Whiskey & Ashes, page 1
Whiskey & Ashes
Whiskey & Ashes
Honey Gouge Casey
Contents
Dedication
Authors Note
Fire from the Ashes
Counting Bushels - Building Dreams
Happy Valley Rising
The Measure of a Man
The Last Pour in the Valley
Straddling the Line
House of Gouge
Mandamus 1907
Long Tracks West
Across the Line Still Standing
The Line in the Barrel
Politics and Trial
Re-Building & Departure
A Long Goodbye
Echoes Across the Isthmus
The Long Way Home
Moving Forward
The Storm
The Intermission
Final Judgement
Knoxville
Epilogue
About the Author
Family Photos
Family Photos
Family Photos
Family Photos
Copyright © 2025 by Honey Gouge Casey
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Printing, 2025
For my grandfather, Thomas Orde “TO” Gouge,
who first told me the stories...
on the porch, in the car, in quiet moments between us.
Thank you for sharing your memories,
and for introducing me to your grandfather I never knew,
but I will never forget.
And for the broken branches:
Walter, Mollie, Elmer, and Lillian...
those who left no children behind to remember them.
I have spoken your names.
I have reclaimed your stories.
You live again in these pages,
and will live on, as long as we remember.
Authors Note
My Journey of Discovery
I first heard of Ezekiel Gouge on the front porch of a house in Etowah, Tennessee, where my great-grandfather, Orde Gouge (Pop), sat in his overalls, hiding his false teeth in his bib and spinning stories like they were spun gold. He talked of the railroad that consumed his life from childhood, and of his father, the whiskey distiller who built an empire in East Tennessee, and of a time when our family name was known from Fish Springs to Bristol and far beyond.
When I was eighteen, in 1990, my grandpa TO, Thomas Orde Gouge, Jr, took me to Bristol. We walked down State Street, where he pointed out places the family once owned. We stood where the house on Spencer Street used to be. We walked through East Hill Cemetery and stopped at the stone monument in what we called “Gouge Square.” That’s where he spoke the name of his favorite uncle, Elmer, and then, more quietly, of Walter. “The one who died in Panama,” he said. “The family never got a straight answer as to how or why.”
That moment lit the match.
I began a journey of research, of remembrance, of rediscovery. I studied American genealogy and used my own family as my first case study. I fell in love with East Tennessee. Over the next thirty years I visited often, I combed archives, searched antique stores, interviewed elders before their memories faded. I connected with cousins I never knew I had. I walked every road Ezekiel once walked, only to find that the houses he lived in no longer stood. Fish Springs and old Butler were swallowed by the lake. The Spencer Street house burned in the 1980s. The Knoxville home was sold, then razed to make way for a bank.
Bottles from the distillery are rare now. History books about Bristol often fail to mention him—or worse, get him wrong. But one thing remains unchanged: the stone monument in East Hill, surrounded by the graves of Ezekiel, his wife, and the children they loved.
That stone says: He was here.
This book is my offering of a beautiful story to anyone who cares to read it. It is a preservation of a man’s life, a family’s legacy, and a place once called Happy Valley. The waters may have covered the land, but the spirit of it, the spirit of him lives on in me and his many descendants.
And now, in these pages.
1
Fire from the Ashes
Limestone Cove, Tennessee, Autumn, 1872
The mountains had a way of hiding tragedy beneath their beauty. You could stand in the clearing below Pine Ridge and see nothing but the gold of birch leaves or the clean sweep of blue morning air. You’d never know that men had bled here.
Everyone in Limestone Cove knew of this tragedy, if not from memory, then from the way the older ones went silent when certain names were spoken. The Bells. The Green boys. The Fryes. The Birchfields. A whole company of Union refugees had died not ten years past in a massacre that still haunted every household in whispers. Even twelve-year-old Ezekiel Gouge knew.
In 1865, Ezekiel’s father had come back from the war a ghost of the man he once was. He has served as a private in the 12th Tennessee U.S. Calvary Company B. From this service, he now had one hip ruined from a horse falling on him in Nashville. A cough that rattled his ribs from fever caught on Yellow Creek. And eyes that didn’t always stay here in the present.
He was captured once too by Abets’ Rebels, on a furlough home to recover from the fever. He’d escaped barely. Neighbors witnessed him limping home barefoot and near-naked in the snow. The cold seemed to settle in his lungs and remained there always.
When he returned to his company after the furlough, his papers lost when the rebels captured him, he was branded a deserter, a charge he would continue to fight to claim the pension he deserved for his injuries sustained fighting for the Union. The injuries left him dependent on his sons to shoulder the physical load on the farm. He got by teaching school and looking for opportunities in the aftermath of the war.
William stood by the woodpile looking at the logs that he no longer had the stamina to split and staring at the smoke rising from the chimney of his cabin. Gaze not focused on anything in particular just looking out as if he could see things playing out before him.
Ezekiel under a tree in the dooryard of the cabin, unsure whether to go help with the cows or speak to his father. His feet itched to move, but something heavier kept him still.
