John Ashley (bandit)
Encyclopedia
John Ashley was a 20th century American
outlaw
, bank robber, bootlegger, and occasional pirate active in southern Florida during the 1910s and 1920s. Between 1915 and 1924, the self-styled "King of the Everglades" or "Swamp Bandit" operated from various hideouts in the Florida Everglades. His gang robbed nearly $1 million from at least 40 banks while at the same time hijacking numerous shipments of illegal whiskey being smuggled into the state from the Bahamas. Indeed, Ashley's gang was so effective that rum-running
on the Florida coast virtually ceased while the gang was active. His two-man raid on the Bahamas' West End
in 1924 marked the first time in over a century that American pirates had attacked a British Crown colony
.
Among poor Florida "crackers"
, he was considered a folk hero
who represented a symbol of resistance to bankers, lawmen and wealthy landowners. Ashley's activities also hindered Prohibition bootleggers in major cities, whose importation of foreign liquor undermined local moonshine
rs. Even the newspapers of the era frequently compared him to Jesse James
. Almost every major crime in Florida was blamed on Ashley and his gang and one Florida official called him the greatest threat to the state since the Seminole Wars
. His near 13-year feud with Palm Beach County Sheriff George B. Baker ended in the death of Ashley and his three lieutenants in 1924.
in the community of Buckingham, Florida
near Fort Myers, Florida
. He was one of nine children born to Joe Ashley, a poor Florida woodsman, who made his living by fishing, hunting, and trapping otters. The Ashley family moved from Fort Myers
to Pompano
in the 1890s where Joe Ashley and his older sons worked on the new railroad being built by industrialist Henry Flagler. In 1911, Joe moved his family to West Palm Beach and briefly served as county sheriff. John Ashley spent much of his youth in the Florida Everglades and, like his father, became a skilled trapper and alligator hunter.
On December 29, 1911, a dredging crew working near Lake Okeechobee
discovered the body of Seminole
trapper Desoto Tiger. An investigation was held and Ashley soon came under suspicion. According to fellow Seminole Jimmy Gopher, Ashley had been last seen with Desoto traveling in a canoe together with a boatload of otter hides to sell at a local market. Authorities were later told by fur traders in Miami, the Girtman Brothers, that John Ashley had sold them the hides for $1,200; the previous day he had also been arrested in West Palm Beach on a charge of "recklessly displaying firearms". Two deputies, S.A. Barfield and Bob Hannon, found Ashley camping in a palmetto thicket
near Hobe Sound
and attempted to take him into custody. However, they were surprised by his brother Bob Ashley and were disarmed at gunpoint. John Ashley then sent the officers back with a message for Sheriff George B. Baker "not to send anymore chicken-hearted men with rifles or they are apt to get hurt".
and later claimed to have robbed a bank in Canada. Upon his return, he surrendered himself to authorities in West Palm Beach where he was imprisoned until his trial. Ashley may have hoped that a hometown jury might sympathize with him, however the local prosecutor petitioned the judge for a change of venue to Miami. Hearing of the prosecutor's plans, he decided to escape. According to contemporary accounts, Ashley was being escorted to his cell by Sheriff Baker's son, Robert C. Baker, when he suddenly broke away, ran out an unlocked door and climbed a 10-foot fence to freedom.
He and his brothers then became outlaws and, with other occasional partners, formed a criminal gang. In 1915, he and Bob Ashley robbed an FEC passenger train
with Chicago mobster Kid Lowe. Their first attempt was less than successful as they failed to agree on who would collect valuables from the passengers and who would rob the mail car. That same year, they stole $45,000 in silver and cash in a daring daylight bank robbery in Stuart, Florida
. During their getaway however, Lowe accidentally shot John Ashley in the jaw, costing him the sight in one of his eyes. When Ashley attempted to get medical attention for his eye, he was captured and held in the Dade County
jailhouse to await trial. He was taken to Miami to stand trial for the murder of Desoto Tiger. However, the state's attorney believed that that had a better chance of prosecuting Ashley for the Stuart robberies in West Palm Beach.
On June 2, 1915, Bob Ashley attempted to break his brother John out of jail. Entering the jailer's house, Bob Ashley shot Wilbur B. Hendrickson at point-blank range and left with his jail keys. He then ran from the house to the garage where gang members had left him a getaway car
. When he found he was unable to drive the particular car left for him, he attempted to force several men at gunpoint to drive the car for him. Each of the men claimed to not know how to drive the car either so Bob Ashley jumped on the running board of a passing truck and forced the driver, T.H. Duckett, to take him out of town. A deputy, officer Robert Riblett, spotted Ashley and gave chase. When the truck suddenly stalled in the middle of the street, a shootout occurred resulting in the deaths of both Bob Ashley and the deputy. Angered by Bob's killing spree, several thousand Miami residents threatened the jailhouse and talked of lynching
John Ashley in his cell. It was only after police paraded the body of Bob Ashley though the streets that the mob dispersed.
