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George Washington 'Dub' Sands, Jr.
Moniac/Macclenny
If you think that designing a brand new custom designed automobile right off the assembly line happens only in renowned places like
Detroit, Michigan, think again. If you believe the vehicle has to be
especially designed by an ace designer and draftsman to create the
perfect model, think again. Nor does it take the expert skills of a mathematician, blueprint reading and mechanical experts, a machinist,
chemist, engineer, physicist, laboratory technician, pattern maker, or
tool and die maker with years in apprenticeship.
George W. 'Dub' Sands can do all of that singlehandedly, and
right here in Baker County. The genius automaker has astonished
mechanical colleagues for decades and staggered the imaginations of
the craftiest masters. His custom-designed cars were for moonshiners.
Lawmen dreaded to see his creations zoom down the road at
lightning speeds and quickly dismissed any idea of attempting a road
block or confrontation when they saw "it" coming. They marveled in
awe as they watched "it" pass unscathed into the night.
"It" might be a Dodge or Plymouth frame, but what was
beneath the hood was anybody's guess except for the mastermind
who put it together.
Dub Sands was born in the crook of the Georgia Bend in 1927
to Baker County pioneers George Washington and Nellie Thrift Sands.
His family's 496-acre spread bordered the Florida-Georgia boundary
line separated by the "big" St. Mary's River. They were a hard-working,
self-sufficient couple who cultivated their land and worked hard to
support their 11 children with what it produced. In the wintertime,
George Sands always managed to grow a cane patch that would yield
enough sugar to sweeten the moonshine pot that boiled down at the
river's edge. Its proceeds were for "the hard times."
"I helped in the home brewing since I was large enough to tote
a jar of syrup to the still," he said. "I been running a liquor still since I was at least six years old. Liquor was a way of survival when I was
growing up, and no one could make it taste better than my daddy.
"I remember many mornings looking out across our fields
almost every direction and hearing my daddy say, 'Well fellows, I see
that old man so and so is a stillin' today.' Why, all you had to do was
step out in the yard and it was easy to tell who was cooking it that that
day because in those days they used fat-lightered wood and the
smoke just billowed skyward exposing the locations."
Sands said his favorite brewed moonshine was an art performed by his dad. "I can remember the old wooden trough, hand-hewed from a cypress log by my uncle Dan Thrift. In fact," he said, "it is still at the old home place that is now owned by my brother Clyde. I can remember going to the corn crib and shucking the corn and then putting it in the old-timey corn shucker. We put the kernels
in the trough near the water pump because we didn't have electricity
back then. We pumped enough water to cover the corn about two
inches and after a few weeks it began to sprout. It would drink a lot
of water and we'd keep it covered. When it would get to boiling we
would take it to the still and put it in 55-gallon barrels, add more
water and wait for it to start fermenting. You could hear it frying
inside and if it was real cold weather, we'd take dirt and put it
against the barrels to hold the heat so it would be real warm inside At
the right time, we'd pour our sugar in and I can just see my uncle now,
running his finger through it and testing to see if it was right. If it was,
he'd say, 'Okay, boys, we got to take it up or it will vinegar on us."
Sands said when they got the liquor like they wanted it, his
daddy would 'season' a portion. "That was the art," he said. "We'd go
out in the woods and cut these Blackjack oaks down, peel all the bark
off, and chisel it about as thin as you could and you'd have baskets full
of it. Well, my mother would put that in an old wooden stove and
parch that and it would turn brown. She knew just how long to get all
that acid out of it. Then they would take barrels and put so many gallons of liquor in there and so much of the parched wood and store it in
an accessible place so you could occasionally shake it. That would stay
there for about six months or longer, aging, and every so often daddy
would taste it to see how it was coming along. When daddy thought it
was ready, they would strain it and it would be a red color from the
chips. But daddy wouldn't be through with it yet. He liked to fix it so the
women folks would like it. He would put it back in a clean barrel, then
he'd buy boxes of dried peaches and he'd put so many of them in the
brew and keep it another six months or a year. That was as mild and as
pure as you could get. You could never buy it that pure and if I was now
a drinking man I'd get me a little pot and I'd make me some and I'd drink
all I could hold and then call my friends and see if they wanted some.
"Daddy kept it buried everywhere. One time a mule fell into
our well and we found several barrels in there we'd forgotten we had.
I've seen the time daddy had 300 five-gallon cans of whiskey and
couldn't sell it; sometimes there was a demand for it and sometimes
there wasn't.
"Daddy bought the B&W Bar in Macclenny in 1936 and got rid
of the bootlegging, but the boys messed with it a little bit until one or
two of them got caught and spent some time in prison. Anyway,
moonshining is nothing new to me, it was there as long as I can
remember and we used to do it with a mule and wagon."
Sands said he dropped out of school at the age of 16 while in
the seventh grade.
"I stayed home and plowed a mule for a long time, then I took
my first job in 1944 with Mr. J.J. Pribble. I made twenty-five dollars a
week in his Glen St. Mary garage working as a mechanic," he said. I had
worked on tractors around the farm, but other than that I didn't have
experience. He was a good man and tried to adopt me. When I got
drafted, he didn't want me to go into the service, but I left for the Army
along with my first cousin, Dof Lyons and friend, Lawrence Green."
Sands only served 13 months, but obtained a vast amount of
knowledge when he was sent to automotive mechanic school for eight
weeks. "That was really interesting and I really learned some valuable
things there."
He married Harley Burnsed's daughter, Edna, after his discharge
and, with a friend, Everette Moran, bought Mr. Pribble's garage. Eventually
he left there and went to Jacksonville to work for Massey Dodge Dealership, mainly selling trucks. When Massey opened another dealership
Sands went there as a mechanic.
Meanwhile, his parents moved to north Macclenny in 1951,
purchasing the 210- acre old Nath Pellum Place. Sands' oldest brother,
Clyde, purchased his parent's 496 acres.
Sands moved to Jacksonville after he purchased a service station at Park and Roselle Streets. "It was a good business, but I was always thinking about Baker County," he said. "I wanted to move back home."
Before he did, he learned about another service station at San
Juan and Roosevelt. His decision to purchase that one changed the
course of his life. "It was there I got a lot of experience messing around
with race cars," he said.
Sands met people like Frank Ironmonger, a race car winner. I
watched him very closely and what he was doing. His chief engine
man was Mac Richardson. He built race cars and ran a machine shop in
St. Augustine. His driver was Bill Snowden, and Frank Ironmonger's driver was Ace McCartlin. They're all dead now, but Snowden used to
race with top race car drivers in the southeast, like Curtis Turner. I
learned a lot from them, everything they done. They built flat-head
Fords. I sponsored Frank's car and from that time on, I really got interested in fast cars. I should have been a race car driver," he said.
Then something happened that brought him back to Baker
county and once more changed his life forever. "I leased a new Amoco
station on the corner of Highway 90 and SR 228. I was the first one in
it, but it was too slow and no room to mechanic. Then the old Dunk
Dinkins Ford building was empty so we rented that and I set up shop
there," he said.
The couple first lived in a small home they rented from Ms.
Sallie O'Hara located in back of the now-demolished Morris House
Restaurant.
Eventually Sands leased a building from Rudolph Powers on the
northwest side of the railroad tracks on SR121.
"It was when we built our garage on Highway 228 that I really
got into building cars," he said. "We moved into a house next to the
business, so everything was right there," he said.
"I had connections to get engines. I favored the Chrysler 300.
There is no limit to what you can do with that," he said." There wasn't
anyone around that could tune one of them suckers up. I bought all
those type engines I could find anywhere, four and five at one time,
mostly out of wrecked cars and I'd rework them, and put them in
another kind of car. I put a Chrysler engine in an international pick-up
for Junior Crockett, and it would haul 60 cans of liquor all day and all
night. He had saddle tanks on it so he hardly ever had to stop at a gas
Station. It also had a Chrysler transmission and a Chrysler rear end."
It didn't take long for word to spread and the moonshiners
bootlegging whiskey came around in droves.
Sands said he usually used Chrysler products like the Plymouth
and Dodge. "I had a black'49 Dodge with a Chrysler-300 engine in it. It
was just a little short, four- door thing, but it was a well-balanced car,
the best I'd ever built. It cornered and handled better than any car and
that was the name of the game. All that speed wasn't any good
unless you could make the car handle well. I had a good man named
Ealie Johnson in Jacksonville that did all the front-end setting. He was
from Baker County and worked for Massey Dodge. With a lot of the
cars, I'd take the body off, inspect the frame, and then reinforce it and
do whatever it took to make sure there wasn't any weak places in it.
Then I started from there, putting it back together. The big problem,
and that's why they didn't use them in race cars, was that the
Chrysler-300 was so heavy that one of the cylinder heads on that
thing weighed 90 pounds, and that's 180 pounds to start with. Then
you got the rest of the block, so that thing would weigh 200 pounds
more than the average V8 engine. But it was a work horse, it would
do the job," he said, adding, "There was no limit to what you could do
with it; you could make it go faster than anyone would want to ride
and faster than the speedometer would register. I built one and took a
feller riding with me one night and the law got after us between
Hawkinsville and Macon and you couldn't tell by the speedometer how
fast you were going. I said, 'Well, I just built this little old car, wonder
how it's going to run,' and when the race was over that feller said,
'Well, I've never rode in a jet until now.' I can tell you the truth, anything going that fast just takes your breath."
Sands said the smaller cars such as the Plymouth and Dodge
were not equipped with power brakes. "So we'd take the engine and
the power brake system off the Chrysler and bolt the power system
under the bottom on the frame; then you could hook up to it. Those
shine cars were not made to stop until you got to where you were
going because you were usually running a car wide open.
"You had to stabilize the car by installing an air bag. It's a pad
you screwed up in the coil and after you put this bag in there it's got
another one that fits on the bottom. It's a rubber plate with a hole in
it for your valve stem to come out in the bottom and you air it up and
that gives it a lot of strength. It took a lot to hold up that engine. Now
if you could get the car where it would corner right, get the front end
and all that set with all this equipment on it, you'd have quite a bit of
money in it. But it had to be set up right. You see, what the average
mechanic didn't understand, I'd been doing it with the race cars. It
was the gear ratio that was important to create in the rear axle. I can
remember that if you broke it down it was a 354 ratio which means
there was nine teeth on the pinion gear and 36 on the ring gear. I
found out that I could get the ring gear and pinion from a man named
Getts who manufactured the ring gears. For years he sent me catalogs
and all kinds of information. He'd help me if he knew what kind of
transmission I was going to use and the size of tires. He could help me
pretty good on the gear ratio and that was very important because
you've got a lot of pulling power, yet when you get on the highway,
you are going to want to get some mileage too. So you have to strike
a happy medium."
Sands said he attended a carburetor school of instruction.
"That Chrysler engine had two four-barrel carburetors on it and you
had to synchronize them so you had to make all the linkage to hook
'em up. I threw away anything automatic on them, like the chokes.
You just needed one linkage and that went from one carburetor to
another. The front one had to do the same thing as the back one, so I
had to make all the linkage to that. When you got them synchronized,
that car would talk to you."
Sands said he has forgotten how much money he charged to
build the specialized vehicles. "It wasn't enough, whatever it was," he
said. "If I could get all the money I've got in my experience messing
with 'em, I'd be a millionaire. A lot of it I'd do for nothing. If I made
any money, I spent it all on engines," he said.
"My big problem was that I could not keep exhaust valves. If
you could see in that engine, you'd see that the exhaust valve is not
very big and the head of it would get cherry red. I had to put springs
on the vehicle so it would pop the head of that valve off and it'd go
right to the engine and tear up the butt hole and piston or whatever.
A lot of 'em would keep running, and a lot of 'em would tear up, but
that cost me a ton of money. You'd have to go through the whole
engine, then. That went on and I had some tough luck there with hot
spots. It would blow a hole in that piston and it would look like you'd
shot a hole in the top of the piston with a load of buckshot. I couldn't
figure out why. I couldn't whip it and it was bothering me not to
know what was causing it to swallow them valves. Man, it would tear
up the whole works and that was $1,500-$2,000.
"I had a friend by the name of Homer Teston. He came to
Jacksonville from Johnson City, Tennessee, and he worked for
Consolidated Automotive. I went down there one day to see him and
told him about my problem of not being able to keep an exhaust valve
in a Chrysler-300. I told him it just swallows them things up over night.
Well, there was this old man standing there, named Dutch. He had on
a pair of what I called convict coveralls and was greasy from the top of
his head all the way down. He had a little ole cigar in the corner of his
mouth and he looked like he was going to swallow it any minute. He
said, 'Mister, if you want to listen to me, I can tell you how to fix that,'
and he said, 'When you leave here, you go to the Universal Automotive
Parts store and see Mr. Moody. Tell him to give you what you need to
convert your exhaust valves to the new truck valves which has a sodium-cooled valve. It has a fluid in the stem and is a much bigger stem
and that means you've got to change the guides and the valve seats,
and all that.'
"Now, back then, them valves were $16 apiece and it takes
eight of them for an eight-cylinder engine. I bought me two sets and I
had me a little box that I put in the freezer and made it off limits to
everybody. Now, what you do to change all of that is to press them
guides out. You put all that stuff in the freezer and you have to install
them while they are frozen, very quickly, one at the time, and when it
comes to room temperature, you can't get it out unless you beat it
out. Putting them in the freezer shrinks them. When you drop it in
that head and it expands, it's there to stay. You'd have to tear it out,
and the guides were the same way. Although that solved my problem
I still ain't satisfied because I need a little more speed."
Sands said that problem was solved when Junior Crockett took
him to see a man who made Chrysler-300 engines. "I bought one from
him for $225, came home and completely tore it apart. It had an oil
pan on it and the heads, and had an intake for one four-barrel. That
man didn't know what I knew. He was blowing engines, and what he
was doing was loosening the valves. The main thing I needed to know
from his work was what type of pistons he used in it. He was using a
three and 15/16 bore. That's a good-size piston and looks about the
size of a coffee can. It had a pretty dome on top of it and the imprinted name was what I needed. I found out the pistons were made in
California and so I had someone call there and get me a set of 'em.
They cost about $20 apiece.
"Now after that, I mean to tell you it worked; it did the job
then, and I never had no problem with the bottom side of it. I had the
crankshaft side mastered pretty good, but Lord, that was one engine.
I don't know how many of them I built. I put the one I had bought
and tore apart all back together but I didn't like his cam shaft, the part
that works the valves. From then on, I used the Chrysler-300 to build
the whole car from one end to the other and I always kept enough
supplies in that freezer to do what I needed to do. It took two cylinder
heads to do an engine and from then on I never, had anymore trouble
with an engine blowing.
"Junior Crockett bought the first fuel-injection Chevrolet around
here and they thought that was going to suck them Chryslers up, but
mine continued to beat them. We had tire problems, like slinging the
rubber off. Those cars had to be made with overload springs. See, you
had a spring that you laid on to the housing and you pulled two pins
and you could take the spring off and put it on and when you were
not loaded, you just laid the springs in the back and all you had to do
was have a bumper jack to raise it up a little bit and flip them springs.
Then you were ready to load and when you got unloaded, you took
the springs off and the car would sit back level again.
"We used Goodyear's Blue Streak tire when we could get them. I
finally mastered not having the rubber sling off. I had a friend I met at the race track and he introduced me to a feller that would put two coats of
some kind of pink rubber on them tires, mold it and then put a cap on it.
When the tire wore out we recapped with that pink rubber. Some of them
tires we used had been recapped as many as 12 times. I'd rather ride on
his tires with that pink rubber than a brand new tire. If the cap did come
the pink rubber would save you."
Sands said in 1953 he once again became involved in moonshine.
I liked driving the cars. A good car is just like a good saddle horse, it
ain't no good if you don't have a good rider. If you don't have a good
driver to take care of equipment, it ain't no good. I hauled moonshine, sometimes two loads a night, five or six times a week, or I had
good drivers to take my loads for me."
Two of the best were Glen Johnson and Jimmy Lyons, he said.
On one occasion, he remembers proving his point to Glen Johnson
when he proved that a car loaded with shine could outrun an empty
car.
"I had already arrived at the destination, unloaded and was waiting on Glen when he came driving up with the empty vehicle," he said.
"And you had to know the tricks of the trade, too. That was
very important. I remember a state trooper named L.B. Boyette. He
should have been a beverage agent, because he loved it so. He was
always out there trying to catch us. The one thing he never learned
though was to tell which of the cars was loaded. Sometimes, we
would send the empty car up ahead of the shine car, and L.B. would
see it coming and take off after it while the shine car went on through.
He never figured out that a loaded car always sounded just like a
diesel coming. We were always trying to outsmart them, and they
were us," he said.
Sands remembers the only time he was ever cornered by the
law. "Jimmy Lyons was driving the loaded car and I was following in
a midnight-blue Chrysler. We were driving up toward Tallahassee one
night. Some man had been killed at a little country store in Salem,
Florida, and he had been driving a Chrysler, but the newscast said it
was a white one. Well, I was running like hell, and I wasn't familiar
with the roads up there, when, before I knew it, there were red lights
all over. I had a boy with me and I stopped long enough to let him out
and told him to stop the loaded car coming behind us and for them to
get out of there. I went on and slid sideways through the road block
with my lights out. I got my car behind this house, but they were
close enough behind me that they saw me before the dirt had settled.
Before I knew it there was this one old man who looked like he was as
tall as my fireplace. He had on a pair of bib overalls and a long-barreled pistol. He stuck that long thing in there and said, 'Don't you run,
you S.O.B. We got you now!' And they jerked me out of there and
handcuffed me. I had $500 in five dollar bills that was bulging from my
pockets and they got that. They pulled the seats all out of my car and
looked in the trunk, thinking they'd find a gun that was suppose to
have killed that man. Then they were going to take me on to jail,
when a state trooper I knew named Woodle came up there. He told
them, 'There ain't no way this boy shot anybody. If he is doing anything he's over here with Junior Crockett and his bunch hauling moonshine liquor.' Boy, they scattered like a covey of quails and they went
to looking for Junior. Meanwhile, the highway patrol had jumped my
loaded car going back to Perry from Madison. Jimmy out-run them
and got away and went on up to Greenville. He found a place to hide
the liquor and came on back home. I was put under a $150 bond, so I
took off and stopped to call home. They told me Jimmy was just driving up. I went on back and I had one hell of a time getting those
boys to go back for that liquor, but finally Jimmy Lyons went back over
there with me. You could see it by the side of the road. If anybody
had come along and looked that way, they could have seen it. We
picked it up and made our delivery and came on back home."
And there was the time he was traveling back to Baker County
after delivering a load of moonshine with Jimmy Lyons as driver. They
were entering Fargo, Georgia, at a high rate of speed, just before daylight one morning.
"I remember Jimmy saying, 'Okay, George, here we go,' and I
heard a bamm, bamm bamm. We landed against a telephone pole
upside down."
The twosome had hit a farmer driving a truck loaded with his
mule. "They tell me they didn't find that mule for three days," he
smiled. " The impact demolished that little Plymouth and that mule
took off. We had it loaded down with sugar."
Even though it was in the days before seat belts, Sands had
installed them in his cars for safety in case of such accidents. The
accident left him with cuts and bruises, and Jimmy hospitalized. But,
he said, it could have been much worse without the seat belts.
Today, Sands is retired, except maybe for a bit of farming. He
and Edna live on an expansive stretch of land just before crossing the
Georgia State line on SR 121. Instead of assembling engines for
fast-moving cars, he helped to construct the couple's lovely, comfortable home. The spacious family room with its ever-glowing furnace
fireplace, is filled with his sporting trophies. Large black bears peer
from a corner of the room, along with deer and moose heads. Life is
quieter.
"I used to drink pretty bad and the family got to worrying
about me, so I went into the hospital about ten years ago to be
checked over. A liver expert came in to see me and he said, 'Mr. Sands,
how long have you been drinking alcoholic beverages?' I looked at him
and I said, 'Well, Doc, I'll tell you the truth, because that's the only
thing I know to tell in this life, because I don't know what's going to
happen in the next one, if there is a next one. But I can faintly
remember my mother bouncing me on her knee and she got a saucer
and poured out this white moonshine. Then she took a match and lit
it and it made a pretty blue flame. When that flame went out, she
took a teaspoon and give it to me, and then a bunch more of it. For
what reason, I don't know, but you asked me the question and I'm
telling you I can faintly remember that.' And you know, he didn't have
any more questions and he left. He sent me a bill for $100 and never
told me nothing and I told him the truth. That's been a decade ago. I
used to drink quite a bit, and smoked cigars, but now I've quit it all
except I chew a little bit. Of course, a man has to have at least one
bad habit because I don't know anyone that would like to live with
someone that's perfect, do you?"
Well, that's debatable. But in any case, some people come
pretty close to it. In Dub Sands case, he is a man before his time.
Back to Top
The Skeeter Gainey story
St. George, Georgia, and Macclenny, Florida
Marion Ernest Gainey was one of 14 children born to William
Clayton and Matilda Howard Gainey in the Georgia Bend on March 30,
1941. The old, rustic, three- room clapboard home with its circular
drive is where he grew up with his 12 living brothers and sisters. They
were Eugene, Vivian, William (Bill) Clayton, Jr., Joe (who tragically died at the age of 17), Merel, Barbara, Ray, Tommy, Mitchell, Johnny and
two younger siblings died in infancy.
By the time he was five, he was riding the family mule through
the corn field and on down to the river that flowed behind the family
farm. Two empty five-gallon jugs, bound up in croaker sacks, were
tied in front of the saddle and two of the same were tied behind the saddle. When he returned home, those jugs would be full of crystal- clear moonshine
manufactured by his father at the antiquated family liquor still. He remembers those days as if they were yesterday.
"The mule would automatically take it to the still, but we younguns' liked to
ride, so we'd go down and drop off the four empty jugs and return with four
jugs filled," he said. "It was a great experience for us to
get old enough to go to the still. I felt all grown up
when I saw it because it was a way of life. It meant survival, if the tobacco crop didn't come through, because what little we made from it provided clothing and other essentials our family needed."
Muscular and handsome, shy, yet talkative, the man who is
now called Skeeter is particular who he talks to about his experiences
in the moonshine industry. He has turned down a movie offer and the
opportunity to be in a book written by a "revenuer."
"They might not understand how it was, back then, he says,
"and if it's going to be told, then it needs to be told right."
Like most folks in the area, the Gainey family lived on a farm
and worked from sun-up to sun-down, grubbing a living from the soil
that provided them with corn and potatoes to eat and tobacco to sell
for family necessities, like shoes and clothes. Their water was drawn
from a bucket well, and the smokehouse was usually filled with
smoked hams and sausages, the annual staple meat preserved after
butchering hogs in the fall. It was hard work, and no conveniences.
There was no electricity or indoor plumbing. The family used a
one-seat outhouse, or, he said, "We went behind the barn if we didn't
have time to get to the outhouse, which was located a good piece
from the house."
"We used corn cobs or the Sears catalog back then because
there was no such thing as toilet paper," he said. "And it was amazing
that certain pages never got torn out of the catalog. Guess which
pages that was?" he asked with a grin. "It was the lingerie section.
That was our pornography in those days!"
The family owned a battery powered radio. "Us kids would listen to Cisco and Poncho, the Lone Ranger, and, on Saturday nights, our
greatest treat was to listen to the Grand Ole Opry. We had an old
cypress pole that had a copper wire running up it to try and get better
reception, but it would fade in and out about the time everything got
to picking and grinning real good. You'd just hold your breath until the
music came back.
"My grandparents lived on adjoining land. Their names were
Lewis and Pinkie Jo Bennett Gainey. They, like our parents, really
worked hard to make a living. In those days, none of us had conveniences. Even with her big family, Mama still helped in the fields. She
canned and preserved our food under the most primitive conditions.
The kitchen was not attached to the house, and the three rooms in
our house all had beds in them. We grew tobacco, always hoping for
good weather to make a crop. If the tobacco crop made, then we
would gather it and hang it on sticks in the barn to dry. Then, we
would take it to market to sell, hoping to get paid enough to pay off
our bills for the plants and fertilizer we had previously charged down
at the local store.
"We bought sugar in 100-pound bags because we needed that
for making our moonshine. I remember some of the sugar bags had an
imprint, 'Made in Cuba'. Mama made all our shirts out of the material
after she bleached the bags to get the color and imprint out. She used
an old pedal sewing machine.
