Back in the early 70’s Dad decided to move from the farm out on Nokay Lake to the Deerwood shortcut. This was a bit closer to town. 

He bought a small piece of land from a relative of his mom’s family and started to build a new home. He built a garage first and used lumber he had sawed down the road, a short distance, near the end of the Deerwood shortcut. When it came time to start on the house frame, he needed a lot more lumber now and he contacted a fellow that had a sawmill south of highway 18. 

I had just got married and moved to Deerwood, but helped a little on the new house construction. At this time, I had an older Plymouth station wagon and Dad had a farm wagon frame with stakes on it to haul wood or lumber. I would make trips for him to this sawmill south of 18 and get a load of whatever lumber he needed as the house building progressed. 

My wife and I had made a few trips by ourselves and then Dad had Grandpa over one day as he had been in the hospital for a bit due to heart trouble! Well, he was doing better and Dad asked him if he would like to go for a ride to the sawmill, and he liked that idea. Dad was going to be needing a lot of flooring and other things, so off we went. 

We made it to the sawmill and Dad was letting this fellow know his upcoming needs and I remember this guy was about Grandpa’s age! This fellow was talking to Grandpa a bit, and he asked Grandpa where he had lived when he was a kid growing up.

Grandpa told him his family lived just north and east of the Oak Lawn cemetery! He mentioned to the sawmill fellow that his dad and his brother used to duck hunt on the Nokasippi River not far from this sawmill.

Grandpa then told a story of back when prohibition started in the early 1920’s of a couple of duck hunters who were walking along this river in the fall. They came to a bend in the river where they could hear crows making a heck of a racket. When they came to the crows, they were squawking and falling out of the trees? Then as they were standing there watching them, they caught the faint odor of alcohol on the wind! They looked around and saw some corn mash that had been freshly dumped under a tree!

The duck hunters then started to look around for a still, and after a search of the area they found one! Well, they didn’t notice a trail leading out of this area so they suspected maybe whoever had this setup may have gotten here using the river?

Well, the two looked around the area a bit more and lo and behold they spotted a patch of ground freshly turned over with leaves and brush covering it up? The pair dug a little with branches used as shovels and what do you know? They happened to find six 6-gallon jugs buried, so the two decided that one of those jugs wouldn’t probably be missed too much. They found a branch that fit in the handle of the jug and they carried this out to where they had started hunting from!

Grandpa finished telling that story and like I said this is now in the early 1970’s.

The sawmill owner said, “That was my dad’s still! All those years we tried to figure out who took that jug! Then they both stood there with big grins on their faces!”

And then the sawmill guy asked, “Well how was it?” 

Grandpa smiled and said, “Well as I remember those fellows that found that jug, I remember there was a lot of singing and happy people sitting around a few days later!!!”

That sawmill fellow said he was glad we had brought Grandpa with us that day. The story had come full circle of the missing moonshine jug. They shook hands and we all parted smiling.