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| Old Family Stories |
These accounts contain some material that may be offensive.
No harm is intended as it is just meant to provide some insight
as to what my family’s lifestyle was like at the time.
These family stories are written as told to me by
Kenneth McMillion, Garnet McMillion, and James Haywood.
Big Chew and the Roadblock
Source: Garnet McMillion
Henry F. McMillion (father of Garnet) and the author’s great-grandfather was a coal
miner, who like many others at the time made extra money to feed and clothe his family
by making whiskey, or moonshine as it had come to be called. Henry’s involvement in the
whiskey trade also may have been a matter of following in his father Richard Henry’s
footsteps, as old Richard was a bootlegger of some reputation it is said.
Henry (nicknamed Big Chew because he always had a large chew of tobacco in his
mouth) along with his Manley brother-in-laws, must have been good at the business as
Henry eventually became a wanted man by he Internal Revenue Agents or “revenuers”
My Aunt Garnet was in the car with her father on one occasion during this time and
relates the following account:
“Daddy knew the revenuers was looking for him and we was going down the road and
the police had a roadblock set up and had a big line of cars stopped. The word came
down the line that they was looking for a man by the name of McMillion that had a large
growth on his jaw. When Daddy heard that he spit out his chew. When we got up to
where the police was stopping you they looked at Daddy and said “You can go on, the
man we are looking for has a growth on the side of his head” Daddy was real happy to
get away."
The Honesty of a Child
Source: Kenneth McMillion
Henry, one day with sons Elmer and Kenneth in tow, went to visit the Manley cousins.
There was a gate at the entrance of the property that was used to keep the cattle where
they belonged and this is where the boys were playing on this day. Soon a large
automobile pulled up full of men who were dressed in suits. The spokesmen for the group
told my grandfather Kenneth that if he would open the gate for them he would get a
nickel when they came back out. Now mind you a nickel during the Depression was a lot
of money for a little boy. My grandfather looked at the man and said "I want the nickel
now, because if you go up there you ain't gonna come back out."
The Shooting of Mr. Elswick
Source: Garnet McMillion
Henry McMillion’s luck was soon to run out. Henry and his partners, including Harry
Bolan, (a cousin of Henry’s wife Rebecca) had their barrels of whiskey stored inside of an
abandoned mine. Unbeknown to Henry the location had been discovered by a man who
was a prohibition agent by the name of Mose Elswick. One day Mr. Elswick and his
brother Harvey (also an agent) decided he would arrest Henry and company for
bootlegging. During the attempted arrest someone started shooting and Mr. Elswick was
shot by Harry Bolan. Henry was soon afterwards caught and charged with the shooting,
though he was later shown to be innocent. He did though spend some time in jail on the
whiskey charge. Harry Bolan went North, (I believe Wisconsin as a census record I found
lists his fathers birthplace as such) and never returned to Fayette County until after
Henry died.
My Grandfather Kenneth F. McMillion thought Mr. Elswick’s first name was Harvey
though he was not certain.
Update: I have since been given these newspaper articles by Lorna Marks of the
Kanawha County GenWeb group, Thanks!
"Charleston Daily Mail" 1923-03-12 page 1
M'MILLAN HELD ON SHOOTING CHARGE
Death of Mose Elswick Placed Against Alleged Moonshiners During Raid Friday --
Henry McMillan, of Cedar Grove, will be arraigned before Magistrate Jarrett tomorrow
afternoon on a charge of killing Mose Elswick near Cedar Grove Friday night.
Elswick and his brother, Harvey Elswick, who are prohibition officers, were conducting a
raid through the hills near Cedar Grove when, it is alleged, they encountered some
moonshiners, who gave fight.
In the battle that followed Mose Edswick was shot through the head, dying instantly.
The brother routed the moonshiners and carried the body to the nearest house.
McMillan is alleged to have been one of the party which shot Elswick. He was arrested
Saturday, and is being held in the county jail here without bond.
"Charleston Daily Mail" 1923-06-24 page 19
THREE FACE MURDER TRIAL IN COURT HERE TOMORROW
Trial of Henry McMillan, Cecil Kirk and Walter Bowling
on charges of murder is scheduled to begin in intermediate court tomorrow. The men
are alleged to have killed Mose Elswick, a prohibition officer, near Crown Hill three
months ago.
Elswick was searching for stills in an abandoned mine when he was shot.
Grover Cleveland McMillion Fights the Klan
Source: Garnet McMillion
Uncle Grover Cleveland in the early 1930’s was a constable in Winona, Fayette
County as well as the owner of a general store there. On one occasion his duties called
for the arrest of a black man accused of assaulting a white woman. The local Ku Klux
Klan members learned that Uncle Cleveland had the suspect in jail and let it be known
that they intended to lynch the man before he went to trial.