"Daddy made the shine to help us make a little extra money
for clothes. We didn't have a car while I was home. My
parents used a mule and wagon until the 1950's, so
people would usually come up to the house to buy
what moonshine we made. Clarence Johns of Macclenny
He peddled whiskey for years and sold it in pints and I have a
copper funnel out there in the old shed somewhere that came from
Clarence's house that some of my daddy's whiskey was poured
through. If I remember right, Clarence came after his moonshine in a
1941 Ford Coupe.
"Do you know why bootlegging was originally called bootlegging?" he asked with a grin. "The name originated during prohibition
days when people would stash a pint in their boots, or tie it onto their
leg. Back then making moonshine wasn't illegal, just illegal if you did 't
pay taxes to the government. The moonshine name came about
because people making it used fat-lightered wood and it caused such
a smoke that they would have to make it at night or be spotted by the
revenuers.
"That was in the early days," he said. "By the time I came
along, they had graduated from lightered knots to kerosene burners --
galvanized tanks that would hold about 15 gallons of kerosene. You
would have to take a tire pump and pressurize it. It was real hard
work.
"When we got big enough to help with the whiskey, we
thought we were real grown up," he remembered. "And we had more
responsibility. I knew it was against the law, but I didn't look at it as a shameful thing, like dealing with crack, marijuana or cocaine or stuff
like it is today. It was just a way to have enough money for our family
to exist. We really had it hard even with the extra we made from the
moonshine.
"I remember walking barefoot the three miles to school
before the bus started picking us up, in weather so cold, icicles would
pop up out of the hard ground. We had radiators in the school rooms out
at St. George and my feet would be so cold that when I first put my
foot to 'em I wouldn't even feel it, my feet were so numb. Mama managed to keep us in overalls, and some kind of little jacket, but we'd be
so cold. Mama wanted us to go to school. She only had a fourth
grade education, but she could write good. She wrote beautiful
poems, even some about bootlegging and the revenuers."
By the age of 13, he had been arrested for making illegal
moonshine. The year was 1954. "I was with my father in this little old
still behind the farm there. We'd had it for years, you know, so somebody turned us in, most likely. It was the Federal guys Mueller and Maine, I
remember. They called one of 'em 'Yank' because he used to play baseball with the New York Yankees. They caught us, just me and dad. We both got probation. They tore our still up. They beat the oak barrels in and we were not able to patch 'em back, so we had to start over.
"I think dad felt the worst about me getting caught, like you
would your kids. We found another spot further down the creek, and
then I got caught again when I was 15 at the new still. Dad, too. This
time, he got three years in Tallahassee and I got two years in Natural
Bridge, Virginia, Federal prison.
"I was treated good in Federal prison. Dad and I wrote one
another while we were in prison and he'd write who all was there that
we might know, like a lot of people from Baker and Charlton counties.
While I was in prison, I attended school, but I dropped out when I got
out and finished years later. I did eighty percent of my sentence.
When I was released, they gave me a suit of clothes and a little
money, just enough to feed me on the way home. They gave me one
of those Air Force Bomber jackets, and I wish I had kept that, I'd love to
own it today. I didn't write anyone that I was coming home. I rode the
bus to Folkston, Georgia, and arrived there at night. I walked over to
the jail and knocked on the door. The sheriff was an old gentleman by
the name of Jim Sikes. He came to the door and said, 'Can I help you,
son?', and I told him I needed a ride to St. George. He said, 'Give me
time to get dressed.' His wife went with us and we talked all the way.
He was a good old gentleman. Back then, nobody locked the doors, so
I just walked on in the house. Mama had moved a little closer to St.
George when me and daddy went to prison. Everybody got up and
mama started cooking breakfast.
"I never got along with mama too much; I think we were too
much alike. I was the only one who had her hair color and all the rest
of the family looked like dad. She had dark hair, and dad had blond
with blue eyes. Mama gave me some severe punishment a few times
with gallberry switches. I've still got scars on my back and legs to this
day. I was a rebellious-type person from an early age and still that
way today. Daddy never whipped me, he used his voice, and that is
the same way I've raised my kids. I've never whipped them; I use my
voice, and they've all turned out real good.
"Maybe I'm wrong, but I think I got more whippings than any
of them. I don't know if I led everybody into getting into trouble or
what, but I didn't stay home after I got 13, even though I was on probation after I got out of prison. I might hitch-hike to Zephyr Hills and
be gone for three or four months and nobody would know where I
was at. I'm still that way, just like now. When I start out the door, I
hate to tell Carolyn where I'm going, even if I'm just going to the Jiffy
Store, but I like to know where she's going.
"Anyway, after my probation, I got a bad whipping, I mean a
bad one. I left that time and never stayed there permanently again.
I'd just come in and out and if she started fussing at me, I'd go. I'd
leave. Daddy never interfered.
"Now, mama was a good woman, and she caught hell, too.
She raised 12 of us. Her oldest child only weighed two pounds when
he was born, but his twin, a little girl weighed ten pounds. She died
after birth. She had another little girl named Beatrice that lived four or
five weeks before she died. Daddy lay drunk a lot and Mama had to
do the providing. I lay it all to that. I don't blame mama for it. I drank
like dad. I was a teen-age alcoholic. I started drinking at nine years
old. I couldn't even pick up a five- gallon jug. I could lean it over an
fill up a glass with it. I'd lay out in the woods passed out for hours,
drunk. Me and my brother, Joe, would go to square dances at Miller's
corner between St. George and Hilliard. We'd always take shine with
us and while he was inside dancing I'd be outside passed out. I started liking the girls when I was about 14 or 15 so; when I got out of
prison at age 16, I started working for myself, not dad.
"Junior Yarbrough had a car lot next to the Midget Burger on
Main Street in Macclenny, so I went and asked Junior if he'd sell me a
car on credit. He said, 'Well, go out there and pick you out one,' and
he said, 'When can you pay me?. I told him I'd have to haul a few
loads of shine and when I'd made a little profit I'd come back and pay
for the car. So, he let me have it. I always went for Chrysler products,
so I picked out a Chrysler and went and bought some whiskey on
credit as well. I got me some contacts and started hauling 'shine to
Haines City, Gainesville, and different places. Back then you could buy
whiskey stashed out in the woods for about twelve dollars a jug and
haul it down state and get twenty five dollars for it. So doubling my
money, I accumulated enough to build my own stills, eventually.
"At this time, they had advanced from scratch-feed whiskey to
groundhog whiskey. Catfish Stokes built the still, which was a 40-barrel
still that I could put 1,800 pounds of sugar in and 200 pounds of wheat
brand and 14 pounds of yeast. About every four days, I'd turn out
about 70 jugs of whiskey. I was making my own and hauling it. As my
profits increased, I would put up another still. I hired some help, but
mostly I did it myself and got my car paid off.
"I had a '54 Chrysler that Dub Sands souped up the motor. It
had two four-barrel carburetors in it, and there was very little that
could keep up with it. I started making good money. I blew a lot of it,
gave away some. I had so much money, I thought I'd never need any
more money for the rest of my life. I kept it in sacks, in the car, or
somewhere like that."
The moonshine profession was hard work, he said, and, unlike
what some people think now or thought then, while the money might
have been good, it didn't come easy. It was a way to survive during a
time jobs for the uneducated and untrained were scarce.
"I had this guy working for me who had one eye. We were
about the same age. I had a still about five miles below Saint
George on the creek back of Emmaus Primitive Baptist Church, located in the 'Bend' section of Charlton County. It's really a historical
church and mama wrote a poem about it once. It was started in
1868 and the old church still has spit holes in the floor for the old timers
to spit their tobacco, and they could do it and never miss the hole," he
laughed. "There was no fence around it at the time, so we'd pull up by
the old oak tree behind the church to unload all our paraphernalia.
"All that heavy stuff had to be hauled down to the still by hand
and caution taken to hide our tracks so we would not be followed. I'll
never forget this particular night because that's when I got my name
Skeeter and I've been called that ever since. There was an old drainage
ditch that was always filled with water running toward the river, so we'd
take and wade in that water far enough to hide our tracks. Then we'd
come up on a little bank and walk on down to the still. On this particular
night, that this boy was helping me, the mosquitoes were so thick you
could swing a pint jar and catch a quart of 'em. They were so thick that
they were all over me and I was saying dirty words and cussing and carrying on and he started calling me Skeeter. We got into two or three
scrapes over it because I didn't want to be called that, but after I got
to thinking about it, I thought, 'Well, it sounds better than what I'm being
called now,' so it stuck with me through the years.
"One particular night I was out there by myself when he couldn't
help me and it was time to run the still. I had this '54 Chrysler with the seats out and overload springs and it was loaded down with paraphernalia. I had a groundhog still where you put 1800 pounds of sugar in 'em,
14 pounds of yeast, and 200 pounds of wheat brand and it all had to be
toted to the still. We had graduated from kerosene to propane by this
time and it took four propane bottles to run that 70 jugs of whiskey.
"Just as I started unloading it about 10 p.m., there came up a
thunderstorm and lightning started flashing. I heard a noise and it was
sorta a bleating noise like bababababa, just an awful noise. The hair stood up on top of my head and I started graying right there. I'm serious,
back then we were always pulling tricks on one another and that's what I
thought was happening, so I just reached back and started getting more
stuff from my car to set under the oak trees.
"After I got it all out of the car, I parked the car by the river and
walked back to start toting all the stuff to the still. Just as I did, this big
clap of lightning struck again, and I heard this terrible noise once more. I
looked out toward the grave yard and saw something white with horns
and the reddest eyes you've ever seen. I said, 'That's the devil,' and I
mean I got scared. I was the type that I thought, now someone may still
be playing a trick on me and I'm not going to leave until I find out. The
noise was coming from in the middle of the cemetery and I was so
scared that the hair was standing straight up on my neck and chill bumps
were all over me. Every time the lightning would strike I could see it.
"Finally I said, 'Well, I've got to find out what this is,' so I got my
old '32-20' pistol -- I've still got the very one -- and I reached under the
seat. I was afraid to cock it, my hand was just a-shaking. I said, 'That's
either the devil or someone is playing a trick on me, and I'm not going to
leave until I find out' so I started walking that way, just knowing I was
going to catch the devil. We were always taught at home that there was
a heaven and hell and Jesus Christ and the devil, and that the devil had
horns.
'As I got a little closer and could hear the noise better and see
the figure when the lightning struck, I'd made up my mind it was the
devil and I said a little prayer. I said, 'God, let me find out for sure if it's the devil; if it is, don't let him get a-hold of me.' I had a flash light in my hand. We moonshiners always carried a flashlight because we had to
carry the tip of 'em in our mouths since our hands were always full, and
the next day my mouth would be so sore, but that's the way we done it.
"When I got up close to it, I could see that there was an open
grave the grave diggers had dug that afternoon. In it was a big old Billie
goat one of them that roamed the woods. It had fallen into that grave
and that's what it was. He was up on his back feet and I could see his
front legs and eyes a-shining and looking my way with his horns. I
helped him get out when I calmed down. I kept saying, 'Thank you, Lord,
Thank you, Lord, Thank you.'
"It wasn't long after that people began to say, 'You're turning
gray-headed,' and I was. That damn Billie goat scared me to death. I
moved that still from there because after that I had such a weird feeling.
"The next time I located near an old abandoned house where
someone had been murdered. A man had beat his wife to death with
one of those sticks you hang a hog up with, and they say as she ran
around that house it splattered blood all around on the walls. I don't
know why I put the still there because every time I went by the place I
thought of that. Well, Catfish Stokes had built me two good little stills
and they were all sweetened up and there came up a bad storm one
night. The rain was hitting me so hard it felt like hail, so I got into my little still buggy and got stuck right away, so I had to walk about two miles
to that old house. It was so cold and I was shaking all over, just about to
freeze to death.
"When I got there, I noticed many of the boards on the front
porch were missing but I wouldn't go inside, so I crawled up against the
wall on the front porch. The wind was blowing so hard, and I was really
cold and miserable. I finally couldn't stand it, so I got up to go inside. I
had always heard that dried blood would actually cause a reflection like
a lightning bug, so I crawled up in a corner where no wind could reach
me. The windows and doors to the old house had been busted out and
the wind just blew right on through. Each time the lightning struck, I
could see spots of that woman's blood glowing. I sat there shaking and
finally said, I can't stand this anymore,' so I walked three or four miles to where I was staying to get some dry clothes. Later, I found my helper,
who went back in there and finished running the two stills for me."
Eventually the stills were blown up by revenuers, he said. "After
that I put five stills up. My goal was seven. I hired a couple of guys, but
was still hauling most of it. Finally, I reached my goal and had me seven
stills. I was into moonshining big time now. There were some big elaborate underground stills in the county and they even had bedrooms and a
kitchen in them. You could even drive a car inside them to load up. I
hauled the moonshine from my stills and for others as well. I had
so much money at one time I had trouble finding a place to put it. I had
more than $80,000 stashed away in a suit box I kept in my car.
"Later, most moonshiners got into what we called double-trucking. We'd have an old cut-down vehicle with an old wooden bed on the back of it we called a still buggy. It would usually have a windshield but no hood. Just a junkyard thing. We'd find us a road that had a thick palmetto patch where we'd hide it. We'd put long boards across the ditch to walk across and load all our stuff on the still buggy. Then, we'd drive the still buggy with our supplies to where the still was located and unload. We'd have to bring our shine out the same way, and hide the
signs where our vehicles had been. Most of the time this was all done at
night and we'd have to go back in the morning as soon as the sun came
up to verify that we'd done a good job hiding our tracks from the revenuers. This way you wouldn't have to tote all your equipment so far to
the still, which was backbreaking work.
"Sometimes we'd find a good place where somebody lived in the
back woods and, maybe, go through their cow pasture to a creek or
pond, anything that held water.
"With seven stills, I now had several cars, plenty of money and
hired four persons to work for me. My stills could run about 14 quarts of
whiskey a minute. I paid $2 a jug for someone to make it, and $1 a jug to
haul it You could haul about 65 jugs of whiskey on one of them cars in a
two- or three-hour trip, so that was good money. If you wanted, you
could turn around and make another trip. I was clearing about $1,200 per
still or $10,000 a week- I bought some land, but sold it; I should have kept
it, because I got caught again and had to serve more prison time. I left
my suit box of money -- more than $40,000 -- with a girl friend, and
when I got out she had bought a car and spent most of the rest.
"Have you ever seen the movie, 'Cool Hand Luke?"' he wanted to
know. "Well, that is just about how I found it in prison. I got four years
from Judge Ben Hodge in Folkston, Georgia, and was put on the Georgia
chain gang. You know these big gigantic rocks under the bridges in
Georgia? Well, I put lots of 'em there. I transferred from Waycross to
Reidsville. If you misbehaved there, they put you in the hot box and you
were given bread and water. I was refusing the bread and water when I
came down with mumps and went down from 185 pounds to 135. I lost
lots of muscle and was transferred to Reidsville Hospital where I regained
my health. I was still at Reidsville when they had their last electrocution.
"During this time, there was a murder there and pieces of body
were flushed down the commode. I saw them beat one man to death
who tried to slip a letter out in an attempt to escape. One man said he
personally knew of 18 that had been killed there but it was always
reported to be death by natural causes. A lot of things went on there that
I knew about. I was rebellious and if a guard raised his voice at someone
else I felt I just had to put my two cents worth in. I've been beaten and
chairs busted over my head and I'd go right back in the hot box. I don't
consider myself a dangerous person, but I don't let people mess with me,
or cross me. I never had any trouble making friends, and people seemed
to like me because I tried to be honest. If I owed you I paid you.
'While I was in Federal Prison, I was sent to Petersburg, Virginia,
and started back in school. I took auto mechanics. In November of '65 I
got out and went and bought me another car from Junior Yarbrough on a
credit. He sold me a white Plymouth. I bought a load of whiskey and
hauled it to Valdosta and on the way I ran out of gas. If I'd known it was
a gas hog I would have carried some gas with me, but I didn't. One of the
five-gallon cans was leaking and you could smell the whiskey real strong.
The first thing that pulled up behind me was a state trooper. I got out of
my car and walked back to his, so he wouldn't smell the whiskey. He
said, 'What's the matter? and I said, "Well, I'm out of gas of all things,
and he said, 'Well, it's not too far to the station up there, I'll run you in and bring some gas back,' and I said, 'I'll get a way back, you don't need
to, you need to be watching this highway' and he said, 'No, I'll bring,
you back.' So he took me and I put a deposit on the gas can, and the trooper took me back. We were driving back on the expressway and about the
time we got back to my car, another car came by going about 100 mph
eastbound. He said, "I'll check on you later, I got to go catch this man,'
and I said, "I appreciate it, man.' I got my car going, and that was the last load of whiskey I hauled in that direction.
"One night, I came out of Nahunta where we went through a
pasture. I was hauling it from Nahunta across to Jacksonville. I came in
on old Kings Road, to hit Lane's Avenue. When I got to Beaver Street, my
car shut off. The first thing that pulled up behind me was a policeman, at
three o'clock in the morning. I had five-gallon cans in the car. I said,
'Man, my car won't crank, can you push me off?' and he said, 'No, I'll call
someone to get you going,' and I said, 'I need a push now, I'm running
late.' He told me he wasn't supposed to, but he pushed me off, then
turned around and went another way. That was my next incident after
Valdosta and I said, 'Man, someone's trying to tell me something.'
"By then, I was an habitual crime offender. I'd already been convicted three times, and I could get 10 years the next time, so when
I met Carolyn shortly after that, I did just a little bit, not much, before
getting out of it. There just wasn't no way I could do 10 years."
Skeeter married pretty Carolyn Long, daughter of Hugh and
Irene Long of Macclenny in 1966. "We liked each other at first sight,"
said his pretty, petite wife. "We met one Friday and the following
Friday he asked me to marry him. We went to the judge's office to get
our license and two weeks later to the day, we got married," she said.
No one thought it would work out because we were both such independent persons, but it has lasted 29 years."
When the couple met, Carolyn said she knew Skeeter was
working in moonshine. "Yes, I knew he was dealing in moonshine," she
said. "But back then, we didn't think too much about it, everyone
seemed to be connected in some way or the other to it. I was surprised I felt that way, because my brother was a police officer, my
father a part-time deputy, my sister was a police officer and I had a
nephew who worked in homicide."
Carolyn's father, Hugh Long, worked part-time for Baker County
Sheriff Ed Yarbrough. Skeeter remembers the Baker County sheriff
with respect. "I can't say anything bad about Ed. He was always firm,
but fair," he said. "I remember riding through Baker County one time
in a '55 Mercury and the sheriff pulled in behind me. I pulled into a
truck stop and he pulled in behind me. I said, 'Damn, I hate to get
caught with empties,' because that's all I had in the car, but back at
that time you could have whiskey or any paraphernalia and it carried
the same offense. Well, I pulled back on the highway and he followed
me right on. When I passed the inspection station he pulled in and
turned around, so from then on when I went to Gainesville, I went
through Baxter and Sanderson on 229 to Lake Butler. He had probably
seen me before, but I got his message to stay out of Baker County. I
knew he'd stop me the next time. I respected him. I didn't come
back."
The young couple was given land by her parents across from
where she grew up. "Our first home was a trailer," said Carolyn, "but in
a short time we began building our present home and through the
years have added to it.
Skeeter began lawful employment with Florida Wire and Cable
Company in Jacksonville. Before long, he worked up to a crew leader,
then went on to become a supervisor.
"When the company opened the plant in Sanderson I was
selected to start it up and was made the plant superintendent," he
said. "I was in charge of cross-training everybody. I returned to school
to get my GED. I don't know how I passed, but I did. Then I took some
Dale Carnegie courses, and a business and management course at
Florida Community College of Jacksonville (FCCJ) at night," he said.
Soon the personable man who had lived mainly in the backwoods of Charlton County, driving souped up vehicles laden with i1legal
moonshine, was travelling around the United States representing his
company and spiralling upward to reach the top supervisory slot.
"If I had it to do over again, there are some things I would
change," he says, in a deliberate slow drawl. "I'd be a little better at it,
and I would buy land with all my excess money."
One thing he would not change is his marriage. "I never
thought about getting married and having a family until I met Carolyn,"
he said. "We've been very happy."
The couple adopted two children and had one together. "If we
had all the children I lost, along with the two we adopted, we'd have had
nine children," said Carolyn. "I only carried one baby full term," she said.
Skeeter's criminal record was no obstacle to adopting Lori,
who is now married to Daniel Moody, or Ernest, Jr. who , with his Wife
Lynn Hodges, have two daughters, Kristy and Delaney. Their biological
son is Clay.
"Both my boys are 6 foot 4 inches," he says with obvious pride.
It is easy to see where the couple places their priority. It is
their family. Photos grace every wall and table.
Skeeter retired in January 1993 from Wire Mill. "Today, I just
spend my time fishing or riding the woods, thinking about my moonshine days," he said. "Sometimes it doesn't even seem real, but it was,
and the way I've told it is just the way it happened to me."
'MUELLER, and MAINE'
[Written by MRS. MATILDA GAINEY, St. George, Ga.,
a small
town on the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp, Charlton County,
Georgia.]
St. George was once a nice little town,
Until Mueller and Maine got to hanging around.
The poor folks here at least they could eat,
And sometimes even give their families a treat.
The law got rough about two years ago,
And Uncle Sam said, "Boys, this bootleggin'must go."
Mueller and Maine caught 'em Til the jails over-flowed,
And they were sentenced by a Judge from way down the state,
While the wives and children were left home to wait
For the father's return from the sentence he gave,
And the poor mothers worked back home like a slave.
The planes would fly by and the cars go scurrying,
While Mueller and Maine got on with their hurrying,
So maybe they'd know whose pot they had found,
Before they got going with that dynamite sound.
Sometimes it seemed the country was at war,
With dynamite a sounding from a near and a far,
The houses would rattle and the earth would shake,
For Mueller and Maine had made another rake.
They got the bootleggers down to their last measly dime,
And couldn't see how they'd set up a still another time,
But the boys figured out a plan even from behind,
To set up a still of a more different kind.
They made them a still of two old drums,
And when they got started the burner did hum.
The whiskey would pour in a great big stream,
And the bootleggers eyes once more did gleam,
For they thought Mueller and Maine,
Had just been out-smarted again.
It began to get hard to get any sugar,
So they named their new still a precious little lugger
The bootleggers had lots of fun I do know,
With Mueller and Maine a hunting stills so.
But when at last they found that lugger,
Mueller and Maine were as mad as a bugger,
For when they charged in on it like a bear,
All they did find was exactly nobody there
But they kept up their slip, slide, sneak and crawl,
Until be darned if they just about ain't got 'em all.
In Memory of Mama
MATILDA HOWARD GAINEY
By her son, Skeeter
If I could give my Mother...all the flowers she has earned-
She would have flowers, to infinity and then some.
She gave birth to fourteen children,
She loved us all the same.
She buried three, eleven still remain.
I never understood how hard her life must have been
To feed and clothe us so we could grow to be women and men.
All she had while she was alive,
Was hard times, trouble and a will to survive
Thank you Mama for everything you have done
And I'll tell the world I'm proud to be your son!
A PRISONER'S PRAYER
Written by Matilda Howard Gainey
For her son Skeeter when he was in prison
When ever I have served my sentence, God,
I pray that I will be
A credit to my country
And to my community.
That I may never stray
Beyond your ten commandments
Or what any law may say
For I have learned my lesson God
And I would start a new
To walk in good society
And live my life for you.
I want to put away my past
And build a future bright
With honesty and decency
And all I know is right
That I may gain your blessings God
And my eternal goal
And by my good example
May save another's soul
GAINEY STREET
By Matilda Gainey
Gardenias are blooming
The air is so sweet
The sun is shining brightly
On Gainey Street
The day is about over
Tomorrow will surely come
No matter what it brings,
It shall be a happy one
For those who look ahead
|
And hope for the best
And leave it up to Jesus
And he will do the rest
He will surely watch over
And protect us from harm
And securely protect
With His loving arms.
1975 |
OLD EMMAUS
By Matilda Gainey
Old Emmaus has stood for many years
She has sheltered many joys
She has sheltered many tears
She sheltered the meek
She sheltered the bold
She sheltered the rich
She sheltered the poor
That's why we can't understand
Why the devil would send some evil hands
To try to destroy the poor old thing
When she has done no evil to any man
I know God protected her there
Or the hand of the devil could have stripped her bare
The land would be saddened
The tombs would be bare
Thank you Lord Jesus
For protecting her there.
I AM NOT THERE
by Matilda Gainey
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there.
I do not sleep, I am a thousand winds,
I am the diamond glints on snow
I am the sun light on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain
When you awake in the mornings hush
I am the swift upflinging rush of quiet birds in circling flight
I am the soft star shine at night
Do not stand at my grave and cry
I am not there.
I did not die
Tommy Gerald Johns
Macclenny, Florida
From the front room of the house where he grew up in north Macclenny, Tommy Johns spins a tale that even amazes him.
"I get to telling all this to people and some times I get to wondering if I'm telling the truth about all the things that happened here," he said.
Born in 1938 to Kathryn (Davis) and Clarence Johns, he probably knows more
about the people of Macclenny and Baker County during the days of
card games and gambling, moonshine making, bootlegging, and drag-car-racing than any other person living in the area today. He was named in honor of his father's favorite moonshiner, Tommy Holland, of Jacksonville.
From the time he was a small child, he was keenly observant
and can chatter off story after story of the extraordinary era he astonishingly lived through. His maternal and paternal lineages connect him
in close-knit kinship to almost every major family in Baker County. He
is exceptionally likeable, with scores of friends, and his remarkable life
has revolved around most of them in a very personal way.
Tommy Johns' life has certainly been no Sunday School picnic.
It has been one round of parties, drinking, fast cars, gambling, and
moonshine whiskey. He was a senior in high school when his younger
brother, Jimmy, was born. He had an older half-brother, George Wray
Rhoden. In the atmosphere he lived, he grew up fast. The front room
of his parent's modest north Macclenny home was always open to the
community, and almost everyone who was someone, and many who
were not, lodged there, sometimes for days on end. Some came for a
weekend and stayed for years.
"I don't remember a time when there wasn't whiskey dealings,
card games and gambling going on in our house," he said. "I can remember most things pretty good from the time I was six years old. For a
while my daddy's sister, my Aunt Novie, and her husband, Lloyd Eddings,
lived with us, right back there in that back bedroom. Uncle Lloyd killed a
man up there on Highway 90 at Frances Grill in 1941. In 1943, they came
to spend a weekend with us and stayed here six years. They moved out
in 1949 and then my Uncle Dickie (Davis) got married in 1950, and he
and his wife moved in that same bedroom for about a year.
"For awhile, we all used the same bathroom, but in 1952 daddy
had another one built. Now that was something back in them days to
have a couple of bathrooms in your house, because I can even remember when we had an outdoor toilet.
"Grandpa (Richard) Davis had this old house built. I was up
there in the attic one day and found where Andra* Mobley had signed
his name on the rafters in July, 1933." [*Andrew Jackson Mobley]
"By day, and by night, people came to the house for at least 11
years, and especially during the war. We were one of the first families
to get a television set and everyone would gather here to see it, especially the big fights. They'd be sitting all around, even be up and down
the halls, even standing on the outside, whites and blacks. I remember
how we'd come in here and look at the test patterns waiting on the
TV to come on. Howdy Doody would come on first thing. We never
thought anything about it. To us it was a way of life."
A way of life was selling moonshine from the house in pints,
half-pints, fifths, a gallon, or even five gallons, if you wanted it.
"Daddy made, bought, sold and hauled whiskey. In 1943, he
started bottling and selling it here at the house. We'd store it in the
attic, and bring it down at night by the five- gallon jugs. We'd bottle
about 32 halves, 16 pints and 8 fifths, except on weekends or holidays
we'd bring down more. We bought our bottles from Duval Spirit and
Bottle Company out of Jacksonville.
When we first started out doing it, kids would bring us used
bottles and mama and daddy would pay them two cents apiece. You
could see little kids coming up the street and it was nothing to see
them with a half-pint in each pocket, and he'd make himself four or
six cents, how ever many bottles he had. We would wash them out
and use them to bottle our whiskey.
"For years, we had big card games at our house and some people would play for days without leaving. We made good money. I've seen some of the people bring sacks full of money in here and play for days at the time. It was just a scheduled thing and daddy would cut the pot about every other hand for a dollar. I had me a little shelf where I sold cigarettes and chewing gum, and candy and such as that. I had me a bank account back when Coca-Colas were a nickel.
"People would come and go all the time and I've seen cars
parked all over everywhere and almost to Highway 90. They'd be playing music up here and have two card games going at one time, and I
mean big money, some of the biggest and most influential people in - and out-of-town came. People from Jacksonville came, like Sheriff
Rex Sweat and some of his deputies. I can remember four or five guns
laying over there on that big table in their holsters that the detectives
would take off while they played. "Some people would lay down and
sleep an hour or two, especially if they got hooked, you know, and just
play on through the night and into the next day. I'd go to bed when I
got sleepy. I could sleep right through it. Mama always had something
cooked and they'd usually leave her nice tips, and as Aunt Novie
always said, it was just like one big happy family. I never remember no
arguments, or anyone acting up or being ugly or using bad language.
If there was, I don't remember it. It was a fun life because I knew
everybody and everybody knew me. And the people, when they gambled, would relate funny stories, and if they told a joke unsuitable,
they'd ask me to leave, because I was younger. Even when I got older
they'd say, 'Tommy, why don't you go in the next room?-- and I
would.
"I enjoyed it when some of my great uncles would come over
here and sit and visit in the front room. They'd buy a pint of whisky
and when it got time for 'em to take a drink they'd get up and go to
the back of the house to do it. They'd just sit and talk for hours. I
remember how one of my uncles, during the war, would get to drinking and he'd take his old knife out and go to sharpening it, and he'd
say, 'I'm going to cut that old Mussolini's mustache and Tojo. And Hitler.
I'm going to get him too.' And everyone would laugh. People came
here to drink and play cards just like they do at the 121 Club, and they
were regulars for years.
"Some of them were real interesting too, like Tinsey McEwen. He'd come here to watch the 64 Million Dollar Question on television
and I remember that before they'd get the question finished, he would
answer it. He was real smart. People were regulars and we expected
them, you know, they just came to fellowship and drink and enjoy the
music -- someone was always playing music.
"And they'd come at all hours, day and night, to buy whiskey or
do business with daddy. I could tell, just like mama and daddy, who it
was that knocked on the door and what kind of whiskey to go and get
and how much. I knew if I was to put it on their charge account, or if
they would pay. I'd go write it down on a pad. Everyone had their own
knock, their own characteristics.
"If I was going to bring a friend home with me after school, I'd
look the situation over before I'd bring them in. I had as good a mama
and daddy as you could get, but it was a strain sometimes, as I grew
older. You know, like when I'd go to birthday parties, like to the homes
of people like the Gilberts, the Frasers or Hiers. But, I want to make
one thing clear. They were always nice to me and treated me like a
perfect gentleman. They were just people that never messed with
Whiskey in their life, but they all treated me like anybody else. I
always had an inner fear that something would come up about what
mama and daddy did. Mama and daddy always would tell me they
didn't ever want me to mess with it. Daddy would say, 'I want you to
get an education and go to college.' They'd say, 'This life is no good,
can't you see it is a strain living like this?' and daddy would say, 'I
don't like doing it, but I have to provide for you and your mama. I don't
have any education or another way to make a living.' Daddy had about a fifth
grade education.
"Daddy's mama had 16 children in 24 years. His parents, Jessie (Prevatt) and Ernest Johns, did the best they could raising their big family. I remember how grandma loved her children, and she'd better not catch any of them talking about the other one. She'd stop them right in their tracks, and she'd say, 'Hold it! You're talking about your brother or sister.' Grandma knew when each one was born; she remembered their birthdays. Two of her children, Junior and Carl, died when they were little. Besides there was an infant that died, and then Nellie, Freddie, Thelma, Jennie, Shep, Novie, Carl, Junior, Lonnie, Bobby, Lois, Virginia, another infant that died, and Eugene (Lefty). Grandma lived to bury seven of her children. Today, Thelma, Novie, Virginia and Eugene are all that are living.
"But daddy went away to prison when he was a teen-ager in the place of an uncle who was caught with moonshine. He just turned himself in and gave his name as Colonel Johns which was his daddy's brother. I think daddy was always a little embarrassed about them times he pulled in prison. He served two times before he married mama.
"He was shot up pretty bad in Titusville, Florida, running from
the law. He ran a road block, and they chased him and shot at him.
Daddy run and got away and crawled under a house. There was a boy
walking his girl to the door, saying good-night and they saw daddy
crawl under the house, so they called and reported it. The law surrounded the house and just stuck their shotguns under there and started shooting. Daddy had pulled up and was hanging onto the rafters, but he still got a bunch in the back and legs. Somehow, he ran out from there and was running down the road. The bullets kept knocking him down and he said he thought he was falling because he
was trying to run fast. He stayed in the hospital a long time befofe
serving prison time. For the rest of his life, you could still see the bullets when they took x-rays. That's when daddy started selling
whiskey from the house. Times were hard and it was during the war.
He had a kidney taken out and we didn't have any money. I know it
must have been Grandpa Davis who was feeding us.
"I can remember one Christmas, we were so poor after daddy
had his kidney taken out. There was no substance or programs available back then to help and daddy couldn't work. I got a ball that Christmas, that's all, and I'll never forget it had stars on it. I remember that I felt very fortunate to even get the ball and I slept with it for a long time so no one would take it away from me. And the next Christmas, I got a pack of fire crackers. But by the next Christmas, daddy was back on his feet and we had a new car sitting out in front of our house, I got a BB gun and I had a wagon under the tree and it
full of presents. Even when we were real poor, though, the lack of
money never took away our love or closeness in the family. I guess we
were so dependent on each other.
"Daddy used to haul whiskey to the Al Capone gang down in
Miami and they would hide the whiskey in the elevator shafts of their
hotels. I remember daddy saying he could drive right on in and unload
his whiskey, sorta like a basement. And when he got well after the kidney
operation, he started in the whiskey business in a big way again.
He hauled to the Queen of the Bootleggers, a lady named Sue Cause, in
Miami. She shot a revenuer right between the eyes and the bullet
somehow went around his skull and came out the back of his head. He
lived, but she had to go to prison. The day she got out of prison, she
came to our house. We knew she was coming and we were all dressed
a little nicer than usual. I must have been about 10 or 12 years old, but I
remember we were all excited. It was just like the movies. They drove
in this big LaSalle car. She got out with these two guys who had
striped double-breasted suits on. I'll never forget one of 'em had
two teeth out and his hair was slicked back. They got out and she came
in here and sat down. Daddy called me and said, 'Come here, son, I
want you to meet Sue Cause. She's Queen of the Bootleggers.'
"I was impressed and I thought that was an honor to have her
sittin' there. She said, 'Yeah, I heard you had a boy,' and she gave me a
present that the prisoners had made over there. She gave us a copy of
Look Magazine that had her picture on the front cover. It said, 'Sue
Cause, Queen of the Bootleggers.' I remember they sat around and
talked about the future of the whiskey business, who was still in it and
who wasn't. I was taking it all in. They talked about who to trust and
who not to trust. It was just like a business meeting of the county
commissioners discussing paving a road. I remembered feeling so honored that she had come to our house. I've never forgotten that day, or
Sue Cause.
"Daddy hid whiskey in our attic. The outside vent was too
sma11 to get a five-gallon jug through, so he had a larger vent made
and we would put it up there at night. Daddy would age some of
the whiskey and that brought more money. We had a concealed
place in our bedroom closet where we could hide five five-gallon
jugs broken down into pints, half-pints, etc. We could just lift the
floor up and place it in this hollow place. The revenuers use to come
in and look through the closets, and the floor would be just full of
shoes and they never found it. It's been nailed down and boarded up,
now.
"Daddy had whiskey buried all around the place and I remember
one time, daddy had some liquor buried not far from our house.
The woods caught on fire, right about where Fraser Hospital is now.
The fire chief was Teddy Bear Yarbrough and he came rolling up there
in his fire truck and daddy yelled at him to put the fire out over his
whiskey first, so Teddy Bear did. Everyone around there was helping to
tote daddy's whiskey back across the road. I remember the sheriffs car
was coming and somebody yelled to run stop them until we could
save all daddy's whiskey. And they did.
"Daddy had some people working for him selling whiskey. one
time one of them got caught, and daddy helped take care of that family.
