Sampson Oxford lived on the East side of Holladay Rd., the first house South of Hydro School in the early part of the 1900s. Like most rural dwellers, his family kept a barrel that was used to catch rainwater; mostly to be used for the weekly clothes washday (automatic washers had not quite caught on then). In fact they were called rain barrels.

 This barrel was a nice one, stainless steel, heavy gauge, about 50-gallon capacity, and sure to catch the eye of moonshiners. One morning, probably about 1920, he noticed the barrel was missing. Checking further he found it had been rolled down a road behind the house and followed the trail to a point about a half mile away where it was hidden in a creekbank thicket.

Guessing the thief would return that night to retrieve the barrel, Mr. Oxford set up a welcoming committee. He was a justice of the peace and probably had arresting and deputizing powers. The committee was armed for the most part with single barrel shotguns loaded with #6 shot and single shot .22 caliber rifles loaded with short cartridges.

 The wait was not long and a gun battle ensued that would have made the OK Corral gunfight seem like a Sunday School picnic; when it ended, all was well, the thieves left the barrel and fled and no blood was shed. In fact the only discernable damage was to the top of the trees where most of the shots were aimed.

The lone exception that could be found was a beech tree (beech tree bark is light in color and as such would have stood out at night) with a large hole about the height of a grown man’s head. This scar was probably made by a pistol and was still evident 30 years later. The beech tree was where the welcoming committee was hidden and the shot was almost certainly fired by the one of thieves with harm intended.

 The barrel was later handed down to my father and Sampson’s son, Arland Oxford and remained in the family until the family left the farm and moved to Nashville, TN.

Submitted by Wm. S. Oxford, grandson of Sampson Oxford