Kid Lowe, possibly out of guilt for shooting John Ashley, sent a note to Dade County sheriff Dan Hardie demanding the release of Ashley:
However, no attack from the Ashley Gang came forth and the town proceeded with the prosecution. On November 23, 1916, John Ashley pled guilty to robbery and was sentenced to 17 years in the state penitentiary
at Raiford
.
. Whenever she heard authorities were nearing one of Ashley's hideouts, she would drive her car through secret backwoods trails, often without headlights if at night, to warn fellow gang members. Laura also cased banks and served as a getaway driver. While they were together, she became known as "Queen of the Everglades" and she took a central role in the gang while Ashley was incarcerated.
, he began moonshining
with his gang before his eventual recapture in June 1921. The Ashley gang continued moonshining in his absence, maintaining their many stills in the woods of central Florida
, and began hijacking rum runners as well under Clarence Middleton or Roy Matthews. Joe Ashley had several stills in Palm Beach County while John's brothers Ed and Frank Ashley ran liquor from the Bahamas to Jupiter Inlet and Stuart. While John Ashley was still in jail, his brothers disappeared while on a return voyage from Bimini
in October 1921.
The circumstances surrounding Ashley's third and final escape remain a mystery, only that he "vanished from his cell", and returned to bank robbery with his gang. In one of their more memorable robberies, the gang managed to rob the Stuart bank a second time in September 1923 after Ashley's teenage nephew Hanford Mobley sneaked into the building disguised as a woman and escaped with several thousand dollars. Shortly after the robbery, Mobley and Middleton were caught in Plant City
and Matthews in Georgia
, however all escaped and were back together in the woods near Gomez by the end of the year.
In November 1923, the gang robbed $23,000 in cash and securities from a bank in Pompano
. Like many of their heists, this was followed by reckless celebrating in the streets. After wrapping the loot in a bedsheet, they slowly drove through the middle of the town in a stolen taxi. They waved a bottle of whiskey to onlookers and shouted "We got it all!". Leaving the town, they crossed a canal and disappeared into the swamp near Clewiston
. Ashley supposedly left a bullet with one of the victims to give to Sheriff Baker if "ever got out to the 'Glades".
The gang leader also tried his hand at piracy, intercepting many rum-runners along the coast of southern Florida. Many chose to pay the Ashleys protection money. In 1924, he and his nephew Hanford Mobley stole a sea skiff
and led a raid against rum-runners in the Bahamas' West End
leaving with $8,000 from four wholesale liquor warehouses. Hours before the raid, however, an express boat carrying a quarter-million dollars had left for Nassau
.
Within a few years of Prohibition, the Ashley Gang was so feared by Florida bootleggers that many began deserting the area looking for safer routes far out of reach of the gang. As a result, the Ashleys' opportunities for liquor piracy dwindled and they eventually returned to bank robbery as their primary activity.
Baker spent months searching the Florida Everglades and came up empty-handed. This was in part the result of help from fellow Florida "crackers"
and a "grapevine telegraph of the 'glades
". In early 1924, Baker finally got a lead on Ashley's location. Through his informants, Baker learned that Ashley was staying with family members in a moonshiner's cabin hidden in a swamp about 2 miles south of the Ashley family home. The short bushes and palmetto scrub made it very difficult, if not impossible, to approach the cabin, making it an ideal hideout. Baker was determined to capture Ashley and, with weapons from the Florida National Guard
and deputized civilians, made plans to surround the cabin and starve him out. On January 10, 1924, he sent eight of his deputies to the house early in the morning; they were in position by dawn.
Just as they were about to make their move, Ashley's dog began barking at the lawmen. The deputies fired at the dog, causing Ashley to return fire; he killed one of the deputies, the sheriff's cousin Fred Baker, in the resulting gunfight. His father, Joe Ashley, was killed in his bunk while his partner, Albert Miller, and Laura were seriously wounded by buckshot from a deputy's shotgun. Forced to leave his wife behind, Ashley escaped through a secret entrance; his wife's screaming caused the deputies to hold their fire, which helped enable the escape. Despite a manhunt involving 200 men, during which the homes of both Joe Ashley and Hanford Mobley were burned (as well as a small grocery owned by Miller), Ashley remained in the area where Laura was being held by police. He hoped to plan a jail break for her, as well as avenge the death of his father, but as more time passed he left for California to lie low.
