My paternal roots also come out of the same general area. Jacob Lumpkin (the first documented "Lumpy" in the New world), born 1640, in King and Queen, (southern Tidewater) Virginia, died 1708, same place, was a Captain in Bacon's Militia, and sold his planting lands,
"Newington", to the father of Carter Braxton, the latter of whom signed the Declaration of Independence. They are buried in close proximity at Mattaponi Baptist Church.

I doubt these folks made any shine, but doubtless their successors did. They went to south-central Virginia, the Carolinas, Jawjuh, Alabam, Missisip, and the Ohio Valley.

Somebody "back home" (to me) in East Texas supplied Dad with a bit of joy juice when we went out there in the early 60s, and I remember Dad being VERY hush-hush about it. He had a friend visit and very conspiratorily hauled out a pint Mason jar with the bottom stained black from a burnt crate. Looked like water to me, but Dad gave me a taste. Whoooey! Smooth, but pa'rful stuff.

Didn't see any again until about five years ago when a Bro returned from North Carolina with some, "factory" sealed in a Bacardi bottle. Good to the last drop.

Shoo- where'bouts in the Shenandoahs?

Funny to be in the DC area after all the travels
my wife and I made together, and before we met..
both Army brats, we've been just about all over, and settling down here in 1985, find in the 1990s we're within a hundred miles of my Dad's roots, and her Dad's, Tom's Brook/Woodstock, on the North Fork. Small world.

Really lookin' forward to my next little nip of white lightnin'...

Smiley