Oral History Interview with Emma Wilson Brown

[Begin Interview] Interviewer: Emma Wilson Brown by Dixie Hibbs for the Kentucky Oral History Commission. Our project is Prohibition and its effects on Nelson County. The interview was conducted in (Boonesville?), Nelson County, on the Frankville Road, on September the twenty-seventh, 1988. Miss Brown, would you tell us about when you were born, your parents, anything about your early life there, to give us an idea of who you are and where you come from?

Wilson: My mom and pa were both born and raised in Nelson County. In the same vicinity where they live now, I was born, all of us were born in the same house. all us children born in the same house. And we lived there until they died. He was ninety-three and she was ninety-six. And they both died in the same room where they had lived all their lives. 1:00Interviewer: All their married life.

Wilson: Same house. And we went to country school. The same country school that Mother and Father had gone to when they were young. And I later teached. Teached. Taught in the same school. Not my first school, but second or third school that I taught. In that same school building.

Interviewer: What year were you born?

Wilson: 1898.

Interviewer: 1898.

Wilson: September the twenty-eighth.

Interviewer: Well, that's tomorrow. Your birthday tomorrow.

Wilson: Mm hmm.

Interviewer: Ninety years old tomorrow.

Wilson: Ninety years old tomorrow.

Interviewer: Of course, Prohibition was 1920 to 1933. And you were an adult at the time. And I don't know if you were teaching at that time.

Wilson: I was teaching at that time at my first school. And I didn't think too much about it, because it wasn't a problem 2:00in my home. Now it was a problem with my grandfather. It was a problem in their home. But it was not a problem in my own home. And I just didn't think very much about it. It was a time in my life when I was having a good time. And the most I remember about it was the bootleggers. They were, I taught at Samuels during that time. And that's when the bootleggers were so rampant down in there. And they would tell us, "Now the bootleggers have bought a certain road tonight, and they're going in this road. And tomorrow night, they'll go in a different road."

Interviewer: Different road. And you say, "bought a road."

Wilson: They bought the road, so the cops wouldn't be on that road to catch them.

Interviewer: Oh, that's neat.

Wilson: And of course 3:00the distillery was there.

Interviewer: The Samuels Distillery?

Wilson: Uh huh. But (?), they were making moonshine. And at night, we'd see them go by with truckloads of corn and whatever they used to make moonshine. I don't know.

Interviewer: Mm hmm. Corn.

Wilson: Anything else?

Interviewer: Well, in early moonshine, what we understand, they were making it with cornmeal. But later on, they would start making it with sugar. And the opinion was, the sugar whiskey, or sugar moonshine, wasn't nearly as good as the corn.

Wilson: Well I know they bought a lot of sugar because I knew about the store in Samuels, I boarded right across the road from the store. And they did a big sugar business.

Interviewer: Big sugar business.

Wilson: Yes, they did a big sugar business. And at that time, we wondered what they were doing with all that sugar.

Interviewer: A lot of birthday cakes, huh?

Wilson: Yeah. That's right.

Interviewer: Well now, though you're a native of Bloomfield, you said you taught at Samuels, so you really were across the county, almost.

Wilson: That's right.

Interviewer: Did you get there by train? Or how did you get over to--

Wilson: Well, no. 4:00I would stay through the week and I'd come home on Sunday. They'd come for me in a car.

Interviewer: In a car.

Wilson: Mm hmm.

Interviewer: Come home and visit, then go back.

Wilson: Now the first year I taught, I stayed about two weeks with Miss (?) as I told you (long ago?). And then I stayed with Mrs. (Pepply?), that lived out the (Mogly?) Mills Road, out in there. And her husband was at the Samuels Distillery down at Deatsville. So we were alone at night.

Interviewer: Okay.

Wilson: And we would talk a lot about the moonshine and all. And then later, I stayed out in Samuels with the Harry Samuels family. And of course they had the distillery at Samuels. And it was right interesting. I know one weekend I came home, and 5:00I had raided, they had someway, I don't know what it was, but they had shot right through the room where I stayed.

Interviewer: Oh, wow.

Wilson: I was at home at the time, but I'd be scared to death if I'd been down there. But it was kind of a wild place down there at that time.

