James Arthur Barton
Macclenny, Florida
When the late Baker County Sheriff, Asa Coleman, approached James Arthur Barton one day in 1948 about a job as his one and only deputy, it caught the tall, soft- spoken gentleman by surprise. He had very little education, no training at all in law enforcement, and he had been a bootlegger. At the time, the 30-year-old father of two children was working at the local cold storage plant working for thirty-five dollars a week. He told the sheriff he would think about his
offer, talk it over with his wife, and let him know. During the following three weeks he thought about his life and how the new job would affect him and his family.
He was born to Martin and Anna (Harvey) Barton in a section
known as Barber Bay, north of Macclenny, on March 16, 1918. The first
memory he has of life is riding on top of a mule-drawn wagon piled with
furniture to his new home in Sanderson. He was about eight years old.
"My daddy and mammy owned a 25-acre farm, but they sold it
and moved north of Sanderson to share crop for Lonnie Sweat, a man
who lived in Jacksonville," he said. "Best I remember we moved in two
wagons and a cart and they had to make two loads. It took us a day
to make one trip. Nobody back then had a car or truck."
His father did odd jobs for cash money, like snaking cross ties
in the swamp with an ox for Paul Knabb, or grinding grist at the
Wester's grist mill in-Sanderson on Saturdays. His family worked the
farm, hoeing, plowing and harvesting together to have food for their
family year-round.
"My mammy worked right alongside of us. She could plow just
like a man. She would have to take off and go fix dinner or supper or
something like that, but she was always working," he said.
When the Barton couple married they lived on the Coll Brown
place in Taylor. Anna first gave birth to twins, a girl and a boy, but they
died in infancy. Following the twins were nine sons and one daughter
Ressie, Earn, Rhoda (their daughter), James, Martin, Jr.(called 'Monk'),
E.W., Lawrence, T.J, Lloyd, and Isaac Eugene, called 'Slick'."
When the children reached school age, they attended at
Sanderson, but, he says, school wasn't then like it is today.
"At that time they only had school a few months out of the
year," he explained. "Lots of the time we were needed to work on the
farm, so we didn't attend. I think Ress, Earn and Rhoda went to school
up there at Sanderson for awhile, then something happened. I think
one got a whipping, and my daddy just quit sending us. I didn't get,
much education, but it wasn't nobody's fault. My daddy just werent
able to take care of all of us."
Within four years the family had returned to north Macclenny.
"I went to Garrett school a little after we moved back to
Macclenny. None of us got to go much, maybe about 25 days in the
term. Then I started to school in Macclenny later. One day, some of us
boys were caught smoking and we were reported to Mr. Lonnie Dugger,
the principal. He told me he had to paddle me, but I told him I wasn't
going to take a paddling. He wasn't a very big man and I was a big old
boy so he said he'd have to expel me. So I just told him I'd quit. I
ought to have taken that whipping and went on to school, but I didn't.
He was a fine man, and a fine principal. It wasn't his fault. He had to
have rules. I never have really got to tell him how much I thought of
him."
When James left school he was in the sixth grade and 15 years
old. He got a job farming for Mr. T.J. Knabb, a prominent Baker County
land owner.
"I worked for him for ten dollars a month and room and board,
which was one hundred twenty dollars a year," he said. "I gave my
mammy and daddy five dollars every month, half of what I earned.
Back then I could buy me a pair of shoes, a pair of overalls and a shirt
for five dollars and maybe have a little bit of it left. Mr. Knabb always
let me ride one of his horses home on the weekend to be with my
parents," he said.
Later, T.J. Knabb sent him to live at the home of Bart and Daisy
Register, who sharecropped land for him four miles north of Macclenny.
"Mr. Knabb gave me three dollars a week and paid my room
and board. I stayed there a year, but I'd still go home on weekends,"
he said.
Mr. Knabb sent him to the home of Simeon and Sarah Register,
the parents of Bart.
"I called him Grandpa Register," he said. "I helped with the
farming and helped with the cows. He grew cotton, cane and corn. I
stayed there about a year before I left and returned to Macclenny. Mr.
T.J. wanted me to drive his trucks, tend to his cows, haul fertilizer, and
anything else needed doing on the farm, like delivering."
He taught himself to drive Knabb's vehicles. "What happened, I
just thought I could drive and I got his car and learnt myself. License
were not required back then."
James moved back in with his parents and lived with them
until he was 24 years old. Knabb paid him twenty dollars a month.
Meanwhile, he had fallen in love with Bart Register's daughter,
Sadie. "When I first went to their home she was about ten years old,
so we just talked, but we knowed we cared about each other," he said.
"When she got a little older, we started talking about getting married
but going to school was real important to her and she wanted to go so
bad. So, while she finished school, I left and went to Alabama to work
in the CC Camp. It took a day and a half to go by train and I remember
it was so hot. The windows were open because there was no air conditioning back then and when we got there we were black from head
to foot from the coal. Some other men I knew that went with me
were Archie Rhoden, Hamp Register, Herbert Harris, Fraser Hodge, and
Harold Wilkins. We made a dollar a day and they furnished our clothes.
"I stayed with the CC Camp for two years. Sadie graduated and
had gone to work for the cigar company in Jacksonville, so we just ran
away and got married. I hated to do that, but we were afraid her
daddy might not accept it. All I remembered is when we used to ride
the woods together marking and branding cattle and treating them for
screw worms and everything else that needed to be done, we'd be riding along out there in them woods and he'd tell me that he didn't raise
no younguns to give away. So I took him at his word. I knew that he
knowed we cared about each other, you just can't keep something like
that hid, I reckon.
"We went over to Lake Butler to marry after I picked her up
from her job at King Edward Cigar Factory one day. They had this little
old newspaper down there and a bunch of her uncles lived there and
saw it in the paper. I never will forget it. I had picked her up from
work and took her home and I knew just as good when I walked in
that door they knew it. Her daddy said, 'You younguns go in there and
get you some supper. I know all about what you all have done.' And
that's all he ever said. Sadie was his first to marry, and it wasn't like he
didn't like me. Three of us Bartons married his girls. E.W. married
Alma Lee, Lawrence married Pauline and I married Sadie.
"T.J. Knabb had died, but his wife, Leona, built me and my wife
a nice little house, and she bought us the furniture we needed. She
bought a stove, bedroom suite, and a living room suite all for one hundred dollars. She paid me thirty-five dollars a month and we paid her
ten dollars out of that for our furniture. Sadie quit work. She was sickly, but she eventually got straightened out.
I left Mrs. Knabb after a year and went to Baldwin to work for
the state for eighty dollars a month. After a year of that, I started
working for the railroad for fifty cents an hour. I worked first as a
laborer, then on the Camp car which meant I had to travel around.
Sadie went back home to live and I came home on weekends. Then
the war started and I went to work for the shipyard where I made
three hundred and fifty dollars a week.
Me and Sadie bought us a 40-acre farm from Mr. Charlie Garrett. It had a nice little wood house on it. Our son Larry was born in 1944
and right after him we had a daughter named Phyllis. I stayed at the
shipyard for five years until it closed down. When I got back to
Macclenny there wasn't any place to get a job that would support my
family.
"That's when I started bootlegging. I knowed some people in it.
They made money and I knew it. Me and Bart, Sadie's father, put us up
six or eight barrels apiece and we started but we just couldn't make no
money. They just kept tearing us up. Me and E.W. and Lawrence got to
messing with it. It looked to me like we just weren't smart enough to get
out of their way, or bad management, or someone might have been having something to do with it. You don't want to accuse anyone, unless
you know for sure. I didn't clear but about thirty-five dollars a week.
"It finally got down to where Lawrence got to quit fooling with
it. He went to work for Johnny Burnett. E.W. and me put up a little
place down there near where me and my wife was living. My wife
begged me so hard to quit. She never wanted me to get in it. I went
against what she wanted me to do, I can tell you that. When my baby,
Phyllis, was born, I just told E.W. one day that I was going to quit fooling with it, and it just struck me like that. It was on a Sunday and I
asked him if he wanted it. We had 16 barrels. He said, 'Well, I ain't
got the money to buy it,' and I said, 'Well you can have it, I'm
through messing with it.' He didn't think I meant it, but I did and
when I come home that night Sadie had supper done. She'd done
taken care of the younguns. I told her, 'Sadie, I'm done messing with
whiskey,' and I never will forget what she said. She told me, 'I'll help
you work, and we'll do all we can together, and she meant it.
"After I gave up bootlegging, I went to work for the cold storage
plant in Macclenny for thirty-five dollars a week, and that's where I
was working one day when Sheriff Asa Coleman drove up and said he
wanted to see me first chance I could get. I thought one of my brothers was in trouble; I had no idea what he wanted with me.
"When I went uptown I saw him parked in his car and I went
up to him and asked him what he wanted to see me about. He said,
'Get in and sit down, so I did. He said, 'James, I want to give you a job,'
and I said, 'Mr. Asa, what kind of job is it?' and he said, 'Deputy sheriff.
I was shocked. I said, 'Now, Mr. Asa, we're going to have to talk about
this.' I said, 'You know in your mind that I bootlegged awhile.' I said,
'It's been three years ago or longer.' And he said, 'Well, you quit it, didn't you?' And I said, 'Yes, sir,' and he said, 'Well, you going to stay quit?' and I said, 'Yes, as long as I can get rations for my family, I am,' and he said, 'Well, I'd like to give you the job and you and your family move
into the jail and take care of the jail and work the county.'
