MILLER, Mollie (d. 1873)
A Famous Woman Moonshiner
The Death of Mollie MILLER, Once the Head of a Desperate Gang
Information has reached this city through a southern detective that Mollie MILLER, the woman moonshiner of Polk county, Tenn., died a few days ago at her home in the mountains.
Her operations at one time were carried on very extensively, and she was at the head of a gang which was involved in more bloody fights with revenue officers than any other organized in the south. Her first experience was in the mountains of Sevier county, where she assisted her father, Sam MILLER. Here Deputy Marshal McPHERSON led a raid under a guide who had a grudge against MILLER. In an almost inaccessible gorge the officers encountered the moonshiners.
A bloody fight followed, and three of the revenue men were killed, the others retreating. It was noticed that young girl was one of the party, and it has always been believed that she killed one of the officers. Another raid was made in which MILLER was killed and his associates captured. About this time the revenue officers received a box containing the remains of the man who had informed upon the gang. There was nothing to indicate from whom it came, and the box must have been carried by wagon and left at the marshal’s house.
The woman was not found, and it was soon known that she had fled. In a few months Polk county, which had always furnished considerable illicit whisky, became the headquarters of the moonshiners throughout east Tennessee, and raid followed raid until there was scarcely a cave on the Hiawassee river that had not been the scene of some bloody fight between the moonshiners and the revenue men.
It became known that this woman was a leader, but she was never arrested but once, and then the proof was such that she escaped with a light sentence. After the Knoxville Southern railroad was built the country became too easy of access, and with the exception of an occasional petty offender the gang was broken up. The woman moonshiner retired to a small farm, where she remained undisturbed, except at two or three times, when she was taken to Chattanooga as a witness, when she would collect her fees and start on a walk over the mountains, a distance of 60 miles, to her home.
It is supposed that the killing of three revenue officers and four or five informers can be charged to her directly, while the gang of which she was a member, could be held accountable for several others, but it was never possible to prove those charges, and she died without over having been tried for them. — Cincinnati Enquirer.
Source: Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 45, Number 6986, 25 August 1873. Available at the California Digital Newspaper Collection. <http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc>