Tinkey Cemetery Irvin Pritts, April 2, 1999 As I traveled the last mile to the top of the mountain, the muddy road became steeper and even more difficult to ascend. My attempts to persuade my seventeen year old son to join me on my long-awaited return to Tinkey Cemetery had been easily cast aside. I had appealed to his Eagle Scout wilderness mentality but he would have none of it. Genealogy, the study of "the dead", as Michael put it, seems only to beckon us older folks. My feelings were hurt only a little; nevertheless, from a more pragmatic view, he could have been useful if my all-wheel drive Subaru tangled with the spring mud. Now, in early April, the old moonshiners' stream named Neal's Run was not nearly so turbulent as it had been in late January when I had first discovered the path to aerial Tinkey Cemetery. El Nino or some other atmospheric abnormality had caused a unique lull in the January winter that had made this ski resort area, normally impassable in winter, just barely accessible. I had stumbled onto the cemetery by first locating the spot where Neal's Run crosses state route 1054, just southwest of Seven Springs Borough. From the 1822 obituary of William "Bill" Pritts, the infamous mountaineer and moonshiner, I had known that the cemetery was nearby. However, it proved to be 2.7 miles from the Neal's Run-road intersection instead of the 1 mile given in the old newspaper account. I was reminded of Bill Pritts' 1900 arrest by revenuers for moonshining and surety of the peace. Detective McBeth, who like me, was confused by mileage and distances he had been given asked, "How do you measure your miles up here?" Pritts answered, "Oh we reckon'em up so many fox leaps to the mile and throw the tail in for good measure every jump." I now understood why these city slickers had asked the question. A mile was really much longer (and steeper) here in the old moonshine district! I paused to take another picture of Neal's Run as it tortuously descended from the mountain. I already knew much about my distant "cousin" Bill. I had accumulated a half-dozen newspaper accounts and it had been relatively easy to determine his lineage, including his great-grandfather, through routine genealogical research. Today, I was more interested in other Pritts relatives. The name of Bill's grandmother had eluded me, just as Bill had eluded the revenuers for so many decades. Perhaps his father and older family members were buried here also. Cousin Bill had not been a viscous outlaw. His crimes and fame were largely exaggerated by the city newspapers of the time. He and his wife, Hannah Tinkey, raised a brood of nine children in the mountains, in a story-and-a-half log house located near the point where Neal's Run intersected the public highway. They had been known for their hospitality to strangers. The only serious crime Bill was ever implicated in was the 1892 murder of Jonathan Hochstetler by William Miller and Miller's son. Although Bill was present when the feuding moonshiners fought in Crab Run, Miller exonerated Bill after the trial had ended. Bill's 1900 account: "I was with Will Miller that day old 'Yoney' was killed, but I had nothing to do with it, and Miller will say so. It was done in a fight. Miller and Hochstetler had had trouble and it was awful the way it ended." In Bill's 1922 obituary it was written, "Mr. Pritts was a physical giant, portly and powerfully formed.....he was harmless to all the world except in defence of his rights, as he conceived them, or in reprisal for great injury done to him. He was gentle, he was kind-hearted, but never effusive nor demonstrative in manifesting either." There was a tingle of anticipation as I topped the mountain, exited the woods, and entered the surprisingly spacious fields that encompass the well-maintained, fenced cemetery. In this field, rye must have been grown to supply the illegal stills in the late 1800s and then in the early 1900s, the legal distillery initiated by Peter A. Johns, a former Fayette County register and recorder. 'Old' Bill Pritts, by then in his late sixties, was selected to operate the distillery. Moonshining waned in the district until the implementation of the Volstead Act and prohibition in 1919, when the illegal industry was revitalized. I parked the Subaru, which had performed admirably, took some more photos, and quickly surveyed my task. A turkey gobbled somewhere far away, down the long-abandoned rye field. I documented all the Pritts' who rested on the wild, beautiful mountain top. If older Pritts' had once trod this moonshine district, I was going to discover little from the inscriptions. Many of the markers were natural stones from the surrounding woods and had no inscriptions. They were not just worn from the harsh winters; they had never been inscribed. Perhaps wooden markers had once identified the now nameless. Were Bill's father and grandfather, Samuel Prits II and I, buried here? Not likely. They both had been Salt Lick township farmers; they probably tilled lower altitude soil. After all, not everyone yearned to grow rye for Bill's illegal, 'Pure Mountain Dew'. As I turned the car around to leave, I spied late season skiers racing down a snow covered slope just a few hundred yards from the cemetery. One solitary page of names and dates was all the information that I garnered from my much anticipated return to this wonderful, wilderness cemetery. The fun was getting there and enjoying the majestic, untamed mountain. Michael will never know what he missed. Bibliography Distillation gone a-rye, Robert B. Van Atta, Sunday Greensburg Tribune Review, Focus Magazine, April 30, 1989. Bedford & Somerset Counties, Pennsylvania, Edited by William H. Koontz, The Lewis Publishing Co., New York & Chicago, 1906. Bill Pritts Captured, Connellsville Courier, June 1900. Bill Pritts, Desperado, Connellsville Courier, June 1900. Legal Mountain Dew, Connellsville Courier, June 1902. Bill Pritts, Pennsylvania's Famous Mountaineer Dies Monday Morning, Somerset Democrat, January, 1922. The Legalization of Bill Pritts Moonshine, Penn Lines, Larry W. Shober, February 1999. Tinkey Cemetery, near Seven Springs Borough, Fayette County, PA April 2, 1999 Pritts Birth Death Notations William Mar. 10, 1836 Jan. 16, 1922 Hannah June 7, 1838 Mar. 1922 Wife of William James Jan. 11, 1870 Dec. 5, 1922 Lizzie 1880 1944 Wife of James Clark 1912 1966 James Edward July 4, 1913 Aug. 2, 1987 Joan E. Nov. 19, 1912 Jun. 8, 1985 Wife of James Edw. Samuel 1868 1929 Barbara E. 1875 1963 Wife of Samuel Henry T. 1876 1937 Sarah J. 1879 1916 Wife of Henry T. Park 1910 1912 Beside Sam.&Barb. Homer Dec. 14, 1899 Mar. 12, 1967 WWII veteran Warren J. Mar. 6, 1927 Mar. 4, 1968 WWII veteran Burton, H. Sept. 11, 1934 Jan. 25, 1992 Bessie E. Jan. 2, 1938 ----------------- Wife of Burton Russell B., Sr. 1942 1966 Clara A. 1942 ----------------- Wife of Russell B. Frank B. 1899 1986 Sarah E. 1903 1991 Wife of Frank B. Samuel T. 1927 1927 Son of Frank & Sarah Klink, Ada (Pritts) 1898 1963 Klink, Foster G. 1884 1963 Husband of Ada Kalp, Rebecca K. Jun. 24, 1929 ----------------- Daughter of Ada Kalp, Morrison D. Feb. 7, 1927 Oct. 27, 1989 Husband of Rebecca