On November 1, 1924, Baker received a tip from an anonymous source, believed to be a gang member's girlfriend (or a disgruntled brother-in-law), that Ashley would be travelling up the coast on the Dixie Highway
to rob a bank in Jacksonville
. That same day, Baker arranged an ambush at a bridge over Sebastian River, some 28 miles north of Fort Pierce, blocking the road with a chain with a red lantern across the bridge. As the bridge was out of his jurisdiction, the actual operation was overseen by the sheriff of Indian River County, J.R. Merritt, along with three of Baker's deputies. An hour after the ambush was laid, Ashley's black touring car was spotted. Once it stopped at the bridge, the deputies approached the car from behind and ordered the gang out of the vehicle. According to the official story, the deputies searched the car and found several guns while Ashley, Ray Lynn, Hanford Mobley, and Clarence Middleton were lined up outside the car. John Ashley then pulled out a concealed weapon, causing the deputies to open fire. Ashley and his three partners were killed in the shootout.
There are two alternate versions, however. The first, according to two men who witnessed their arrest, claim they had also been stopped on the bridge and saw the officers approach Ashley's car behind them. When police directed them to leave the scene, both men insisted that Ashley and the others were handcuffed. There were marks that could have been made by handcuffs, however police claimed the marks were the result of the coroner examining the bodies. This explanation was accepted by a coroner's jury. A third theory, one thought to be closer to the truth, was offered in the 1996 book Florida's Ashley Gang by historian Ada Coats Williams: an unidentified deputy claimed that, while in handcuffs, Ashley made a sudden move forward and dropped his hands, causing officers to fire. He had told Williams this during the 1950s on the promise that she not reveal this information until all the deputies had died. At the time of Ashley's death, however, it was widely believed among poor "crackers" that he had been executed by the police as a form of frontier justice
.
A few members of the Ashley gang still remained, although they were eventually killed, captured, or fled the state within a few years. Only $32,000 of the gang's fortune was ever recovered; it was found only with the help of ex-gang member Joe Tracy. A reported $110,000 and other Everglades stashes have never been found.
Ashley, Mobley, and Lynn (Middleton was buried in Jacksonville) were buried in a family cemetery, the Little Ashley Cemetery, outside Gomez, where the Ashley family home once stood. Six members of the Ashley clan were buried there, all having died a violent death with the exception of an infant grandchild. The cemetery eventually became part of an exclusive residential neighborhood
, Mariner Sands, and it is rumored that some unrecovered loot is buried somewhere on this property. A state historical marker
was placed at Sebastian Inlet but disappeared when a new bridge was built over the river.
Yesterdays by Bill McGoun
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
outlaw
Outlaw
In historical legal systems, an outlaw is declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, this takes the burden of active prosecution of a criminal from the authorities. Instead, the criminal is withdrawn all legal protection, so that anyone is legally empowered to persecute...
, bank robber, bootlegger, and occasional pirate active in southern Florida during the 1910s and 1920s. Between 1915 and 1924, the self-styled "King of the Everglades" or "Swamp Bandit" operated from various hideouts in the Florida Everglades. His gang robbed nearly $1 million from at least 40 banks while at the same time hijacking numerous shipments of illegal whiskey being smuggled into the state from the Bahamas. Indeed, Ashley's gang was so effective that rum-running
Rum-running
Rum-running, also known as bootlegging, is the illegal business of transporting alcoholic beverages where such transportation is forbidden by law...
on the Florida coast virtually ceased while the gang was active. His two-man raid on the Bahamas' West End
West End, Grand Bahama
West End is the oldest town and westernmost settlement on the Bahamian island of Grand Bahama. It is the current capital of Grand Bahama, contrary to the belief that Freeport City is the capital of the island. It is also the third largest settlement in the Bahamas...
in 1924 marked the first time in over a century that American pirates had attacked a British Crown colony
Crown colony
A Crown colony, also known in the 17th century as royal colony, was a type of colonial administration of the English and later British Empire....
.
Among poor Florida "crackers"
Florida cracker
Florida cracker refers to original colonial-era English and American pioneer settlers of what is now the U.S. state of Florida, and their descendants. The first Florida crackers arrived in 1763 when Spain traded Florida to Great Britain...
