Even with the approach
of evening, July 31,
1929, was still a warm
day on Catoctin
Mountain. Two cars
drove up the mountain
on Route 77, a dirt
road leading from
Thurmont to
Hagerstown.
Six men rode in the
cars. Only five would
be alive two hours
later.
The cars pulled off
the side of the road.
Frederick County
Deputy John Hemp and
Lester Hoffman climbed
out of one of them.
Although not a deputy,
Hoffman was the only
one in the group who
knew his way through
the forest to what an
informant had
described a week
earlier as a "large
liquor plant."
This was the
Prohibition era in the
U.S. and although
liquor was illegal,
people still craved
it. And so others made
moonshine in stills
hidden in mountains
close to farms that
supplied the grain
needed for the
fermentation process.
The five deputies and
Hoffman were headed to
destroy just such a
still, but first they
needed to prove the
Catoctin Mountain
operation was making
moonshine.
The two men carried a
jug as they headed up
the winding mountain
path. A man sitting
atop a large rock
alongside the path
stood up and blocked
their way.
According to The
Frederick Post, the
exchange went like
this:
"Where are yuh goin'?"
he asked.
"We want to buy some
liquor," Hemp said.
"Yuh
better git out of here
if yuh don't want to
git shot," the
mountaineer retorted,
according to the
officers.
Hemp and Hoffman
turned around and
walked back to the
rest of their group.
Then, joined by
deputies Verner
Redmond, William
Wertenbaker, William
Steiner and Clyde
Hauver, they all
started toward the
still.
"The officers, in
attempting to creep up
on the small vale in
which the still was
situated, ascended a
winding mountain path,
which led abruptly to
the scene of the
tragedy," reported the
newspaper.
Hauver and Redmond led
the group. As they
neared the still,
shots rang out. Hauver
fell and the deputies
scattered for cover as
the moonshiners fired
on them, hidden by the
underbrush.
The deputies returned
fire and the
moonshiners retreated.
"The sheriff's forces
did not immediately
realize that Hauver
had been mortally
wounded and, thinking
he had merely tripped
over a root, were
intent only on the
capture of the
moonshiners. Counting
up their forces after
the fusillade of
firing, Hauver was
missing and, returning
to the scene, he was
found with his head in
a pool of blood and
his life was fast
ebbing away," the
newspaper reported.
George Wireman wrote
in a 1993 article,
"From one of the
statements gathered,
it was learned that
the bullet that struck
Clyde Hauver was
indeed intended for
Deputy Redmond."
Catoctin Mountain Park
Ranger Debra Mills
said, "Legend has it,
he (Hauver) may have
been involved in a
love triangle and was
shot in the back."
Dr. Morris Birely from
Thurmont treated
Hauver while waiting
for an ambulance. The
ambulance took Hauver
to the hospital in
Frederick.
"Although everything
possible was done for
Hauver he never had a
chance. When he
reached the hospital
he had no pulse and
was nearly bloodless,
so great had been the
loss of blood during
his time he laid in
the mountain trail and
during the time
necessary to bring him
to Frederick,"
reported the
newspaper.
Once Hauver was on his
way to Frederick, the
remaining deputies
used picks and axes to
destroy the vats and
boiler. The newspaper
reported that Blue
Blazes Still was "one
of the largest and
best equipped in
Frederick County" It
had a boiler from a
steam locomotive, 20
500-gallon-capacity
wooden vats filled
with corn mash, two
condensing coils and a
cooling box.
Mills said the still
produced alcohol so
fast that if a man
took away a
five-gallon bucket of
alcohol and dumped it
into a vat, by the
time he returned to
the still, another
bucket would be filled
and waiting to be
removed.
A
manhunt started for
the moonshiners and
eight men were
eventually jailed.
Charles Lewis was
convicted of
first-degree murder in
the Washington County
Circuit Court on March
7, 1930. Governor
Theodore McKeldin
commuted the sentence
in 1950 when Lewis was
65. He died a short
time after his
release.
Today, the Blue Blazes
Still is gone, but the
National Park Service
has a 50-gallon pot
still captured in a
Tennessee raid on the
same location. NPS
uses it for
presentations about
moonshining in the
mountains.
"It's not because we
want to glorify an
illegal enterprise,"
said Mills. "It lets
people know alcohol
production was an
important part of our
heritage."
The NPS actually
operated the still for
demonstrations from
1970 to 1989. It was
the first still ever
to operate legally on
government property,
according to Wireman.
Alcohol production
from the still stopped
when the NPS lost its
license in 1989.
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