By GRAWILLi:
LIPSCOMB LARIMORE
Mr. Lari more, a Florida attor¬
ney. wrote this account of his ex¬
perience in "the wilds of Transyl¬
vania County, N. C." in 1899.
during a summer vacation in Hen¬
dersonville. The story was found
among his papers, and is here
published for the first time.
Twenty years ago, when I was
younger and more adventurous than I
am now, I was spending the summer
in Hendersonville, in the mountains of
western North Carolina. A small ham¬
let of some five hundred inhabitants,
nestled among the peaks of the Appa¬
lachian range, it was an ideal spot in
Meter, I hope for »our soke you're felling the truth. . . ."
Into the Outlaw’s Lair
Л
flaring vacation adventure in the moun¬
tain country long ago.
which to while away a few weeks, “far
from the madding crowd.”
After I had been there about a
month, and had exhausted all the show
places of the neighborhood, including
Flat Rock, the summer resort of the
wealthy Charlestonians, where, for
forty years, they were in the habit of
resorting during the heated term, and
where they had erected some of the
most lovely summer homes to be found
in the South. I found time hanging
somewhat heavily on my hands.
It was during the palmy days of Red¬
mond. the moonshiner, who had just
made a sensational escape from a fed¬
eral prison, to which he had been sen¬
tenced for a long term for defrauding
Uncle Sam of his revenues. His fame
had spread abroad throughout the re¬
gion, from the valley of the Shenan¬
doah in Virginia, on the north, to the
Cherokee Country of Georgia, on the
south, embracing a large area of five
states, the proclivity of whose inhabi¬
tants to make illicit whiskey has cost
the government almost as much as all
her Indian wars combined.
A Famous Name
Redmond's name was on every
tongue, and the first inquiry among the
denizens of Hendersonville each morn¬
ing was for news of him. and the
chances of his recapture. Not that the
people were hoping that the clutches of
the law would be again laid on him.
Not a bit of it. Notwithstanding the
fact that he was an outlaw with a price
on his head and a dozen homicides
charged to his account, or. perhaps I
should say credited to it, he was a hero,
and nine men out of ten were hoping
that he would make good his escape.
A burning desire to meet this famous
man took possession of me. I wanted to
look at him. to ask him how many
revenue officers he really had killed,
why he had killed them, and how; and
although my friends told me that any
attempt to find him would in all proba¬
bility prove futile and attended with
considerable danger, I persisted.
Learning that he was probably in
hiding among the almost inaccessible
crags and coves of Transylvania
County. I hired, as guide, philosopher
bnd friend, a young mountaineer, a na¬
tive of the county, who assured me that
he knew Redmond well; was. in fact,
a kinsman, and that for one dollar per
day and "found,” he would undertake
to pilot me to him.
The Search Started
I hired a couple of native ponies, not
very good to look upon, but hardy and
sure-footed, and, with a substantial
lunch, and blankets, in case of
being compelled to sleep in the open
air. we set off for Caesar's Head, a
promontory on the South Carolina line,
which was something of a resort,
though twenty miles off the railroad at
that time.
We reached Caesar’s Head about
nightfall, put up at the only hotel,
which, in fact, with its appendant cot¬
tages. constituted almost the entire
place, so far as habitations were con¬
cerned, and, by cautious inquiries, we
learned that we could probably find the
object of our search about fifteen miles
to the westward, but were again warned
that we were courting danger by contin-
a
THE STATE. JUNE 1973