"I remember people took you at your word back then. They
trusted you. People brought daddy and mama money up here for
whiskey bills and they never counted the money. I can never remember them doing that. I'd go with daddy to buy a load, but mostly we
made most of our own at our own stills. Daddy always had a still, and
what made our whiskey good clean whiskey was the clean copper
stills and good wooden barrels daddy used. He always hired someone
to make the whiskey for him.
"Grandpa Davis built the first telephone company in Baker
County. He lived in the first block off Main Street on North College and
the telephone company was across the street from his house. He
eventually gave it to some widow woman. It didn't have any air conditioning and Dorothy Byrd was the telephone operator. She would sit
out on the front porch where it was cool. I remember Uncle Lloyd
would be trying to get the phone and he'd go out on our front porch
and holler to the next block, 'Dot, go inside and answer the phone!'
Dot kept us posted when the revenuers were spotted. Someone
would call her and they'd say, 'The bull is out,' and she'd call and say,
'The bull is out' and we'd know to be careful.
"Daddy had the distinction of opening the first bar in
Macclenny, and there are still bullet holes in the ceiling where they
used to shoot up the place, right at the corner of 228 and Main Street.
Daddy didn't drink. I used to see him taste it to see if it was good
whiskey. I was in college when I drank my first drink.
"I remember one time one of my friends came up here to the
house to buy some whiskey, and daddy asked him if he was old
enough. I reckon he was trying to do a little right.
"I remember one time when I was young and impressionable,
Uncle Dickie came by and said, 'Come run down to Umatilla, Florida with
me. I've got to pick up some money' so I got in the car with him. I
remember he drove fast, but you know that was the times back then and
to mama and daddy that was no more to them than if I was going to get
a loaf of bread. When we got there, he pulled in the woods and I'll never
forget it. He pulled right off to the left of the highway and put the car in
park and reached right up in an oak tree and got the dangest sack of
money you've ever seen. It was $800, all in tens and twenties. I was
young, so therefore it looked like an enormous amount of money to me.
He just put it in the seat and we turned right around and came back.
The house is still standing today that daddy owned across the
street from Knabb's Sports Complex on West Boulevard North. We
stored whiskey there for several years, and I remember it was so full of
whiskey we had to make trails to walk through. The same in the attic
and I'm guessing we had about 50 or so five-gallon jugs stored there
for further distribution.
"I remember going with daddy to the train depot in Macclenny
on at least one or two occasions when he sent several five-gallon jugs
of moonshine to Tallahassee. We pulled up to the east side of the platform and two African-American train conductors knew all about it
because they took the shine and loaded it onto the car and it headed
out to Tallahassee.
"We used to race a lot. People were always coming up here trying to get daddy to race. Tommy Moon used to fix up his cars to run
fast. People would be lining 121 at Turkey Creek Bridge, where we
started, and we'd go all the way to Cute Starling's juke. Then we started racing further, because Eulie Dugger would come home with a
patrol car and we'd race the patrol car. Daddy never lost a race.
"Junior Crockett and Ray Dinkins bought the Kaiser/Frazier place,
and Junior came here one day and wanted to race daddy. Daddy had a
Hudson Hornet. They started right there on 121 at Dr. Watson's house,
and I think daddy passed them right there where Aunt Novie and Uncle
Lloyd had all their cows. There was some manure in the road and the
impact just threw it up on their windshield.
"Daddy always had a number 68 tag on his car. We wouldn't
buy a 52 tag because people would know we were from Baker County
and they were liable to pull you over and look for moonshine. There
were only 67 counties in Florida, but we could buy a number 68
which meant office agent. Daddy got them through the mail somewhere.
"We used to race and do just about anything when Charlie
Johns was governor. We would pull out our driver's license and they
would say,'You kin to Charlie? and we'd say, 'Yeah,' and they'd say,'Go
ahead.' That happened several times.
"Daddy got to where he'd let me go for small loads of whiskey,
especially if he was into a big poker game and really winning. I'd been
with him so much, I knew how to do it. I could tell if it was good liquor
or not. You'd shake the jug about three times and if the bubbles left
the edges and went to the center, it was 100 proof. If they went up
and didn't all connect, it was under a 100. I could taste it and tell if it was made in a copper still. Daddy insisted our stills be kept neat; he
didn't allow any paper or old bottles around, or if you were drinking a
Pepsi, you didn't just throw your bottle down, you had to put it away.
We never went to the still the same way, either, in case someone was
watching us.
"Daddy let me borrow his car and he knew I raced. I was
caught speeding with someone over in Lake Butler on my way to a ball
game, and was fined. They let me go but I was supposed to come
back to pay my fine. When I got home and told daddy, he just said,
'Well, did you win the race?' and I said, 'Yes, Sir,' and he said, "Well, go
pay the fine.' One time, Daddy had a new '53 Olds and I'd drive it
uptown and loan it to my first cousin, Maurice Prevatt, to take his date
out and I'd just walk around hunting me a way to ride around. Maurice
was older and I looked up to him and some of the others like him that
played football.
"I totaled two cars and one had to take two wreckers to bring the pieces in. It was strung up and down 90. I was driving and Bobby Thomas, who was in the back seat, said, 'How fast are we going?' and George Taylor said, 'You can't see the speedometer.' About that time the right front tire blowed out and we started rolling over. It took the hair off Zade Cowart's head and required 23 stitches. John Porterfield and Steve Johns and the others were slung out all through
them woods. George's eye stayed black and blue for almost a year. We
didn't have any sense of fear back then. It's a wonder we lived
because such as that went on all the time.
"Fortunately, I had one experience that was very positive for
me. Things could get pretty hectic around our house at report card
time, so one day, Lonnie Dugger, who was my high school principal,
caught me signing my own report card because it wasn't a very good
one to take home for daddy to sign. He said he wanted to see me in
his office, so I went in there and noticed my report card on his desk. I
didn't realize it until then just how much interest Lonnie' Dugger had in
me, and I'm sure all the other students. From then on, I made good
grades in my junior and senior year, and I made sure daddy signed. If I
made anything lower than a 'C', I'd have to come in after school to
study and make it up, and he would be the one that would stay after
school with me. That was a blessing that I got caught because that,
really helped me. My brother, George Wray, had the knowledge of just
how important an education was and he was always on me to study.
And mama and daddy stressed education and would always say to
me, 'Can't you see the strain we're under, don't do what we're doing.' I
guess I couldn't because we had all them big card games and I saw all
those sacks of money and it was influencing.
"Eventually, Daddy wanted to get out of the whiskey business.
The law was closing in and searching with airplanes. Radios had come
out in the police cars. He knew it was time to get out and when we
got out, we got out altogether.
Daddy built a truck stop on north 121 in 1956 across the street
from Uncle Dickie's house. It was open 24 hours a day. He was under
such a strain and I could tell it because he thought the internal revenue was going to come around and say, 'Where did you get the
money to build this?' Daddy would have the money, but he'd have to
go to the bank and borrow the money, and then pay the bank back. I
can remember that after a couple of years, after no one came around
asking questions, we started breathing easier and thinking, 'Well, we're
going to get by, we've made it.' I remember when we got the ice
machine, the guy brought it out here and daddy said, 'I want to pay
you cash, but I'm just scared.'
"Almost everyone gathered at the truck stop to eat, just like
they did at our house to play cards. One time, my little brother,
Jimmy, walked up to one of the most influential men in Macclenny,
Billy Knabb, who was eating lunch there with some friends. Jimmy
knew him when he used to come to our house to play cards. Right
in front of everyone, Jimmy said, 'Hi, Mr. Knabb. Ya'll getting up a
little game?' That man still gets a laugh out of that today.
"Daddy sold the truck stop after 12 years. Then he went to work as
a jailer at the jail and mama their cook/dietician. They retired 10
years after that."
Tommy went off to college with his best friend, Pee Wee Brinson, in
1956. He was 25 years old when he married Jacquelyn 'Jackie' Colley
from Starke. Their 16-year marriage produced two children, Tommy
Gerald Johns II and Leslie Jacquelyn Johns. Three years ago, he married
Janie Echols.
An avid sports fan, his home is decorated from front-to-back
with Florida Gator souvenirs. The station wagon he proudly drives has
more than 352 Florida University Gator stickers plastered over the entire
body of the vehicle and a sign that says, 'A Gator Fan is in this Vehicle.'
Would he change his life in any way, if he could live it over?
"You know if I could live my life over, I'd want my mama and
daddy to have a job like everybody else, because it was a strain, if you
get down to it, the bottom line. They were as good a mama and
daddy as you could get. They loved me, and I certainly loved them, but
it was a hard life on all of us due to the constant strain."
After the death of Kathryn Johns in 1985, Clarence began
attending church with his sister, Novie. She was a member of "The
Lord's Church" in Taylor, whose pastor is former sheriff Ed Yarbrough.
In 1986, Clarence's health failed. As he lay in a coma in a Jacksonville
hospital, his grieving family decided to phone Reverend Yarbrough to
come. The former sheriff- turned-preacher, did. And this is how he
remembers the incident.
"Clarence started coming to church with his sister, Novie, after
his wife died. He was just as nice and kind as he could be. After he
became ill and hospitalized, the family asked me if I'd visit him. So
after church one Sunday afternoon, my wife Faye and I went and
joined his family at his bedside. It was evident that the family expected him to die from his condition because he had been in a coma for so
long. When I went in, we gathered and had a prayer for him, and
Clarence opened his eyes. I said, 'Brother Clarence, do you know who
this is?' and he kinda smiled and said, 'Yeah, Sheriff, you didn't come to
put me in jail did you?'
"Well, after he said that I knew he was coherent, so we started
talking about the Lord. I asked him some questions like, 'Do you
believe in the Lord?' And he said he did. I then said, 'Brother Clarence,
would you like to join the church?' and he said, "Yeah, I would.' So
then I went through the same questions we ask when one comes
down to the altar, such as if they believe Christ is the true Son of God,
and born of the Virgin Mary. He said 'Yes' to all of them. So I began
to look around for something to baptize him since he'd made his
confession of faith. I got a little pan of water and a wash cloth and
everyone gathered around his bed and in the room. I couldn't baptize him the traditional way that we believe in doing, because we
couldn't take him up out of his sick bed, so all we could do was go
through a formality So I dipped the cloth in the clean water and
squeezed it on his head and wiped it off with the towel, and said the
words,' I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and
the Holy Ghost.'
"Everyone was just amazed, they could hardly believe it. I'd
never known Clarence to be in any church much -- he may have gone
and I never knew about it -- and so after all these years to have him
come to me, after I wasn't sheriff any longer, and he wasn't a bootlegger any longer, and say that he wanted to join our church, it was
a wonder."
Tommy Johns agrees.
"You could feel the Spirit of the Lord there, and right after that
daddy went back in the coma. We moved him to a nursing home and
he died almost two days to the year after mama."
Ed Yarbrough preached his funeral, and then Clarence Johns
was laid to rest beside his wife in Woodlawn Cemetery. One of the
most vibrant sagas and two of the most colorful characters of its era
were gone.
In the past 17 years, Tommy has had three cardiac arrests, two
heart attacks, and two "balloons." He's been in the hospital more than
20 times.
"The last time I was in the hospital, I knew I was at the cross
roads," he said.
"On Friday, I had been out in the yard feeding my dogs when I
felt something coming on. I came in and took nitroglycerin, lay down
and waited on Janie to come home. We had Reverend John Chesser
from the Assembly of God Church come over and pray for me, and I
prayed. I didn't get any better, so on Sunday we called my doctor
in Gainesville and he said to bring me on in. I told everyone that I
knew God was going to heal me or he was going to touch my doctor
and he was going to do something different.
"They started working on me by the time I arrived at the hospital.
They catherized me. I watched them do it, I've always been able to
watch it each time they do it. Three months before they had done a balloon, and two years before that open heart surgery in Alabama. I remember watching the Super Bowl game that night and got some relief. Then
the doctor came into my room and said, 'Tommy, I can't find a thing in
the world wrong with you.' He told me he was going to put nuclear dye
in me in the morning just to see if he had missed something. He said that
would show it up. But after that he said, he still couldn't find anything
wrong with me. He said, 'Go home and do what you feel like doing. I
can't give you no instructions.' He said 'I know something was wrong
when you got here, but now I can't find anything.'
"I remember one time they were working on me in Gainesville,
and Janie was standing there crying a little bit, and one paramedic
said, 'Honey, we're going to take good care of your daddy.' I raised up
on the stretcher and said, 'Daddy? That's my wife.'