Interviewer: Do you think they thought that there was whiskey stored in the house?

Wilson: I don't know. I wondered about that. If they thought that Mr. Samuels had whiskey there in the house. If they intended to hurt him and rob his distillery, I just don't know what their idea was.

Interviewer: I wondered how much gun toting they had at the time, because of course this was against the law, to transport whiskey or to make illicit distilling or to do--

Wilson: Well, I imagine everybody was pretty well armed. Might not have carried it with them, but they had it handy.

Interviewer: Had it somewhere. Well the economy, of course Nelson County had at least twelve operating distilleries when Prohibition went in. And this was supposed to cut off 6:00the production of whiskey. All those warehouses were full of barrels of whiskey, but Prohibition cut off production. So that put a lot of people out of work. Do you know of anything that was set up to put them to work?

Wilson: Well, a lot of them robbed the distillery.

Interviewer: Oh. Okay.

Wilson: That was, and that may have been the reason that they were shooting down there that night. They may have been trying to rob the distillery, because it was right next to the house.

Interviewer: They rob it of the barrels? Or--

Wilson: Sometimes they would drain the barrels. They would go in and pull, you pull a--

Interviewer: Pull a bung.

Wilson: --bung out and drain the barrels. Because later on, they found so many of the barrels empty. Now they didn't know just why they were empty, but they were.

Interviewer: They were. Hadn't evaporated, though.

Wilson: No.

Interviewer: No. Okay.

Wilson: It was consumed.

Interviewer: Consumed. Of course, it went on for thirteen years. And in that thirteen years, you saw, did you continue to teach in different schools? You taught--

Wilson: Yes, I taught in different schools. And things weren't 7:00a bit better. A lot of people that never had had anything got rich. And they didn't know what to do with it. And they got rich. It really made them, didn't make them a better citizen by having more money.

Interviewer: More money. Well, it was one of these situations where you made the money but you really couldn't declare it because you weren't supposed to have it.

Wilson: That's right.

Interviewer: You didn't have a job.

Wilson: It was, everything they did was kind of behind the bars. You didn't know what was going on. They weren't up and up about anything. And it not only caused that secretiveness in the whiskey deal, but in other things.

Interviewer: You never knew who you were talking to.

Wilson: Uh uh. Uh uh.

Interviewer: What they were doing or saying. Did you come back over in this direction to teach? Or did you stay there at Samuels for a length of time?

Wilson: No. I just taught at Samuels two years. 8:00And then I taught at (High Grove?) one year. And then I came back over here, I taught at the (Neil?) School at home, and taught in (McClaskey?) School (?).

Interviewer: Well then when you were--

Wilson: I think we didn't have the problem here that they had down there. Nothing like the problem here. We had the bootleggers here. But they were more or less in the background. And they were probably selling just as much moonshine, but they weren't making as much around here as they made down there.

Interviewer: Down there.

Wilson: And (?), (they could count it better?) And they made much more of it down there.

Interviewer: Do you think that the people who worked at the distillery had the knowledge then on how to make it so that when they lost their job and they could turn around and go, put that knowledge into making moonshine?

Wilson: Could be.

Interviewer: Of course, they slopped cattle and they did a lot of things at the distilleries in addition to making whiskey. And that all had to come to a stop.

Wilson: Of course, that making moonshine wasn't a new thing at all. Because more or less, it went on all the time. And 9:00in the mountains of Kentucky, of course it went on on a bigger scale all the time. And it went on in Nelson County even before Prohibition.

Interviewer: Prohibition. So it was really, you do think, though, that it got much bigger. I mean, there was more produced after they--

Wilson: That's right. Because when you told them that they couldn't make it, cause they wanted to show them that they could. And when they told them they couldn't sell it, at first you would make it for our just home consumption. It wasn't for profit at all. But then after the Prohibition, why, it's profit.

Interviewer: The, when you say over here in Bloomfield there wasn't near the problem because of the bootleggers, there wasn't a distillery here in Bloomfield?

Wilson: Well, there was a distillery in Bloomfield long, long ago. But Prohibition didn't affect that at all. 10:00But it did affect one in Fairfield.

