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

                     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

USGENWEB NOTICE:  In keeping with our policy of providing free 
information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial 
entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These 
electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format for profit or other 
presentation.  This file may not be removed from this server or altered
in any way for placement on another server without the consent of the 
State and USGenWeb Project coordinators and the contributor.

***********************************************************************

           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 (in file 1/2)
   * G. W. Rhoden (in file 1/2)
   * Lee B. "L.B." Boyette (in file 1/2)
   * Paul Thrift (in file 1/2)
   * Z. Vincent Smallwood (in file 1/2)
   * E. Ed Yarbrough
   * Phillip Yeats Tomberlin
   * William "Bill" Eddy
   * Baker County Citizens Speak Out About Moonshine


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.



                              E. ED Yarbrough
                     Sheriff, Baker County, 1956-1965
                         Interview - October 1994

     It's possible that Ed Yarbrough was born swinging his fists. He grew
up fighting. He loved it, but will tell you quickly that he doesn't pick
fights. He simply defends himself He once proudly owned a pair of boxing
gloves when he was in Taylor School and was eager to take on anyone that
was willing to fight him. The stage was his ring, the students the referee,
Yarbrough the winner.

     You either like Ed Yarbrough or you don't. There is seldom a middle of
the road opinion of the man who rose from backwoods obscurity to the
highest prominence in Florida's law enforcement.

     Growing up in rural Baker County, he was like the vast majority of
young boys, traipsing to the antiquated moonshine still operation of his
beloved father, standing on a stump or box to pump water, doing his part to
make the 'shine that provided extra income so the family could survive.

     He was one of 10 children born to David Arthur and Margaret "Maggie"
Raulerson Yarbrough in the rural settlement of Taylor, Florida, on June 11,
1926.

     At an early age he vied for leadership positions and won them in high
school where he was a competent basketball player and served as his senior
class president, before leaving to serve in the U.S. Fifth Air Force during
WW II. Upon his return to Baker County, he took a 9-to-5 job with David
Arthur Yarbrough Standard Oil Company in Jacksonville where he quickly
ascended to top ranks. Always seeking to learn and excel, he enrolled at
Jones College for night classes. Then, as he steadily climbed the ladder of
success, something bothered him greatly about his native home.

     "I'd get kidded everywhere I went when people found out I was from
Baker County. If I bought a new car they thought I was making extra money
on the side from bootlegging. Baker County had a notorious reputation as
the moonshine capitol of the nation."

     I had to wear a neck tie in the office where I worked, and when I'd
come back to Macclenny in the afternoon I'd stop off by the pool room or
one of the local bars. There would always be several of those bootleggers
sitting at the counter laughing and carrying on. A tie was a 'no, no,' with
these bootleggers, so one night one of the boys in the bar grabbed my tie
and said,'I think I'll cut that neck tie off, and I said, 'I think you
better not,' and after we had a few words, he decided not to do it. It was
attitudes like this that I just gradually became opposed to moonshine and
its affect on the community. You see, during the time when my daddy, and
other farmers like him, bootlegged whiskey, it was for survival and on a
real small scale. People started out by using the cane skimming and making
just one or two barrels at a time. They used little old copper stills and
used wood or coal to heat with. You could see a little smoke coming up at
those sites all over the woods back in the '30s.

     "Then, during the war, sugar was rationed and people started looking
for sources to get syrup and started making shine and hauling it by the
truck loads. The motive for making moonshine whiskey changed. It got to be
so big they had to have another way of heating. Some of them used a burner
which was a long pipe with holes all in it hooked up to a gas cylinder. You
could hear that thing roaring 100 yards, it was like a factory. "During my
daddy's time, making moonshine was a misdemeanor, a tax evasion, and it was
not considered a crime. When it got to the big time stuff, hauling it out
by the semi loads, then it got dangerous. The law changed from a
misdemeanor to a felony and if one gallon of moonshine was found in your
possession it was considered a felony and the same thing if you got caught
with any equipment People began to resent it. A lot of young boys began to
get involved because they could make quite a bit of money while they were
going to school. It was very tempting for a boy; they had souped up
automobiles to run 150 miles an hour. Most boys want to go fast when thy
first learn how to drive.