Uncle Cleveland knew that he had to move the suspect to a safer location.
Accompanied by his son Richard, he loaded his prisoner in his police car and was
preparing to leave when the Klansmen arrived! The leader told Grover to hand over the
prisoner or they would burn his store. A gun battle then erupted as Grover Cleveland
was attempting to drive away. One Klansmen jumped on the running board of the car and
was shot. During the fight the prisoner escaped into the woods, Grover and Richard also
made their getaway and headed for home to protect the family and his store.
Upon arriving home (which was the second floor of the store) Grover Cleveland issued
a gun to every member of his family. Each child and even his wife Bertha was armed and
ready to defend their home. When the Klansmen arrived they were met by a hail of
gunfire, it is unknown if the Klansmen suffered any casualties, but they did succeed in
later burning the store. Luckily for the family it happened a couple of days later and no
one was home at the time.
This incident proved to be the end of Grover Cleveland’s career in law enforcement as
he was brought up on charges for shooting the Klansmen. To save his father from going
to jail Richard admitted to shooting the man and ended up being sentenced to jail.
Thomas J. McMillion and the Drifter
Source: Kenneth F. McMillion
My grandfather told of going one day to see his Aunt Mary (Mary McMillion Harless)
and Cousin Jeff (Thomas J. McMillion). He said Cousin Jeff seemed troubled, so on the
way home he asked his dad (Henry F. McMillion) why. I hope that what I am about to tell
will not be offensive to any of my readers but this is the story.
According to what I was told by my grandfather, Cousin Jeff started out on the Virginia
Railroad as a water boy, sometime in the early 1900's. One day the crew was laying track
in Fayette County and a black laborer from Alabama or somewhere from the deep South,
yelled at him "hey you SOB bring me some of that water!" This would have been a
disgrace during this period in the South to be spoken to in such manner by a black man!
Cousin Jeff then took the water to the man, and as the man was getting some water, Jeff
hit him in the head with a shovel killing the laborer. The other men on the crew helped
Cousin Jeff bury the man on the work site. I was told the man was just a drifter so no one
ever noticed him missing. Thomas J. McMillion retired from the railroad a section foreman
and was living at Deepwater, Fayette County at the time of his death in 1951, he was 67
years old.
More Stories to Come
No harm is intended as it is just meant to provide some insight
as to what my family’s lifestyle was like at the time.
These family stories are written as told to me by
Kenneth McMillion, Garnet McMillion, and James Haywood.
Big Chew and the Roadblock
Source: Garnet McMillion
Henry F. McMillion (father of Garnet) and the author’s great-grandfather was a coal
miner, who like many others at the time made extra money to feed and clothe his family
by making whiskey, or moonshine as it had come to be called. Henry’s involvement in the
whiskey trade also may have been a matter of following in his father Richard Henry’s
footsteps, as old Richard was a bootlegger of some reputation it is said.
Henry (nicknamed Big Chew because he always had a large chew of tobacco in his
mouth) along with his Manley brother-in-laws, must have been good at the business as
Henry eventually became a wanted man by he Internal Revenue Agents or “revenuers”
My Aunt Garnet was in the car with her father on one occasion during this time and
relates the following account:
“Daddy knew the revenuers was looking for him and we was going down the road and
the police had a roadblock set up and had a big line of cars stopped. The word came
down the line that they was looking for a man by the name of McMillion that had a large
growth on his jaw. When Daddy heard that he spit out his chew. When we got up to
where the police was stopping you they looked at Daddy and said “You can go on, the
man we are looking for has a growth on the side of his head” Daddy was real happy to
get away."
The Honesty of a Child
Source: Kenneth McMillion
Henry, one day with sons Elmer and Kenneth in tow, went to visit the Manley cousins.
There was a gate at the entrance of the property that was used to keep the cattle where
they belonged and this is where the boys were playing on this day. Soon a large
automobile pulled up full of men who were dressed in suits. The spokesmen for the group
told my grandfather Kenneth that if he would open the gate for them he would get a
nickel when they came back out. Now mind you a nickel during the Depression was a lot
of money for a little boy. My grandfather looked at the man and said "I want the nickel
now, because if you go up there you ain't gonna come back out."
