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Knott County In Retrospect . . .: A Right Sheriff
- Appalachian Heritage
- The University of North Carolina Press
- Volume 4, Number 3, Summer 1976
- pp. 57-64
- 10.1353/aph.1976.0033
- Article
- Additional Information
Knott County In Retrospect . . . A Right Sheriff by LUCY FURMAN Lucy Furman was a writer of considerable note during the early years of this century . She spent many years as worker at the Hindman Settlement School in Knott County, Kentucky. Examples of her fiction and something of her life and work appeared in the Spring 1973 and Winter 1974 issues of this magazine. The present article first appeared in THE OUTLOOK in 1922. If the Kentucky mountains could be looked down upon from an airplane, they would have the appearance of the convolutions of a coral. The ridges, not high, but so steep that die effect of height is produced , twist, turn, double, and wind until they form a maze through which no stranger could hope to find his way. There is practically no level land anywhere, except narrow strips of bottom along the larger creeks. The roads are usually in die creek beds or just along side. A more ideal country for moonshining could not be imagined. Though corn-fields often extend half-way up the steep mountain -sides, the upper part of the ridges is always timbered, and at tiieir very summit are usually the "high rocks," with their fissures, grottoes, and other hiding-places. Also horizontally Üirough all the ridges run coal veins—any man can climb varying distances into his corn-field and open him up a "coal bank," digging out all the family needs with his pick—and an old coal bank makes a fine place for a still. For more than a century the people of the mountains have been accustomed to still their own "corn liquor," just as they have made their own cider or brandy. The excise laws they have looked upon as unjust and extortionate. They have said that a man has a perfect right to use the corn he raises in any way he sees fit, and that it is no business of the Government's. County officers, even in counties that were nominally "dry," have seldom undertaken any enforcement of liquor laws. Circuit judges have sometimes imposed fines upon the sellers of liquor, when they could be caught. A few years ago it was no uncommon sight to see "rat-houses"—small log structures seven or eight feet square, with a tiny window or hole toward the road. Through this hole a buyer would pass his jug or bottle and his money. A hand from die inner darkness would receive both, and shortly the jug would be passed out again, filled. As only the hand of the "rat" was ever seen by the buyer, he would never be able to swear who had sold him the liquor, 57 and sellers were seldom convicted. As to the moonshiners, or stillers, who made the liquor, the hunting of them was left entirely to Federal revenue officers, who came in only at rare intervals, with small knowledge of the country; and of their coming the moonshiners were sometimes forewarned by the very sheriffs themselves, so that their raids accomplished little. About forty years ago the comers of three counties, remote from the county seats and particularly noted for their lawlessness , were cut off and made into the county of Knott. For years the new county continued to live up to its reputationthere was a feud or "war" of eighteen years' duration, there were numerous killings (a "killing" is never a "murder" in the mountains ) , and every "citizen" was more or less a law unto himself. Though in the past twenty years there have been fewer homicides and felonies, moonshining has gone on unchecked, and this in spite of the fact that the county has been for years nominally "dry." When Andrew Combs, of Hindman, the county seat of three hundred people on the forks of Troublesome Creek, took office as Sheriff of Knott County in January, 1918, it was with the determination that the laws should be enforced. Andrew is a fine, strong, silent man, whose every feature bespeaks will power, force, grim courage. He said nothing, made no promises, but went quietly to work. The results of his four years in office and the varying ways in which they are regarded...