History & Folklore
on the Ridge
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Daily View
in Tennessee History
joelton@att.net
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 By Mauna Faye
Crabtree
On January 27, in
1838, Tennessee became the first state in
the Union to outlaw alcohol, and an
industry would burgeon here for which the
state would be known for generations to
come--making bootleg whiskey. The Ridge
was no stranger to such industry and
quart mason jars of the locally-brewed,
pristine clear "white
light'ning" were still passed about
here at least into the 1970's, perhaps
beyond.
Enacting such a law was, no doubt, a bold
move for the young state, but one can
only imagine the troubles folks here had
seen stemming from alcohol. Many natives
and part-blood natives, whose genetic
make-up made them poorly disposed to the
white man's gift of
"firewater," were a real part
of our ethnic landscape. Tensions were
high as the federal government, fevered
by the lust for gold, was moving to claim
all native lands and send the rightful
owners to the Darkening Land. Throw into
the mix those of other ethnicities who
simply couldn't "hold their
liquor," give them the freedom found
by the rugged pioneers in this the Old
West, and you had the makings of many a
brawl and shooting.
My grandmother, Nellie
(Adcock) Nicholson, born in 1894, had
seen the troubles caused by alcohol on
The Ridge and when she married, the law
was laid down that no alcohol would ever
come into her home. She hated alcohol and
all the misery associated with it. There
was only one exception to this rule
through the years. At Christmastime
Mammie would always manage to acquire
some Germantown Hill wine for her fruit
cakes. Even then, the wine was never
actually added to the cake batter.
Instead, Mammie would tear strips of
clean, white cotton cloth and soak them
in the wine. Then, when the cakes came
out of the oven, she would wrap the
spirits-soaked fabric strips around them
so the wine could be absorbed into the
confection.
Mammie was a fierce little warrior of a
woman; one-quarter Cherokee, she was
reared, and would rear her  children and
grandchildren, within the framework of
that strong matriarchal culture. There
was right and there was wrong in this
world. When she saw injustice and
suffering, she moved to remedy it. So
strong was her love for her kin, her
"blood," that she would have
faced down the devil himself had he
threatened those she loved. And to Mammie
alcohol (which she and other old-timers
on The Ridge pronounced "al KEE
hol") was the very devil.
I recall the occasion in the early 1960's
when a bleary-eyed sojourner, sent out
into the world to find his way home when
the American Legion, then housed in a
basement building on the southeast corner
of the intersection of Old Clarksville
Pike and Eatons Creek Road, closed late
on Saturday night/Sunday morning,
wandered up to our door and pounded away
at 3:00 a.m. believing he had arrived at
his intended destination. Mammie threw
back the two long braids of her black
hair, that had never been cut in her life
and that in daytime she wore in the
centuries-old classic Cherokee style
encircling her head like a garland. She
fearlessly went to the door and tried to
talk the poor drunken wayfarer into
moving on elsewhere. As there were no men
in our household, we called one of my
uncles who crawled out of bed and brought
a shotgun to keep watch over the visitor
in case he got too unruly while we all
endured the lengthy wait for the police
to arrive. The overindulger got "a
good talking to" from the policeman
and was sent on his way down the road to
make it home as best he could.
So it was around 1930 that,
when she learned two of her
brothers-in-law had set up a still in a
nearby hollow, Mammie took action.
Moving, no doubt with a warrior's
stealth, through the thick undergrowth of
the hollow, Mammie made her way to the
site and poured kerosene, turpentine, and
probably whatever other foul tasting
fluids she could find into the still. Can
you imagine the looks on the brewmasters'
faces when they taste-tested their latest
batch? Their time and investment had been
ruined and they could do little but start
over.
Sometime thereafter, Mammie ventured out
one morning and took a head count of her
chickens. This is done quite naturally
and automatically upon rising by anyone
who raises animals. But on this day, she
was one fat hen short. Upon further
investigation, she discovered a trail of
feathers that she followed with her
eldest daughter at her side. The trail
lead right to the front porch of a
"poor old soul" neighbor man
whose family had been hit even harder, if
that was possible, by the Depression than
had her own. Mammie had mouths to feed
and in those days one couldn't simply run
to a 24-hour grocery and pick up
provisions. Even if the store had been
available, the money wasn't. Losing a
chicken was like taking food out of her
children's and her husband's mouths. It
was serious business.
Mammie knocked on her
neighbor's door and
announced that she had followed the trail
of feathers to his porch and she believed
that he had taken her hen. Purloining a
neighbor's chicken was not uncommon
during the Depression. I often heard my
Uncle Jesse Brady, say that President
Hoover had promised them two chickens in
every pot, "but he didn't tell us
we'd have to steal the chickens."
The neighbor's surprise appeared genuine.
"Miss Nellie, I didn't steal your
chicken," he humbly replied. The
evidence clearly showed otherwise.
"The feathers lead right here to
your door," Mammie declared. "I
bet you've got her in a pot cooking right
now." The neighbor maintained his
innocence and did so till he was called
to his reward. And till her dying day,
Mammie believed that the fellow had taken
her chicken.
Mammie passed away on Christmas Eve in
1977 at age 84. The outpouring of
sympathy from the community was
overwhelming. The kind ladies at the
Joelton Flower Shop left their homes and
families on a cold Christmas Sunday
morning and went to work to prepare the
many beautiful floral arrangements that
were sent to mark her passing. To this
day I've never seen so many flowers at a
funeral home. It was clear that our deep
sense of loss was shared by our
neighbors, our community, our people. We
had all lost a connection to our past, to
another time. A visitor at the funeral
home remarked, "This is the passing
of an era on The Ridge." And it was
so. We, her children and grandchildren,
were left the keepers of her stories,
including this one I share with you
today.
But we did not learn the rest of the
story until we were gathered there with
our cousins before Mammie's casket.
Everyone involved with the moonshine
affair and the chicken caper had then
been called home, so the cousins felt
safe in divulging the truth. Their
fathers, the industrious brewers, had
learned that their sister-in-law Nellie
had ruined their brew and it was they who
had taken her chicken with the stealth of
a fox in the night and spread the
feathers along the path to the neighbor's
so that the shadow of blame would be cast
on him. (What actually happened to the
chicken is still a mystery, but the
ultimate fate of any hen in those days
was pretty certain.)
There was nothing to do but
to go to the children of the accused man
who were there at the funeral home and
apologize for the error that had been
made half a century before. Mammie would
have been humbled with regret for her
error. She would probably have cooked a
fat hen for him as an apology for her
ill-founded accusation had she ever
learned the truth. But all had gone to
their reward where all truths were made
known and all indiscretions forgiven
through the mercy of our loving Father in
Heaven.
However, if the Lord should ever decide
to entertain the multitudes and He
ponders the notion of turning water into
wine, Mammie will certainly toss back her
braids and go have a word with Him about
it. He just made her that way.
Copyright 2002 Mauna Faye Crabtree
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Copyright
2006 Mauna Crabtree
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