I had been going to church for about a year when that happened in Gainesville last year, and I told Janie the Lord had healed me
and I was going to serve Him the rest of my life, and I mean serve Him.
Before we got married, we were both tired of our lives; she had been
single six years and I had been single six years. She had been married
twice and I'd been married twice. We'd been dating six years, so we
said we were going to find a marriage counselor and be counseled
before we got married. She had been going to the Macclenny
Assembly of God and said the minister was a marriage counselor. I
asked her where she was going to church and she told me it was a
Pentecostal. I said, 'What is that, a holy roller?' I told her I wanted to
go to church where I could bend a little. But we went to her minister,
who was John Chesser, and he has a license to be a marriage counselor. I felt comfortable right there at the Assembly of God. He wouldn't even marry us unless we went through marriage counseling.
"I was elected a deacon last week. It takes three years to be a
deacon before you can even be elected, and then you can't be if
you've been divorced. However, the Board wavered, and I got elected.
I've been studying the Bible. The guy that just studies it occasionally
can't talk to me about the Bible because I'm getting to know it pretty
good. I study almost every day, because it takes a lot of studying to
finally get the whole picture. I haven't missed but twice in three years.
"I was sitting in church the other night when the Super Bowl
game was going on, and you know how I love football, well it didn't
bother me a bit. I went right on to church and I came home at half
time and flipped it on, but it didn't bother me not to be seeing it while
he was up there preaching. I mean I got it. I wanted it and it took me
two years to get it like I wanted it. I mean I just stayed in the word. It
used to didn't mean anything to me to hear people say, 'You got to
stay in the word, you got to stay in the word,' and then it started falling
in place and I began to see everything as I studied and studied. I went
and I listened. I went to hear people preach. I went to hear Rodney
Howard from South Africa, and other people from all walks of life. I'm
just analyzing and absorbing. I'd say, 'Lord, I want it, Lord, I want it. You saved me, but I want that anointing power, I want the Holy Ghost. I
believe in it, and I want it.' So I worked for it and I got it just about ten minutes after four a.m. early Saturday morning after the Super Bowl
game last year (January, 1994). I had gotten up and gone to the bathroom. I felt I had been awakened up for something, but I lay back
down and pulled that cover up and got comfortable, and buddy, it was
Bamm!. I come out of that bed and it was just like you had turned on
a light and grabbed me out of bed from a deep sleep. It wasn't put on,
I wasn't dreaming, but when I come out of that bed, I was a saved
Christian person. I told them at church, and this is just me talking, but
it's how I feel. You know you are saved when you are not afraid of
dying. I said, 'if you're afraid of dying, then you're not saved. Now,
that's just the way I feel personally about it. I have another saying I've
come up with I like, and that is, 'Death couldn't conquer Him, and the
grave couldn't hold Him.'That's just what suits me!
"I've had this house anointed. I got the preacher to come
here with oil, because I believe in all them demons and all. We used to
sell liquor and gamble and all, so I got this house clean. Anytime the
devil wants to come in here, I say, 'Come on in, buddy, I got a chair for
you, then I tell him, 'You remember the cross?' And the Devil
says,"what about the cross?' and I say, 'He was on the cross but He is
the only one who ever come back, and there have been a lot who have
died, but Christ is the only one who has come back from that grave.'
"All of those times that I thought were good times, dancing and
drinking that liquor, and oh, how I loved to dance, me and my wife, but
all them times, I've tried to be a gentleman. One reason I think the
Lord let me live is I never cussed; for some reason, I just never did. I
was telling someone the other day that and how I'd cleaned up my life
completely, and she made me feel good when she said, 'Well, you didn't have much to clean up.' But, I did. I went through some marriages,
and if you want to lay fault I didn't show the leadership and all I
should. I was drinking that liquor and beer and dancing and partying
and that was it, and now it seems like a bad dream, and it seems like I
never done it. Today, there is no high like getting in that church!
Back to Top
Richard H. 'Dickie' Davis
Macclenny, Florida
Hard work is nothing new to Dickie Davis. He has been doing it
all of his life. in addition, he has worked for the county he proudly
calls home, serving and contributing his time and resources
for as long as he can remember. Those who know him best
describe him as ambitious, industrious, enterprising, frugal,
and always, without fail, a dedicated and fervent worker in all
he undertakes to do.
When this county native was growing up in Macclenny, it
was a time when things were beginning to emerge from
behind a dark cloud of recession. His hardworking, God-fearing father, Richard John Davis, overcame the obstacles of destitution
during the time of the Great Depression in the nation, and started, in
1931, what is today The R.H. Davis Oil Company.
'Daddy and I used to get up about 4 a.m. and go down to open
the station in downtown Macclenny, and while daddy went to Jacksonville for a load of fuel, I pumped gas and ran the station until he got back, then I'd go to school," he said. "Daddy never knew anything but hard work, and he taught me the value of it for as long as I can remember."
During his high school years, Dickie excelled in sports. The first
football team was organized in 1945 and the following year, he joined
the squad. His most ardent supporter was his mother, Carrie, who
faithfully attended all of his basketball and football games. He was
among the most popular in the close knit group of students of
Macclenny-Glen High School and even today maintains close personal
friendships with most of them.
Following graduation in 1950, he married his high school
sweetheart and class beauty, Virginia ware.
"I took a job working for Walter Denison and Son in Jacksonville making 75 cents an hour," he said. " Mr. C.K. Tharpe was general manager."
Davis said it was a coincidence that he got started hauling
moonshine.
"I used to stay at the home of my sister, Kathryn, and
brother-in-law, Clarence Johns, a lot. It was on one of these occasions
that a man came by from Gainesville that needed someone to haul
him some whiskey. I told him I'd carry him some, and it just went
from there. I was making $28 a week in Jacksonville working all day long, and I'd make $150 a night hauling moonshine to the man in Gainesville. I carried him 30 jugs three times a week and would get up the next morning and go to work for 75 cents an hour. I never missed a day's work the whole time I did that, and I did it until I was drafted into the army and left for Korea," he said.
The military paid him $75 a month. In just a few days time he was promoted from a private to a sergeant. "I spent my 21st birthday on a ship going overseas and my 22nd one coming home," he said.
When Dickie returned from Korea, his marriage was over. "I didn't have fifteen cents to my name when I got home," he said. "But I had a beautiful daughter, Renee'."
"When I was discharged on April 21, 1953, I borrowed the
money from my sister Kathryn to buy me a 1952 Cadillac and hauled
enough moonshine to pay her paid back in three weeks," he said.
Davis took a job with his father driving a fuel truck for $45 a
week. But that was not nearly enough money to live on, so by day he
drove the fuel truck down Baker County's dusty, unpaved roads, hauling kerosene and gas in a small delivery truck like his father. At night
he rumbled down Baker County's backroads and Florida's by-ways in
his souped-up Cadillac and other fast cars, hauling moonshine. Besides hauling whiskey, he seized the opportunity to haul and sell sugar to the local moonshiners. It was a chance to get ahead of the low-paying, low-scale jobs in the '50's... that is, if you could even find one. It had long been a way of life in Baker County as a means of supplementing family incomes and at that time few people thought anything about it.
Dickie said he rarely slept during those days. "Eventually, I was
able to financially back some moonshine stills and owned half-interest
in them. I hauled a load almost every night, and hired people to haul
for me, as well," he said.
"The only reason I messed with sugar was to trade it for shine
and double my profit. The moonshiners would come and get 30-40
sacks of sugar from me and they would owe me, in exchange, 30-40
jugs of whiskey. I was hauling whiskey to Tampa where I had connections to get sugar right off the ship. Sometimes I'd go almost a week a time and not hardly sleep."
Hauling sugar and moonshine by night, and faithful to never
miss a day's work kept him busy, but he had time to meet a 1952
graduate from Macclenny High School, Taylor native Faye Cowart.
"Faye was working up at Odom's Department Store in
Macclenny. We met sometime the summer after I got home from
Korea and we married January 28, the next year," he said.
The couple moved into a small apartment in Macclenny. "When
Faye and I got married, I was doing very well. I had half interest in
seven stills, and a week later I didn't have the first one. They tore
them all up that week," he said.
"After we got married, I really didn't want him hauling himself, so he hired somebody else to haul for him most of the time," said Faye.
The couple remembers some harrowing as well as humorous
experiences. I didn't get involved or have anything to do with it," said
Faye, "but once I had to go over and get him out of jail," she said.
"Dickie was arrested while speeding and running from the law,"
she explained. "They had blocked the road at the Ellerby curve so they
got Dickie and took him to jail in Lake Butler. He was charged $500
and given 30 days in jail.
I was expecting our first baby any day, so I went over there.
I had the money, but they would not let him out. I remembered that I
had met a judge from there who had attended some parties in Baker
County, so I asked if he was in, and they told me he was. So I went in
his office, and I said, 'Judge I've got a problem,' and he looked at me
and saw I was pregnant, but he recognized me, and he listened to me
tell him about Dickie. I said, 'My husband got put in jail last night, and
you charged him a $500 fine, and gave him 30 days.' I told him I didn't
mind paying the $ 500 but I couldn't stand him in jail for 30 days,' so
he said to a man standing there, 'Go let Mr. Davis out."'
"I'm sure I would have been kept there the 30 days had Faye
not gone over there and talked to that judge," he said.
Dickie said while most of the moonshiners in Baker County
took their hauls through Baxter and were always being chased by the
law, he went SR 90 through Lake City and seldom had the same problems.
The couple lived conservatively and stashed away cash money,
never using a bank. "I used Mama's pocket book," said Dickie. " I
never touched a penny of it, and many times she went to church with
that old pocketbook full of money.
"One time, we lived in that little old apartment up town and
won't ever forget it. I was walking the floor one night. It was pretty
late and Faye got up and said, 'What in the world is wrong with you,
and I said, 'Junior Crockett is up there in Georgia right now, somewhere
running a hundred miles an hour and he owes me about $12,000. If he
gets killed up there, I'll never get a nickel of it.
"I had let some boys have about four or five truck loads of
sugar and Junior was standing good for it," he explained.
"It was just a few nights later that Junior knocked on the door
and came in and sat a whole sack of money up there on the table and
said, 'Get out what I owe you.' He just sat there and slept while I counted it, and I put the rest of it back in the sack and he got up and left.
"Back then you didn't have nothing written down on paper, it
was just a man's word. I knew if Junior Crockett lived, he'd pay me, but
if he was laying down there at Brinkley's, he couldn't."
"Bootleggers had morals, and they were trustworthy people
back then," said Faye. "They wouldn't let you curse around ladies;
they'd get you if you did and call you down."
The Davis couple especially remember Junior Crockett, one of
the most prosperous of the Baker County moonshiners. "I want
to tell you something about Junior Crockett," said Dickie. " He was
always honest with people. If Junior told you something, he would do
it. Junior Crockett helped a lot of people in this county. Everybody
always wants to talk about the bad things and seldom say anything
about the good, but Crockett helped many an old farmer and people
out there in these woods. No telling what people owed him at the
drug store. His daddy delivered me into the world, and he was the
same way. If you called him he would come, if you had money or didn't have it. He was a fine man, too.
"I always kept my dealings pretty quiet," said Dickie. "And I
worked for anyone but myself. I'd buy sugar in Jacksonville, 120
sacks at a time and bring it out here on a truck. It was only $8.25 for a
100-pound sack. I even hauled it off the docks when it arrived from
Cuba, bringing back 250 sacks at a time from Tampa. If I traded for
moonshine, I could make more money, often doubling it if I hauled it to
Miami or Tampa. Most of the moonshine I hauled from Baker
county went into counties that were dry, up in Georgia."
Once he purchased a police car. "I bought the car that Deputy
Charney Rhoden drove, a 1940 Ford with a Lincoln engine. It had a siren
and all on it," he said.
Fast cars, out-running the law, initiating fast car races, 'out foxing' the authorities was life in the fast lane, and Dickie Davis had a part
in all of it. His stories are endless and even as candid and frank as he
normally is, he steadfastly refuses to relate some of them.
"In the first place, you wouldn't believe them, and in the next
place, I wouldn't want them printed," he said.
The Davis's memories of those days are very vivid, and their
strong ties to those who were involved are manifest as they relate
story after story that lingers from that era of time.
