By Tabitha Evans Moore
Editor & Publisher

Entering Mike and Beth Northcutt’s Lynchburg home feels like stepping into a Jack Daniel museum. Not Jack Daniel the global whiskey brand, but Jasper Newton Daniel, the man who once walked the streets of Lynchburg.

Located just a few hundred yards from the historic Lynchburg Square and half a mile from the distillery, the Northcutt’s “collection” fills ever nook and cranny of their unassuming, red brick home. The word collection, however, doesn’t come close to describing the amount of precious local history they’ve painstakingly amassed over the past 53 years. This isn’t a mere accumulation of every bottle coming out of the Holler or promotional items. The Northcutt’s historical artifacts belong under glass.

THE “YARD SALE” TRADITION

The couple met as teenagers while working at the Tullahoma Dairy Queen at the ages of 16 and 18. When Beth turned 17, Mike proposed and a love story over half a century strong began. In 2012, the couple purchased the Main Street house with plans to convert it into a short term rental. One weekend, however, Mike relocated part of their vast Jack Daniel’s collection to the newly renovated home, and the rest — as they say — is history.

“We bought this house, got it fixed up, and ready to start renting out. Then someone,” Beth says, casting side eye at Mike, “brought their collection down, and we couldn’t rent it out, because everything’s too valuable at that point.”

That same year, the couple launched the Jack Daniel’s Yard Sale tradition, which will take place this Friday and Saturday during the Jack Daniel’s World Invitational Barbecue from their backyard, which overlooks the event’s Wiseman Park footprint. Mike says that 95 percent of the items offered for buy, sell, or trade at the yearly event are Jack Daniel-themed memorabilia like historic empties and antique round bottles of Jack, maybe a coveted early distillery jug or two, and duplicates of items they already own.

The one item missing from the Northcutt’s impressive collection is the elusive 1904 Maxwell House bottle. The original won a gold medal at the St. Louis World’s Fair. According to Mike, only two bottles are known to remain, and a fellow collector discovered one of those at Goodwill for $20.

Tennessee law prohibits the sale of sealed, full bottles by anyone other than the manufacturer or a licensed retail package store, and Mike stresses that none will be offered this weekend.

A JACK ANCESTOR WITH THE RECEIPTS TO PROVE IT

When I ask the couple how long they’ve been collecting and what sparked their interest in Jack Daniel artifacts and Jack Daniel Distillery memorabilia, Mike quickly speaks up as he grins at his bride.

“Nineteen seventy-three when I married a relative of Jack.”

Jasper Newton Daniel and Beth Northcutt do, in fact, share a family tree — and she’s got the receipts to prove it. Beth says Jack’s grandfather is one of her great-grandfathers, and describes herself as a first cousin three times removed. After our interview, the couple brings out a glass case that contains the Daniel family Bible. On a table in the den sits a small, color photograph of her mother holding it.

The artifact belonged to the family of the legendary local distiller. It contains rare handwritten family records and genealogies tracing the roots of the Daniel family in Tennessee.

Jack Daniel lived as one of 10 children born to Callaway and Lucinda Daniel. After his mother passed away and his father died from pneumonia during the Civil War in 1863, that Bible became one of the only surviving links to his early childhood. As locals and those who’ve followed the brand history closely know, Jack’s birthdate remains a mystery due to subsequent courthouse fires that wiped out official county records. Historians believe he was born in September though the day remains a mystery, and the year continues to be a subject of debate.

A few years ago, Mike took the Bible to one of PBS’s popular taped appraisal events, Antiques Road Show.

The couple also possess several framed land grants given to the Daniel family including one for Beth’s great-grandparents’ Tennessee farm signed by Sam Houston, the sixth governor of the state, in the 1820’s.

HEIRLOOMS JACK USED TO MAKE WHISKEY

Mike serves as the current President of the Lynchburg, Moore County Historical Society. Beth ran antique booths in Southern Middle Tennessee for years. They both possess a keen eye for distillery artifacts and items that establish the historical record of both Lynchburg and the distillery. The Tennessee State Museum’s collection pales in comparison.

He also hosts at Miss Mary Bobo’s Restaurant and talks about the couple’s historical collection like a one-man encyclopedia with the receipts to back up every yarn he spins.

The Northcutt’s don’t collect newer bottles, not really. Sure, there are antique drug store cabinets filled with gallons of the stuff, but those are an afterthought. What they’ve amassed over 53 years of searching and researching are items, many signed and dated, that tell not the official brand story, but rather the history of the place the world would eventually come to know way before Frank Sinatra ever lifted a bottle of black label from the stage in the 1940’s. The collection accumulated meticulously one photo, Lem Motlow signed check, and whiskey jug at a time.

Behind a set of cream double doors in their den, sit dozens of three ring binders filled with photo and paper artifacts that pieced together tell the story of Jasper Newton Daniel in a way no historian has yet to accomplish.

“This is a photo of Jack’s mean step mother. The one he ran away from that landed him on Dan Call’s farm,” Mike says.

I examine it closely. A woman with blank eyes, pursed lips, and a stern expression stares back at me.

Some of the heirlooms leave me a bit in awe. For example, the couple possesses multiple items that Jack himself used to make whiskey on the Dan Call farm and in Lynchburg. Under glass in their formal living room sits Jack’s hydrometer — used in the final steps of the whiskey making process to determine proof. The Northcutt’s also own Jack’s caliper, used to measure the diameter, volume, and capacity of barrels. To me, the most impressive item is a long copper tube, an inch in diameter, shaped like a sharpened pencil at both ends.

“This is Jack’s whiskey thief,” he says as he places the item in my hand. “You use it to remove whiskey from a barrel to taste it.”

Mike says that because fire destroyed parts of the square — the Courthouse in 1883 and 1913, and Farmer’s Bank in 1925 — many public records that other communities use to piece together the public record are missing. Instead, stories get passed down from one generation to the next through oral history and many of those are wrong.

For example, Jack Daniel never married and never produced any known heirs. Previous lore held that Jack enjoyed the company of many local women but never considered settling down. Not true, says Mike. He did propose to a woman named Fannie Mae Enoch, though her father forced her to decline the engagement because of the age gap.

“He was like 48 or 49, and she was 18,” Mike says. “That’s in a book that the Enoch family wrote.”

In 2024, Mike and Beth Northcutt as well as fellow collectors Don and Diane Cauwels penned the Unofficial Guide to Jack Daniel’s Historical Memorabilia and Rarities. It’s filled with hundreds of pictures of rare item from their collective trove as well as detailed descriptions. They printed a little over 2,000 copies of the book and around 700 remain available at various shops around the square. They’ll also have copies for sale this weekend. The “if you know, you know” event takes place on Friday beginning at 10 a.m. and on Saturday beginning at 8 a.m. Just look for the “yard sale” signs along Main Street.

“It’s just a gathering place with people who are collectors and friends who just like to get together and talk,” says Mike. •

About the Lynchburg Times: The Lynchburg Times is Moore County’s locally owned, independent news source and the only local media source owned by a Lynchburg native and one of the few Tennessee newsrooms owned by a woman. Our reporting is supported by readers, small business partners, and underwriters who believe community journalism matters. If this story was valuable to you, consider becoming a supporter at lynchburgtimes.com.