The Shooting of Mr. Elswick
Source: Garnet McMillion
Henry McMillion’s luck was soon to run out. Henry and his partners, including Harry
Bolan, (a cousin of Henry’s wife Rebecca) had their barrels of whiskey stored inside of an
abandoned mine. Unbeknown to Henry the location had been discovered by a man who
was a prohibition agent by the name of Mose Elswick. One day Mr. Elswick and his
brother Harvey (also an agent) decided he would arrest Henry and company for
bootlegging. During the attempted arrest someone started shooting and Mr. Elswick was
shot by Harry Bolan. Henry was soon afterwards caught and charged with the shooting,
though he was later shown to be innocent. He did though spend some time in jail on the
whiskey charge. Harry Bolan went North, (I believe Wisconsin as a census record I found
lists his fathers birthplace as such) and never returned to Fayette County until after
Henry died.
My Grandfather Kenneth F. McMillion thought Mr. Elswick’s first name was Harvey
though he was not certain.
Update: I have since been given these newspaper articles by Lorna Marks of the
Kanawha County GenWeb group, Thanks!
"Charleston Daily Mail" 1923-03-12 page 1
M'MILLAN HELD ON SHOOTING CHARGE
Death of Mose Elswick Placed Against Alleged Moonshiners During Raid Friday --
Henry McMillan, of Cedar Grove, will be arraigned before Magistrate Jarrett tomorrow
afternoon on a charge of killing Mose Elswick near Cedar Grove Friday night.
Elswick and his brother, Harvey Elswick, who are prohibition officers, were conducting a
raid through the hills near Cedar Grove when, it is alleged, they encountered some
moonshiners, who gave fight.
In the battle that followed Mose Edswick was shot through the head, dying instantly.
The brother routed the moonshiners and carried the body to the nearest house.
McMillan is alleged to have been one of the party which shot Elswick. He was arrested
Saturday, and is being held in the county jail here without bond.
"Charleston Daily Mail" 1923-06-24 page 19
THREE FACE MURDER TRIAL IN COURT HERE TOMORROW
Trial of Henry McMillan, Cecil Kirk and Walter Bowling
on charges of murder is scheduled to begin in intermediate court tomorrow. The men
are alleged to have killed Mose Elswick, a prohibition officer, near Crown Hill three
months ago.
Elswick was searching for stills in an abandoned mine when he was shot.
Grover Cleveland McMillion Fights the Klan
Source: Garnet McMillion
Uncle Grover Cleveland in the early 1930’s was a constable in Winona, Fayette
County as well as the owner of a general store there. On one occasion his duties called
for the arrest of a black man accused of assaulting a white woman. The local Ku Klux
Klan members learned that Uncle Cleveland had the suspect in jail and let it be known
that they intended to lynch the man before he went to trial.
Uncle Cleveland knew that he had to move the suspect to a safer location.
Accompanied by his son Richard, he loaded his prisoner in his police car and was
preparing to leave when the Klansmen arrived! The leader told Grover to hand over the
prisoner or they would burn his store. A gun battle then erupted as Grover Cleveland
was attempting to drive away. One Klansmen jumped on the running board of the car and
was shot. During the fight the prisoner escaped into the woods, Grover and Richard also
made their getaway and headed for home to protect the family and his store.
Upon arriving home (which was the second floor of the store) Grover Cleveland issued
a gun to every member of his family. Each child and even his wife Bertha was armed and
ready to defend their home. When the Klansmen arrived they were met by a hail of
gunfire, it is unknown if the Klansmen suffered any casualties, but they did succeed in
later burning the store. Luckily for the family it happened a couple of days later and no
one was home at the time.
This incident proved to be the end of Grover Cleveland’s career in law enforcement as
he was brought up on charges for shooting the Klansmen. To save his father from going
to jail Richard admitted to shooting the man and ended up being sentenced to jail.
Thomas J. McMillion and the Drifter
Source: Kenneth F. McMillion
My grandfather told of going one day to see his Aunt Mary (Mary McMillion Harless)
and Cousin Jeff (Thomas J. McMillion). He said Cousin Jeff seemed troubled, so on the
way home he asked his dad (Henry F. McMillion) why. I hope that what I am about to tell
will not be offensive to any of my readers but this is the story.
According to what I was told by my grandfather, Cousin Jeff started out on the Virginia
Railroad as a water boy, sometime in the early 1900's. One day the crew was laying track
in Fayette County and a black laborer from Alabama or somewhere from the deep South,
yelled at him "hey you SOB bring me some of that water!" This would have been a
disgrace during this period in the South to be spoken to in such manner by a black man!
Cousin Jeff then took the water to the man, and as the man was getting some water, Jeff
hit him in the head with a shovel killing the laborer. The other men on the crew helped
Cousin Jeff bury the man on the work site. I was told the man was just a drifter so no one
ever noticed him missing. Thomas J. McMillion retired from the railroad a section foreman
and was living at Deepwater, Fayette County at the time of his death in 1951, he was 67
years old.
More Stories to Come
| Grover C. McMillion |
| McMillionfamily.com |
