When a ship filled with several hundred German immigrants landed in colonial Mobile in 1721, the port was little more than a backwater military garrison. The first and former capital of French Louisiana now served primarily as a portal to the colony's interior. Starvation, disease, natural disasters, and the threat of attack by local tribes made daily life for the five hundred or so civilians who resided in the insect-and snake-infested swampland an uphill struggle. The village was hardly the locale to attract a member of European royalty. But among those German immigrants was a young woman claiming to be Princess Charlotte Christina Sophia of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, daughter of a duke, sister-in-law to the Holy Roman Emperor, and wife of Tsarevich Alexis Petrovich, the son of Russia's emperor Peter I.
 Whiskey stills, both legal and illegal, provided Etowah County with much of its income in the late 19th century. Whiskey stills were often hidden deep in the woods, like the still in this 1867 sketch, to discourage investigators from unwanted visits. (Courtesy Alabama Archives) Federal Revenue Agent Holman Leatherwood ate his last meal with the wife of a whiskey still owner in the backwoods of Etowah County. After finishing dinner, Leatherwood told his hostess he was going to “see the boys” down at her husband’s still house. He saddled his horse and slowly began the long trek on the treacherous path that led to Marion Neugen’s government-sanctioned still. He was never seen again.
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