Interviewer: Fairfield. McKenna?

Wilson: Uh huh.

Interviewer: McKenna. Well, let's see. What about medicinal? You could get whiskey legally if you had a prescription for it. Did you ever see anybody who had a prescription for medicinal whiskey?

Wilson: Well, I don't remember any individual cases, but I know that it did happen.

Interviewer: I didn't know how hard it was to get a prescription for it or not.

Wilson: A lot of it that was bought for medicinal purposes was not used that way.

Interviewer: Didn't end up that way. Okay.

Wilson: Of course there was a lot of that went on in all the drugstores, where they would--

Interviewer: Kind of look the other way?

Wilson: Yeah, they got rid of a lot of it they didn't know about.

Interviewer: One of the things you mentioned a while ago about buying a road, how were the local officials, you know, a sheriff is elected countywide, and the county judge and all. 11:00Did they run on any platforms of--

Wilson: Well, it just depended on, just like who contributed to their campaign, and what their belief was in Prohibition. Some of them were for it, and some of them were against it. And naturally, those that were against Prohibition would work to their advantage, and vice versa.

Interviewer: Well I know some comment was made about Judge Brown was a teetotaler. He did not drink at all. And he was a county judge for much of this time. And he didn't have necessarily control over the sheriff's department. They could decide who they were going to chase and who they didn't.

Wilson: That's right. And they bought the sheriff and other officials, just like they bought the roads, a lot of times. It would depend on the character of the person that was running.

Interviewer: Did, were there any stories you ever heard about 12:00anybody coming in from outside the county, like from a big city or something, looking to buy a lot of whiskey from the warehouses?

Wilson: No, I never heard of that. Now I think most of that, they would have transferred, transported that to that county. I think that went on. But I don't recall of any where they would-- oh, they would take a, I have heard of people taking big loads to Louisville. Of course, at that time, they would run a truck and take, get produce and bring it back on the truck. That I have heard where they would, and taking their produce in, that all of it wasn't produce. I've heard of that a lot.

Interviewer: They gathered up the country potatoes and vegetables and things--

Wilson: That's right.

Interviewer: --grain, and took it to Louisville, but underneath there was--

Wilson: Underneath that they had their kegs of moonshine.

Interviewer: Kegs. Is that how, do you think they transported it in the kegs rather than bottles.

Wilson: I think they used glass jars, too. 13:00Interviewer: Okay. A couple of people had mentioned. I think of a barrel, then I think of bottles. But something was said about the kegs, too. The smaller, five gallon keg.

Wilson: I think they used the glass, Mason jars.

Interviewer: Mason jars. Well then, sales of the Mason jars would be something to check into.

Wilson: Yeah. (Simple enough?) Interviewer: Mason jars and sugar. So really, Prohibition did help the grocery industry.

Wilson: Well, yes, in a way, I guess.

Interviewer: That way, yeah. I know the government required them to keep records on sugar sales. I don't know how much of that, they tell a story about South Nelson, that there was a store over there sold more sugar than any other store in Kentucky. Now I don't know whether that's so or not.

Wilson: (?) true. Could have been the one I was talking about.

Interviewer: Could be. What about, in your churches and things, did you ever hear any sermons about Prohibition? Or even before Prohibition came in, 14:00any temperance sermons?

Wilson: Well, of course, they would take one, in our church, they would take one Sunday for Temperance Sunday. They called it Temperance Sunday. And the Sunday School literature would dwell on that. And the pastor would preach on Temperance Day Sunday. But I don't recall it being such an item in our church. Now it was in a lot of churches, I'm sure.

Interviewer: Was there a Ladies' Temperance League? Or anything like that in the city, in the county, that you remember? Any organization?

Wilson: Uh uh.

Interviewer: Well, let's see. Then you got social situations where, I know in talking to people about Prohibition, different ideas have come up. And 15:00revelations to me of situations that I was not aware of. Like if a gentleman wanted a drink, he had a saloon or something, he went to a saloon and had a drink. And he really didn't buy liquor at a retail store to take home.

Wilson: That's right.

Interviewer: But in this day and time we don't think--

Wilson: Kept it hid, always.

