10-18-06

I want to explain why so many times you see the name of the Cherokee village spelled differently such as: Onaga, Unega, and Onega. They are all three the same as the one Onega. The correct Cherokee spelling of the name is Unega. But many times we have found that during this period of time (1820's into the 1880's), illiteracy was quite common. I wish to make no offense to these people, as my heart cries when I think of how hard the times were for these good people as compared to how comfortable they were trying to make life for the future generations.

During our last Cherokee meeting, I was reminded of the hardships of our ancestors, when a lady attending the meeting for the first time presented her genealogy with her application to the tribe. She made the statement, "my, why don’t we get this information from the history books." I could only remark "the history of our Onega Village is not in the history books." Our visitor’s name was Marie and she is a descendant from the Buchanan Family. Her family settled in the area soon before the Civil War. She has documentation that her grandmother was full blood Cherokee.

According to one of our leaders in the Onega village, Dwayne Carroll, there are more than 900 registered in the Cherokee Nation of Texas currently. Applications are free and each registered member is presented with a beautiful card as they become a member of the village.

Another part of our history that has not been recorded is the distillation of home brew. If you talk to any of our pioneer descendants, the first thing that is mentioned is the manufacture of alcohol, and how the different families tried to out do the other families by making the best home brew.

Bobby Redfearn was telling me that his grandfather, the fourteen-year-old that settled in the area, (Wesley Clark Redfearn), took the blame for making whiskey in order to keep several of his local friends from going to prison. But that seemed to be a common practice during this period. The other whiskey makers would continue to manufacture the whiskey while their friend rested in prison.

Almost every family during this period of time in the Cherokee village was sooner or later effected with the charge of making moonshine. It was not an embarrassment, because almost everyone made the highest quality product.

I remember my grandmother kept her storm cellar full of old crock jugs that were neatly hidden in between her canned fruits and vegetables. She had her ferns and other green flowers arranged neatly so that the crock jugs of whiskey were hidden. Grandma did not allow anyone to move the flower pots and vases of ferns. If she found anyone monkeying around in the cellar, she would order us out and threaten our lives if we went back into the cellar.

Leon Milton remembers the massive production of the home-grown product. He remembers how his folks would bury the bottles and jugs of whiskey in the sandy area near the cellar. He says that in his early years he remembers when friends would gather at his folk’s house and sell a jug of whiskey. The sale provided grocery money and they would then go into town to buy their groceries.

Bobby Redfearn remembers about an old bootlegger that could come into town with a large overcoat. He says that every inside pocket of the overcoat was filled with bottles or jugs of whiskey. He said the customers would gather around and line up in front of the bootlegger to purchase his bottles. Most families were accustomed to this practice regardless of the enforcing officers.

Next week, I will begin by telling about the Running Branch creek which starts up where the new library is located. It travels down to McNatt Lake and then down to Little Elm Creek.

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