, he was considered a folk hero
Folk hero
A folk hero is a type of hero, real, fictional, or mythological. The single salient characteristic which makes a character a folk hero is the imprinting of the name, personality and deeds of the character in the popular consciousness. This presence in the popular consciousness is evidenced by...
who represented a symbol of resistance to bankers, lawmen and wealthy landowners. Ashley's activities also hindered Prohibition bootleggers in major cities, whose importation of foreign liquor undermined local moonshine
Moonshine
Moonshine is an illegally produced distilled beverage...
rs. Even the newspapers of the era frequently compared him to Jesse James
Jesse James
Jesse Woodson James was an American outlaw, gang leader, bank robber, train robber, and murderer from the state of Missouri and the most famous member of the James-Younger Gang. He also faked his own death and was known as J.M James. Already a celebrity when he was alive, he became a legendary...
. Almost every major crime in Florida was blamed on Ashley and his gang and one Florida official called him the greatest threat to the state since the Seminole Wars
Seminole Wars
The Seminole Wars, also known as the Florida Wars, were three conflicts in Florida between the Seminole — the collective name given to the amalgamation of various groups of native Americans and Black people who settled in Florida in the early 18th century — and the United States Army...
. His near 13-year feud with Palm Beach County Sheriff George B. Baker ended in the death of Ashley and his three lieutenants in 1924.
Early life and Desoto murder
John Ashley was born and raised in the backwoods country along the Caloosahatchee RiverCaloosahatchee River
The Caloosahatchee River is a river on the southwest Gulf Coast of Florida in the United States, approximately long. It drains rural areas on the northern edge of the Everglades northwest of Miami...
in the community of Buckingham, Florida
Buckingham, Florida
Buckingham is a census-designated place in Lee County, Florida, United States. The population was 3,742 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Cape Coral–Fort Myers Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:...
near Fort Myers, Florida
Fort Myers, Florida
Fort Myers is the county seat and commercial center of Lee County, Florida, United States. Its population was 62,298 in the 2010 census, a 29.23 percent increase over the 2000 figure....
. He was one of nine children born to Joe Ashley, a poor Florida woodsman, who made his living by fishing, hunting, and trapping otters. The Ashley family moved from Fort Myers
Fort Myers, Florida
Fort Myers is the county seat and commercial center of Lee County, Florida, United States. Its population was 62,298 in the 2010 census, a 29.23 percent increase over the 2000 figure....
to Pompano
Pompano Beach, Florida
Pompano Beach ) is a city in Broward County, Florida, along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean just to the north of Fort Lauderdale. The nearby Hillsboro Inlet forms part of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 99,845...
in the 1890s where Joe Ashley and his older sons worked on the new railroad being built by industrialist Henry Flagler. In 1911, Joe moved his family to West Palm Beach and briefly served as county sheriff. John Ashley spent much of his youth in the Florida Everglades and, like his father, became a skilled trapper and alligator hunter.
On December 29, 1911, a dredging crew working near Lake Okeechobee
Lake Okeechobee
Lake Okeechobee , locally referred to as The Lake or The Big O, is the largest freshwater lake in the state of Florida. It is the seventh largest freshwater lake in the United States and the second largest freshwater lake contained entirely within the lower 48 states...
discovered the body of Seminole
Seminole
The Seminole are a Native American people originally of Florida, who now reside primarily in that state and Oklahoma. The Seminole nation emerged in a process of ethnogenesis out of groups of Native Americans, most significantly Creeks from what is now Georgia and Alabama, who settled in Florida in...
trapper Desoto Tiger. An investigation was held and Ashley soon came under suspicion. According to fellow Seminole Jimmy Gopher, Ashley had been last seen with Desoto traveling in a canoe together with a boatload of otter hides to sell at a local market. Authorities were later told by fur traders in Miami, the Girtman Brothers, that John Ashley had sold them the hides for $1,200; the previous day he had also been arrested in West Palm Beach on a charge of "recklessly displaying firearms". Two deputies, S.A. Barfield and Bob Hannon, found Ashley camping in a palmetto thicket
Palmetto
-Botany:Members of several genera of small palms:*the genus Sabal of the Arecaceae family**Dwarf Palmetto**Sabal palmetto*Saw Palmetto, Serenoa repens*Silver saw palmetto, Acoelorraphe wrightii-Place names:United States...
near Hobe Sound
Hobe Sound, Florida
Hobe Sound is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Martin County, Florida, United States. The population was 11,376 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Port St. Lucie Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography and climate:...
and attempted to take him into custody. However, they were surprised by his brother Bob Ashley and were disarmed at gunpoint. John Ashley then sent the officers back with a message for Sheriff George B. Baker "not to send anymore chicken-hearted men with rifles or they are apt to get hurt".