Interviewer: Kept it hid. It wasn't a, and what about, if you had people come to your house, like for a meal or--

Wilson: I never heard them offering a drink. And another thing, there wasn't lots in our schools about it that I remember. That we tried to educate people on it at that time. It seemed to be something that, you were either for it or against it. But you just didn't understand it. It came on you so suddenly that you just-- and of course, in a small town and all, you don't hear as much about it as you would in a 16:00larger place where you had different organizations that were for and against.

Interviewer: Did you remember any saloons here in, or places that you could get liquor in Bloomfield, in teenage years, or going to high school? Was there a--

Wilson: I don't know that we had a saloon here. I remember the saloons over at Bardstown.

Interviewer: I just wonder if they had--

Wilson: Most people here went to Fairfield.

Interviewer: Went to Fairfield.

Wilson: And got their liquor.

Interviewer: Did they get it from the distillery, or from a--

Wilson: I don't know where they got it. Whether they got, whether the store handled it or whether they got it from a distillery. But they'd always go to Fairfield. And you dare not go to Fairfield on Saturday night.

Interviewer: Oh. Okay.

Wilson: Because the traffic was terrible.

Interviewer: Terrible. Back and forth over the road.

Wilson: Yeah.

Interviewer: Saturday night traffic. Okay. Of course, we have so many dry counties in Kentucky. And in Nelson County, back in the 1880s and '90s, we had local option elections, just like you can have today. And it, I was amazed at the number 17:00of precincts in the 1890s in Nelson County that voted dry. One of which was the Samuels precinct, which I thought was unbelievable.

Wilson: Well, they (?) Interviewer: Because they were, I don't know. But here they were, making whiskey right out there.

Wilson: That probably was the reason. They wanted to sell the moonshine.

Interviewer: Sell the moonshine. Okay. I hadn't thought about that part. I just thought maybe it was a reaction to the--

Wilson: Now, Washington County was dry for so long. And they would all come to Lebanon. Washington County was dry. And they would go to Lebanon.

Interviewer: Right.

Wilson: Now (?) go to Lebanon, of course the ones that lived in (?) and all would come this way. But in the afternoon, late in the afternoon, that street from (Frankville?) to Lebanon was, it was something.

Interviewer: Rush hour.

Wilson: Yeah. Rush hour. Happy hour.

Interviewer: Happy hour. Okay. Well, in listening to this about how far people will go to get a drink, you 18:00weren't going to stop them by just saying it was illegal, you couldn't do it.

Wilson: No.

Interviewer: Because when it was legal, they would drive--

Wilson: Just like I said before, when you told them they couldn't, they just wanted to that much more.

Interviewer: (?) Wilson: But I think they, now understand, I think that Prohibition's all right. But I think that you've got to educate people before you go into it and just all of a sudden say you can't.

Interviewer: Well, you can limit. You could maybe go at it in kind of a limiting way instead of just cutting everything off. I think when you just say no, there will be none, even though they (?) it for medicinal purposes, that was a copout. They didn't really, couldn't do a lot there.

Wilson: Yeah. It was a good loophole.

Interviewer: You know back, our early settlers here in Nelson County came from Pennsylvania and Northern Virginia and Maryland, most of them.

Wilson: And they all had moonshine.

Interviewer: They all knew how to make whiskey.

Wilson: That's right.

Interviewer: They all took those grains they were growing and turned it into something they could sell. They weren't making it just to drink.

Wilson: And they even made the, oh, what kind 19:00of beer was it?

Interviewer: Home brew?

Wilson: Home brew. Home brew. That was a big thing.

Interviewer: Well, do you know anything about making home brew? We've heard that term before, and I don't know anything about what you put in it.

Wilson: They used yeast in it some way.

Interviewer: To ferment it, I guess.

Wilson: To ferment it. And I don't know whether they used meal or oats? Barley? Do you use barley? I don't know (?) Interviewer: I don't know, either. I have heard the term now several times.

Wilson: But they made a lot of home brew.

Interviewer: I'll have to see if I can find a recipe. See, that's something that's coming out that we just weren't aware of at all. (?) Now we make peach, you know, the fermented fruit stuff. Brandy and things.

