Successful Raid

Wednesday, March 24, a posse of eight, composed of U. S. Deputy Marshal W. E. Garrett and U. S. Deputy Collector U. G. McFarland, of Middlesboro, Ky., Billy Tucker, of Pennington, Gap, Va., and C. H Redmon, Wilson Lewis, Arnold Hoskins and Mays, of St. Charles, Va., went over the Cumberland main range from St. Charles to Day's Branch of Crank's Creek of Martin's Fork, in Harlan county, Ky., captured Joe Setser, destroyed a copper still of 105 gallons capacity, several hundred gallons of mash and beer.

Setser and Joe Napier were tracking the posse in the snow with guns in their hands and were only discovered by the posse when the location of the still was nearly reached and a distance of about 150 yards separated the parties. Members of the posse hid behind trees and squatted in the snow until Setser and Napier were close at hand when Setser was covered and captured. Napier kept up a running flight, during which about twenty-five shots apiece were fired, and escaped. Two others, Hiram Day and one Duncan, were taken, but later released.

Joe Setser was taken to the Pineville jail and held on $1,000 bail for the next term of the U. S. Court at London, Ky.

U. S. Revenue officers have heretofore kept clear of the locality of this raid on account of the difficulty of getting into it and of the stubborn resistance of the moonshiners.

--The Pinnacle News, Middlesboro, Kentucky, April 1, 1915, page 1.