"I told him I'd have to think about it and talk it over with my
wife. I knew that just about every law man I knowed had separated
from their wife and had troubles, and that weren't going to happen
with me. Well, I came home and told her and we took two or three
weeks talking about it. We eventually made up our minds to go down
there, but I went back to Mr. Asa and said, 'Now Sheriff, you know that
I know just about everybody in this county and those that are messing
with moonshine. I want you to tell me just exactly how you want it
run, and if I accept the job, then I'll do what you want me to do.' He
said, 'James, I realize you know all these people, but you aren't going
to have time to get out in these woods and find no stills. If you get a
report on a still, you check it out, and we'll go tear it up. If you stop a
car and there is moonshine whiskey in it, you make a charge against
who ever is driving and let them go through the court.'
"I accepted the job and moved my family in the jail. My wife
did the cooking for us as well as the people in the jail. She ran the
radio, too, and she was paid seventy five dollars a month for it. I
worked the whole county by myself and was paid one hundred twenty-five dollars a month. We thought that was pretty good money
back then. It weren't costing us anything for rent or our food. The city
paid Asa seventy-five cents a day for anyone we put in jail and Asa
gave that to us. Whatever we ate, the prisoners ate. If we ate stew,
they ate stew., if we had chicken, they had chicken. I've had lots of
people come back to me and thank me for being so good to 'em."
James said he was busy with deputy duties, working about 16
hours a day. "Sometimes I didn't even take my shoes off," he said.
Eight years later, Sheriff Asa Coleman was called to Tallahassee
by the Governor of Florida. He was asked to give an accounting of his
arrests for moonshine operations in the county.
"My wife and I had to go there and take the records. They
asked me if I'd ever helped tear up a still and I said, 'No, I've never
helped tear up no still. I ain't got time to fool with the whiskey business.' They asked me if I knew where one was, and I said, 'I don't have
time to go in them woods and hunt no still.' I was a busy man. That's
the worst eight years I've ever worked.
"Now if someone had come to me and told me where one
was, I would have told Mr. Asa and we would go out there and tear it
up. I had the records with me where I had made a lot of charges
and even today I bet you could check the records and I bet I made
more cases against moonshine whiskey than any man ever has in
any eight years they want to pick out. All the cases I made in this
county I got 96 percent convictions out of 'em. Most of 'em put up
a bond and would never show. I had to put some of my brothers in
jail, and it wasn't because I hated 'em, but I was putting other people in jail. I told them before I took the job that I was trying to
make an honest, straight living. I said, 'if you all get to drinking and
fighting, you better go to another county because if you do it, then
you'll have to go to jail like anybody else. I had to put Monk and
Lloyd in jail for fighting. Monk drank bad. They never did get mad
with me. They knew I was doing my job. I never did pay none of
their fines either.
"I knew that Junior Crockett was marked as the King Pin
Moonshiner and others, like my brother-in-law. I never went to see his
still. I knowed when the beverage men were watching something
there, but I never interfered with them. They had their own job to do. I
never did warn the bootleggers. Mr. Asa didn't do it either. He was a
man that I'd believe anything he told me.
"As far back as I can remember, just about everybody in Baker
County had a little old farm with three or four barrels of buck sitting
there, getting 'em some groceries. That was before there was any
pulp wood jobs available. There was some turpentine and cross tie
business, and one little ole nursery over there at Glen St. Mary. There
was no employment in this county. There was a lot of younguns being
fed from moonshine, and that's the way I felt and I believe that's the
way Asa felt.
"As far as I know, what I done was aboveboard. I didn't care
who knowed what I done. In those days no one had big operations.
I didn't go to any of 'em and tell 'em to quit. How a man makes a living
ain't none of my business. They were not criminals. They were doing
it to feed their family, and I don't hold it against any of 'em.
Asa Coleman decided not to seek re-election when election
time arrived. James decided he would try for the job.
"Asa talked with me and asked me if I'd run for Constable, but I
told him there was no way I could feed my family. I told him if I was
going to mess with it, I needed enough to live on. I sure enough didn't want to be a crook again.
"I didn't know that Asa and 'them' had made a deal for Asa not
to run and for Emory Jones to run. After Emory lost the election in the
first primary, I'm sure Asa voted for me, but if I had to say today I
knowed he voted the first time for Emory. I lacked about 95 votes
beating both Emory and Ed Yarbrough in the first primary, and Ed didn't
beat me but less than a 100 votes during the 1956 general election."
Yarbrough had come on the scene backed by many Macclenny
businessmen who wanted to clean the county of moonshine and the
reputation it had acquired. They wanted better for their children, they
said.
"If I had been elected sheriff, there would have been some
changes because the state law was beginning to change and they
were being more supportive. There wasn't much Asa could do with
one deputy. And there wasn't any money for another deputy. The
county owed Asa money lots of time when they didn't have enough
money to pay him. If I took an oath to do it, I would have done differently than when I was working for Asa. But I did as he told me.
"After we went to Tallahassee before the governor, I went with
the federal men. My name is on the warrants. The governor told Asa
that we'd better go to work and clean up the bootlegging or they
would suspend him. Asa asked me later if I knew where a still was
that we could tear up. I knowed it was my job if it came in front of
me, but I didn't go looking for it. When Asa asked me, I told him
where I thought one was and we went out and tore it up. Later the
beverage men would come out here and get me and I'd go with them.
I was with them when we caught friends and relatives.
"After I got to working in it, I really went to work and started
looking for signs of it. I'd call the beverage men myself if I thought I
knew where something was going on. But I ain't lying to you, I did not
have time to get out there by myself and do it. If I got after one of 'em
with whiskey on their car I couldn't catch 'em because they had their
cars fixed and you couldn't run them down. Even the highway patrolmen couldn't catch them, so there was a lot more involved than just
maybe more than what I could do and what I ought to do. I was in
some bad spots.
"When I was working as a deputy we weren't connected by
radio with the Florida Highway Patrol. If I had to have help I had to call
my wife at the jail, and she'd call someone for me, and sometimes it
would be thirty minutes to an hour before I could even get any assistance. I burned the motor up in my car chasing someone up as far as
Lake City and I had to call and get someone to come get me. After
that, Asa got me a new and different kind of car and Everette Moran
fixed it so I could catch 'em.
"And another thing. If you messed with some of them people
it could be dangerous for you and your family. Law enforcement was
limited in those days.
"I have always tried to live my life as best I could. Some things
I learned early in life. I got drunk once when I was 14 years old and I
made my own mind up that I wasn't man enough to handle that there
drinking. I quit it and I bet you a dollar that a pint bottle would hold
every drop I've drank since then. I'm a man that knows when I can't
handle something. I never did smoke much, I never gambled. I used
to shoot a little pool, not for money, maybe sometimes I'd shoot for 10
or 20 cents a game, but what little bit of money I made I tried to build
something for my wife and my family.
"I always figured that moonshine would take care of itself
when jobs opened up, and I'd say at least 65 percent of the people
dealing in moonshine quit and went to work when the Northeast
Florida State Hospital came here. Before, there was just no employment to speak of for people in the county so a man could make a
living. I don't know what some people would have done without
the income the moonshine brought. In later years, some of them
took advantage of the moonshine and did it for personal gain and
the money, and not to survive. Had I been elected sheriff I would
have gone to the main ones that I knowed were making it and I would have told them, 'Now I'm the sheriff and this is going to stop, and if you don't, then be looking for me because I'm going to come after you.' If I took that oath to do it, then that's exactly what I would have done. And then if I caught them that would have been tough.
"Asa didn't ask me not to do these things, but he told me I
wouldn't have time to go out in the woods and look for it. But what
he told me was, 'James what in the world would these youngun' do
without it? He did tell me this, 'if a beverage man, or some law
enforcement agent comes and asks you to help, then you help them.
That's our job.' But they never came. When I left the deputy job I was
making $325 a month. It cost seventy five cents a day to keep a prisoner back then, now I think they say it costs $50 a day."
James worked as a prison guard at Raiford after his defeat by a
narrow margin at the polls. He ran for Baker County Sheriff a second
time, knowing, he said, that he could not get elected, but to please
many people who encouraged him to.
"The first time I ran I felt good about it, but my wife told me to
accept the way it went and the Lord would have something to do with
it, and I did. I never worried about it.
"The second time I ran was against Ed Yarbrough, Joe
Newmans and Paul Thrift. Joe Newmans won the election that time.
After I retired from the state, Joe asked me to come to work for him as
deputy . My job was to see that the prisoners had so much exercise
and sunshine that was required by law for them to have."
That experience brought about a narrow escape for him, but
fouled an escape for two criminals. The incident happened in 1987. It
made headlines in the Wednesday, March 11, Florida Times Union with
a full 6 x 9 color picture of tough and gruff looking James holding his
pistol in hand.
The story related how former auto racer John Paul Sr. and
another inmate at the Baker County Detention Center in Macclenny
squirted a mixture of hot sauce, black pepper and Pine-Sol in James'
eyes and then tried to scale a 12-foot fence. James' glasses shielded
his eyes from the mixture and he quickly fired a warning shot at the
would-be escapees.