Wilson: Brandy, yeah. And wine. But evidently the home brew was right potent, because it would blow up every now and then.

Interviewer: Oh. Okay. Blow up. Okay.

Wilson: And then you'd go into a place where they had had it, you could tell they had 20:00home brew.

Interviewer: It was on the ceiling or on the wall or whatever, huh?

Wilson: The smell was everyplace.

Interviewer: I wonder, I guess maybe they didn't have beer shipped in, like we have now in cans and bottles.

Wilson: They didn't have any cans at all.

Interviewer: I'm just trying to think about how, we take all this for granted.

Wilson: Of course, beer used to be in kegs. Keg of beer.

Interviewer: Yes, right. Keg of beer. And then they would, you'd draft. You'd turn it on. Even, when you say home brew, you think even the Protestants were doing that? Or the people who weren't necessarily for whiskey? That they would drink home brew? Or do you have any thought on that?

Wilson: Well, I imagine a few did.

Interviewer: I didn't know how strong the prohibition against drinking.

Wilson: A lot of people that wouldn't drink the moonshine would drink the home brew.

Interviewer: Okay. Our newspaper articles, we go through them looking for ideas about questions and things. And there was a newspaper article about a lady who was being chased by the law. And her car bogged 21:00down or something, and she jumped out of the car and ran into the cornfield. And she was a bootlegger, she was carrying whiskey.

Wilson: And you know, a lot of times they would have a woman to drive the truck or car, because they thought they would be less apt to apprehend a woman.

Interviewer: That's an interesting thought. Yeah. I just thought she was an enterprising woman that was out to make some money. But she probably was being paid to transport that.

Wilson: Lots of times they'd have a woman to do the driving.

Interviewer: Did you learn to drive when you were young?

Wilson: Yes. I learned to drive when I was, I was still in high school.

Interviewer: Well, that's good. That probably wasn't the normal situation, though, was it? Most women didn't drive, did they?

Wilson: No. Not too many.

Interviewer: They younger ones, do you think? Did your mother learn to drive?

Wilson: No. Mother never did learn. Well, I believe she did drive once or twice. But she drove too fast. We wouldn't let her drive.

Interviewer: Okay.

Wilson: We wouldn't 22:00ride with her to teach her how, because she kept going so fast.

Interviewer: Okay. It was dangerous to teach your mother to drive. Okay.

Wilson: And Father never did drive very much. He drove a little, but not very much. I did most of the driving in the family.

Interviewer: In Bloomfield, were there a lot of cars? Or a few cars? Was a car kind of an unusual situation?

Wilson: Well, no, most everybody at least had a Model T. And ours was an Oakland. And I wouldn't advise anybody to buy one.

Interviewer: Okay. If they could get one now, okay.

Wilson: It would be a collector's item now.

Interviewer: Right. Okay. The, of course in Nelson County, with the road building going on and all, there was some talk about some 23:00of the warehouse employees, of course the distillery, all the distilleries employed so many people. I don't know what their number would be. But if we said twenty people a distillery, and we had twelve distilleries, that would be, say, 250 people or so. And for them to go out and find another job, something was said about putting them to work on the highways. And maybe the highway commission coming in and trying to work on the roads and things. And of course we were approaching the Depression era. After Prohibition, we had Depression. So from the 1920s to the 1940s, things must have been fairly down in the whole area.

Wilson: You know, I don't know why, but I do not remember the Depression.

Interviewer: Well, wonderful. That must be because, maybe it didn't--

Wilson: No, we lived on a farm. And we had most of the things that we always had. And the Depression didn't make an impression on me at all. 24:00I was talking to somebody about that the other day. And they said the same thing. That they lived on a farm, and they didn't have to go out and buy a lot. Now I remember the time when we had to have sugar and everything rationed.

Interviewer: During the war.

Wilson: Now I remember that part of it. But I, the Depression really didn't hurt us too much, because we didn't have very much to do with it. And we had just as much during the Depression as we did otherwise.

Interviewer: Did you teach during the Depression era? Did you teach all of those years?

Wilson: Now what year was that?

Interviewer: The Depression, '30 to '40.

