Chapter 33: History

“So, tell us about the first Masters of Culverin!” said Jenny. She had taken a tortilla and was piling on some of the spicy beef and veggie mix.

Jack smiled and wagged a finger at her, and then began working on his own tortilla. “After dinner. I will tell you two things now, though.” Jenny’s family chuckled; their youngest hated to wait for anything. “First, at the time, the 1790s and early 1800s, this was the frontier. When Jacob showed up here, western and central North Carolina was the butt end of the world. Second, the people I’ll tell you about were very young, teenagers, in fact. When Jacob came here, he was your age, Jenny, fifteen, and his wife was Mandy’s age, sixteen, and already pregnant with their son, Enoch. He was named after his grandfather, the first Culverin in America, the guy who came over from England. Later, when he took over, Enoch was only nineteen.” Jack left out the fact that Jacob’s wife was actually his sister. The Brownells could learn that detail after they were fully part of the family.

The two girls looked at each other with wide eyes, then dug into dinner. The sooner they finished the sooner they’d find out about Jacob and Enoch. Their parents didn’t help when they offered up their daughters as cleanup crew and dishwashers. Maria laughed and allowed them to help clear the table but sent them off before they could do the dishes. They immediately scampered outside, to find the others waiting around the fire pit, though no fire was laid.

“Okay, no more chores! Tell us about Jacob and Enoch!” said Mandy.

Jack laughed. “Okay, Jacob first. When he and his wife showed up here in 1794, this place was on the verge of collapse. Culverin House was a one-room log cabin and a broken-down barn. They weren’t going broke, they were broke! Somehow, he managed to cobble together enough money to start rebuilding and they started breeding horses. Then he started making whiskey. That’s our original whiskey, Culverin Dew, which was much better than anything anybody else was making. A few years later he came up with the really good stuff, Culverin Mist, and the family fortune was made.”

“I read about that in Fortune once. They said that Culverin Hill was one of the oldest distilleries in America,” said Adam. “And the largest privately owned one.”

Jack nodded. “There’s only a handful older than us, even fewer when you count the ones which didn’t shut down during Prohibition. We cut back, but at least we didn’t shut down. The original distillery was in a couple of barns here, further out in the field. We didn’t move it down the hill until after the Second World War.”

“How come you didn’t get shut down during Prohibition?” asked Adam.

Jack grinned. “Well, it sure helps when the county sheriff is a second cousin. As for the mayor, we simply paid him off.”

The others laughed at that. Becca added, “Even today, the sheriff and the mayor get complementary memberships at Culverin Meadows Country Club. You never know when you’ll need a friend in high places!”

“Fortune also reported you turned down a billion dollar offer for the business,” commented Adam.

Jack nodded again. “More, actually. It’s not for sale. We’ve been here over two hundred years. This isn’t just our business, this is our family, this is our heritage. It’s more than just me, and when it’s his turn,” he said, pointing towards his son, “it will be more than just him. No, I wasn’t going to sell.” Then he grinned. “Besides, do you know the margins on good whiskey? I don’t need to sell this place to make money!” He laughed and the others joined in.

“So, what about Jacob?” asked Jenny.

“Well, like I said, this was the frontier, the old west, sort of. It was a pretty rough place. According to the family diaries, he and his wife were stopped on the road even before they got here and he killed three men who planned to ... uh, assault ... his wife. That was when he was fifteen. Your age.”

Jenny’s eyes popped open at that. “Three?” she said weakly.

“Wasn’t the only time, either. A few years later they were shopping in town when three men went after the women in the family. He found them manhandling the women and knocking his son around. He took on all three and carved them into steaks with their own knives. He was a man you stood aside for when he walked down the street.”

“Jesus Christ!” Mandy said lowly.

“The really tough one, though, was his son, Enoch. Mamas would tell their children stories about him when they were misbehaving. You know, behave or Enoch will come after you, that sort of thing.”

Adam and Megan laughed at that. “So, what made Enoch famous?” asked Megan.

“That part is a bit more gruesome,” replied Becca. “One thing to consider is that there was a certain degree of antipathy between the Culverins up here on the mountain and the townspeople down below. Partly because of the separation, but also because of slavery. North Carolina was a slave state, but Jacob was from New York and didn’t believe in slavery. He didn’t own slaves and raised the rest of the family the same way. From everything I’ve read, it could make life difficult.”

Jack continued, “In any case, the local preacher got a notion to come up here and do the work of God. He was more than a little kooky. He decided that since slavery was good and whiskey was bad, he’d come up here and either convert Jacob or burn him out. Total nut job. He shot Jacob and set fire to the cabin, but it was in the middle of a thunderstorm, and he got zapped by lightening out in the front yard.”

“Wow! Did he get fed to the coyotes?” asked Mandy.

“Nope. That’s when Enoch took over. He was only nineteen, but he was the oldest of his generation, so he became the next Master of Culverin. They got the fire out and moved what they could into one of the barns. The next day he and his cousins rode into Springwater with the body. There were six of them total, ranging from Enoch at nineteen down to a boy only fifteen, including two girls. They rode into town with the body draped over a horse like in the movies, loaded for bear - rifles, shotguns, pistols, even tomahawks! They rounded up the sheriff and mayor and the church deacons and herded them all over to the church, where they dumped the body and then burned down the church. Then they told the town that they could end it there or start a war, and they didn’t much care which! The town backed down and Enoch and crew came home and rebuilt.”

“Jesus!” exclaimed Adam.

Becca nodded. “They were a staple of the newspapers at the time. The six of them became known as the Culverin Hill Gang. Whenever anybody went into town, at least two of the Gang would escort them in, usually carrying every weapon known to man. They had a reputation as being the toughest people in a town of tough people. It was said that any two of them, women included, could clean out any saloon in town.”