James stated that after the two men squirted him with the mixture from the plastic shampoo bottle that had been provided to inmates, he fired the warning shot. One of the men scaled quickly to the top of the fence with the other right behind. The mixture had hit him on the right side, splashing his face, glasses, jacket and pants.
"It burned just a little bit on my right eye and lips, but I
think it was just the fumes," he said. "After I shot at that guy
perched at the top of the chain-link fence and told him to stop, he
fell back inside the yard and the other man froze, before he began
to climb."
James forced the men to lie face down on the ground. "After
that shot, they didn't say anything," he said. "I was the one then doing
the talking."
After the incident, a pickup truck reported stolen in Gainesville
on March 3, was found with its motor running in the detention center
parking lot. It had apparently been placed there by someone helping
the two men escape.
"They thought I'd grab for my eyes, but I grabbed for my gun
James said. "If it hadn't been for my glasses, it might have worked too."
Most of the time, James said, his job was routine. He remained
with Joe Newmans for 12 years, and said he enjoyed his work. He also
worked part-time for the city of Macclenny on Saturday, doing security
work, such as guarding working prisoners."
The only two real tragedies in his life were the loss of his
beloved Sadie in August 1961 at the age of 40. Three years later his
only son, 20-year-old Larry, was killed in an automobile accident while
car racing with several of his friends. The emotional pain still haunts
the quiet-spoken man who played such a big part in Baker County's
history.
He is quick to thank the Lord for sending a good companion
into his life. For more than 30 years he has been married to Shirley
Courson, a 40-year employee with State Farm Insurance.
"She's as good a woman as I've ever seen," he said. "The good
Lord has helped us."
Shirley agrees. But, she says, she learned quickly in the marriage to let the quick-tempered man have his say first. "Then it was all over, she laughs.
The two met at the Farmer's Market in Jacksonville while selling
produce. She was 27, he was 46. After a year of courtship, they married in Folkston, Georgia, while on their way to Patterson, Georgia, to meet Shirley's parents.
"We just decided to do it at the last minute," said James. "So
we stopped over in Folkston and did it before we got to her folks."
Daughter Phyllis received a phone call from her dad with the
news the day she returned from church camp. "I just want you to know
I just got married," James told his daughter.
"You did!" exclaimed his daughter. "Well, who did you marry?" she asked him.
I had met Shirley once before," said Phyllis. "Dad brought her
to my high school graduation. I was told that Shirley had wanted to
wait until I had graduated before marrying dad, so that's what they
did."
Phyllis is quick to praise Shirley. "She is a wonderful woman. I
know dad and Shirley would have helped me all they could," she said.
"They took me to New Orleans to begin nursing school and paid my
semester. Someone, and I think it must have been Shirley, made sure I
had a bank account set up with money in it."
It doesn't take any time at all to feel the immense independence of his daughter. I knew they had their lives and I insisted in
paying for my own education. I knew they would help, but I wanted
to do it on my own," she said.
Within six months Phyllis was home. Heartbroken. Her only sibling had been killed. The year was 1964.
Tears flow from James, Phyllis and Shirley. The incident is still painful
and vivid.
"I never had any children of my own," says Shirley. "James and I raised
two of his brother Slick's children when he died.
Martha was eight and Russell was seven. We became their legal
guardians and they seem just like my own children.
She shares the grief of James and Phyllis when they speak of
Larry. "Larry was friendly, and everyone's friends," said his sister, trying
to maintain her composure. "It is still hard to think about after all these
years," she said. "He loved sports and played center for the Wildcats
and was All-Conference. His jersey was number 41," she said.
"He never gave me any trouble," said James, wiping tears from his eyes. "He was
always a good boy."
Brown-haired, hazel-eyed Larry, an employee of the railroad, was married to Claudia St. John, his high school sweetheart. They had one daughter, two-month-old Tonya, when Larry was killed.
"Tonya is now thirty years old and I gave her a little piece of land so she could be right here near us," smiled James.
"And I'll be moving here too," said Phyllis, "just as soon as we sell our home in Tarpon Springs, Florida.
"When I was a kid growing up, well, like a lot of other
kids, I thought I was really smart and knew what was going on
in the world. I thought that I was probably smarter than my
parents. Well, I've often thought about that over the years, and,
I remember that my dad said he never had a whole lot of formal education. But, as I got older I got wiser and realized my parents were, and are, a whole lot wiser and smarter than I gave them credit for and I just want daddy to know that now after having raised children I can appreciate what a wise man
and a wise father he was. The older I get the more I realize
just how wonderful it has been to have him for a father.
"I was 15 when my mom died, and I have really good
memories of her as well, but dad and I have had 48 years
together and he is just a great man. I didn't always do what he
wanted me to, I'm sure," she said, glancing at her father's
tear-stained face through her own tears.
"You children never gave me no trouble, and I've missed
you since you've been away," her father told her.
"I'm glad to be back," said his daughter.
Phyllis returned to nursing school after Larry's death, first
attending Lake City Community College.
"I needed a car, and daddy signed my loan" she said. "Later,
.when I finished nursing school I went to buy a new Plymouth. The
bank said I'd have to have daddy sign, but I told them I had paid for
the other car. I had never missed a payment, and if that wasn't good
enough to get a car on my own signature, I told them to forget it."
She got the new car. Today, she also has a master's degree in
nursing. She paid for it all. Her title is Phyllis Barton Lewis, RN., M.S.,
ARNP. She's employed with the Baker County Public Health
Department as a Family Nurse Practitioner. While James said he's
proud of all the education she's acquired in the career she loves, he
hopes she is through with school so they can spend lots more time
together.
"I think she'll always appreciate going to school," said James.
"I wish I had gotten more education."
Phyllis married Homer Lewis in 1973 . They have one daughter, Jennifer Lewis, now 20 years old and a student at Palatka Community College. She is proud of her stepson, Greg.
"The only reason he isn't mine is because I didn't give birth to
him," she said. "He is married to Linda Williams and they just gave us
a grandson, William, who is nine months old," she smiled.
Shirley is quick to praise the family she married into. "I just
feel like I got into one of the best families I could have gotten into,
she said.
A few years ago, they added a 30x32 room onto the back of
their spacious ranch-style home to accommodate Shirley's mother.
At one end of the room is a large brick fireplace enhanced by a brick
wall that lends a homeyness to the atmosphere. With her three sisters, they take turns staying full time with their mother, 85-year-old Maude Courson.
Shirley's dual role as a career woman and homemaker is no
super-charged challenge for her.
"There was a time she even helped get out and make the garden," lauded Phyllis. "Now she keeps three 26-foot freezers full and
cans vegetables as well from their garden."
James plants a garden year-round. He invites friends, neighbors and relatives to partake of the bounty. He spends time with his
grandchildren, fishes some and keeps an immaculate yard around his
40-acre spread on Highway 23-A north.
He attends Bethlehem Primitive Baptist Church regularly and
does all the dish washing after monthly fellowship meetings.
"I don't mind doing the dishes; in fact, I like it. I do them at
home, too, but I don't much like the cooking part," he said. "I even
clean house a little."
The days are much more peaceful for him now, even when
some painful memories of the past haunt his mind. He knows that
an era like he experienced in Baker County will never pass this way
again, and though the times were hard, and memories sometimes
sore, he has no regrets that he was there to play an important part
of the historical scene.
* * * * *
James Barton died suddenly on Tuesday, May 9, 1995.
Back to Top
G.W. Rhoden
1994
G.W. Rhoden has gone from a mule-and-wagon-days-child moonshiner, to a fast-car-catch-'em-and-arrest-'em sheriff's deputy -- two power-charged careers that spanned more than three decades. He has known and lived on both sides of the
law.
At one time he knew every family in Baker County, where they lived, how
they lived, when they went and when they came. He knew what kind of car
they drove, who they were kin to, and what they were up to. If a stranger wandered into town, he knew that, too. To all, he was a man of his word that both the law-abiding and not-so-law- abiding trusted, respected, called their
friend and held in high esteem.
How did he do it? This is his story.
It began December 2, 1929, when he was born to Raiford and
Ethel Rhoden on a farm north of Macclenny.
"I started off bootlegging when I was about seven or eight years
old," he said. "We had a still about two miles from our house. Daddy
would take me with him in the mule and wagon and when we'd get
there he'd put me up in a tree with a fork in it and that would be where
I'd stay to watch for the revenuers while he worked to make the shine.
Well, I just kept helping my daddy as I grew. He'd send me to the house
to get a 100-pound sack of sugar and I wasn't big enough to lift the sack
on the wagon, so I'd get it on a stump and then roll it up on the wagon."
It was during the Great Depression. Work was hard to find, if not
impossible. Men had no money for their family's shoes or clothing and
were lucky if they found someone willing to exchange those commodities
for farm eggs, garden vegetables, fish or game.
"My daddy made shine out of necessity," he said. "Everybody
knowed how to make it, you could get up in the mornings and if a person
had a liquor still you could see smoke coming from it if they had it fired up that morning. It was just a way of life, either every one was doing it or,
knew someone involved someway. I kept helping daddy until I learned
how to make it myself. I remember one time daddy had me on the road
with him and we thought the law was out there somewhere and daddy
said, 'if they come by and ask you if you know where a moonshine still is,
say, 'Yeah, I know where one is,' then say, 'Mr. Knabb's got a big one up
there at Woodstock, a real big one."