He looked out across the cove. The same hills that sheltered them had once been overrun by rebels hell bent on punishing those like his father that fought for the union cause. Most of the families of Carter County backed the north in the war. Men like Dr. Bell, whose brother James had been murdered in his own yard by Witcher’s men. And Uncle Zeke Birchfield, his namesake, whose loyalty to the Union had nearly cost him everything.
This wasn’t a place where history stayed buried. Not in the soil. Not in the bones of the house. Not in the weight Ezekiel felt every time he saw his father flinch when someone slammed a door.
Ezekiel paused only a moment more and then headed to the fields to help his brothers. A long day of chores ahead of him.
~
The hoe struck dry earth with a hollow thump, scattering dust into the late afternoon air. The sun beat low and golden across the slope behind the Gouge farm, turning the tops of the pines to fire. Ezekiel Gouge, strong for a twelve-year-old, worked right along with his older brothers. He paused to wipe the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his threadbare shirt. A pair of crows heckled from the fencepost, black against the sky.
“Keep swingin’ or I’ll tell Ma you’re angling for sympathy,” came eighteen-year-old Nathan’s voice behind him, easy but firm.
“I’m swingin’,” Ezekiel muttered.
Sixteen-year-old Thomas chuckled from farther down the row. “Boy’s just tryin’ to match your saintly pace, Nate. Don’t go crushin’ the spirit from him.”
“I’d like to crush somethin’,” Ezekiel grumbled, and they all laughed. The kind of low, tired laughter that came at the end of a long day spent mending soil too stubborn and rocky to ever give up anything easy.
The brothers worked mostly in silence, the sound of metal on earth keeping time with the wind. In an impulsive moment, Ezekiel said, “Uncle Zeke let me watch him mash corn yesterday.”
That stopped both brothers. Nathan straightened, wiping his hands on his trousers. “You still going over there?”
“Yes, Ma sent me for some of the whiskey... for Pa,” Ezekiel said, glancing sideways. His father did not approve of whiskey but his mother could persuade him to take a sip sometimes when the pains got too bad. “Uncle gave me a taste. Said it was medicine.”
Thomas grinned, slapping a hand against his knee. “It’ll put hair on your chest, little Zeke.”
“Made me cough.”
“That’s how you know it’s workin’,” Nathan said, but his voice wasn’t teasing. He leaned on his hoe and looked toward his uncle’s place, just visible through the trees in the far distance. “Uncle Zeke’s a good man. Knows what he’s doin’. That recipe’s older than this farm. Maybe older than these hills. Ma’s people have been making whiskey since before the revolution.”
Ezekiel hesitated. “Why doesn’t Pa like it?”
The question hung in the air. Nathan’s jaw worked for a moment. He looked toward the mountains, as if he could still see the past walking toward him. He had been eleven when Papa came limping home from Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. Where his calvary regiment was used for patrol in Indian territory until October of 1865. He was sent there to catch up with his regiment and finish healing after the horse busted his leg in Nashville.
“’Cause he remembers what men turn into when they lean too hard on the bottle,” Nathan said finally. “And ‘cause Pa gave his whole body to what he believed was right. The war didn’t kill him, but it near took everything else.”
“I don’t remember him before,” Ezekiel said quietly. “Just him sick and hurting.”
“You were too little,” Thomas said gently. “You didn’t see him when he could work all day and never tire. Folks used to stop by just to ask his help. Strongest man in three hollers. Called on by kin and neighbors with farm work or building. But he came back from the war with lungs full of fire and one leg shorter than the other.”
Nathan nodded. “You weren’t there when he crawled back home that last winter of the war, barefoot, half-starved. Rebels had caught him during furlough. Took his boots. Near froze coming back. I thought he was a ghost when he walked up the hill. He still went back to his unit to fight after that.”
“I remember Ma crying,” Ezekiel said.
“She wouldn’t let Pa see her cry,” Nathan said. “But I did.”
The boys headed to the barn to fork hay for the horses and check on the sow and her new litter. Pigs were food, helped break up the soil on the farm, and cash when you could sell them.
Ezekiel had brought home two buckets of mash along with the whiskey from Uncle Zeke’s and carefully poured out the contents into the trough. The sow grunted and walked over to root around then set to the pleasure of slurping up the soured treat. The boys were looking over at the sow and remarking on the piglets when they heard the barn door creak.
They all paused as a shadow crossed the threshold. William stood there, leaning heavily on a cane. One pant leg was rolled higher than the other, showing the thick padding in his boot. The right leg dragged just enough to make every third step jolt his body. His breath whistled faintly in the silence. Thomas looked away first.
“Need something, Pa?” Nathan asked, turning to help if needed.
William shook his head. “Just came to see.”
He didn’t say what. The boys parted like water around him as he stepped into the barn’s long shadow. His gait was slow, uneven. Ezekiel watched him limp toward the wall and rest there, both hands on his cane, as if it held up more than just his weight. After a moment, William looked at each his sons in turn.
“You’re all growin’ into strong men,” he said. “Your Ma’s got supper when your finished here. Don’t let it get cold.” Then he turned and limped back out into the light.
