Once Upon A Lifetime In Baker County, Florida: The Moonshine Legacy, Part Three (file 1/2)

                     By La Viece Moore-Fraser Smallwood
                              Copyright © 1995

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by La Viece Smallwood, through
Carl Mobley, cmobley@magicnet.net

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           Copies available from the author complete with photos:
                   Rt 2 Box 543 Macclenny, Florida 32063

    Permission has been granted by the author for posting to this page.


   * James Arthur Barton
   * G. W. Rhoden
   * Lee B. "L.B." Boyette
   * Paul Thrift
   * Z. Vincent Smallwood
   * E. Ed Yarbrough (in file 2/2)
   * Phillip Yeats Tomberlin (in file 2/2)
   * William "Bill" Eddy (in file 2/2)
   * Baker County Citizens Speak Out About Moonshine (in file 2/2)


Dear Readers,

     This volume in the Once Upon a Lifetime in Baker County series is
different. It's subject is very sensitive, one that evokes strong emotions.
For many, these stories have aroused pain, regret, remorse, and even shame,
but still, for most, if they had it all to do over again, they would.

     I think perhaps, to understand why this subject spurs such sensitive
emotions, you would need to understand the history, the people, the times.
This is the logic as to why this book has been written. It is for this
reason, unlike other volumes in this series, that anyone using any portion
or portions of this book for commercial reasons or for any other purpose,
at any time, must have written permission from me, my heirs, or those
individual persons who have signed their names to these stories, or their
heirs.


                            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.



                                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.



                           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.

                                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.



                           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