Even without much education Eben Cagle was a very smart man. He made the best of the hand life had dealt him. Besides being good with a gun and making good moonshine, he could also fix about anything. He would use his pocket knife, drawing knife or hand saw to make most things around their small farm.
Both Eben and his younger brother Pearl took pride in the fact that they had never been caught making or selling their homemade brew. But soon bad luck come a calling. Won’t from making shine, no-sir-ree. Eben served a year in the federal pen in Atlanta, Georgia for passing counterfeit money. He claimed in court that he was given the bad money from a stranger who was paying a debt to him (probably buying whiskey). Didn’t make no matter to the judge for he ordered Eben to one year unless he could name the man who gave it to him. Well Eben won’t gonna squeal on a good customer and he took the wrap.
While serving his time in Atlanta, Eben learned how to make fiddles and other musical instruments and he would carry this skill till he died. In fact to this day some of his kinfolk still have one of his homemade fiddles.
After Eben served his time he went right back to Cagle Mountain to help Pearl with the Moonshining business. While business boomed for a while, Pearl encountered a tragedy of his own.
The story goes that both Eben and Pearl were across the river from their home place scouting some Anson County land or maybe doing a little hunting. Both brothers had separated and Pearl just happened to be wearing one of Eben’s black hats. He was walking down along the river bank when out of the bushes came a blast of a shotgun. Eben heard the shot and began looking for his brother only to find him shot in the head. Pearl was not dead so Eben loaded him in a boat and took him across the river to their home. Pearl would somewhat recover but would suffer with epileptic seizures for the rest of his life.
A man by the name of Sellers was the one doing the shooting. Later he claimed he was shooting at a turkey but the Cagles knew better. This shot was meant for Eben. Word spread through Anson County that the Cagles were gunning for him and Sellers up and sold his property and vanished.
Time went on and the Cagles liquor business was bringing in the bucks although they claimed their cotton crops were bringing top dollar. With his profits, Eben became investing in large tracts of river hills land and even bought a couple of lots in Ellerbe. Eben never married but Pearl married a neighbor’s daughter and had three children before divorcing in 1928.
Both Eben and Pearl had a little artistic side also, for both like to play at local square dances. Eben would play one of his fiddles while Pearl played his banjo. One of their favorite places to play was at Ellerbe Springs for the fourth of July.
As the years went slowly by, the Cagle boys found a way to decrease the time to run off a batch of whiskey and sales were brisk. But as with other types of business of this nature, people start to consume too much of their own product. Eben began drinking more of his brew everyday but Pearl, because of his health problem, drank very little.
On Jan. 30, 1921, as Eben tended his still, a cold wind blew in off the river. Eben wasn’t feeling well and was drinking pretty heavy just to stay warm. ’Bout that time, Eben felt a hard pain in his chest. He had apparently suffered a heart attack, and he died that very evening.
News traveled quickly that Eben had died. Even Sellers, the man that shot Pearl, heard about it and returned to Anson County. Won’t a year passed though and Seller’s body was found in a river bottom riddled with bullet holes. Pearl was questioned but no charges were ever filed. Folks said Pearl was never the same after being shot in the head. He died a year before his mother, Mary, in the spring of 1939.
Today if’en you ride up the winding dusty road to what was the Cagle home place, ‘bout all you will see is maybe be a couple of rattlesnakes and the Cagles’ cemetery. You won’t even see a picture of Eben which was inlaid on his tombstone. I reckon some folks like Eben in years past needed a little target practice and shot it right off. What you can still see from the top of Cagle Mountain is the beautiful river hills and the winding river below but time and nature have run their course on what was once known as Cagle Country.
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