That Old Mountain Dew

Living here in Alleghany County are the oldest practicing land surveyor (Gene Dysart) and oldest living former sheriff (Dent Pugh) in North Carolina. The Alleghany News recently ran an article on Pugh, 93, who served as sheriff from 1954 to 1958.

In those days the sheriff had two unpaid volunteer deputies. For his annual salary of $2400, he had to supply his own car, uniform and weapons. He was also "on-call" 24/7. Little wonder that a sheriff could afford to serve only one term!

During his single term Pugh busted about a hundred liquor stills, investigated several murders, a number of non-fatal shootings and sundry other crimes. Here's what he had to say about the stills in the newspaper piece:

"It kept me busy taking care of the boot-leggers," he said. "I destroyed 98 stills with the help of the Revenuers. I had to get out and hunt for the most of them. I would get out where I thought there might be a still and then look for signs."

Sheriff Pugh is on left.

He said he would look for places where the leaves had been turned over entering the woods and then follow the trail to the still.

During one memorable still raid in Ennice, a man was found dead inside a box at the still site. His fellow moon shiners had left his body unattended. "He was probably there for two or three days," Pugh said. The cause of death was likely alcohol poisoning, since the man was found lying on his side as if he had gone to sleep and never awakened. He didn't want to identify the man. "Some of his family might still be living and I wouldn't want to bring that back up," he said.

The death was a case in point as to why Pugh was on a mission to clean up the stills. "On my own I did it," he said. "I didn't like liquor in the county." Many of the county's citizens agreed with Pugh's assessment, often reporting stills and other illegal activities. "Most people made liquor to drink," he said, noting that some operations made large amounts to sell here and in other counties. Sometimes the liquor wasn't safe to drink.

Even though he busted many stills and destroyed the contraband, there weren't many arrests made at the stills. First of all, many times the stills weren't in use when they were found. Other times, the men running the still would get word that the sheriff was coming and would leave.

Even if they were at the scene when the sheriff came, the men would often run off into the woods. "We'd try to catch them, but if they got gone, they's gone," he said. The department didn't have any tracking dogs at its disposal for such routine searches.

Hmmm. No mention of unpaid Federal taxes on moonshine being a cause for busting 'em up. Then, of course, that wasn't county business.