{"id":3903,"date":"2026-06-12T20:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T00:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3903"},"modified":"2026-06-09T10:12:58","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T14:12:58","slug":"a-state-of-natural-liberty-the-incredible-life-of-quill-rose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3903","title":{"rendered":"A State of Natural Liberty: The Incredible Life of Quill Rose"},"content":{"rendered":"<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\/gkDMjrkAWzo?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<p>Quill Rose was a Confederate veteran, bear hunter, blacksmith, storyteller, and moonshiner who lived deep in the Smoky Mountains along Eagle Creek. In this episode of Stories of Appalachia, we tell his story, from Cades Cove in the 1840s through war, family life, isolation, to his illegal whiskey-making in the mountains.<\/p>\n<p>Along the way, Quill became a figure known not just for survival, but also for his loyalty to family, his reputation with Plott hounds, his run-ins with the law, and the many colorful stories told about him, many of which he told himself.<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to the Stories podcast so you don&#8217;t miss any of our Stories of Appalachia.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for listening!<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_3577\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-3903-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72437518\/download.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72437518\/download.mp3\">https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72437518\/download.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72437518\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?powerpress_pinw=3903-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/72437518\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"download.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Subscribe: <a href=\"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?feed=podcast\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" rel=\"nofollow\">RSS<\/a><\/p><!--powerpress_player-->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Quill Rose was a Confederate veteran, bear hunter, blacksmith, storyteller, and moonshiner who lived deep in the Smoky Mountains along Eagle Creek. In this episode of Stories of Appalachia, we tell his story, from Cades Cove in the 1840s through war, family life, isolation, to his illegal whiskey-making in the mountains. Along the way, Quill [&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_feature_clip_id":0,"_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":[40,9,19,780,17,34,24],"tags":[91,479,104,1771,1765,1763,1767,1764,902,1770,871,1769,712,1433,1768,1211,1766,1761,1762,514,788],"class_list":["post-3903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legends","category-personalities","category-shine","category-the-1870s","category-the-1880s","category-the-1890s","category-the-great-smoky-mountains-national-park","tag-appalachia","tag-appalachian-folklore","tag-appalachian-history","tag-appalachian-storytellers","tag-bear-hunting","tag-cades-cove","tag-confederate-veterans","tag-eagle-creek","tag-frontier-life","tag-great-smoky-mountains","tag-illegal-whiskey","tag-logging-era-appalachia","tag-moonshine","tag-moonshiner","tag-mountain-stories","tag-north-carolina-history","tag-plott-hounds","tag-quill-rose","tag-smoky-mountains","tag-tennessee-history","tag-thomas-legion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6TX4A-10X","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3903","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=3903"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3906,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3903\/revisions\/3906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}