Moonshine

Harrison Gibson was the son of Dotson and Mary Gibson lived in Clay and Sturgeon Co., Jackson Co., Kentucky.  His daughter Mary Jane married to William Madden and Hannah married to Joseph Stamper.


August 29, 1897

Deputy U.S. Marshal Drake passed through the city yesterday having in charge Harrison Gibson charged with illicit manufacture of whisky who is being taken to Louisville.  Drake claim the prisoner was operating a moonshine still in his back yard of his home in Jackson county.




April 4, 1898

WHOLE FAMILY IN JAIL

HAVE MADE 50,000 GALLONS OF MOONSHINE WHISKEY.

Federal Officials Are Not Strangers To Harrison Gibson and His Sons

Harrison Gibson and his three sons, Jack, Brownlow and Hanney, probably four of the most notorious moonshiners in Kentucky, are serving sentennces in the county jail.  Confined in the same section of cells are Joe Stamper and William Madden, sons in law of Gibson.  Fleming Gibson, a fourth son, was recently released from jail after serving a sentence for violating the internal revenue laws, and Henry Gibson another member of the notorious family, was arrested not long ago in Jackson County for moonshining but was released.

Harrison estimates that he and his five sons have made no less than 50,000 gallons of whiskey, on which not a cent of revenue was ever paid to the Government. He further computes that he and his family have realized between $40,000 and $50,000 from the distillation of the whiskey.

The seat of operations of the Gibson family is in Jackson and Clay counties.  Harrison Gibson says he has been arrested so many times for moonshining that he could not say exactly how many times he has been tried before the Federal Commissioners and in the United States Court.  Jack, Brownlow and Hanney have served about six terms each, while "Flinney" and Henry have escaped without being arrested more than two or three times.

Joe Stamper and William Madden, who married two of Gibson's daughter, are both expert moonshiners and are regarded as dangerous men.  Their wives are also skilled in the art of making "doublin and disposing of the whisky and help to baffle the Federal authorities. When seen in his cell at the jail yesterday afternoon, Harrison Gibson said:

     "Yaas, I think I am the real king of the Kentucky 'shiners. I am night on to sixty years old and I have been making the stuff ever since I was a boy of thirteen years old.  I have made enough of it to float that battleship that blowed up. I hev  had lots of scraps with the marshals, but I can say one thing, I hev got my first time to shoot one of 'em.  I hev shot at 'em, though, but some way tother the bullets never hit right.


"Now, I brought them boys up," continued the old man, "to make whisky. When Jack was but nine years old I took him to the still with me.  Within three days that boy understood the biz thoroughly and could make 'doublins' to fare you well.  When he was eleven year old he was as good a shiner as his pa, and the Marshals arrested him and took him to jail.  I made the other boys learn, too.  Brownlow, Hanney, Flinney and Henry was right up to stuff before they were fifteen years old and could turn out gallons of the stuff without me even goin' around to see how they was gettin' along. My gals took their medicine, too.  I made 'em all learn.  What's the use of havin' children, any way, if you can use 'em?   My old woman understands shining just as well as I.  All my sons are rasin' children, and I'm going to see that they all follow the business of their grandpap or know the reason why.  We'll all be out again soon, and we'll make enough corn juice to flood Kentucky.  If we don't make it, they arrest us anyhow."