On March 1, 1876, moonshiner Lewis Redmond murdered U.S. Deputy Marshall Alfred Duckworth near East Fork in Transylvania County.
Born in 1854, Redmond grew up during a time when the production of distilled alcohol was an additional source of income for many Southern farmers. In the post-Civil War South, many illegal distillers, or moonshiners, attempted to circumvent the payment of taxes on their products, leading to conflict with the Federal Bureau of Revenue.