"I remember something about Catfish Stokes I'll never forget
and it always brings a chuckle," he said, talking about the man who, one time, constructed most of the moonshine stills in the county. "One
night, me and him were up there in Lake City. We went to see someone about some whiskey and when I picked him up to go with me, he
just happened to be barefooted (which was pretty natural for Catfish),
and had his britches' legs rolled up. We were out in the woods about
half way to the man's house when our old car blowed up, so we decided to walk back to Lake City and call someone in Macclenny to come
get us. It was pouring down rain. We were walking down this old road,
soaking wet, and Catfish said, 'Now here I am out here, barefooted, and
I got enough money in my pockets right now to burn a wet mule.' I
think he had about three or four thousand dollars crammed in his
pockets that day," Dickie laughed.
In 1959 something happened that changed the Davis's life. "I
came home one day and told Faye I was quitting. I said, 'I'm selling all
my cars and equipment,' and the reason I did was because I saw that
the people were getting down on it. People were telling on their
neighbors and things were beginning to change. Our son, Ricky,
was growing up and we had a new baby daughter, Dana. I told Faye,
'Things are beginning to change and I'm going to change with it I don't want my kids to grow up in nothing like this.' So I quit...just like that!"
Contrary to what many people conceive as moonshine days of
money rolling in by the barrels, Davis said it was not true.
"Back in the' 50's, any amount of money was a lot, because there just wasn't much money around any place. The average salary was $30 a week. What little people made, it took every penny to live if you had a car or a piece of land somewhere. Moonshine supplemented what little you could make at a regular job, and the money was used for necessities. About the time a moonshiner got a little
money, his still was torn up or his car confiscated. You'd have to start
over. But it was a job, and it paid better than other jobs that were
available in those days. It was hard work, too. There was nothing easy
about it."
After Davis gave up any activities connected with the moonshine industry he continued to work with his father in the fuel oil business.
"It wasn't long after that when daddy came over to the house
one day and he said, 'Son, I'm retiring. I'm going to start drawing my
social security and I want to sell out to you.' I said, 'How much do you
want?' and he told me. I went into the back room, got the money and
handed it to him right then. I was also in the pulp wood business with
a man named Roy Snow and I was making good money doing that.
Snow ran it, and I helped him some. I had bought the pulp wood
trucks and he did the business end."
Although Davis admits that hauling moonshine may have helped him get a jump on life financially it was the consistent hard work and shrewd handling of his combined incomes that gave him the real start.
"I never missed a day's work from my other jobs," he mused.
'Even when I was making seventy-five cents an hour by day, and $150
by night. I worked steady for daddy by day and for myself in moonshine by night. I've always been frugal with my money."
Today, the R.H. Davis oil Company, boasts of six trucks and
eight modern Exxon stations. It is still a father-and-son operation
although his father died in 1969. Today, Dickie's son, Ricky, is affiliated
with the company which is located on 121 north of Macclenny. In addition, the business has now expanded to a fourth generation Davis. Richard's great grandson, Max, who is Ricky's son, will help carry on the business legacy when he graduates from college.
LP gas was added to the business in June 1983, and more than
50 employees staff the office, service and delivery departments.
Before his death, Richard J. Davis was an active member of the
Primitive Baptist Church where he served as a deacon. Among the
many things he did for the community was helping to build the present day Macclenny Primitive Baptist Church. He served for six years as
a Baker County School Board member. He assisted the needs of the
school system during times when it was left up to the parents and citizens if activities, such as a football team, were organized for the
youth. If it was a program to back the youth, or community, Richard
Davis' name was always on the list of supporters and contributors.
Like his father, Dickie contributes his services to the community in many varied ways. His company is continually asked for support
and contributions, and for years they have sponsored sports groups
such as Little League. The many civic interests he has supported have
been varied. In minutes after hearing about the project SOS (Save Our
Station) and the need for a place to move the historic Macclenny railroad depot, he came up with the suggestion for the present-day location which evolved into the Baker County Historical Park. He enthusiastically and financially supported and served on the first Baker County-Wide Homecoming Committee. He served on the Board of County Commissioners for 12 years, and on the Baker County Development Commission for four years.
"Serving on the Development Commission is what compelled
me to run for county commissioner because I saw so many things that
we were missing in the county on enhancement money that the federal government was giving away," he said. "We had never got a federal grant until I got on the board and, when I did, I went after them. We
built the Social Services Building down there and the Senior Citizen's
Building and part of the jail. We built the Fire Department, Bertha
Wolfe Health Department Building, and the Agriculture Building. We
built that with federal money, we didn't have any tax money in that,
we got it with grants. Baker County never had a grant until I went on
the Board of County Commissioners.
"I got a federal grant to bring the water and sewer plant to the
Development Commission property on 121 South before we got
Westinghouse. Me and Inez Burnsed were at a meeting in the Mayor's
office in Jacksonville and a guy from Washington was there. That was
back when Carter was president and he was giving all this money
away on water and sewers. I told him that our county wasn't in the
water and sewer business, but the city was, and the Development
Commission had property for it. I told him we could have it ready if we
should land any kind of industry if we qualified. I asked him if we
could get money for that and he said, 'yes,' and said he'd send me the
papers.
"At the same time, I asked him about Glen St. Mary, and he
said, 'yes,' and he'd send me the packet on that for them. I filled out
our papers and sent them in. Then I went over and gave the papers
he'd sent me for Glen to Mr. Phillip Taylor. I told him the money was
available if he would fill the papers out and send them back in. I went
back a week later and Mr. Taylor told me he and the commissioners
had talked about it, and they had decided they didn't want to mess
with the federal government. So they never did send in the papers and
they could have got water and sewer for Glen free. But it's everybody
to his own thing I guess, but if the government is going to give the
money away and you're not going to get it for your county then you
are going to be behind times.
"I got every nickel I could for the county. If it came out, I put in
for it. Some I missed, but some I didn't. The whole time I served on
the county commission, I never charged the county with a phone call,
never charged them with a hotel bill or motel bill or any kind of travelling expense. I always paid for that myself wherever I went. I used to
go over to the State Road Department yard in Lake City and the salvage yards in Starke and buy equipment for the county for practically
nothing. I bought a 10-wheeler dump truck for the county over there
for $1,800, with brand new tires on it, about a $60,000 truck. So a lot
of money can be saved," he said.
Still up early each morning and to bed late at night, he continues to work tirelessly. In the last few years he has been taking more
time off to travel with Faye in their motor home. Sometimes they are
accompanied by close friends, and family. Together they trail across the
country hunting, fishing, attending country shows and seeing the
countryside. Since he no longer holds down positions of government
he is free to relax and get-away more.
"My daddy always told me if I'd tend to my business, I'd stay
about two weeks behind because I wouldn't have time to spend on
other people's business, and he was right," said the resourceful man,
who still believes in hard work and frugality.
His parents were a great influence on his life, and he still remembers back to those days when they were a big part of his daily life.
"Daddy and Mama didn't approve of moonshine, but back then
when I did it, it was just a way of life, and they just accepted it. In the
beginning, it was either do that or starve to death. After all,
seventy-five cents an hour, or $28 a week, which ever way you want
to look at it, didn't take care of the bills, even in 1950.
"Daddy never owned property. All he did was haul the gas
from Jacksonville and sell it. He didn't have a piece of property or anything when I bought him out except for two trucks.
"I've often wished that daddy could come back and see what
all has happened to the company that he started in 1931," said Dickie.
"When I had that cancer operation 18 months ago, and I came home
from the hospital, Faye moved one of our adjustable beds down here
to the family room for me to sleep in. I woke up about 2 o'clock in the
morning and daddy was standing right there," he said, pointing to
near-by spot. "Now I'm just as wide awake as I was then, and we exchanged words. I said, 'What are you doing here?', and he said, 'I've come to see about you.' That's all he said, I remember his exact words."
Today, as he carries on the family traditions and business of his
father, he knows that the price for legacy is worth more than all the
wealth in the world. And he is passing it on to his son, and grandsons
that follow, for generations to come.
Back to Top
Carl Henry Rewis
Baker County, Florida
North, East, South and West -- Carl Rewis lived a nomadic life in every section of Baker County during his formative years. Like many other children born in Baker County around the turn of the century, his parents were poor, but honest and proud tenant farmers. His birth in Manning, south of Macclenny, on September 28, 1923, was the first arrival of 12 children born to Harry and Ella Wilkerson Rewis who had married on January 6 of that year.
By the time he was a month old, he was living south of Sanderson where he became ill. Dr. Edward Crockett, the county physician was summoned.
"I only have one shot with me, Mrs. Rewis," the doctor told Carl's young mother. "And I can't waste it on your child, he's not going to live, and I must give it to a child whose life I can save."
"if you don't give that shot to my child, I'll hit you over the head with the frying pan, doctor," Ella Rewis retorted.
Her threat was taken seriously, and Dr. Crockett gave the sick little boy a shot in the rump. Within two hours he rallied, and miraculously lived. "Had it not been for Dr. Crockett giving me that shot, I'd be dead," he said.
"We moved around a lot. And I think Mama had a baby every time we moved.
"We had an old Model T Ford and somehow daddy would pile it
high with all our stuff. He'd take the headboards and make railings on top
of the car, then he would stack our wood stove, moss mattresses and
chairs, tables and stuff like that all on top of one another. We always had
two or three cats, and three or four dogs, and when daddy would get
everything loaded, he'd pile us younguns on top of all our belongings and
start throwing the cats and dogs up on top, too. We would look like a
freight train coming down the road piled up so high. They had dirt roads
back then and daddy would have to ease in that rut 'cause the car would
feel like it was going to turn over, it was so top heavy."
Besides Carl, the couple's other children were: Ida, Wash Daniel
Verna Belle, Betty Jean, Nathaniel, Barbara, John and Lizzie (twins, born
on Christmas day), Dolores, Ronald and Melvin.
"We didn't have plenty to eat, but we had enough," he said
"We'd have home- made grits, smoked bacon, greens and potatoes. We
were sure of that 'cause we raised it. Back then, there was a lot of field
goats and you could get a great big one for fifty cents. Daddy would
buy one and he'd castrate the Billy, they called it a ram, and bring him on
home, hang him up by his heels, cut his head off, and let him bleed.
Then he'd skin him, and throw the hide away so the meat wouldn't
smell like a goat. And that was some real good eatin'.
"We made our pillows and mattresses from moss we pulled
from the trees. We'd pick all the sticks out of it and Mama would boil it
in a big wash pot to kill the red bugs. Then we'd hang it out on the line
to dry before we used it.
"I remember my grandma had some geese and she had a
feather barrel where she collected feathers she'd use once a year.
Someone put an old gopher in the feather barrel once and forgot him.
The next year when grandma took out the feathers the gopher was
still alive, but when they let him out he went straight for some gourd
vines and ate himself to death.
"We could talk mama out of whipping us, but if daddy told you
he was going to, he did it. We knew we better not tell daddy a lie
because he would put the razor strap on your butt. I used to think he
whipped me too much, but now that I'm grown, I can see where I
needed the whipping. Daddy didn't believe in telling a lie, or picking
up anything that didn't belong to you, and he taught us that.
"Daddy cut logs, worked in pulp wood, dug stumps, farmed,
and done just about any thing he could do to find work back then.
There just wasn't many jobs around. When I got big enough, about
ten years old, me and him sawed pulp wood and that's the reason I
didn't get to go to school. And to this day, I've always said if I was to
do something bad enough that I'd have to be sent to Raiford and they
gave me a job where I'd have to use a cross-cut saw, then they could
put me in the electric chair because I wouldn't do it again."
As time progressed, his father, Harry, took a job in Jacksonville
at the shipyards. At the age of 42 he was able to save up $700 and
purchase 25 acres of prime land in north Macclenny where he lived
until he died in 1980, a year following his wife's death. About the
same time, seventeen-year-old Carl obtained employment at a chicken farm at Brandy Branch for $12 a week.
"Mama always had 50-100 chickens around and I loved to eat
the raw eggs. I've eat a truck load of 'em. I remember she put a strap
on me one time for eating the eggs and putting the hull back into the
nest. She didn't care for me eating the eggs, but she'd say, 'Throw
the hull.' I'd just punch me a little hole in it and suck the egg
right out of the shell. But after I went to work at that chicken farm and
some of the eggs would bust and flies and knats were all over the
nest, I ain't never liked an egg since. I hardly ever eat one now."