Appalachias Moonshine King 

Another great story. Thanks JD for taking the time to research and write these stories, and help us remember our legacy, and give the flat landers and city folk a chance to wish they could claim to be from the tough stock that settled the Appalachians.

Thanks for listing the music l was raised on good music like this bluegrass/country ones that you put with the stories

yes sir!@@semigoth299

Been a while remember me ?? Keep up the good work !!!

👍

You got that right this world needs more people who will stand up and fight for what’s right

thanks for sharing that memory!

Yes even in the 70s and 80s there were still alotta corn liquor and bootleggers across southeastern Kentucky.I was becoming a teen by this time and they began to make alotta cities legal to sell.But yet several did not and so the bootleggers remained.💯

yup

@@TheAppalachianStoryteller Recently subscribed! Really great content in every way! Just Awesome!!

We still make shine 😂

well said

you said it Charlie, and those outlaws in the Wild West came from Appalachia.

Welcome Rick, some are born here, some are lucky enough to make their way here, it is a way of life, a way of thinking, and a state of mind. Glad you are here brother.

Welcome home, sir.

Glad to have you. You'll find us old-fashioned folks stick together and help each other like you will not find anywhere else. We may not have much but we're glad to share what we got.

same here!

What a nice comment, Rick! Something about it just warmed my heart & maybe b/c I was born & raised on a mountain in WV...lol❤️🕊❤️

Amen

Thank you so much ❤️

Another Robin Hood not some greedy ass politicians 🙄 the hard working country people are what makes this world

I understand the hard times and all that, but this discloses illegal activity and that is not something to be celebrated. My family was deep in the trade and I am not proud of that. There were ways to make a living. Not get rich but make a living.

Oh yes. Another Robin Hood. Said he respected the authorities until he shot the poor hard working deputy in the throat. Typical story embellishing the scoundrel and disparaging government. Most folks have good in them, but the truly mean bastard is ready to stab you in the back. This dude was a scoundrel not some Saint whiskey of poor hill folk.

A true Robin Hood. Great story!

Thank you for that! My father told me a million times when I was a boy “you gotta get cha mind right” that line was a tribute to his memory. Thank you for noticing ❤️

@@TheAppalachianStoryteller Oh, that's wonderful! The wisdom of each dad is so distinctive and unique. I'm in Sydney, Australia, and I have to say, listening to your vernacular in that accent of yours transports every single time. Your pacing, dialogue and descriptions are as smooth as silk. What with the music, animations, photos...please tell me you have a team working on each episode and you're not just that bloody gifted!

I wish I had a team, but every aspect of these stories are from my own creation. @@BuntingClipClop

@@TheAppalachianStoryteller wow, that's amazing. How long does it take to produce an episode? Even the research must take weeks and weeks.

That’s exactly what it is James!

It is organized crime. But when you write the “laws” theft and ransom are called “taxes”.

It IS organized crime. That is WHY they wanted to get rid of the competition.

Wow, what year did he freeze?

Thanks so much for sharing that, lots of good points

I really appreciate that

Yes sir!

Thank you so much!

thank you Richard, hope all is well with you as we head into the cold fall nights. Thank you so much for your support the last couple years!

Thank you Jonni! Have a blessed day my friend

Thank you, I do my best to bring the stories to life!

Yes they did

love this!

Thanks for sharing your fathers story Pinky. Terrible how generations of men were persecuted by imaginary laws and now its legal...

Great story to tell! I hope so much that we can hold on to these stories and the history of The Appalachian mountains! We are from Western North Carolina too! I love it here. And unfortunately so many people are moving to the area. We have always cherished the beauty of the mountains and the quiet of a life, away from the big cities! Hang on to your heritage!

I love this documentary about the beautiful mountains of my home here in Western North Carolina! Thank you for presenting this video. It's a time now past, in many ways, but a time worth memorializing. Thank you so much for sharing this with me. Much obligated.

My papaw Williams and great grandpa Williams and 2nd grandpa Williams were all moonshiners in NC/TN Mountains. They ran through Blount county and Monroe county Tennessee into yellow Creek Graham NC. My 2nd great grandpa Onley was also a preacher.

Yes indeed

Thanks so much!

Thanks Kathy, he just wanted to be left alone, and the government just wanted his money or he would have to fight for his freedom and his life to keep it. Crazy how taxes work.