"Daddy knew Mr. Knabb had a turpentine still there and
thought that would throw the revenuers off.
"Daddy was working for a dollar a day sawing logs when he could
get work and making the moonshine when he wasn't. He'd have to ride
an old mule to work before daylight and back home after dark. After I got
to be a teenager, about 13 or 14 and I think about in the 10th grade,
daddy moved to Jacksonville to find work, and I moved in with my Aunt
Carey Rhoden and her family. It was known that I knew how to make
liquor so I was contacted by a few men who told me if I'd make liquor for
them they would give me a job. So they paid me a $1 a jug to make it and
they furnished everything. We had 28 barrels that would run about 30
jugs of liquor a week.
"I started making good money, at least it was in those days, so I
quit school. I had so much money I couldn't tote it and had to keep it in a
dresser drawer. I made more in two days than daddy made in a month if
he worked everyday. I didn't buy a car or nothing, I just spent that money
somehow, I don't remember how I spent it. Then the revenuers tore the
still up. After that three other people, put up the money for a still and I
ran it for them. Soon after that they came out with these planes and they
could spot the stills from the air.
"One day a friend said to me, 'That plane found that still yesterday,
I saw them circling, you better not go down there.' I had another boy
helping me and we waited around until after dinner and didn't see anyone so we decided to go on down there and the revenuers were there
waiting for us. We got away. We ran through the woods and they were
shooting over our heads trying to scare us. For awhile after that I didn't
make too much whiskey.
"After the Depression and World War II was beginning to start,
sugar was hard to get to make the shine, and that's where Junior Crockett
came in. He started selling us syrup and that's how he got rich. He
helped everyone because he would bring us the syrup and if we didn't
have the money he would swap syrup for the shine and we could make
more and sell more with him helping us. I was too young to go off in the
service, but a lot of the moonshiners got called off to war and when they
got home they started bootlegging again. Only this time it was different.
They wanted to make some money fast so they got these big old steel
vats and that's when they started making 50 jugs a run. Things got all
out of hand and the people were making whiskey different. It wasn't
good whiskey anymore.
"I married in 1947 and we had two children. I went to work for Mr.
E.N. Brown, a sawmill man. I began to see that it was wrong and it wasn't
for the reasons bootlegging was done in the '30s and `40s when people
did it to survive because there were no jobs available to them. This county was covered with moonshine stills. There was more liquor being made
here than you've ever seen in your life. Out there where I lived, I could ride
a horse to a number of liquor stills in just a little while. Almost every farm
had a liquor still. I mean, people made that much liquor and making so
much money, you can't even imagine how much. I saw paper bags filled
with it.
It got so bad you couldn't even let your wife go up town. The
bootleggers and bolita sellers would pick a fight with you over nothing
and make slurring remarks. They were taking over and if you didn't do like
they said to do, they'd have you caught. Loyalty failed, and some of them
just took over. This place got just about like that 'Walking Tall' movie.
Gambling was open on the streets. They had their books right out in their
hands in the public. We became known as a notorious county and the
bootlegging capitol of the world.
"I started working for Mr. Jones and Mr. Nagle over at Pinetop as an
equipment operator."
Rhoden said that during this era of time, a group of Baker County
citizens banded together and convinced a young man, E. Ed Yarbrough
from Taylor, to run for sheriff and clean up the bootlegging.
"I campaigned for him because I wanted to see things change. I
wanted the county to be a place you could raise your family because it
had become a bad place. Just about everyone in the county was involved
in one way or another.
"When Ed got elected he asked me to go to work for him. I did,
and, buddy, we went to work, and we really cleaned it up. There was a lot
of my friends who were bootlegging, people I loved and respected. I went
to a lot of 'em and told 'em, 'You better quit 'cause we are going to stop
this bootlegging.' Ed went to them, too. He even sent me to see 'em and
tell 'em if they didn't do like they ought to we were going to catch 'em,
and we did. We gave them a certain amount of time. He knew them well
and had gone to school with many of them all of his life.
"Well, they didn't just about do it, you'd just about have to catch
'em. I caught a lot of my friends, I shore did, and they're still my friends.
When I caught them they knew me, and they respected me for doing
what I was sworn in to do and they respected me 'cause if I caught 'em
they didn't get mad. A lot of 'em went to jail, a lot of 'em!"
Rhoden said catching the bootleggers wasn't that big of a job.
"They started reporting on one another. We'd get calls to the
sheriffs office sometime and the person would say, 'There's a still down
yonder at so and so's,' but you'd never know who called. Somebody
would get mad with you cause you wouldn't do like they wanted and
they'd turn you in. They'd think we went and found the still on our own,
but we didn't," he said.
"People in the county were tired of it and how it had gotten out
of hand. They helped us do it by being an informer. There was no more
loyalty like the old days.
"We'd go on stake-outs some times at night. Mosquitoes were
awful. We'd lay out for days trying to catch 'em. A Baker County native
from Taylor was a state beverage agent and he'd get us to go with him a
lot of times when he didn't have enough help. We'd get in the car about
two or three o'clock in the morning. One person would be driving while
the rest of us would lay down in the car. The agent would let us out on a
road to hide our tracks and sometimes we would lay out for weeks
like that trying to catch 'em. We'd take food with us to eat. And back
then we didn't have nothing to put on for the mosquitos and they'd eat us
alive. "The most exciting part was the chase after they had made the
shine and were moving it to sale. They'd usually outrun us because they
really had fast cars. Local people could rebuild their cars for higher speeds and we just couldn't catch them because of it. Ed ordered me a fast one
that was supposed to keep up with theirs, but they would even outrun it.
"When I went to work for Ed I knew everybody in this county, just
about it, where he lived and where he worked, what kind of car he drove
and all like that. You knew when a stranger came to town and if a fellow
was a bootlegger you knew that too," he said.
"Ed Yarbrough was a good sheriff because when he took office he
done what he said he would do. We broke up gambling, too, and that's
where I got into trouble one Sunday morning. I had to shoot a fellow.
They had gambled all night and they broke up in the morning about 7
a.m. They got into a fight up there in Margaretta and one fellow shot
another. I was on duty that morning and I got a call to go to this bar.
"When I drove up there a fellow walked up to me and said there's
a fellow back there that has shot a fellow and they done took him to the
hospital. He said the man that shot him was in the back, so I pulled my
car around to the back and when I got around there he went to shooting
at me and shot 11 times and me sitting in the car. One shot took out the
vent glass where I was sitting. I got out of the car and started shooting. I
I shot five times and he was standing back of a car. I hit the car with all
five bullets and then he stuck his head out from behind the tire and I shot
again and that was all my bullets. I reloaded and shot again and this time p
I hit him with my 7th shot. He meant to kill me. He was from Chicago and
about 30 years old.
"That was the only fellow I had to kill. I felt bad about it until one
day Mr. Brinkley, the mortician, told me that this guy's dad had called.
Brinkley told me he asked him if he would call me and give me his regards
and say that I had killed one of the meanest men that has ever lived. He
said, 'Tell that guy that had to kill him not to feel bad about it because he meant to kill him.' My shot had hit him right side of the head, but I had to
kill him or be killed. I wouldn't go back through all that mess again,
nooooooooooo.
"I enjoyed it while I did it, breaking those bootleggers up and all.
I'd been through it and I knew what it was because I was an old bootlegger myself. But I knew we had to catch 'em. After Ed left office, I stayed
on working under each sheriff, except for a term with the city police force
as chief, until I retired with Sheriff Joe Newmans on February 2, 1979. By
the time Joe took over there was hardly no bootlegging going on. Sugar
got so high that you could buy bonded liquor about as cheep as bootleg
whiskey, so in a way it actually put itself out of business.
"I admit I loved it so good that I worked seven days a week, I
wanted to break it up so bad. I'd actually get so tired that I'd pull off the road and back up in a place and lay my head back to rest about 10 minutes, then I'd get up and go again. I'd be gone for 24 hours at a time. We
worked 12 hour shifts, me and Wilber Mobley. Ed only had two deputies
at first, then Eddie Nettles came on with us. One of the Florida Highway
Patrolman, L.B. Boyette, loved it like me. He came in here and helped us.
We'd catch some of my best friends, people I'd known all my life.
"One night we caught one of these hot rod cars that had 50 five
gallon jugs on that one car. Now that's 250 gallons of shine. He didn't have
but one seat in the car, and that's where he sat. The rest was for liquor."
Rhoden said the quality of moonshine declined and didn't measure up to when his dad made it.
"No it didn't measure up at all. Me and daddy made good shine,
real clean in nice wooden barrels, copper and rye. Now that was real
drinking whiskey, real good shine, better than you could buy. It was so
clean because we'd wash the jugs spotless and then we'd take cotton and
put it in a funnel and strain every bit of that whiskey to where we couldn't
tell if the jugs were empty or full, the shine would be so clear.
"People started making it out of these old steel vats, and that's
what poisoned and killed people at one time. They got to using yeast to
make the shine work off faster and using old grain like corn and all that kind of stuff. And it just got to where it wasn't fittin' to drink. I've seen a bunch of rats floating in it. Old hogs and cows would come around and drink out of it and get drunk. I've seen hogs so drunk they couldn't even walk.
