Cherryville Shooters welcome 2023

By 4:30 p.m. Monday, the motley caravan of pickup trucks, old school buses, U-Hauls and cars lined the shoulder of Tot Dellinger Road in Cherryville and a merry band of revelers gripping muskets and containers of black powder poured into a nearby field.

Moments later, following hoots and hollers and a few “hell yeahs,” the volley of gunfire began and clouds of sulfurous smoke rose up to meet the setting sun.

On Monday, beginning at the stroke of midnight at Black’s Grill on Lincolnton Highway, the Cherryville New Years Shooters greeted the birth of the new year like they have been doing for more than two centuries with a chant and loud powder shots.

Alice Montgomery stood on the shoulder of Tot Dellinger Road with a group of friends as they prepared to fire their muskets.

“I’ve been shooting for four years, and half of these people out here are friends of my family or I consider them my family,” she said.

Born and raised in Cherryville, she has been participating in the New Year’s tradition since she was 13 years old.

She said her dad was a Cherryville shooter and even her grandmother participated back in the day, before women were officially allowed to be involved.

Macy Bridges keeps her black powder in an old pill bottle to measure out the correct amount. Overfill the musket, and it will send the weapon flying several feet away.

Bridges said she’s been shooting six years, ever since she was 12, and like many of the shooters, her musket is personalized with electric tape. Pink and blue in her case.

“I’m a very colorful person,” she said. “Very colorful, maybe too colorful.”

She started shooting at midnight Sunday and would fire her last shots in Rudisill Stadium at Cherryville High School at 6:30 p.m. Monday.

The two teens said not only are they keeping the longstanding tradition alive, but the event fosters a sense of community and brings people together.

“It’s a judgment-free zone,” Montgomery said. “You’re here to shoot. You’re here to have a good time.”

After one of the chiefs gives the chant, they all shoot for good luck.

It’s also a lucrative day for makers of moonshine.

“They got a raise today,” Montgomery said.

Almost as quickly as the volley of shots began, silence falls on the sleepy field once again and there is a blur of overalls, camouflage, pirate hats and suit jackets heading back to the vehicles as the convoy prepares to head to Shoal Road just over the county line in Lincoln County.

“I love New Year's, don’t y’all,” one man says as he walks past, clutching three beer cans.

Many people get their muskets from antique stores or gun shops or they've been handed down as family heirlooms. Some are bound up in patterns of brightly colored electric tape. Others had Confederate flags hanging from the barrel.

According to the Cherryville Shooters, the history dates back hundreds of years with a chant and producing a loud noise, a ritual that has been in existence since the 1300s.

Locally, immigrants of various backgrounds settled in the Cherryville area in the 1700s and brought the tradition with them.

This year, because the shooters don’t shoot on Sunday, the festivities began Monday and continued throughout the day. By 6 p.m. Monday, Rudisill Stadium began filling up with spectators, the sound of distant muskets going off like popcorn somewhere on South Mulberry Street.

“Make a little lovin', a little turtle dovin', on a Mason Dixon night,” as Alabama crooned "Dixieland Delight" over the stadium loudspeakers, a shout goes up.

“There they come, there they come,” someone says.

The ragtag band of shooters walk out onto the field and slowly fan out around its perimeter.

“It is traditions like these that make Americans stronger,” the announcer says.

The gun fire is blessed with a shooter's prayer, and then the two and a half century chant echoes over the stadium.

In a singsong lilt reminiscent of the Scotch-Irish, the verses ring out ending with:

“When we pull trigger and powder burns, you shall hear the roaring of our guns;

"Oh, daughters of righteousness, we will rise and warm our eyes

"And bless our hearts, for the old year's gone and the New Year's come.

And for good luck, we'll fire our guns.”

When the last words of the chant fade, the muskets begin firing, the powerful blasts felt in the chest, thick clouds of smoke nearly obscuring the stadium lights. Occasionally, a smoke ring, like a sulfurous halo, rises heavenward.

Men, women and even small children fire volley after volley, some sent stumbling backward from the blast, muskets spinning across the grass before the shots end and the crowd begins to drift away.

Rebecca Sitzes can be reached at rsitzes@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on The Shelby Star: Cherryville Shooters ring in the new year