“Boomer” Winfrey

Varmint County Correspondent

IF there is one thing in which Varmint County excels, it’s putting on a celebration. From Civil War re-enactments to Halloween haunted high schools to the annual Fourth of July Haig-Hockmeyer free-for-all, Varmint County folk are not ones to waste an excuse for a party.

This year promises to be the biggest party of all, the 200th anniversary of the official creation of Varmint County by the families of pioneer settler Louis Lowe.

To celebrate the occasion properly, the Lower Primroy Historical & Genealogical Society initiated a search for old Louis’ nearest living descendant, to be named grand marshal and honorary chairman of the bicentennial celebration.

This proved no easy task. Nearly everybody can trace his or her lineage to Louis Lowe, but nobody actually named Lowe still resides in Varmint County.

“Old Louis had, as you know, two families,” Society chairwoman Fluvia Pinetar explained at a planning meeting. “They lived on opposite sides of the mountain and one pronounced the name Lowe as in ‘go’ while the other wife was Mrs. Louis Lowe as in ‘cow.’

“They didn’t find out about one another until the old bird was laid to rest and for awhile the Go Lowes and Cow Lowes just ignored each other, until the state created a new county that included the territory of both clans and they all had to agree on a name,” Fluvia continued. “Since they couldn’t agree on how to pronounce Lowe County, they compromised on Varmint County. 

“The reason nobody named Lowe still lives in Varmint County is simple. The Lowe womenfolk tended to give birth to an unusually high number of females, while the few Lowe men exhibited a strong tendency for getting themselves kilt, usually in gunfights or knife fights,” Fluvia pointed out.

After a few generations of intermarriage with other clans, nearly everyone in the county was descended from one of the two branches of Lowes, but the last actual surviving Lowe, Cleotis Lowe as in “cow,” was shot by bushwhackers during the “War of Northern Aggression,” as it is locally termed.

Fluvia and her fellow genealogical enthusiasts took on the challenge, however, and after extensive research declared that they had identified old Louis Lowe’s nearest descendant, none other than Archie Aslinger, pappy of the current county mayor.

“Archie’s daddy was descended from Henrietta Potts, who was the great-great granddaughter of Granny Alpharetta ‘Go’ Lowe, the first Mrs. Louis Lowe. His mother was Isabelle Jass, cousin of Colonel Hugh Ray Jass and the granddaughter of Penelope Switchwood, who was the daughter of old Cleotis ‘Cow’ Lowe,” Fluvia proudly announced. “This means Archie is directly descended from both the Cow Lowes and Go Lowes on both sides of his family!”

Proclaiming Archie Aslinger – former town drunk, notorious practical joker and master poker player and pool shark – as the Grand Marshal of the Varmint County Bicentennial, does not promise to end well, but we will see as the year’s festivities play out.

An entire year of activities has been mapped out, including a kick-off this month to celebrate Varmint County’s contribution to the War of 1812, which was mostly fought during 1813 with its most famous battle not fought until 1814.

That battle is Varmint County’s link to that long-ago spat, when mountain men from Tennessee and Kentucky “packed a little bacon and packed a little beans and followed Andy Jackson way down south to New Orleans” as the song goes, more or less.

A good bit of that bacon was carried in the packs of the sons and grandsons of old Louis Lowe, always scrapping for a good fight. So many “Cow” Lowes and “Go” Lowes volunteered, in fact, that it caused mass confusion in the ranks when officers called morning roll.

“Jeremiah Lowe?”

Silence.

“Private Lowe, you’re here. I see you standing right in front of me!”

“Oh, that’s Lowe, sir, pronounced like ‘go.’”

“Well, answer present, private, no matter how I pronounce it.”

“Abraham Lowe?”

“Here sir, but my name is Lowe as in ‘cow.’” 

In the end, exasperated officers reorganized two companies of volunteers, separating the Go Lowes and Cow Lowes into different units.

When the army finally arrived in Louisiana, a bond was forged that would forever impact the future of Varmint County. Jackson’s ragtag army lined up to face the British army one foggy gray morning, outnumbered, out-gunned and short on ammunition, when out of the mist came pirate Jean Lafitte and his band of Creole and Cajun buccaneers.

The buccaneers were eager to fight the British, who showed less leniency toward piracy than the American authorities in New Orleans, where Lafitte was a pillar of society.  

One of Lafitte’s captains was François Haig, who brought along a dozen members of his clan from deep in the swamps of the Atchafalaya River delta. The Haigs were assigned to a place in the line, manning a pair of smoothbore cannons with Go Lowe riflemen on one side of them and Cow Lowe riflemen on the other.

The rest, as they say, is history. Jackson’s hillbilly sharpshooters and Lafitte’s Cajun cannoneers slaughtered the attacking British army and New Orleans was saved, even if the whole battle was fought after Britain and the United States had already signed a peace treaty to end the war.

The young Haigs and Lowes of both varieties established a bond of mutual respect for their courage on the battlefield, and grew friendlier during the victory celebrations that followed.

“I’ve never seen men who could handle our Cajun rum like your boys do,” Captain François Haig told Sergeant Gabriel Lowe.

“We’re accustomed to it, Captain. Back home these boys are raised on homemade corn whiskey made from the finest mountain spring water you ever tasted, not like the sulfur smellin’ swamp water around here.”

And so an idea was planted, a dream of Haigs brewing their spirits with fresh mountain water.

“Got some pretty ladies here in New Orleans,” Abraham Lowe told his drinking companion, Honoré Haig.

“Oui, but not enough of zem. Wiz all zee ships dat dock in zis port, dere are four men for every woman here in New Orleans.”

“Shucks, you’uns need to come up our way. We got so many unattached Lowe females running around, it gets down-right tiresome.”

And so another dream was planted in the minds of the Haigs: a land of, if not milk and honey, certainly plentiful womenfolk and fresh mountain water for distilling spirits.

In the years that followed, the Haig clan and the Lowes established a trading partnership. Haigs would travel overland on the Natchez Trace, bearing bolts of calico cloth from New Orleans and homemade rum from their stills to trade for beaver pelts and homemade corn liquor, which they would haul south on flatboats down the Cumberland, Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

On each trip, a few young Haigs would also take back an occasional bride, courted from the plentiful supply of young Lowe ladies.

After the Civil War, many of the Haigs, refusing to surrender to the end, were declared outlaws in Louisiana and decided to migrate to the ancestral home of their mothers and grandmothers in the mountains of Varmint County. They established themselves in Haig Hollow where they have thrived for the past century and a half.

For the current celebration of that long-ago war, the Haigs of Varmint County invited the Haigs of Louisiana up for a sumptuous feast and whiskey-tasting celebration on the grounds in Haig Hollow, inviting the rest of Varmint County to join them.

But the real observance of the role the War of 1812 had on Varmint County’s history is a bit more ambitious. Following the Haig Hollow celebration, three dozen Varmint County men and women, including fire chief Stanley the Torch Aslinger, basketball coach Penny Haig and marina operator Ike Pinetar, to name a few, are embarking on three flatboats on a river voyage to New Orleans.

Building replicas of those once used by the Haigs to haul Varmint County corn liquor to Louisiana, our intrepid explorers will pole, row and sail their craft from the base of Mud Lake Dam down to the Cumberland River, then to the Ohio and finally down the Mississippi for a riotous reunion with the Louisiana Haigs and a re-enactment of the Battle of New Orleans. 

What can possibly go wrong with such an ambitious undertaking? Stay tuned next month to learn the fate of the Varmint County Bicentennial Flotilla.