"Me and daddy covered our liquor barrels and would tie something around it so the rats couldn't get in it. Moonshining in our day was hard. We had to pump water from a hand pump or get it from the creek in buckets and haul it to the still. We had to gather old lightered knots to get something to burn to cook it with, you see. After the war, there were kerosene and gas available and that's when it got out of hand.
"Way back yonder it was hard times, really hard work, handling
100-pound bags of sugar, trying to sell it, hoping you would before the still got tore up. We were really helped through those hard days by Junior
Crockett, he was good, he was loyal and he was honest with us. But
another kind of men came along and ... well ... times got terrible. I'm glad it got broken up.
"People got to making two to three hundred vats a night out of
those big stills. It just wasn't good whiskey, not when you're trying to
make 50 barrels at a time and putting it in old tin cans. That's the kind of
bootleggers we were putting out of business. We've had that old jail so
full, but they'd be so nice you could let them roam out in the yard, they
wouldn't go nowhere. So, many of them had to go to prison. They were
all serving time in prison together."
Today, G.W Rhoden lives a quieter life with his wife, the former
Evelyn Rhoden. His first marriage ended in divorce in 1967. He and Evelyn
travel in their RV and spend many peaceful hours in the solitude of the
North Carolina mountains, or by some peaceful stream where they fish
and enjoy a more tranquil life. He has maintained his friendship with
those he knew when he worked both sides of the law and the admiration
and respect he acquired serves as his best testimony to the devotion and
loyalty he gave to each side.
G.W Rhoden died after a short illness on Sunday, March 26, 1995,
from cancer. I spoke with G.W just before his death and he expressed his
desire to live long enough to see this book come out, but that was not
possible. He was anxious to read the experiences of others, all of whom
he knew well. I wish this had been possible because many whose stories
appear in this volume have expressed their fondness and respect for G.W.
in their individual stories.
Although he had not been feeling well for months, G.W's fatal illness took everyone by surprise. He was one of those rare individuals that
everyone seemed to like and relate to. His friends were many and after
keeping a daily vigil, they honored him by their presence at his funeral services, held at the Primitive Baptist Church in Glen St. Mary on Tuesday,
March 28th. He was buried in Oak Grove Cemetery north of Macclenny.
Back to Top
Lee B. 'L.B.' Boyette
Former Florida Highway Patrol State Trooper
The way It was ... in Baker County as remembered
by L.B. Boyette 1995
L.B. Boyette, former Florida Highway Patrol Trooper, is one of
those persons you like immediately. At least I did. In the mid 1950s,
when I first met him, the FHP had a limited number of troopers stationed throughout Florida. My husband, Vince, and L.B. were stationed
together in Baker County for a period of time in the '50S. I knew from
first-hand experience that their commanding officers were
hard-nosed, go-by-the-book sort of men. Their duty and
allegiance was expected to be to the FHP, and some commanding officers went so far as to instill in the men that their job came before their family.
Therefore, the men were completely in tune to keeping the
Florida HighWay Patrol Trooper letter of the law with all I's dotted and all T's crossed.
In those early days of the FHP, the troopers knew there would be immediate
dismissal for the slightest infraction. They were keenly aware of the numerous men waiting anxiously in line for openings on the FHP, should they be dismissed. So once on the 'road' in their personal, waxed-and-polished, black-and-gold FHP car, the troopers went to work with their wide brim Stetson hats, shiny service revolver, and most importantly, their rules and regulation 'book.' They were expected to 'go get em' with unwavering integrity.
It was here in Baker County where troopers like L.B. and my husband, Vince, learned a lesson in the honor of humanity. It's hard to explain, but most of those on the outside of the law, making illegal whiskey, set up a set of competitive rules between them and the law that they theorized to be a respectable 'fair contest.' The bootleggers didn't ask, or expect, the troopers to break the law for them, but they considered their terms 'fair play' and steadfastly expected the troopers to heed.
In L.B.'s story, you will see how this worked. Both the troopers
and the bootleggers tried to outsmart the other in a game of fair play.
When the bootleggers were 'fairly' apprehended, the respect between
them remained, even as they were captured and ofttimes sent away
to prison. L.B. has put this kind of experience into his own words in
this, his story.
"I grew up in rural Suwannee County near the Wellborn and White Springs, Florida, much the same as many who lived and grew up in Baker County.
"The only experience with moonshine during these years was
from my grandfather who, after grinding sugar cane and making syrup
in the fall each year, would save the 'skimmings.' After they fermented
for awhile, he would distill them, into moonshine, maybe yielding two
or three gallons. He used this as a medicine for himself, his family and
of course, us children.
"Upon graduating from the Florida Highway Patrol Academy in
September of 1956, and a month of on-the-job-training with Trooper
Jesse Lovett in the Lake City area, I was assigned to Baker County
under the watchful eye and much-needed training of Trooper Vince
Smallwood.
"Not long after this, I came in contact with my first real, dedicated bootlegger, in the person of A.J. Hodge. I had heard about him
from other officers -- how wild, reckless and daring he was. I sort of
admired him, you know, like an old west outlaw .. not really bad, just,
wild, full of life and recklessness.
"Then one day I was on duty in the Sanderson area. At this
time, I was parked under two oak trees, a favorite observation point of
mine near the Sanderson overpass and S curve, watching traffic. A.J.
came along traveling west on U.S. 90, driving about 30 miles per hour.
He went down to Hoss Keller's store, made a U-turn with his souped-up
Chrysler, and by the time he went the short distance back to me he was
traveling about 80 mph. Needless to say, the race was on.
"He had to slow down slightly to make the S-curve over the
overpass, which gave me a chance to get my 1956 Ford up to his
speed. We went to Glen St. Mary, turned north on 125, took the dirt
road about two miles north of town there that runs by Bob Burnsed's
house, and went back and forth on most of the roads in that area,
pawing up the ground in dust and dirt, sliding and skidding. Finally I
lost him up in the Taylor School area.
"The next day, I found A.J. at a service station in Glen. I arrested
him for speeding and reckless driving.
"This, I found out later, was considered unfair and a violation of
'Rules of the Game,' which was, if the bootlegger outran you, or
got away, you were supposed to let him go. He had won the game. I
ever saw it as a game.
"Maybe that's why AJ. never liked me. We had other run-ins
later on, some more serious than a traffic violation.
"And from this time on, there were many wild chases, mosly bootleggers and individuals in the liquor business trying out the
new trooper to see if he could drive good enough to catch them or
had the ability to out-drive them.
"I remember one morning just about day break. I was traveling north of Glen St. Mary on Hwy 125 out between the Blue Moon Juke joint and Taylor. I came up behind a two-ton Ford truck loaded with all sorts of distilling equipment. I pulled alongside and signaled for the driver to stop. Instead of him stopping, he turned off into the woods... no road... no trail, just woods! Back and
forth, around trees, through bushes, we went.... me following in his
ruts in the Highway Patrol car, blowing the siren and flashing the
red lights. He paid very little attention to that and kept going.
"Finally, the truck became struck in mud near a pond. The
driver got out and ran on foot. I chased him until I was exhausted. I
returned to my patrol vehicle and called the state officers, who
came and seized the truck. It had sugar, gas cylinders, a water
pump, condenser and other distilling equipment on it.
"During the foot race, my service revolver fell out of my holster. While other officers seized and removed the liquor truck, I
searched for my gun. Man, I had to find it. Since I was relatively
new on the job, I felt my sergeant would never understand this ... and
since I was still on probation I could even get fired, but I never
found the gun.
"I went back to my car, drove back through the mud an
trees to Hwy 125 and headed south toward Glen, trying to decide
how to tell my training officer, Smallwood, about the pistol. I was
tired and aggravated and worried about my gun.
"Two or three miles down the road, I saw a muddy, wet,
young fellow sitting on the shoulder of Hwy 125. He waved for me
to stop. I did and he walked over to the passenger side of the car
and got in. He said, 'I'm Harold Combs. He reached into his coat
pocket and pulled out my shiny handgun and said, 'You might need
this sometime. There's a bunch of mean people in this county. I
found it back there in the woods.' Then he said, 'I need a ride to
Taylor, can you take me up there?'. I took him to Taylor.
"Sometime later, Harold, Glen Johnson, and Catfish Stokes
were in one of these hot-rod Chryslers going to Macclenny and they
were involved in an accident just west of Glen on US 90 and Harold
was killed. The scars are still visible on the Black-gum tree today
that they hit 37 years ago.
"In January 1957, Ed Yarborough took office as sheriff of
Baker County. Wilber Mobley was his first deputy, and later on, G.W.
Rhoden joined the force. This really signaled the end of the big
business of bootlegging in Baker County. As Sheriff Yarborough
turned up the heat, the bootleggers became more shifty; many
moved their operations outside of Sheriff Yarborough's jurisdiction.
Many moved over into the Georgia Bend area.
"One of Sheriff Yarborough's campaign promises when he
ran for sheriff was that the bootleggers of Baker County were going
to have to change their occupations or move. He went about keeping this promise. They didn't quit the operation, they just moved it.
Sheriff Yarborough made it pretty hot for them. There was lots of
whiskey still made and transported through Baker County by persistent violators, but they had a formidable force against them, one
they hadn't been used to dealing with. But the handwriting was on
the wall and it cut the liquor business way down.
"One persistent group who lived in Baker County was Lloyd
Rhoden in the Baxter area. Lloyd liked big, black, shiny Chrysler
cars. He wanted them to look good and run fast and they did.
