles being created in the ancient mountain range.

Many Scots-Irish militiamen were extremely instrumental in the new United Colonies defeating the British, especially at the Battle of King's Mountain in South Carolina. So much so that Thomas Jefferson called it the turn of the tide of success, because the British severely underestimated these simple men from the Carolinas and surrounding areas of soft and scalloped peaks.

At King's Mountain, the enemy—British Major Patrick Ferguson, Bull Dog as he was known, came upon the Overmountainmen, which was the name given to the residents of the backcountry and mountains. Two completely different viewpoints were made to describe these Overmountainmen: American cavalry commander, Light Horse Harry Lee, described them as, A race of hardy men who were familiar with the use of the horse and the rifle, stout, active, patient under privation, and brave.

But British Major Ferguson had a different view of their hardy natures calling them, more savage than the Indians and drunk all day long, good for nothing. Name calling aside, he severely miscalculated these independent spirits, daring them to, Desist from their opposition to British arms or he would march over the mountains, hang their leaders, and lay their country to waste with fire and sword. He rallied his troops into thinking it was to be a quick victory; after all, he said, Your greatest foe is the devil’s drink and jugs and mugs can’t shoot guns.

Laughing, the tall and sturdy mountain men sporting flaming hair and blue eyes and pale skin took him up on his dare. On October 7, 1780, Major Ferguson and the Overmountainmen met in a small but significant battle in the War for Independence, taking place on a rocky hilltop in Western South Carolina called King's Mountain. The American Loyalists’ routing of the British was the first major setback for the enemy’s southern strategy and started a chain of events that culminated in Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown.

At King's Mountain, the Overmountainmen laughed and taunted some more as they cut Ferguson down in a hail of bullets. Excellent with their rifles and arms, they cried the same battle cry that was popular in 1640s Scotland: The sword of Gideon, the sword of the Lord!

It could’ve been avoided, of course, had Ferguson realized the strength of his foe. But Ferguson yelled that he was unwilling to surrender to a band of banditti! And so, he led his men in a charge down the mountain where he met his death, along with 157 of his men. Another 163 were wounded and 698 captured. The Overmountainmen celebrated with a hearty drink when they realized they’d suffered just 28 fatalities and 60 wounded.

Indeed, the Overmountainmen drank heavily. To be fair though, drink and armies go hand in hand; even George Washington wrote, The benefits arising from the moderate use of strong liquor have been experienced in all armies and are not to be disputed. Washington engaged in moonshining himself, at Mount Vernon. He instructed his farm manager, James Anderson, to Commence a distillery and I approve of you purchasing a still, and I shall not object to your converting part of the cooper’s shop at the mill for this operation. He even walked around at night, talking to Anderson about the process, the product, and the value of their operation.

It was most convenient for them to make liquor from corn; Washington was a pioneering farmer who experimented with many different crops, and had many different types of corn ready for use in fermenting: white corn, Indian corn, rare ripe corn, swamp corn, and broom