"When I got my first pocketknife, it was the proudest moment of my life,"
says Fred. "Ever since then, a pocketknife and a piece of wood has been an
adventure for me."
Fred started carving wood in the first grade when a young lady he liked
admired his pocketknife. So, he carved her a wooden pocketknife. She liked
it, and he liked her reaction. Fred realized he had a talent so he
continued carving wooden objects for the rest of his life.
"When people get their car model carving, it just seems to trigger more
memories," Fred says. "They get to remembering things they hadn't thought
of since high school: their first date, trips in their old junker to the
football games, and the crazy things they did in the car."
Fred is a wonderful storyteller. His humor is so natural and subtle that
it almost slides right by you. "I ran away from home when I was 15...with my
parent's help," he says.
Fred Goswick has always liked cars. When he couldn't afford the real
thing, he set about carving them out of wood. His carvings include the
first car made in France in 1770, powered by steam that only ran 15
minutes and had to be refilled; a 1886 Oldsmobile powered by a gasoline
engine with two back wheels larger than the front wheels; a 1901 Ford, a
1903 Studebaker, a car built by Sears Roebuck in 1908, and a car built by
Briggs & Stratton in 1920.
He has stock cars carvings from the historic Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta,
the Peach Bowl Speedway in Atlanta, and the Dixie speedway in Woodstock.
Fred says this is where Bill Elliott cut his teeth on racing. These
carvings are the actual cars that raced on these tracks.
Fred Goswick is a reformed moonshiner who had his share of run-ins with
federal revenue agents during his heyday hauling illegal liquor. He had a
vision of a festival revolving around the history of Dawson County’s
moonshine past. Also, as the legend of NASCAR racing grew, so did the
history behind it. Moonshine played a prominent role in the evolution of stock car racing. Local liquor runners helped pave the
way for NASCAR’s popularity. They won races on Sunday and ran liquor
during the rest of the week
(if they were not caught).
Fred Goswick started the Moonshine Festival in Dawsonville in the 1960s.
This was his quest to put moonshine history into perspective and put
Dawsonville on the map. He set up a small table with some wood carvings,
fresh vegetables, and a small moonshine still. He also had a passion for
telling stories to the people who stopped by to see him. The idea didn't
go over really well in the beginning, but Goswick didn't give up. The
next year, he set up two tables. Word of mouth had spread throughout the
region about the event, and tourists slowly began seeking out Dawsonville.
It was his unrelenting passion for telling a story that led to the
festival that now attracts more than 80,000 people to Dawsonville.
Goswick is quick to point out that with some former liquor haulers, "the
older they get, the faster they were." He does his best to recount
accurate stories, the ones that sound like tall tales, but actually
happened.
"I never did even drink the stuff," Goswick said. "it was just like any
other farming to me. But I'll have to admit, outrunning them revenuers was
a lot of fun. That was my thrill."
His legendary folk art wood carvings keeps the memory of his glory days tripping the foothills of the
Northeast Georgia mountains fresh. "I guess I'm the last of a dying
breed," he said. "Once I'm gone, I'm hoping the memories of moonshining
will live on. It was a thrill, but I've got my fingers crossed that folks
will always remember it as a way of life and the difference between eating
and going hungry."
Fred passed away in 2012 but the Moonshine Festival lives on!