The silence lingered like smoke. Ezekiel broke the silence, “He looks like every step hurts. Sometimes I am scared he will fall.”
Nathan, voice low, said, “He wasn’t always like that.”
“I know,” Ezekiel said.
“I wish he never fought that war,” Nathan said.
Ezekiel picked up the fork and began tossing hay in the horse’s stall. He felt at the calluses forming on his palms, and through the door saw rising moon over the ridge.
“I ain’t gonna fight no wars, I’m gonna raise hogs and maybe make some of the family recipe for medicine” he said.
Thomas ruffled his hair. “Don’t tell Papa you plan to make whiskey.”
~
In the cabin, Judah Birchfield Gouge stood at the hearth, stirring a pot of white beans slow cooked with a chunk of salt pork. The kitchen was warm and fragrant; the single room lit by and oil lamp and the hearth as the shadows of the ridge brought darkness to the valley. She paused only once, long enough to wipe her hands on her apron and glance through the window toward the fields in rising moonlight.
She’d seen her boys out there earlier, Nathan and Thomas bent to the rows, Ezekiel a few steps behind. Always watching. Always listening. That one was different. Still a good boy, but always with a question brewing just behind his eyes.
Behind her, the floor creaked.
“Ma?” Sarah’s voice was quiet but close. “Do you want me to set the table?”
Judah nodded, handing her daughter a stack of tin plates. “Start with the boys’ side, then ours. And have Lilah holler for Alice to stop teasing the cat. I want her washed up before we eat.”
Sarah took the plates without protesting. She was thirteen, poised and sharp-tongued like her mother but with a softness about the edges that hadn’t yet hardened. She carried the weight of being the eldest girl in the family without needing to be told. That, too, reminded Judah of herself. Delilah was only eight but old enough to help with chores and watching baby Alice.
“Alice” Lilah called through the doorway. “Get in here now or Mama’s gonna tan your hide!”
A small thump followed by a giggle told them Alice had been crouched under the porch again, chasing after something she ought not.
The youngest of the girls, Mary Alice, called Alice by everyone since she started crawling, came toddling inside with twigs in her hair and dirt on her elbows. She plopped down at Judah’s knees and grinned wide, eyes sparkling.
Judah crouched and tucked a stray strand behind her daughter’s ear. “Go with Lilah and wash. Hands and face. And if you girls use all the lye soap again, I’ll make you sit outside next bath day.”
“Yes’m,” Lilah said as she led Alice away busy picking the twigs and leaves out of her hair and dusting off her dress as best she could.
When they were gone, Judah stood and sighed deeply. Her hands went back to the rhythm of stirring, the wooden spoon steady in her grip. But her mind drifted. She had seen Ezekiel lately, sneaking glances toward the Birchfield side of the ridge. She knew what he’d found up there her brother’s still shed, the lingering sweet-and-sour scent of mash in the air, and the copper glint of the still hidden behind stacked cordwood.
She hadn’t forbidden it. She hadn’t encouraged him, either. But when the chill settled into William’s lungs and his teeth chattered in his sleep, she’d sent Ezekiel with a tin flask and a whispered instruction: “Tell your uncle it’s for your Pa. And tell no one else.”
Now the boy was asking quiet questions. Watching the steam rise from his father’s tea. Studying the books on William’s shelves not just the Bible, but the account ledgers, the old letters, the War Department replies and the books William used to teach at the school in the cove since physical labor came so hard now.
She knew Ezekiel was walking between two worlds. The faith of his father. The fire of her people. Judah stirred the beans once more and let her eyes drift closed.
“Lord,” she whispered, too soft for anyone to hear, “Give that boy wisdom. Give him strength. And give me the courage not to try and shape him too much. He’s yours before he’s mine.”
Outside, the boys' voices rang out Nathan laughing, Thomas cursing something under his breath, Ezekiel’s pitch quieter, thoughtful. The door would open soon, boots would track mud, plates would clang. But for one moment, Judah stood in the silence and the beans’ slow bubbling, balancing her faith and her fears like she had every day since the war.
Limestone Cove, Tennessee – Winter 1873
The snow had begun to fall again, soft as flour dusting across the dark ridgeline. Inside the cabin, the hearth crackled low, shadows flickering on the rough-planked walls. Ezekiel sat cross-legged near the fire, a worn almanac open across his knees. He traced a line with his finger, sounding out words in a whisper, lips barely moving. His boots steamed gently where the heat touched them.
William Gouge sat in his straight-backed chair across the room, one leg stretched stiff beneath a quilt, a sketchbook balanced on his lap. His brow furrowed in concentration as his pencil moved slow, careful strokes forming the outline of a tree by the river, its winter branches bare and brittle.
“You read that whole page?” he asked suddenly, not looking up.
Ezekiel startled, then nodded. “Twice.”
William’s pencil paused. “Read it out loud to me.”
The boy cleared his throat and began, voice steady but soft, “The moon governs the tides, though she has no voice. Her pull is not of sound, but of weight and rhythm, etched into the world since the beginning…”
When he finished, the cabin was quiet for a moment, just the pop of sap in the fire and the wind at the corners of the house.
