MOONSHINERS' WITHDRAWING
FARTHER INTO MOUNTAINS
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WILLIAMSON — Moonshiners are moving their stills farther back from tho beaten paths of civilization and are seeking only the moat remote sections of the southern hills to carry on their operations, according to Captain J. R. Brockus, commander of company A, West Virginia state police, who has returned from an extensive raid. ' The trip, which lasted for eight days, took the troopers from Dingcss. in Mingo county, over tho mountains and down into Hart's Creek country, a section which at one time supplied a large part of the southern section of the state with tho best quality of illicit liquor ever manufactured. The distance travelled was 284 miles, fifty of which the troopers were forced to travel on foot because the heavy underbrush and rocky trails made the use of their mounts impossible. The detachment returned with six stills and four prisoners. The results demonstrate that measures taken pre- viously-by the state police to enforce the eighteenth amendment , In the Hart's Creek country have been highly effective. Captain Brockus reported. At ono time stills were almost as common along the creek as barns but tho certainty of arrest at the hands of the troopers has led the few remaining law violators to hide their Illegal paraphernalia only In the most inaccessible spots. On tho flrst day, the detachment marched 36 mllos and destroyed a 40- gallon copper still on Staten Branch. Another still was destroyed on each of the two following days on the headwaters of Hart's Creek and the flrst arrests were made on the fourth day on the Bear Wallow Branch of Smokehouse Fork of Trace Creek, where Ed Scaggs was charged with operating a still A charge of possession was placed against Robert Adams and in the afternoon of the name day John Whetley and Charles Conley, an alleged ex-convict, were taken on White Oak Fork of Hart's Creek when they were found carrying a load of moonshine. Two other stills were captured during the next four days, both of them located on Conley Creek, hear Chapmanville. On the raid the detachment destroyed six stills, twenty-six mash barrels, seven tuba, two gallons of moonshine and 1,880 gallons of mash.
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