These cars would run fast and carry large loads of bootleg whiskey,
250-300 gallons at a trip. These vehicles would run well over a hundred miles per hour, even fully loaded with whiskey.
"A favorite route for transporting whiskey was Georgia Hwy
94 and Florida Highway Number 2 through Baker County. This
route started in the Georgia Bend area as Georgia Highway 94.
When Hwy 94 reached the Florida State line in northeast Baker
County, it became Florida State Road 2, continued for about 20
miles through Baker County and the southern end of the
Okefenokee Swamp, then back into Georgia again as Georgia Hwy
94. This vast forested area was away from almost everything
except alligators, bears, panthers and such who made this their
home where the famed Suwannee River headwaters were. Ideal
country for moonshining.
"The Rhoden group included two prominent drivers for his
transporting vehicles - - Jimmy and Junior Lyons, who were brothers.
These two know only three things about driving: 'Leave spinning the
wheels and come back sliding them, and in between wide open as a
lot gate.' They didn't know what the speed limit was, they evidently
couldn't read them signs. This kept them in hot water with us.
"These vehicles this group used were usually 1952 Dodges,
1954-65 Chrysler New Yorkers. The insides of these vehicles were gutted to give a large open cargo space. Only a driver's seat remained
inside; the rest of the car was where they could stack liquor. The
engine was something else. They were redesigned and souped up.
Most had the famed Chrysler Hemin Engine, two four-barrel carburetors and a super full racing cam, which back then was very popular
and the top of the line. They were equipped with two fuel pumps, one
the regular vacuum pump and an electric fuel pump. These vehicles
were designed and maintained by Sand's garage in Macclenny, just
north of the center of town on Hwy 23, now redesignated as Hwy 121.
I imagine Mr. Sands is still around. I might ought to get him to fix me a
hot-rod car sometime. He knew what to do with them.
"The Rhoden group's routine was mostly as follows: The
whiskey was manufactured in the Georgia Bend area, or collected and
stored there, then loaded onto one of these special Chrysler cars and
then stashed in Georgia, near the Florida line off Hwy 94. A second
special Chrysler was loaded with five gallon cans of high-test gas
hid along with the liquor-transport Chrysler.
"A third souped-up car, usually driven by Lloyd Rhoden himself,
with Jimmy and Junior Lyons, would make a 'dry run' through Florida
on State Road 2 to see if the way was clear of revenuers, deputies or
troopers that would give them any static later on. The dry run would
start on Ga. 94 at about 100 miles per hour, travel through Florida on
SR 2, and enter again into Georgia on Hwy 94. If no law challenged
them during this high speed run, the three would turn around
travel back very slow using spot lights to check the entire 20-mile
section of SR 2 for any suspicious signs or evidence that officers may be
concealed along this route. This ritual may have been repeated several
times during the night before they'd take a chance on bringing the
liquor cars out.
"If the group was satisfied that the area was safe, then Jimmy,
Junior and Lloyd would return to the hidden liquor car and gas car.
"The reason for three vehicles was because the souped-up
Chryslers used large amounts of gas at high speed. The gas car doubled as an escort and to supply gas enroute. They couldn't take a
chance on stopping at service stations because it was 'too easy to
block a stopped car.' Also, if perchance, the moonshine car was challenged or detected, the escort car would try to entice the challenger
to chase him, giving the whiskey vehicle a chance to get through. The
third Chrysler would bring up the rear. His purpose was to aid the other
two if car problems developed and if the driver of the liquor car had to
ditch the whiskey he could pick up the driver later so he wouldn't have
to spend the night in the woods.
"The one exception to this ritual was through Florida on SR 2.
On this road they had learned that they most likely would be challenged. So, the procedure was to cross the Florida line running about
100 mph and outrun Trooper Boyette and deputy Rhoden and get
back into the relative safety of secluded backwoods Georgia and go on
to their final destination, the western part of north Florida. This was
their routine.
"This was my routine: After putting in 10-12 hours of relatively routine road patrol, promoting safety, spreading peace and
goodwill as dictated by Florida Highway Patrol Captain Hagan, Lt. G.B.
Stafford, Sgt. Crawford and Corp. Carrol, about sundown I would eat
supper, usually at Walter's Truck Stop, and gas up my patrol car,
including two or three extra five-gallon cans of gas I put in the
trunk. Then, after good dark, I'd start surreptitiously working my
way to Fla SR 2. Most of the time I would travel Hwy 125 north out
of Glen to Taylor, then a dirt road to Hwy 2 near the Eddy Fire Tower.
Here I would drive up on the pavement, stop, and take a broom from
the trunk and sweep any dirt left by my tires from the pavement.
This was to prevent Lloyd, Jimmy and Junior from seeing my tire
signs and knowing I was around.
"From the Eddy Road, I would travel east toward Baxter to a hiding place about one half mile west of where Hwy 2 crossed a lone set of
railroad tracks. Here I could get on and off SR 2 without getting stuck in
mud and also a nice place to hide the conspicuous black and yellow
patrol car. Here I would back into the woods, cover my car with a couple
of dark brown blankets and break off Myrtle bushes and cover it all up.
Then, I'd take the broom and sweep the grass that I had mashed down
driving off the pavement, thus removing any detectable signs.
"Then I would walk back to the edge of the woods and wait.
"Sometimes it would be just a few minutes, sometimes it
would be several hours. Sometimes, on rare occasions it wouldn't happen at all that night. I used to sit there a lot of hours. During my wait
at this site, an occasional car would pass, maybe a truck, but mostly it
was just the sound of night characteristics in this part of Baker County
-- the bellowing of an alligator, the hoot of a great horned owl, once in
a while the cry of a Florida panther and, of course, the hum of a few
million mosquitoes.
"Then I would hear it! The distant sound that I was waiting for!
The one that always created excitement. The excitement would build.
This sound I'm referring to was the whining of tires of a vehicle on
pavement traveling at a high speed and the roar of a powerful engine,
as it sucked in great quantities of air though two four-barrel carburetors. This sound was characteristic only of the vehicles used by Lloyd
and his group.
"About five miles from the Florida line on the Baxter side, SR 2
crossed a set of railroad tracks. There was a slight elevation of the
road over the tracks, which wasn't noticeable at regular speeds, but
at a high speed a vehicle tended to leave the pavement for a split
second. This momentary clear of the tires from the pavement made a
difference in the sound of the vehicle when it crossed the railroad
track. It was a distinct break in the whining of the tires, like a swoop.
If the vehicle was empty there was an interception of the whining
tires. If the vehicle was loaded there was a detectable different
sound. From the sound of a speeding vehicle as it crossed the tracks,
I could tell if it was loaded or empty as the vehicle crossed these
tracks and rounded a slight curve west of the railroad as the lights
came into view. This was one of the things that let me know when to
start the actual race.
"When the time came ... a single car traveling about 100
mph .... Lloyd's Chrysler making a 'dry run' trying to entice me out of
hiding, I just watched as the tail lights faded from view as it continued
northwest on SR 2. About 30 minutes later I'd see lights coming from
the northwest toward me at a very slow speed, shining spotlights out
both windows, as they traveled south looking for G.W. or me, or any
other officers who might be hid off SR-2.
"Lloyd, Jimmy and Junior would pass my position, continue
south on SR 2 and disappear from view. About 30 minutes later, that
sound again ... the whining tire and bellowing engine. First, the escort
car with gas running about a hundred mph. About one quarter mile
behind, the liquor car, loaded, running about 100 mph. After the liquor
car, about one half mile back, Lloyd brings up the rear.
"When the escort car passed my position, I would uncover my
patrol car and ready myself for the race. As the transport vehicle
passed, I would pull in behind him with my lights off, close the distance between his and my vehicle as much as I could before being
detected; sometimes this would be less than a car length between us.
Here we go running over a hundred mph, me with no lights.
"Then I turn my bright lights on, start the siren and red lights.
That's when the race really got started, mile after mile on Thunder
Road.
"My patrol car, usually a Ford, would run about 125-130 mph.
Their supped-up Chrysler would do 135-140 mph. With this speed
advantage over me, most chases ended in their gaining enough distance over a 20-30 mile race between me and them for them to turn
off and hide until I had to leave the area. About the only thing I could
do was tuck my tail between my legs and come on back to Macclenny.
The fun was over for that night. Occasionally I could get lucky and
catch one, but most of the time they got away. I know the good Lord
had to be looking out for me and them during those years. At those
speeds we could have flown out over the Okefenokee Swamp and
nobody would have ever found us out there and the alligators would
have eat us.
"This was a ritual that occurred almost weekly for three or four
years with me, G.W. and the Lyons brothers and Lloyd Rhoden.
"After Sheriff Yarborough took office and G.W. joined the force,
he and I spent most of our time working together, especially after our
regular shift was over. We spent many days and nights looking for distillers, chasing and catching moonshiners, and trying to cause them as
much trouble as we could. But we were having fun, we enjoyed that.
G.W. was a good fellow to work with and taught me not only much
about law enforcement, but more important, how to deal with people.
G.W. was one of the few natural-born law enforcement officers I've
known. Baker Count made a mistake when they failed to elect him as
their sheriff, and keep him until he was 99.
"Those bootleggers had pretty much unlimited capital to 'soup'
those cars up and we troopers could only do as much as the state
would authorize us to do, and I couldn't do anything to my FHP car to
soup it up.