     "Some of those school boys would run a load of shine during the week
and we lost one or two of them in tragic accidents. I remember one lady
told me about observing two young boys playing on their tricycles one day.
They were playing cops and robbers, and one of them said to the other, 'Get
out of the way, I'm blankedy blank coming through with a load.' These
people were becoming their heros. The town's people, and particularly the
business people were getting more concerned about our reputation and a few
of them began to form a committee to discuss ways to end the stigma.

     "I got involved with the group and we began to organize a few things.
We got the Junior Chamber of Commerce in Jacksonville to come out and
organize one for us here in Baker County. I became the first president, and
later was elected State Vice President. People like me and Vernon Walker
would go to places like Daytona Beach for conventions and have a big time
together. Soon we had a pretty big crowd that joined us. I saw that we
needed leadership, so I organized the Osceola Hunting Club, the first such
thing in Baker County. We used my old family homestead on my property to
hold our first meeting. We'd go out there and have cookouts and everyone
that joined the club made a pledge to protect doe deer.

     "Then it came to me that we spent a lot of our time searching for our
lost dogs, so we built some lost dog pens. We put them at specific
locations and if we found a lost dog we had a place to put it, and if you
lost your dog you had a place to go find it. As far as I know the lost dog
pens were the first in the state. Most everyone around here loves to hunt
and pretty soon we had more than 100 members in the club.

     "About this time the governor had called Baker County's sheriff to
Tallahassee and gave him 30 days to clean up the moonshine and gambling. A
committee to rid Baker County of the moonshine stigma was formed composed
of such men as Edwin Fraser, our Senator., John Crews, our representative,
and businessmen like Paul Rhoden, Lewis Covin, Miledge Reynolds, Frank
Wells, Jesse Frank Morris and Eldred Jones. We came to the conclusion you
couldn't build a progressive county on the false economy of moonshine.
There was this big political machine here in the county and it had just
gone on for so long most citizens just accepted it. If one of their men got
put in jail, his buddies would go down and make 'em turn 'im loose. If the
authorities stopped a car up in Georgia with shine, and the driver ran and
got away, the law here would go to where they were holding the car in
Georgia and tell them the car had been stolen. He would say, 'This man
reported his car stolen and I've come to get it," and the Georgia lawmen
would say, 'Well, we caught it up here with a load of shine on it,' so the
driver of the car would usually get it back.

     "Our group wanted to get the county stable and functioning properly
where it would have sufficient industry and business here that would
provide people with jobs. When our youth graduated from high school or
college they could find work here and not have to leave the county.

     "Gambling was real popular right along with the shine industry. These
two things were the main sources of money in the county and got so bad that
the man selling bolita out-ranked the ministers of th county. He would
always be around with a pocketful of money. Kids admired it, and they
wanted to get in on it, too, so it was not an encouraging thing for the
youth of the county.

     "Edwin and John suggested we form an industrial commission. So we
formed the Baker County Industrial Commission and they made me president of
that. We sold little plaques for $ 10 apiece for business men and we raised
money for a lobbyist to go to Tallahassee and try to get the Northeast
Florida State Hospital located here to generate jobs. That we accomplished.

     "Then the group that formed to establish some creditable things in the
county began to look around for a new sheriff. They were looking for some
young man that they thought would stand up to these people and they thought
I could do it. I'd had enough fist fights that I think for the first time
they might have been an asset. They wanted someone that could get as tough
as the other fellow. And, too, I had been Master of the Masonic Lodge,
served in the war, had been married several year's and had a child. So,
when a group of 17 met one night at Lewis Covin's house, they were asked to
write down who they thought would be able to do the job. Fifteen of them
wrote down my name. So, John Crews called me to come out there to the
meeting. When I got there they told me what they had done and we began to
talk about me becoming sheriff of Baker County.

     "Well, I was ambitious about anything. I hadn't ever thought I'd be
sheriff, but I knew I'd like to be. So I said, 'Well, I only have $800,'
and they all said,'We'll help you raise the money.'

     "About two years before this I had helped Edwin in his race for the
senate in Green Cove Springs. I'd go to the rallies with him where he was
speaking and I'd work the crowd while he was making a speech. I'd go over
and listen to what everyone was saying and find out what they were
interested in. I'd go back and tell him so he'd include that in his speech.
I got a taste of politics there and I liked it.