Wilson: I was teaching then, uh huh.

Interviewer: Well it may be that we are jumping to the conclusion that it had a very negative effect on Nelson County in terms of money, the Prohibition. And I'm sure it had some. But the statement was made with someone else I was talking to that 25:00they never went hungry.

Wilson: No.

Interviewer: That it did make a difference, they were sure, but they never went hungry. So maybe it didn't make as much as (we think?) Wilson: That's right. Of course, on the farm, you had your meat. And you had to buy sugar. And you took your grains to the mill and got your flour in return. And it really didn't.

Interviewer: And if you had a car, then really, if you had money for gas, (?) clothes. I don't know if you all made most of your clothes, or you bought them.

Wilson: And of course, I was teaching then, but my salary then wouldn't, it would be a drop in the bucket from what it is now.

Interviewer: Yeah. Did they require children to go to school to a certain age then?

Wilson: They encouraged them, but there was no requirement.

Interviewer: In other words, if you didn't, if you were a student and you dropped out at fourth or fifth grade, nobody made you go.

Wilson: That's right.

Interviewer: Did the school districts, I know that each of the little schools had their own district, did they list what it was you needed to teach? Or 26:00 the--

Wilson: No. They had a trustee. And then there was the superintendent, who was over all the schools, told you what books you needed.

Interviewer: Oh. Okay. They chose the books and classes, or the types of subjects.

Wilson: But you had to buy them.

Interviewer: Oh. The children bought them or the school bought them.

Wilson: The children had to buy them.

Interviewer: Children had to buy them. What if they couldn't buy them? Did they share?

Wilson: Well, some of them didn't.

Interviewer: Did they get to share any?

Wilson: Well, they would make out some way. Sometimes they would (?) hand down used books from somebody that had gone to school the year before and would let their books be used. Of course, they weren't very high then. But I guess they had less money to pay for them.

Interviewer: Did they ever, I know that a lot of county students when they got past the eighth grade, they would go into Bardstown to the high school there. 27:00Besides the Bethlehem and St. Joseph, that was the only high school in the county? Would they board in town? Or would they drive back and forth?

Wilson: Well, it depend on where they live. If they lived close enough, they would drive. But some of them lived far away, would have to board. But the only thing that the county gave, they furnished the coal for your heat. And they furnished your chalk and erasers.

Interviewer: And erasers.

Wilson: Now that was about the only thing they furnished.

Interviewer: Your pencil and paper and books--

Wilson: No, no. You bought everything.

Interviewer: Chalks, erasers and coal.

Wilson: That was that.

Interviewer: What if you ran out of coal before the end of the year? Did you ever do that?

Wilson: Well, somebody in the neighborhood would bring you two or three buckets.

Interviewer: Okay.

Wilson: No, they wouldn't let you go cold.

Interviewer: Go cold.

Wilson: But they usually kept you pretty well in coal. [End Side A. Begin Side B.] Interviewer: --bootlegging, or--

Wilson: Oh, no. 28:00Interviewer: No mention of it. The children never made any reference to their father's occupation as bootleggers or anything.

Wilson: They probably didn't know.

Interviewer: They just knew that he went out at night and came back in sort of thing. Well actually, it went on so long, it had to be accepted. It wasn't something, one time sort of thing. Did you ever know anyone who was arrested or was shot or injured, and they thought it might have to do with them running whiskey or surprising somebody?

Wilson: No, I don't think so. There was a case in Samuels where they harbored some of the criminals and they had a big shootout down there. But that, I didn't know them.

Interviewer: It just happened. Well, let's see. Other things that we've talked about. Is there anybody who, of course, without there 29:00being distilleries over here, but you as a farmer, did you all ever sell your corn to like Fairfield Distillery or McKenna?

Wilson: No.

Interviewer: You didn't do that. You either used it or sold it at the mill.

Wilson: We didn't have a great big farm. And we fed the corn to the stock. And we did sell wheat to the mill sometimes, surplus but most of it, we took it to (?) mill, and got the flour.

Interviewer: Okay. And then you would actually eat the flour.

Wilson: Took the corn to the mill and get meal.