When I left the FHP in 1961 I took a job with the State
Beverage Department, thinking by doing that I could run the moonshiners full time. The FHP got to where they were hassling me about
spending so much time running the bootleggers, but in Baker County
you had to do it. In 1961, I was stationed with the SBD in Live Oak. I
stayed with them until 1966, when I went with the Federal Agency in
July 1966. They stationed me in Dublin, Georgia. That area was much
more active than in Florida, but it wasn't the same thing. In Baker
County it was, more or less, hot-rod cars and races and most all our
times were spent in the woods.
"There was really a mutual respect among us. They knew that
if I caught them, then they were caught. I'd never lie on one of them,
or pull stuff on them that would cause them to get hurt like blocks in
the roads, or logs, like some people I know. They wouldn't do me that
way and I never would have done them that way. It was sorta' like a
game, they'd do their best to get away from me and I'd do my best to
catch them, and that was the way it was.
"I really had a lot of respect for those Baker County boys, and
they did me. I just loved the chase. The bootleggers were decent people. They were people who operated in what we refer to as the shady
areas. There was a respect for each side. It's hard for some people to
understand unless you were there. It was really just a way of life for
them. It wasn't that they wanted to beat the law, or be on the outside
of the law, but it was pretty much a livelihood. Of course, it eventually
got out of hand, but they were not criminals; it was making a living,
not beating the law with them. There just wasn't much employment in
Baker County and it was a profitable situation for them. It's like one of
them told me one time. He said, 'You know, I don't have to have any
education to make this. If I go to get a job, the first thing they ask is
how long I went to school and how high was my education. They want
to pay me $3 a day, and want me to work from seven in the morning
until seven at night, so I can do this from seven to seven and make a
good living.'
"He ended his work experiences on a personal note with these
comments that are very special to me and Vince:
"There are many more episodes that occurred during my
five-year stay in Baker County, some to do with work, some to do with
my personal life. Starting in my first employment there, I owe a great
deal to many citizens of Baker County, most of all I'm indebted to
Trooper Vince Smallwood for his tolerance, assistance, and understanding and friendship during those rookie years and beyond.
"To you La Viece, you introduced me to Patsy, and we have a
beautiful family because of you. Two beautiful daughters, two fine
sons, two great sons-in-law, two great daughters-in-law, and seven
grand children. You did me a favor far beyond my capacity to repay
you and I often think about it."
L.B. retired in 1985. Today he enjoys a life of farming north of
Winston Salem, North Carolina, near the Virginia state line. His lovely
wife, Patsy, is the daughter of Baker County pioneers, the late Ervin
and Eva Davis of Sanderson.
Back to Top
Paul Thrift
Sheriff of Baker County 1966-1972
Paul Thrift was one of 12 children born to a Georgia Bend couple, Jode and Caroline Raulerson Thrift. While most families in the area produced moonshine to
make a scant living, his family plowed the fields and planted All their crops from sun-up to sun-down, grubbing their livelihood.
Paul drove a school bus for $7 a month that enabled him to obtain a coveted high school education in St. George, Ga. In 1939 he and his brother Lonnie opened
a small general grocery store in Moniac. Moonshiners in the area often purchased their supplies from the store, such as corks for the moonshine jugs, or sugar and rye to make the brew.
"It was rough going for all of us," he said, remembering the
by-gone days of neighborly guardianship.
"When a revenuer came around those woods, an alert went
out among the neighbors, warning everyone who had a still to be
cautious."
Thrift served for three years in the European Theatre during WW II, seeing action in Africa, Sicily, Italy and Germany. Upon
his return to the USA, he came back to Baker County and in
November, 1945 married pretty Willa Mae Johns of Taylor, whom
he met for the first time at a social gathering at the Baker County
Community Center.
"We had lived across the river from each other all of our
lives and never met, because she was on the Florida side and I
was on the Georgia side," he said.
The couple moved to Macclenny in 1946, settling down in a
modest bungalow on north 228 where they reared their three children, Timmy, Paula and Joey. Baker County housemover Will Gilbert moved the little country store for the brothers from Georgia to Macclenny, where they operated the convenience store business together for many years. Gilbert also moved the
wood-frame house of Lonnie and his wife, Bea, onto the approximately two-acre plot of land back of the store. It is now occupied by Paul and Willa Mae.
"The store kept us real busy and we stayed open for the public 6 1/2 days a week. We only closed at noon on Sundays," he said.
After a time, his brother Lonnie bought out Blair's
Hardware Store. Paul successfully continued in the convenience
store business. He eventually became interested in politics and
was elected and served first on the City Commission and later on
the County Commission. From 1966 to 1972 he served as sheriff.
Thrift holds the distinction of being the first Baker County
sheriff to hire a black deputy. His name was Frank Smith.
When Thrift took office in 1966, his beginning salary was
$12,000 annually. "Now, it's better than $70,000," he said, shaking
his head in amazement.
The man who rose from backwoods poverty to one of the
most successful and respected men in the community now sits
back in his retirement years and quietly recalls those days.
"Moonshine was pretty much cleaned up by the time I took office," he said, in his cautious manner. "I knew there were a few stills left out there in the woods, but me, nor my deputies, had the time to go out searching for them. If the state or federal agents alerted us that they had found a still and was going to raid then I'd go with them and help them destroy it. I never knew who
they belonged to, but we all worked together.
"During my years as sheriff, bootlegging was not as prevalent as it had been in previous years. This was due in part to state-enforced regulations on the purchasing and distribution of the raw materials needed to produce the moonshine, such as sugar, rye, yeast, syrup, and so forth.
"As sheriff, I cooperated with both the state and federal
agencies to terminate the bootlegging that did exist in Baker
County. But 1966-1972 was an era of transition from bootlegging
to the illegal growth and sale of marijuana," he said.
Today, the couple finds great enjoyment in their three outstanding children and four grandchildren who live near by.
Daughter Paula, a former Baker County Teacher of The Year
and recipient of the Ruth I. Shuler Teaching Award, is now Director
of Family Services for the Baker County School System.
Son Timmy, who has taught World History at Baker County
High School for 18 years, has been honored twice as Baker County
Teacher of the Year. Twice, he has received the coveted Ruth I.
Shuler Teaching Award.
Their youngest son, Joey, owns and operates a successful
sawmill on north 121.
The quiet and gentile man has lived through the primitive
pioneering days of Charlton and Baker Counties into the Space Age
era, but for him, little has changed. He still believes strongly in the
human value system and being supportive of family and friends
when essential to meet the needs of mankind.
And that's how it was in the moonshine days when he was
sheriff of Baker County.
Back to Top
Z. Vincent Smallwood
Florida Highway Patrol Trooper
"Like all of us who live, or who have lived in Baker County, our lives
were affected in some way by the moonshine industry that existed in North
Florida and South Georgia. In the 1950's, my life was no exception.
"When I began my career as a rookie Florida Highway Patrol Trooper in
1953, my first assignment was in adjoining Duval County under the in-service training of veteran Trooper Al King. At the time, the FHP statewide force of troopers only consisted of about 275 men. We worked 12-hour shifts, six days a
week for a $275 monthly salary. That was pretty good money in those
days. "Having been born and reared in the small community of Gulf
Hammock, in Levy County, I felt proud of my position as a law enforcement officer, and considered myself ready to carry out any of my
assignments to the letter of the law. That was my feeling on an
autumn afternoon two weeks after being assigned, as I was riding
'shotgun' (right front passenger seat) with my training officer, Veteran
Trooper Al King. Beginning with this experience, the expertise of
Trooper King, who was a very competent and skilled senior companion
and trainer, no doubt helped to save my life many times after I was
assigned to patrol duty by myself.
"As we rode along that afternoon in Trooper King's Ford cruiser,
we received a report from Georgia authorities that two Baker County
moonshine runners had escaped on foot after wrecking their shine car
in a high-speed chase. We were informed the duo had stolen a 1955
maroon Mercury from a Georgia resident who lived near the location
where the accident occurred.
"We were about five miles north of Baldwin when we were
notified by the Baldwin Police Chief that these two suspects in the
stolen Mercury had just outrun him, and were heading north toward
our position. I could feel my Adrenalin start to build as I intuitively
felt that this was going to be my first real high-speed chase. As we
saw the maroon car approaching over the horizon of a long straight
stretch of highway, Trooper King boldly backed his Ford cruiser
across the highway, blocking their path. The Mercury continued
toward us at speeds of 110- 115 miles per hour, without slowing
down. The driver hit the shoulder of the road and went around us on
the grass and somehow managed to maintain control of his vehicle.
He proceeded north toward Callahan, wide open, with Trooper King
and I in hot pursuit.
"Fortunately, our patrol car was faster than their car and we
were able to overtake them within seven or eight miles. They refused
to stop and after running us in the ditch several times they turned on a
dirt road and headed west out of Bryceville toward the Georgia Bend,
still reaching speeds up to 100 mph.
"As we pulled the FHP cruiser alongside of their car, they deliberately rammed us. My training officer instructed me to shoot out
their rear tire with my .30-caliber carbine.
"I leaned out the right front window, holding my rifle, and
promptly got a face full of dirt from the spinning wheels of the
high-speed vehicle a few feet ahead of us, and lost my newly issued FHP
uniform Stetson hat to boot. There were two things that a trooper just
didn't do. One was to lose your hat, the other your gun, and I had just
done the first of these two 'no-nos' in less than two weeks on the job.
