Excerpts from "Booger Man: Recalling Revenuer Mack Day," by Jean Battlo, Goldenseal Magazine. McDowell Co. WV Booger Man: Recalling Revenuer Mack Day by Jean Battlo If ever legend lived in the hills of McDowell County, it walked in the boots of Malcolm Malachi Day. He was better known as Mack Day, sometimes spelled without the "k." Such were his exploits that they are said to have been immortalized even in the comic pages, in Ripley's Believe It or Not. According to his late son, Jim Day of Belcher Mountain, Ripley's reported that Mack had once "married a man to his sweetheart, baptized the same man and then, regrettably, had to shoot and kill the man for his later crimes. Preacher Day preached the funeral." As the unfortunate man was never identified and rumors sometimes run riot in what we natives call the Free State of McDowell, the story may contain its share of Appalachian bull. The facts are, however, that Mack Day was fully qualified to have done it all. Being both a preacher and a bona fide law enforcement officer, he buried plenty and shot some and married more than a few. Day was a career lawman, serving successively as county jailer, deputy sheriff, Welch police chief, and federal prohibition agent. Eventually he died in the line of duty. His methods were adapted to his surroundings, as effective in the mountains of West Virginia as any urbal detective's were in the streets of a big city. "Dad would hide out in the hollers in rain or snow for days at a time just to catch moonshiners," Jim Day tole the Welch Daily News. "If that didn't work, he'd tie a cowbell around his neck and slowly zigzag through the mountains to trick the operators of those stills. They were always surprised to find out the cow had two legs." Surprised and frightened too, more than likely, for Mack Day was a dangerous man as well as clever. He carried pearl-handled pistols and had the reputation for using them. He was not a tolerant man and not always one to observe the niceties. Some folks still remember Mack as the "booger man," following the old mountain pronunciation for bogey man. . . . It appears that Mack was born about 1872 on Dismal Creek, in neighboring Buchanan County, Virginia, although one newspaper said he was a native McDowell Countian. He got off to a hard start in life. Father Joshua Day was said to be inordinately fond of "corn liquor and the female of the species." He left Mack's mother, Narcissa, for another woman, and Narcissa then married Jacob Keen. Confirmed and saved in the old-time religion, Narcissa tried to lay its foundation in her son. Maybe it was her good example and Joshua's bad example that set Mack on his righteous course. He is supposed to have had his wild times as a young man, but he soon adopted a hatred for liquor that later made him the most famous teetotaler in McDowell County. Strong in body and increasing in faith, Mack left home to find his fortune in the developing Pocahontas Coalfields. The coal rush was drawing many other young men, and they made McDowell County a lively place. To earnest Mack Day it looked like a "Sodom and Gomorrah, with its red light districts and hard evil times," according to his biographer (William Grant Burleigh, Mac Day, Crusader). "Vice and debauchery" Burleigh added, "rolled in swelling floods down the Elkhorn Valley from Pocahontas to Williamson." His geography would be a little off, but Burleigh's lively prose leaves no doubt as to what he is talking about. Day decided to make the best of the situation by extending his limited education. He enrolled with much younger students at the Bottom Creek Grade School just outside Kimball's city limits. Additionally, he was working in the mines at Tidewater and Vivian as well as contracting to deliver timber. Strengthening roots, he leased some land and married Charlotte June Milam, from a prominent local family. Charlotte was a match for Mack, and she adds her own episodes to the Day legend. Wed on Christmas Day 1898, the couple settled at Bottom Creek and began planting young Days to grow amid the mountain laurel and scattered sumac. Eventually they produced eight boys and four girls, a family with a general reputation as solid citizens, convicted Christians and reliable leaders. Mack's standing in the community was demonstrated when McDowell Sheriff E. T. Sprinkle made him jailer in 1902. The Days moved to Welch, the county seat, and eventually to a fine farm on top of Belcher Mountain. In 1906 Mack Day became an ordained minister. Though he never pastored a church, Day carried the New Testament everywhere he went and preached when he could. He was an old-time fundamentalist, a King James man, maybe leaning more toward the fire than forgiveness. He told those who called him dogmatic that "the Bible is a dogmatic book," according to Burleigh. It became popular to be married by the gun-toting preacher. Reportedly, once while taking in a prisoner Day was stopped by a couple anxious to wed. He added the bride and groom to his entourage, and then met still another couple with the same desire. The whole group went on until Day handed over his prisoner and married both couples. That night he conducted one of his famed still-busting missions, all in a day's work. . . . Mack had his gentle side, Burleigh says. "The unfortunate conditions of women and children, the real sufferers from the moonshiners' lawlessness and the helpless victims of his punishments, always touched Mack's heart," he wrote. It is told how a woman in Northfork Hollow, involved in the liquor trade, was captured by Day. Learning that the liquor business was her only means of supporting her children, he let her go, merely warning her to sin no more. . . . Mack Day's raids in such places as Pageton, Lick Branch and Northfork netted barrels of booze, automobiles and plenty of bad guys. Day himself was grabbed one night and bound and gagged by his foes. In this restrained condition, he nonetheless got his fingers on hid derringer and fired a shot which alerted fellow officers to come to his rescue. . . . Even the family was not exempt from the zeal of the crusader, according to his son Jim, who said Mack arrested "almost more second cousins than I can count." He also arrested an 80-year-old uncle. The old man had befriended Mack a a boy, and had no appreciation for his uprightness as an adult. "That's what a man gets for helping to raise a d-----d ungrateful boy," Burleigh quotes him as saying. Mack collared his own son, Alex, when that young man was involved in running liquor. He saw to it that Alex was put on a road gang at Anawalt. Mack never learned to drive a car. He had to be driven on his raids or he rode horses, even purchasing some from the notorious Matt Justice at Panther Creek. Jim Day told Cathy Patton of the Daily News that his father was on such trips constantly, often coming home with bullet holes in his clothes. Sooner or later, Mack Day's luck had to run out. The family knew that. . . . Mack Day was never to enjoy. . . retirement. He ventured from his Belcher Mountain home the last time on Friday, February 13, 1925. He made early raids that day to Keystone and Gary, but was unsuccessful. "It is no wonder we failed today," he noted. "Here it is Friday, hangman's day, the 13th of the month." Mack stayed in Welch that night, plannng to go to Pageton and Roderfield the next day. Saturday morning, Bill Watkins and Robert L. Taylor went with Day to the residence of James Sneed, a black man suspected of moonshining. The officers had searched but found nothing when Day spotted an abandoned building. He ordered its search and "complete moonshiner's outfittings" were discovered, according to the later Welch Daily News account. "It's no use," Day called out as Sneed tried to get away. "We've got you." The official records state that Sneed then shot Day through the head twice, and the lawman died instantly. Jim Day upheld this version of events, but Paul Day, son of Mack Day's oldest son, Josh, says that his father believed that Mack was killed by fellow officers. Paul Day went on, saying that Mack had many enemies, a few of them among his ostensible allies. Moonshining was a considerable business, and sometimes the relatives and friends of lawmen--if not themselves--practiced the illegal trade. The exact details may never be known. . . . Jim Day said that Mack had had no immediate premonitions of death when he left home that Friday 13th. Mack knew he was in a dangerous line of work, accepted the risks and behaved accordingly. . . . Battlo, Jean, "Booger Man: Recalling Mack Day," Goldenseal, Volume 22, Number 2, Summer 1996, pgs. 50--57. USGenWeb Project NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may not be reproduced in any format for profit, nor for commercial presentation by any other organization. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than as stated above, must obtain express written permission from the author, or the submitter and from the listed USGenWeb Project archivist.