Interviewer: What about the blacks in the community? I know Bloomfield has a large proportion of blacks. Did they have their own place they'd go for drinking?

Wilson: Well now, when I was growing up, we lived out on the river. And there was a colored settlement out there. And they called it Out 30:00on the River.

Interviewer: Out on the River. Okay.

Wilson: And some of my very best friends lived out there. I don't suppose there was a family out there that hadn't worked for us at one time or other. And they were just, there was no problem, no race problem whatever. They had their own church, and they had their own school, and they had a good schoolteacher. A good schoolteacher. And they went to their school, and we went to our school. And they worked for the white people all around the neighborhood. And there was no racial problem whatever.

Interviewer: Was there anyplace that they socialized together? You said they had their own church.

Wilson: Had their church. And they had a little building down there where they used to meet and have their social events. They called it a restaurant, and 31:00that's about what it was. But that was where they would meet and have their social events. There were some very interesting people out there. The colored people, I have often wished that somebody would write a book about them. There were some very interesting characters there.

Interviewer: Why don't you do that?

Wilson: Can't hardly remember the names now.

Interviewer: Well, maybe you could take and by, again, recording it, your remembrances about it. And someone can take and fictionalize it. Use fictional names, but they'd get the feel of the people. Because that's half of the thing.

Wilson: And their homes were so interesting. (?) Interviewer: They were second generation from slavery, in that time. Because their grandparents probably had been slaves.

Wilson: Well, some of their parents had been.

Interviewer: Had been. But they stayed around here, 32:00because that's where they had been born and grown up.

Wilson: And there's just one family out there now, just one. But they had their own church, their own schools. And they were just as proud of it.

Interviewer: Was there for higher education of blacks, was there--

Wilson: Nothing.

Interviewer: Nothing. They didn't go on to a college or anything.

Wilson: No. They're beginning to now. The ones that live out there now are going to high school and--

Interviewer: Going on to college. Well, let's see. We're close to Spencer County here. And I see Spencer County is dry, also.

Wilson: We had that same problem with Spencer County that (Washington?) County (?) Interviewer: Is this little rush hour across the line.

Wilson: Rush hour. Yeah.

Interviewer: Well, I'm sure it wasn't any better then. We really, it may be that we should talk to people in other counties that were dry, and get an idea of 33:00what happened in their county (?) Wilson: Well, they would be just as divided. Because some of them that came to the other county to get their whiskey, they liked it. Some of them resented it because we were getting all the tax money, they were getting the product.

Interviewer: Right. That's true. That's an idea. Well now, when did the school start getting the tax money from the storage of whiskey? I don't know that anyone's ever told me that. Now we get (?) taxes. And I wonder how long that's been going on. Do you remember?

Wilson: Well, I guess it always has gone on.

Interviewer: Always has? I didn't know. Because I know that's one reason we're supposed to have such good school buildings and facilities here in Nelson County, because of the storage of whiskey.

Wilson: And of course, we've lost a lot of it.

Interviewer: Oh, yeah. I know.

Wilson: We've lost an awful lot of it.

Interviewer: I'll have to go look that up.

Wilson: But at one time, the schools were getting the biggest portion of the tax money from Nelson County. 34:00I've heard we didn't always use it wisely.

Interviewer: That may well be. And now when we're, of course, we kept the tax rate down because of it. And (?) that way, we don't want to pay much more. We want a good system without paying.

Wilson: Yeah.

Interviewer: Well, after Prohibition was over, '33, it was rescinded in December of '33, end of Prohibition. The distilleries, some of them, had been waiting to open. Some were unable to open. I understand that most of them had to have outside funding, that there just wasn't any money here.

Wilson: And since that time, nearly all of them have gone out of the hands of local people.

Interviewer: Right.

Wilson: The big distilleries are taking more.

Interviewer: The situation of employment, you know, of course whiskey is a product that you make today and you sell in four years. It's not an instant turnover, unless it's moonshine. But 35:00even though they'd opened a distillery up there by '35, it would be '39 before they really were starting a cash flow. And so they had to have some type of investment. And then the war came along. I understand during the war, they were required to make alcohol for the government. I don't know whether that was a money making situation or whether it was, you know.

