{"id":3493,"date":"2025-04-04T19:00:32","date_gmt":"2025-04-04T23:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3493"},"modified":"2025-04-04T19:08:29","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T23:08:29","slug":"moonshine-murder-and-false-redemption-the-outlaw-clifton-branham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3493","title":{"rendered":"Moonshine, Murder, and False Redemption: The Outlaw Clifton Branham"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In this episode from our YouTube channel, Steve and Rod tell the story of Clifton Branham, an outlaw who lived along the border between Virginia and Kentucky around the turn of the 20th century, who became the last man hanged in Wise County, Virginia.  <\/p>\n<p>Born into a world of war and hardship in 1861, Clifton&#8217;s story is one marked by violence, crime, and, some say, a quest for redemption. From his early days in Kentucky, through his troubled marriage and death of his young daughter, to his descent into moonshining and murder, Clifton\u2019s life paints a vivid portrait of the lawless spirit of that part of Appalachia after the Civil War.<\/p>\n<p>And our telling of this story is unique, as Rod shares a personal, family connection to this Appalachian outlaw.  <\/p>\n<p>Be sure to click that \u201cSubscribe\u201d button and ding the bell so you don\u2019t miss any of our stories.  Give us a thumbs-up, too, if you don\u2019t mind, and feel free to leave us a comment; we love to hear from you!<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for watching.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/k494UqR2ncE?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this episode from our YouTube channel, Steve and Rod tell the story of Clifton Branham, an outlaw who lived along the border between Virginia and Kentucky around the turn of the 20th century, who became the last man hanged in Wise County, Virginia. Born into a world of war and hardship in 1861, Clifton&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11,53,38,17,34,22],"tags":[974,981,104,968,523,980,969,978,840,798,975,938,976,971,982,562,977,973,979,972,970],"class_list":["post-3493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-feudin","category-outlaws","category-the-1880s","category-the-1890s","category-the-oughts","tag-20th-century-appalachia","tag-appalachian-characters","tag-appalachian-history","tag-appalachian-outlaw","tag-appalachian-storytelling","tag-civil-war-impact","tag-clifton-branham","tag-community-ties","tag-cultural-heritage","tag-family-feuds","tag-family-ties","tag-folklore","tag-historical-narrative","tag-last-hanging","tag-lawlessness-in-appalachia","tag-moonshining","tag-murder-trial","tag-redemption-story","tag-tragic-love-story","tag-violence-religion","tag-wise-county-virginia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6TX4A-Ul","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3493"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3494,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3493\/revisions\/3494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}