Formation of the Ashley Gang
When the Seminole Nation raised protest over the murder, the US federal government threatened to intervene. John Ashley fled to New Orleans for a year or two before returning to Florida around 1914. He may have worked as a logger in SeattleSeattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
and later claimed to have robbed a bank in Canada. Upon his return, he surrendered himself to authorities in West Palm Beach where he was imprisoned until his trial. Ashley may have hoped that a hometown jury might sympathize with him, however the local prosecutor petitioned the judge for a change of venue to Miami. Hearing of the prosecutor's plans, he decided to escape. According to contemporary accounts, Ashley was being escorted to his cell by Sheriff Baker's son, Robert C. Baker, when he suddenly broke away, ran out an unlocked door and climbed a 10-foot fence to freedom.
He and his brothers then became outlaws and, with other occasional partners, formed a criminal gang. In 1915, he and Bob Ashley robbed an FEC passenger train
Florida East Coast Railway
The Florida East Coast Railway is a Class II railroad operating in the U.S. state of Florida; in the past, it has been a Class I railroad.Built primarily in the last quarter of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, the FEC was a project of Standard Oil principal Henry Morrison...
with Chicago mobster Kid Lowe. Their first attempt was less than successful as they failed to agree on who would collect valuables from the passengers and who would rob the mail car. That same year, they stole $45,000 in silver and cash in a daring daylight bank robbery in Stuart, Florida
Stuart, Florida
Stuart is the only incorporated city of Martin County, Florida, on Florida's Treasure Coast. The population was 14,633 at the 2000 census. As of 2007, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 15,964....
. During their getaway however, Lowe accidentally shot John Ashley in the jaw, costing him the sight in one of his eyes. When Ashley attempted to get medical attention for his eye, he was captured and held in the Dade County
Dade County
Dade County can refer to the following places:*Miami-Dade County, Florida, in the southeastern part of the state*Dade County, Georgia, the state's northwestern-most, bordering Alabama and Tennessee*Dade County, Missouri, in the southwestern part of the state...
jailhouse to await trial. He was taken to Miami to stand trial for the murder of Desoto Tiger. However, the state's attorney believed that that had a better chance of prosecuting Ashley for the Stuart robberies in West Palm Beach.
On June 2, 1915, Bob Ashley attempted to break his brother John out of jail. Entering the jailer's house, Bob Ashley shot Wilbur B. Hendrickson at point-blank range and left with his jail keys. He then ran from the house to the garage where gang members had left him a getaway car
Getaway car
A crime scene getaway is the act of fleeing the location where one has broken the law in order to avoid apprehension by law enforcement. It is an act that the offender may or may not have planned in detail, resulting in a variety of outcomes....
. When he found he was unable to drive the particular car left for him, he attempted to force several men at gunpoint to drive the car for him. Each of the men claimed to not know how to drive the car either so Bob Ashley jumped on the running board of a passing truck and forced the driver, T.H. Duckett, to take him out of town. A deputy, officer Robert Riblett, spotted Ashley and gave chase. When the truck suddenly stalled in the middle of the street, a shootout occurred resulting in the deaths of both Bob Ashley and the deputy. Angered by Bob's killing spree, several thousand Miami residents threatened the jailhouse and talked of lynching
Lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...
John Ashley in his cell. It was only after police paraded the body of Bob Ashley though the streets that the mob dispersed.
Kid Lowe, possibly out of guilt for shooting John Ashley, sent a note to Dade County sheriff Dan Hardie demanding the release of Ashley:
However, no attack from the Ashley Gang came forth and the town proceeded with the prosecution. On November 23, 1916, John Ashley pled guilty to robbery and was sentenced to 17 years in the state penitentiary
Florida State Prison
Florida State Prison , formerly known as the Union Correctional Institution—East Unit, is a correctional institution located in unincorporated Bradford County, Florida. It is located on Florida State Road 16 right across the border from Union County. The institution opened in 1961, even though...
at Raiford
Raiford, Florida
Raiford is a town in Union County, Florida, United States. The population was 187 at the 2000 census. As of 2004, the population recorded by the U.S...
.
Ashley and the Queen of the Everglades
Prior to his arrest, Ashley began a relationship with Laura Upthegrove. Upthegrove acted primarily as the gang's lookoutLookout
A lookout or look-out is a person on a ship in charge of the observation of the sea for hazards, other ships, land, etc. Lookouts report anything they see and or hear. When reporting contacts, lookouts give information such as, bearing of the object, which way the object is headed, target angles...