"We fell back to a distance of about 75 feet behind the vehicle
and on the first shot, with a tight bead on the right rear tire, I fired and
nothing happened. I fired again just as they crossed a bridge on the
dirt road and the hood of their car flew up. Trooper King thought I had
shot through the car and hit the hood latch but I assured him that I
had shot very near the tire. The third shot took out the tire and the
fleeing driver lost control and the vehicle went through the ditch into
the woods. The two men in the front seat ran through the woods, and
at this time we observed a third person who had been laying down on
the rear seat or floor board. Trooper King instructed me to apprehend
the car's passenger, while he chased the fleeing driver. We both lost
the foot race and returned to the car only to discover that the
15-year-old girlfriend of one of the suspects was the rear seat passenger. Other than being so scared that she literally wet on herself, she
was fine. We turned her over to the juvenile authorities and continued
to look for the suspects who were still hiding in the woods.
"Trooper Carl Woodle came to assist us, and we requested
assistance from a passing motorist in a pickup truck. By now it was
dark and, being a moonless night, it was very dark, so Trooper King
and I followed in the patrol car about 200 feet behind the pick- up
with our headlights off, while Trooper Woodle stood in the back of the
truck with his shotgun.
"As the pickup truck approached the location where the two
suspects were suspected to be hiding in the woods, they both ran out
and flagged the truck down in anticipation of getting a ride. As the
truck pulled along beside them and stopped, Trooper Woodle looked
down the barrel of his shotgun and said, 'Want a ride, boys?'
Surrounded, they were too surprised and too tired to run any further. It
was all over now except for the paperwork.
"I learned many things from my training officer that day,
among them, how to keep a cool head during a high-speed chase,
how to drive at a high rate of speed on a dirt road, how to shoot
straight, and that bootleggers were a serious force to be reckoned
with. I also keenly observed the respectful manner in which he treated the offenders in spite of their actions.
"Over my 32 1/2 year career, I experienced many more
high-speed chases, but none as memorable as that first one.
"In those days, we were tightly regulated by the FHP rules to
remain on our assigned roads during our regular shift, but we were
allowed to look for moonshine haulers after our shift was over as long
as we maintained radio contact with the FHP station for our own safety.
"I soon learned that most of the high-speed vehicles we
chased were decoy cars scouting out the highway before the loaded
shine car appeared. The bootleggers were very foxy, and it became a
respectable cat-and-mouse game between the law officer and moonshiner, if there is such a thing.
"A few months after being assigned to Duval County, I met, and
married, my sweetheart of the last 40 years, and the author of this
book, La Viece Moore. She grew up in Baker County and was a friend
and classmate of many of the moonshiners who found the lure of
quick-and-easy money in this occupation worth the risk they took
each and every time they got behind the wheel of their vehicle to
make a shine run.
"While living and working in Duval County, I was offered $150 a
night to let moonshine cars go safely through my assigned territory.
That was never a temptation, nor was it even a consideration for me,
despite the financial struggle to make ends meet each month. I was
never made this offer while I lived in Baker County.
"I was assigned by the FHP to Baker County in 1955, just about
the time many citizens had realized that something had to be done to
save the up-coming youth from involvement in the moonshine industry. Laws were being changed, such as making possession of more
than a gallon of moonshine a felony, and Baker Countians had encouraged a young man, E. Ed Yarbrough, to run for sheriff with a campaign
promise to 'clean up the county of shine'.
"I've often wondered how our family life would have turned
out had I accepted the offer from Sheriff Yarbrough, after his election,
to become his deputy. Instead, I decided to continue my career with
the FHP, which eventually moved us away to other territories and
assignments. However, for the few years I was privileged to live in
Baker County, I had my experiences with those who chose moonshine
as their profession.
"One high-speed chase that came very near ending my life, or
maiming me forever, began under the old oak tree on US 90 east of
Sanderson.
"I saw a young man that I recognized come by in a late model
Ford with all the earmarks of a loaded 'shine' car. He drove by me very
much like a law-abiding citizen, and looked at me as we waved to
each other. I instinctively pulled out, driving slowly behind him, and the
chase was on. He turned down SR 127 south at a high rate of speed
with me in close pursuit, siren wailing and emergency lights flashing.
After several miles, he turned off into a long lane leading to a farmhouse, ran through the farmer's yard, and out another road, back onto
the main road, then down numerous other unpaved roads in the area.
My car was faster than his, and I had no problem catching up
with him, but he continually tried to run me off the road as he steered
into my lane.
"I decided to drop back behind him and wait as I had a full
tank of gas. I noticed that he was making unusual crouching motions
as he drove, but I couldn't figure out what he was doing, especially
going at such a high rate of speed, up to and in excess of 100 m.p.h.
"I started to pull alongside him again, and in a split second I realized what he had been doing when a full five-gallon jug of moonshine
came flying out his window and hit the road a few feet in front of my
car. I swerved to the right just as the 3/4-inch-thick glass bottom of the
broken five-gallon jug sailed like a cannon ball over my head missing my
windshield directly in front of my face, missing me by inches.
"I knew this guy was different and that he would kill me if necessary to get away. This was the first time that I had become really angry with a bootlegger because this one was seriously and deliberately endangering my life, something you just didn't expect one of them to do.
"The chase continued and I stayed close on his bumper. It was
difficult to see for the cloud of dust his car was raising. I vividly
remember, to this day, when we drove across a cattlegap on the dirt
road at about 85 miles per hour and hearing that bloop-bloop sound
when the wheels of the car lost contact with the ground. He turned
on to what is now Mud Lake Road. I couldn't see what was ahead of
him for the dust cloud, so when he went around a curve at a T intersection, I just flew airborne across the road into the woods, where I miraculously went over, around, and in-between the stumps and trees in my path. Needless to say he was gone in a cloud of dust and not knowing if he had left me dead or alive.
"This is the only time I can recall when I was out-run by a
moonshiner that I went an obtained an arrest warrant. The unwritten,
but understood, rule between law officers and the moonshiner was, if
they got away, then that was their good luck. If they didn't, then that
was ours. But because he had deliberately jeopardized my life by
throwing that jug of whiskey out in front of my car, and because I definitely knew his identity, I located his car the following morning, had it
towed in, and got a warrant for his arrest.
"He elected to be tried by a Baker County jury on the charges
of reckless driving, resisting arrest by fleeing a police officer, and
assault against a police officer.
"The jury was made up of six people, most of whom were
known by both the defendant and me. I testified, under oath, of the
facts in the case, looking the defendant square in the eye.
"That was one of the most disappointing times in my life when
the jury came back and announced their verdict, finding the defendant, NOT GUILTY!
"I later individually asked the two members of the jury that I
personally knew (one was a county official and the other was a former
high school classmate and very good friend of my wife), if they would
tell me why they found the defendant not guilty. They both replied
that they knew he was guilty, but, they said, 'He's a good old boy that
didn't mean any harm. You were not hurt or killed. If we had found
him guilty he may have been sentenced to jail time, and he's got a
family to feed.'
"It was a long time before I forgave the two jurors for not doing
their sworn duty and finally, after several years, I got to where I could
chuckle about it.
"In retrospect, maybe-- in one way-- this was a good verdict, because this young man eventually got out of the shine hauling business and with the help of some dedicated state and county public officials obtained a good job and completed a highly successful career, and he is now enjoying retirement and is living an upright Christian life.
"Although I have had the occasion to arrest and take to jail
many of the moonshine car drivers, I have found the majority of them
to be honest people who would not deliberately hurt anyone. They
would not consciously tell you a lie, except if you asked about their
moonshine activities. I have had, on more than one occasion, got
stuck after spinning out in a high-speed chase on remote dirt roads,
only to be assisted later by the same driver who got away after he had
gone home to change clothes and cars. Although we both knew that I
knew who he was, neither of us mentioned anything about the incident before or after, other than to say, 'Thanks,' and, 'I'll see you around.'
While living in Macclenny, La Viece and I introduced three other
Florida Highway Troopers to Baker County girls who later wed. Trooper
Kenneth Boatright married La Viece's classmate, Carolyn Barton of
Macclenny; Trooper Ray Adkins married her cousin, Carolyn Jones of
Pine Top, and Trooper L.B. Boyette, who has his own story in this book,
married her friend, Patsy Davis from Sanderson. Except for Ray Adkins,
who died, ending Carolyn's marriage, the rest of our marriages have
lasted for the past 40 years.
I was promoted and transferred and moved to Orange County
in December of 1958, and left behind all traces of the moonshine era
when I went into the safety division of the FHP. I suppose that the best
lesson that I learned in the moonshine era of Baker County, other than
how it feels to win or lose and to be a good loser as well as a good
winner, was although the bootleggers and I were on opposite sides of
the law, we both share one thing in common .... mutual respect for each
other.
After having lived away for 25 years, we returned to Baker
County in 1984, and I retired the following year after a successful
career in law enforcement. One day, not long after we moved back, I
received a quart of the best homemade syrup, yep syrup, not moonshine, that could possibly be made. it was from a former moonshiner,
and someone I consider my friend. Well, after all these years, I found
that it really wasn't a sticky situation after all!
Major Vince Smallwood, FHP Retired