Wilson: It must not have been, because too many of them went out of business.

Interviewer: Okay. That they were just paying them whatever sum that was agreed on. But you still had warehouses full of whiskey. You just have this, it's like baking bread. You know, you bake it today to sell tomorrow. And if you don't sell it tomorrow, you still have it, you know.

Wilson: And that's been so much robbery to the place.

Interviewer: Yeah. It was already there.

Wilson: It was there. And people wanted it. And you know, when anybody wants anything, some of them will go to any means to get it.

Interviewer: Did you ever see a distillery burn? Warehouse burn, or anything?

Wilson: No. I never did. 36:00Interviewer: We've had several burn in Nelson County. I just didn't know if you'd ever seen one.

Wilson: I know they told one time, I was rather young, about the, one of them burning, and the whiskey went down the river, burning. And what a pretty sight it was.

Interviewer: The alcohol in it was on fire, uh huh. Well, Samuels had a distillery burn. A warehouse burn, not the distillery. But the warehouse burned in '48, I think. Franklin lived out there, (Leonore?). He says he remembers that very clearly. And of course, it would have been quite a sight.

Wilson: Now what Samuels?

Interviewer: The T.W. Samuels. One of those warehouses up there.

Wilson: (?) Interviewer: Was on fire in '48. '48 or '49, I think it was. But I think that's a memory he has of it. Of course, that was much later. Well, you think of anything, Bloomfield has a population of about what now?

Wilson: I think about a thousand.

Interviewer: A thousand now. And it's always been somewhere around there. And then, never been a lot bigger. 37:00Wilson: It's never grown too much.

Interviewer: But it's a center of agriculture. That's always been the big thing here was agriculture.

Wilson: That's right.

Interviewer: And it is basically Protestant. The closest Catholic church is at Fairfield.

Wilson: Fairfield, mm hmm.

Interviewer: So the atmosphere and everything here is--

Wilson: However, there are a good many here that go to Fairfield.

Interviewer: Fairfield. And you have a Methodist and a Baptist and a Christian church.

Wilson: And a Presbyterian.

Interviewer: Presbyterian.

Wilson: The Presbyterian church is affiliated now with the Trinity Baptist. They haven't joined them, but they have their church together. That's because there's so few Presbyterians and the Trinity Baptist didn't have a building.

Interviewer: Okay.

Wilson: So they meet in the Presbyterian church.

Interviewer: Well, that's good.

Wilson: And they're working very nicely together.

Interviewer: Well, I'm always encouraged when I hear that sort of a cooperative thing. Because in my mind, I'm preaching now, that's what Christianity's all about, getting along with people. 38:00And if your two groups can't get along--

Wilson: That's right. And it seems to be working out just real well. Of course the Baptists, the Trinity Baptists, don't have too many. And they're good workers. And the Presbyterians, most of them, are middle aged people. And no children.

Interviewer: Well, they need that youth to--

Wilson: It works out very nicely.

Interviewer: Well, something else occurred to me a minute ago. Was there ever any barrel factories or any barrel makers around? No one's ever mentioned that, and I wondered where we got all those barrels. Because all these distilleries had to have barrels. I don't know where Fairfield would have gotten theirs, unless they were shipped in somewhere. But Fairfield isn't on the railroad tracks.

Wilson: I don't know, but I have all that history of Bloomfield. It might tell you in that.

Interviewer: I need to read that. We've got all kinds of trees around. Good forest.

Wilson: Oak. Oak trees.

Interviewer: I just wondered 39:00where they got all those barrels. All these questions come up.

Wilson: Now there was a rope factory here at one time, but I don't recall a barrel factory.

Interviewer: Barrel factory.

Wilson: But there was a rope factory here.

Interviewer: We made lots of rope in Nelson County. It was really a cash crop. It was a crop that went down river for money, yeah. Well, I appreciate your time and thought on it. I haven't given you a lot of time to think about it, but more things will come by later. I do appreciate the time you've taken.

Wilson: Well, I don't imagine I've given you very much (?) Interviewer: No, ma'am. You gave me your opinion from your viewpoint. And again, I haven't had a schoolteacher's viewpoint. [End Interview.]