. Whenever she heard authorities were nearing one of Ashley's hideouts, she would drive her car through secret backwoods trails, often without headlights if at night, to warn fellow gang members. Laura also cased banks and served as a getaway driver. While they were together, she became known as "Queen of the Everglades" and she took a central role in the gang while Ashley was incarcerated.
Escape and foray into piracy
Ashley behaved as a model prisoner for two years until escaping from a road camp, with the assistance of fellow bank robber Tom Maddox, on March 31, 1918. With the start of ProhibitionProhibition
Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
, he began moonshining
Moonshine
Moonshine is an illegally produced distilled beverage...
with his gang before his eventual recapture in June 1921. The Ashley gang continued moonshining in his absence, maintaining their many stills in the woods of central Florida
Central Florida
Central Florida is a regional designation for the area surrounding Orlando in east central Florida, United States. The area represents the third largest population concentration in Florida, after the South Florida and Tampa Bay regions, respectively....
, and began hijacking rum runners as well under Clarence Middleton or Roy Matthews. Joe Ashley had several stills in Palm Beach County while John's brothers Ed and Frank Ashley ran liquor from the Bahamas to Jupiter Inlet and Stuart. While John Ashley was still in jail, his brothers disappeared while on a return voyage from Bimini
Bimini
Bimini is the westernmost district of the Bahamas composed of a chain of islands located about 53 miles due east of Miami, Florida. Bimini is the closest point in the Bahamas to the mainland United States and approximately 137 miles west-northwest of Nassau...
in October 1921.
The circumstances surrounding Ashley's third and final escape remain a mystery, only that he "vanished from his cell", and returned to bank robbery with his gang. In one of their more memorable robberies, the gang managed to rob the Stuart bank a second time in September 1923 after Ashley's teenage nephew Hanford Mobley sneaked into the building disguised as a woman and escaped with several thousand dollars. Shortly after the robbery, Mobley and Middleton were caught in Plant City
Plant City, Florida
Plant City is a city in Hillsborough County, Florida, in the United States, approximately midway between Brandon and Lakeland along Interstate 4. The population was 34,721 at the 2010 census....
and Matthews in Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
, however all escaped and were back together in the woods near Gomez by the end of the year.
In November 1923, the gang robbed $23,000 in cash and securities from a bank in Pompano
Pompano
Pompanos are marine fishes in the Trachinotus genus of the Carangidae family . Pompano may also refer to various other, similarly shaped members of Carangidae, or the order Perciformes. Their appearance is deep bodied and mackerel-like, typically silver and toothless with a forked tail and...
. Like many of their heists, this was followed by reckless celebrating in the streets. After wrapping the loot in a bedsheet, they slowly drove through the middle of the town in a stolen taxi. They waved a bottle of whiskey to onlookers and shouted "We got it all!". Leaving the town, they crossed a canal and disappeared into the swamp near Clewiston
Clewiston, Florida
Clewiston is a city in Hendry County, Florida. The population was 6,460 at the 2000 census. According to the U.S Census estimates of 2005, the city had a population of 7,173. Clewiston is home to the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum and the Clewiston Museum.-History:...
. Ashley supposedly left a bullet with one of the victims to give to Sheriff Baker if "ever got out to the 'Glades".
The gang leader also tried his hand at piracy, intercepting many rum-runners along the coast of southern Florida. Many chose to pay the Ashleys protection money. In 1924, he and his nephew Hanford Mobley stole a sea skiff
Skiff
The term skiff is used for a number of essentially unrelated styles of small boat. The word is related to ship and has a complicated etymology: "skiff" comes from the Middle English skif, which derives from the Old French esquif, which in turn derives from the Old Italian schifo, which is itself of...
and led a raid against rum-runners in the Bahamas' West End
West End, Grand Bahama
West End is the oldest town and westernmost settlement on the Bahamian island of Grand Bahama. It is the current capital of Grand Bahama, contrary to the belief that Freeport City is the capital of the island. It is also the third largest settlement in the Bahamas...
leaving with $8,000 from four wholesale liquor warehouses. Hours before the raid, however, an express boat carrying a quarter-million dollars had left for Nassau
Nassau, Bahamas
Nassau is the capital, largest city, and commercial centre of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. The city has a population of 248,948 , 70 percent of the entire population of The Bahamas...
.
Within a few years of Prohibition, the Ashley Gang was so feared by Florida bootleggers that many began deserting the area looking for safer routes far out of reach of the gang. As a result, the Ashleys' opportunities for liquor piracy dwindled and they eventually returned to bank robbery as their primary activity.