     "That night, though, I told the group, 'Now if you picked me with the
thought in mind that I'm going to catch your friend and you are going to
want me to turn him loose, then you have picked the wrong candidate. I
don't want it on those terms. All I will promise you is that I'll give you
clean, fair, firm law enforcement and that's the only way I got in my mind
I could do it.' I remember that Paul Rhoden spoke up and said, 'Ed, that's
what we've been talking about. That's what we want. We figured that's the
way you'd be.' So I told them if they would help me get elected with that
understanding of being fair and not having to listen to any of you tell me
to turn this one and that one loose, then I'll do it. That night each of
them took turns telling me what they wanted in a sheriff, and I accepted
the challenge.

     "Edwin volunteered to be treasurer of the group. He called a meeting
of supporters and we held our first rally out at the nursery beneath the
packing shed. I took my fiddle and had J.C. and L.E. Harvey with their
guitars and I think Junior Dugger was there with his mouth harp. The women
made sandwiches. We'd play a little and talk a little and everyone had a
good time. I remember people like Mr. Ivy Harvey and Eddie Combs being
there. Edwin made a pitch about us needing money from the back of a flatbed
truck and he had someone sitting there with a paper and pen writing down
the contributors. Some gave five dollars and some a dollar. Fred Bennett
came up there and turned his pockets inside out and contributed all he had.
I remember that particularly. I think we raised about $800 that night. Back
then you could run for sheriff for one or two thousand dollars.

     "Edwin wrote a letter to all the ministers in the county. He told me
if I'd furnish the steaks he would cook them in his back yard. Just about
every one of them came and we talked to them about doing something for the
county and how we needed to get rid of the stigma and provide jobs for our
people, especially our children. Just about all pledged their support. I
think there were two that didn't. We had black ministers there as well as
white. The black ministers were a pretty strong political group and I got
acquainted with them. So that's the way we got our politics started."

     Yarbrough said he resigned his job with Standard Oil in February to
prepare for the May election. His colleagues thought he was joking.

     "I was known as a girl chaser before I got married. I had a new,
convertible and I'd take any new girl that came there, if she was pretty
out to lunch, riding her up and down the streets with the top down. They
just never thought about me being sheriff. I asked for a leave of absence,
but it was against company policy, but they told me I could always have my
job back if I needed it.

     "So I started politicking and went to every house in the county. A lot
of the people didn't know much about me except I was one of those Yarbrough
boys who was always getting in a fist fight. My brother Lewis was just
about the champion puncher. He boxed in the CC Camp located up at Olustee
and he was pretty rough.

     Anyway, I'd go around and talk to the people. They didn't take it too
serious to start with. If a man was plowing in his field I'd just walk up
and down the row with him, and if I got there around lunch I'd eat with him
because I wanted to talk with his family. I found out that the morals in
the family were strong, more so with the mother than with the man. I'd say
to myself, I'm going to win this family because I'd taken me a course from
Dale Carnegie and a little public speaking. I determined to put every bit
of that to work and I'd set down to eat if they didn't have anything but
tomatoes and grits. I'd eat and enjoy it. I'd tell them what I wanted to do
about cleaning up the moonshine and bolita. Some would say, 'Ed, you can't
do nothing about that, son, that's been going on for at least 50 years',
and they'd say things like, 'All you're going to do is take it out of their
crowd and give it to your crowd.' And they told me I might get hurt. I'd
tell them I understood because I'd lived here so long but I'd tell them I
believed a man could be honest being sheriff the same as he could working
for the railroad. And finally they got to thinking about it.

     "I'd go to the cemeteries and walk through there and see who was
buried by who, and then I'd know the family connections and I'd know what
to say and what not to say. I got acquainted a lot by just visiting the
cemeteries, and visiting around the families. I'd talk to them about their
children. I'd say, 'You know we owe it to these kids to do something about
it, and we need to keep them from getting in it.' And the daddy would
usually say, 'Ed, I do business with these people, they buy gas from me, or
they'd buy this or that, and he'd say, 'I just can't get involved. I got to
make a living.' They'd have all kinds of connections, every family in this
county just about was connected through someone. I had to sell the program
just like I would malaria or hookworms, I had to come up with an antidote.
I'd tell them, 'I want you to look around at these little kids and think
about it.' I'd say, 'Don't sell them out,' and they'd be real quiet, like
they were thinking, then I'd tell them to pray about it. I'd say, 'Don't
sell these bright-eyed boys and girls out, give them a fair chance.' I'd
tell them, 'I'm the man that can do it.' Some didn't think I could, some
didn't think I would, but they got the idea that if they were ever going to
do it that now is the time. We had a pretty good force, the churches, the
business men, the senator and representative.

