Around the fall of 1947, Cutter met Eve Wilson (later to be known as Mother Firefly). She already had two children of her own, Rufus and Tiny. Cutter lived with Eve, even raising a child with her, Vera-Ellen. During the summer of 1965, Otis B. Driftwood, wandered into Ruggsville County. He and Otis quickly became close companions and rivals. The two would often fight for control of the family. Otis was asked to live with the family, Otis called 'the Fireflys'. It was he who also first referred to Cutter as 'Captain Spaulding'.

At the beginning of 1968, Cutter and Charlie, began using another alias, 'Wolf J. Flywheel', in the tradition of Cutter's new family's Groucho fascination. He began running an illegal moonshine business from Charlie's ranch. Cutter saw this as a way of raising money in order to build a facility which Cutter could use to share his two loves — serial murder and fried chicken — with the world.

Sometime during this period Charlie and Otis encountered each other at Charlie's ranch, now doubling as a cut price brothel. This encounter lead to hostility towards Charlie from Otis. What caused this is unclear but it is thought that Charlie was supplying local law enforcement officials with hooch and women behind Cutter's back and keeping all the proceeds.

In 1971, Cutter, now going by the name of Captain Spaulding, began his work building the now infamous road side attraction, Captain Spaulding's Museum of Monsters and Madmen. Only five years after the beginning of its construction, the museum was attracting tourists from all over the country to experience the new Dr. Satan attraction which was based on tales recounted to Cutter by Otis and Vera-Ellen, now known as Baby, about a local madman who ran a cult that the two were briefly members of. The Firefly family would incorporate the legend of Dr. Satan into their grisly murder spree as a way to lure curious droves of people to search for his hanging site.