Feud with Sheriff Baker
By this time, Ashley and Sheriff Baker were engaging in a personal feud. The sheriff had received a tip from a local car salesman and had set a trap on the eve of the Bahamas raid. Suspecting that the law might be on to his plans, Ashley changed his route at the last minute and sailed through St. Lucie Inlet, narrowly avoiding capture.Baker spent months searching the Florida Everglades and came up empty-handed. This was in part the result of help from fellow Florida "crackers"
Florida cracker
Florida cracker refers to original colonial-era English and American pioneer settlers of what is now the U.S. state of Florida, and their descendants. The first Florida crackers arrived in 1763 when Spain traded Florida to Great Britain...
and a "grapevine telegraph of the 'glades
Grapevine (gossip)
To hear something through the grapevine is to learn of something informally and unofficially by means of gossip and rumor.The usual implication is that the information was passed person to person by word of mouth, perhaps in a confidential manner among friends or colleagues. It can also imply an...
". In early 1924, Baker finally got a lead on Ashley's location. Through his informants, Baker learned that Ashley was staying with family members in a moonshiner's cabin hidden in a swamp about 2 miles south of the Ashley family home. The short bushes and palmetto scrub made it very difficult, if not impossible, to approach the cabin, making it an ideal hideout. Baker was determined to capture Ashley and, with weapons from the Florida National Guard
Florida National Guard
The Florida National Guard is the National Guard force of the U.S. state of Florida. It comprises the Florida Army National Guard and the Florida Air National Guard.The United States Constitution charges the National Guard with dual federal and state missions...
and deputized civilians, made plans to surround the cabin and starve him out. On January 10, 1924, he sent eight of his deputies to the house early in the morning; they were in position by dawn.
Just as they were about to make their move, Ashley's dog began barking at the lawmen. The deputies fired at the dog, causing Ashley to return fire; he killed one of the deputies, the sheriff's cousin Fred Baker, in the resulting gunfight. His father, Joe Ashley, was killed in his bunk while his partner, Albert Miller, and Laura were seriously wounded by buckshot from a deputy's shotgun. Forced to leave his wife behind, Ashley escaped through a secret entrance; his wife's screaming caused the deputies to hold their fire, which helped enable the escape. Despite a manhunt involving 200 men, during which the homes of both Joe Ashley and Hanford Mobley were burned (as well as a small grocery owned by Miller), Ashley remained in the area where Laura was being held by police. He hoped to plan a jail break for her, as well as avenge the death of his father, but as more time passed he left for California to lie low.
Death
Ashley returned to Florida and spent several months with his gang planning their revenge. He apparently developed a plot to kill Sheriff Baker at the Jacksonville courthouse following his election in November.On November 1, 1924, Baker received a tip from an anonymous source, believed to be a gang member's girlfriend (or a disgruntled brother-in-law), that Ashley would be travelling up the coast on the Dixie Highway
Dixie Highway
The Dixie Highway was a United States automobile highway, first planned in 1914 to connect the US Midwest with the Southern United States. It was part of the National Auto Trail system, and grew out of an earlier Miami to Montreal highway. The final result is better understood as a small network of...
to rob a bank in Jacksonville
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Florida in terms of both population and land area, and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. It is the county seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968...
. That same day, Baker arranged an ambush at a bridge over Sebastian River, some 28 miles north of Fort Pierce, blocking the road with a chain with a red lantern across the bridge. As the bridge was out of his jurisdiction, the actual operation was overseen by the sheriff of Indian River County, J.R. Merritt, along with three of Baker's deputies. An hour after the ambush was laid, Ashley's black touring car was spotted. Once it stopped at the bridge, the deputies approached the car from behind and ordered the gang out of the vehicle. According to the official story, the deputies searched the car and found several guns while Ashley, Ray Lynn, Hanford Mobley, and Clarence Middleton were lined up outside the car. John Ashley then pulled out a concealed weapon, causing the deputies to open fire. Ashley and his three partners were killed in the shootout.
