Southwest Examiner, Abingdon, VA

June 5, 1886

RAINWATER RAMSEY. This is a name familiar to every one who has attended U. S. Court at this place for the past 15 or 20 years. For hardly has a session passed but what the shrill voice of a marshal could be heard calling Rainwater Ramsey to appear before the Judge, to answer to some of the charges which were pending against him. Noted as a counterfeiter, and feared as one of the most lawless and dangerous moonshiners that infest our mountain country, the minions of the law can congratulate themselves that for twelve months at least he will be beyond their jurisdiction, for Rainwater is at this instant deploring his evil deeds behind the prison walls of the Buffalo penitentiary.

At a previous term of the court he was convicted of counterfeiting, but by proving a better character than he had formerly borne, and promising reformation, sentence was suspended - time allowed his friends to petition for a pardon, but on a recent raid two stills were found and destroyed upon his farm, a marshal was shot and Rainwater it was thought did it; this with other evidence of a damaging character was thought by his Honor, Judge Paul, sufficient to cause a forfeit of the sympathy which had been allowed him - consequently he was arraigned and in accordance with a former verdict sentenced to the Buffalo penitentiary for one year, and deputy L. D. Davis and Mr. W. A. French last week conveyed him to his new quarters.