@@TheAppalachianStoryteller I think it's beyond crazy and into the realms of criminal 😁👍

Back when men had absolute honor

@@TheAppalachianStoryteller yes sir

❤️

Thank you Renee!

He was a legend!

You watched a lot is stories today

Thank you!

Thanks Julie!

Hollywood is cancer.

Glad you enjoyed

What county?

❤️

Thank you so much!

Thank you so much, my friend major Redmond was a heckuva man

Thanks so much for that Donna! I do my best to bring the stories to life

Have a sip for Major Lewis tonight

Thanks so much Debra!

yes you can purchase it, I didn't mention it in the video. Maybe I should have offered a sponsorship with them. 🤔

Thank you!

Thank you, I do my best to bring them to life

He really was

Thank you, glad to have you here

Greetings from Anderson Co. TN

@@TheAppalachianStoryteller . Greetings, I've been through Anderson County. I'm from Sullivan County but live in sevier now.

Hey, I appreciate that, especially them music comments, I work just as hard on that as I do the story

@@TheAppalachianStoryteller Well it shows for sure! Is there a place where we could hear the full song?

Thanks so much!

Thank you 😊

amen, well said

I do my best to bring them to life and make the listener feel like they are there

@@TheAppalachianStoryteller you sure do. And they're excellent stories! I love true stuff. I will always listen to your stories.

yes sir, im gonna take a sip or two in his honor tonight

Im happy you enjoyed it Ruby!

Thanks so much for that my friend

Thanks so much Troy!

Never heard of this outlaw before but I think I will remember this history now. Enjoy the freedom that us like minded Canadian's no longer have under the most demonic sell out of a leader.

Thanks for sharing those memories

👍🏼 ❤️

Thank you!

Id gonna have a sip or two in Major Redmonds honor this evening

Thank you Rachel, I do work to make these stories the best I am able to. Thank you so much for your kind words!

Thank you Traci!

Thank you so much Stuart! preciate you watching and commenting. Hope everything is going well in your neck of the woods

Greetings from the mountains of East Tennessee. Thank you so much, I really appreciate that! Im so glad you found your way here, stay tuned, many more stories on the way!

@@TheAppalachianStoryteller Thank you so much, from my whole heart, my good sir. I will certainly do that. Truth to be told, I was searching some historical information about North Carolinian history, and among the you tube suggestions was your channel. And after I listened to just one story, I knew that I'm not going anywhere. And until now, I watched more than half of your videos. But I'm truly looking forward for your wonderful new stories my friend. Thank you once again, for bringing the amazing history of the Appalachian Mountains, and it's wonderful people and customs to the world, to all of us who enjoy it so much. I'm planning a trip to North Carolina for some time now, and after hearing your stories, I'm looking forward for it more then ever. Much love, respect, and the warmest greetings for you my brother, and all good people of US, North Carolina and East Tennessee from Serbia.🇷🇸❤️🇺🇸🍻😇🙏🌄

Its a heck of a story!

​@@TheAppalachianStorytellerI didn't know his mother was part Indian. I know his fathers line was irish, I believe.

I got the info about his mother being part Indian from an interview with Lewis Redmond in a newspaper back in the 1880s@@scott236

Thanks for that Lisa! I try to bring them to life

Thank you Melissa! And thanks for noticing the shots and smoke and such! There is so much work to those little things, but it helps bring the story to life. You're right about everyone feeling the same about taxes... as I wrote that section, the words came to me very easily!

How bout that, I didn’t know that

I wondered if anyone was going to mention this. Also, most definitely worth mentioning, is that it was written by Sylva, North Carolina's own folklorist, storyteller and playwright Gary Carden.

Also, the play was recorded as a film version for PBS and used to run quite a bit. These days it can be found on RU-vid as well as segments of Gary Carden talking about his research on Redmond prior to writing the play.

thanks for sharing this! Ive never seen it!@@rowankeith

Ill definately look into it, ive never heard of it! Thanks for sharing everyone!@@rowankeith

Thanks brother

Thanks so much!

Thank you Janey!

Awesome!

Thank you Frosty! Hope all is well in your neck of the woods! JD

@@TheAppalachianStoryteller - Hope I haven't said this too many times before, JD; but my best friend, a mere lass of 60, has been researching her family tree a lot lately and found out her own great-granddad ran shine in TN, and that his business ran a long ways up north - into the southern reaches of my own great-grandad's similar business. We might well have an earlier connection than we could've guessed.