There are two alternate versions, however. The first, according to two men who witnessed their arrest, claim they had also been stopped on the bridge and saw the officers approach Ashley's car behind them. When police directed them to leave the scene, both men insisted that Ashley and the others were handcuffed. There were marks that could have been made by handcuffs, however police claimed the marks were the result of the coroner examining the bodies. This explanation was accepted by a coroner's jury. A third theory, one thought to be closer to the truth, was offered in the 1996 book Florida's Ashley Gang by historian Ada Coats Williams: an unidentified deputy claimed that, while in handcuffs, Ashley made a sudden move forward and dropped his hands, causing officers to fire. He had told Williams this during the 1950s on the promise that she not reveal this information until all the deputies had died. At the time of Ashley's death, however, it was widely believed among poor "crackers" that he had been executed by the police as a form of frontier justice
Frontier Justice
Frontier justice is extrajudicial punishment that is motivated by the nonexistence of law and order or dissatisfaction with justice. The phrase can also be used to describe a prejudiced judge...
.
Aftermath
After her husband's death, Laura Upthegrove lived under an assumed name in western Florida for a time. In the next two years, she was arrested on several occasions before eventually opening a gas station at Canal Point on Lake Okeechobee. She later moved in with her mother in Upthegrove Beach. On August 6, 1927, she died during an argument with a man trying to buy moonshine from her. In the heat of the moment, she swallowed a bottle of disinfectant and died within minutes. It is unclear whether it was an accident, as some claim she mistook it for a bottle of gin, but it was widely reported that she had committed suicide. She was 30 years old.A few members of the Ashley gang still remained, although they were eventually killed, captured, or fled the state within a few years. Only $32,000 of the gang's fortune was ever recovered; it was found only with the help of ex-gang member Joe Tracy. A reported $110,000 and other Everglades stashes have never been found.
Ashley, Mobley, and Lynn (Middleton was buried in Jacksonville) were buried in a family cemetery, the Little Ashley Cemetery, outside Gomez, where the Ashley family home once stood. Six members of the Ashley clan were buried there, all having died a violent death with the exception of an infant grandchild. The cemetery eventually became part of an exclusive residential neighborhood
Gated community
In its modern form, a gated community is a form of residential community or housing estate containing strictly-controlled entrances for pedestrians, bicycles, and automobiles, and often characterized by a closed perimeter of walls and fences. Gated communities usually consist of small residential...
, Mariner Sands, and it is rumored that some unrecovered loot is buried somewhere on this property. A state historical marker
Historical marker
A historical marker or historic marker is an indicator such as a plaque or sign to commemorate an event or person of historic interest and to associate that point of interest with a specific locale one can visit.-Description:...
was placed at Sebastian Inlet but disappeared when a new bridge was built over the river.
In popular culture
- John Ashley and Laura Upthegrove were the subject of the 1973 film Little Laura and Big John starring FabianFabian-People:*Fabian Månsson, , Swedish socialist*Fabian , , 1950s American teen idol and singer*Fabian Bachrach, an American photographer*Fabian Cancellara, , Swiss professional road cyclist...
and Karen BlackKaren BlackKaren Black is an American actress, screenwriter, singer, and songwriter. She is noted for appearing in such films as Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The Great Gatsby, Rhinoceros, The Day of the Locust, Nashville, Airport 1975, and Alfred Hitchcock's final film, Family Plot...
. - Ashley and his gang were portrayed in the 2000 historical novelHistorical novelAccording to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...
Red Grass River: A Legend by James Carlos BlakeJames Carlos BlakeJames Carlos Blake is an American writer of novels, novellas, short stories, and essays. His work has received extensive critical favor and several notable awards...
and the 2006 novel Queen of the Everglades by Robert Blaske.
Further reading
- Stuart, Hix Cook. The Notorious Ashley Gang: A Saga of the King and Queen of the Everglades. Stuart, Florida: St. Lucie Printing Co., 1928.
- Williams, Ada Coats. Florida's Ashley Gang. Port Salerno, Florida: Florida Classics Library, 1996.
External links
- John Ashley at the National Museum of Crime & PunishmentNational Museum of Crime & PunishmentThe National Museum of Crime & Punishment is a privately owned museum dedicated to the history of criminology and penology in the United States. It is located in the Penn Quarter neighborhood of Washington, D.C., half a block south of the Gallery Place station...
- The Spanish Papers: Boca Raton, 1915-1950 by the Boca Raton Historical Society
- Indian River Lagoon early 1900's - The Dreaded Ashley Gang
- The Day the Ashley gang robbed the Pompano bank by Bud Garner
- The Ashley Gang: What really happened by Warren Sonne
- The Ashely Gang and Frontier Justice by Richard Procyk
- http://www.irclibrary.org/sebastianlibrary/george/1920.html What Really Happened The Night Ashley Gang Was Killed? Orlando Sentinel June 26, 1933 and ll-Fated Ashley Gang Leaves Bloody Legend
Yesterdays by Bill McGoun