BTW, I still make my own wine in a glass jar with fruit juice, sugar, and yeast inside and a balloon for a stopper. Simplest thing in the world. When the baloon starts to swell, the brew's working. When it deflates, the wine's done although it doesn't hurt to leave it there a little longer too. At least when you make your own, you know what's in it.

what a simple method! wow@@frostyfrances4700

Thanks so much for that my friend! Preciate your kindness!

You are so kind :)

@@TheAppalachianStoryteller ❤️⚘️

Thank you Janet!

Thanks so much James! Glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks big iron, the ole timers sure could tell em, I miss those days

Thanks Scott, id have love to have heard that story from her!

amen brother

I agree. Popcorn was a good man. Met him while living in Maggie Valley and the surrounding areas. Did a little business with him from time to time. 🪶 ✨

@revelationakagoldeneagle8045 yep. I knew him too. He was a very good and kind man so long as you didn't screw with him. He hated liar too.

Thank you so much Michael, did you know, you can buy Major Lewis liquor today? I didn't mention it in the video but there are a few companies selling moonshine and whiskey under his name.

@@TheAppalachianStoryteller the wondered if it still existed in some form, today.

It does... I just didn't mention them by name, if you google you'll find them. Im gonna buy some myself and put in in my collection, since I don't drink hard liquor but I have a nice collection of rare spirts.

@@TheAppalachianStoryteller i don't drink much but would be cool to collect. Ok Google!!!

Thanks so much Karen, he never fully recovered 100% from those 6 bullets he received, had to use a cane after that and he struggled with his health, but he had a house full of young'uns and a loving wife. That's as good a life as any.

@@TheAppalachianStoryteller I’m glad he had a family!

@@TheAppalachianStoryteller I’m glad he had a family!

But I and many other people don't consider 😕 him criminal he was just doing what it took to survive in the wild country and to take care of the family and friends which many would not have survived without his kind heart

Nobody is a hero in this story. Robin Hood is a scoundrel just like any criminal that would shoot somebody in the throat. He was a lying scoundrel.

What a cool story!

@@TheAppalachianStoryteller thank you

Thank you Sharon, hope y'all staying warm out there today.

Thank you!

Ain’t it somehow how when history isn’t taught, it simply is lost to time

Thanks Linda! Lots of folks don't know it, but im a lifelong musician, I put a "major" (pun intended) emphasis on music in these stories :)

@TheAppalachianStoryteller I'm a history buff. In high school I remember having to write a paper of a significant time in the Civil War. I wrote about the Battle of Shiloh. You should do a video about the last skirmish of the Civil War. It's a bit humorous, as the Confederate forces in the area around Sylva, NC had not heard of the recent surrender of the Confederacy and encountered a group of Union Soldiers and fought them. What makes it humorous, is not that their skirmish was after the surrender, it was the the Confederats actually WON the battle! 😁 Oh, I should mention, I don't know about others, but I would love for you to do a full video playing some of the music of the Appalachian's with possible back stories. Such as Celtic origins or religious.

agreed

Thanks so much!

There is a company still selling shine with his name on the label, I just didn't mention their product in the video. You can find them on google though!

Thank you Anna, have a blessed day

I really did my best to immerse myself in his struggle and see these events thru his eyes, to think of what happened to his father, and his mother, at the hands of the government and taxes, the way he gave his own money away to help others, and his courage to never back down from a fight from the law even til the end. I did my best to do "justice" to his nearly forgotten story and tell it in a way that has never been done before. You are not forgotten Major Lewis.

@TheAppalachianStoryteller Job done well, Sir!

Thank you so much my friend. This is a powerful story.

Yes we do!

well said Jen, btw... I replied to your other comment about your story recommendation, id be grateful if you could email it to me at theappalachianstoryteller@gmail.com For some reason, once I reply to a comment here on RU-vid, I can never find it again as it gets buried in the comment section.

Sensible people are what keeps this country alive and together ❤️

Good to hear Shelton Laurel mentioned in the comments.

@@Highlander9740 are you from there? If so, we're likely kin

@@JenAmazed42 I think everyone from Madison county was related. 😉

What a journey he had, and his story deserves to be remembered and retold over and over

Thank you Michael, there's no other place id rather be

A remarkable mans life story almost lost to time

Thanks!

absolutely well said!

Thanks so much brother