     "I was running against Emory Jones and James Barton and I got in the
run-off by 40 votes. In fact, they didn't think I'd won until they counted
the absentees the next day. James liked to have had me and Emory both, he
was way ahead. James lived at the jail and he was a very courteous fellow,
and his wife was a fine Christian lady. They both did a lot for people
everywhere, and it was hard to overcome. They're from two big families with
all kinds of connections, plus the incumbent sheriff and people like Junior
Crockett and those guys without jobs who claimed to be farmers were all out
politicking all the time.

     "We didn't have political speaking during run-offs so that's when I
got me a speaking system put on my car and I got L.E. and J.C. Harvey and
Junior Dugger and I would put an ad in the paper where we were going to be
making music. We'd park in front of someone's store and draw a crowd. I'd
invite everybody up to get a drink, a Pepsi or something, and we'd talk.
They got to finding out that I wasn't such a bad guy and they liked music
so I'd sing 'em a song. If James was there I'd even invite him to come up
if he wanted to say anything. I'd hit two rallies on the same day. I soon
got acquainted with just about everyone and we just kept getting big
crowds. It was a first for Baker County. Nobody had ever put their picture
on a poster around here until I did it, except for Lex Green, who had one
when he was running for Congress. I had a bow tie on, they were popular
then. I know the rallies helped me sell the program.

     "I put in the newspaper that I was four score and square against
moonshine and it was a clear cut issue, and I'd say at the rallies, 'Now
all of you who want to keep the moonshine get over on this side.' They
wouldn't move. Then I'd say, 'Those who want something done about it and
build our county on a solid economy where you can get a job and get credit
to buy a home or car, you stand over here.' I really got their attention.

     "I remember that Mr. Dan Dorman's family gave him a big birthday party
and they asked me to go out there and play for them. Well I didn't hardly
know the Dormans, just Rex, but I went. They were all celebrating and the
men would go out there behind the barn and take a drink, but they wouldn't
ask me to go with them, because I was against moonshine. They respected me
and were going to vote for me, but they liked moonshine and was drinking
it. We'd be up on the porch fiddling and they'd be dancing around. Everyone
had a good time.

     "Now Roy Harvey, long-time county commissioner from Sanderson, taught
me a lot about politics. He was full of old-time wisdom. He'd say, 'Ed,
just tell 'em to help you get in the run-off Always tell them, 'Ya'll, just
help me get in that run-off,' and they'll do it.

     "Now at that time we didn't have voting machines. You had to watch
that people didn't buy votes, and we didn't have enough money to buy many,
but we divided up and went to watch at the polls. A lot of people back then
didn't know how to read so they'd have to depend on the poll worker to mark
their ballot. I only won by about 90 votes, but that was the happiest day
of my life. The next day we had a big party at the river. After all of that
was over, I went to visit Mayor Burns of Jacksonville. I had promised the
people that if I got elected I'd go to school to learn something about law
enforcement because we'd never before had a sheriff that had gone to any
kind of law enforcement school. Police cars back then didn't even have
radios, and very seldom did they have uniforms. Police cars were unpainted.
So Mayor Burns got me into the police academy. I spent the next seven
months before taking office getting instruction and learning all about the
laws such as search and seizure, what I could do and couldn't do. I studied
the Florida statutes. It was just a whole new world for me and it was a
real challenge.

     "When the first day of my job came around, I was up and running. There
was a local native who was a state beverage agent. He came to me and told
me he knew where a still was. I told him not to tear it up until I could go
with him. So on the second day I was in office we went out there. It
belonged to a man who had given me a hard time in the election. The still
was located behind Southern Resin's forest. We went in there before
daylight. I was wearing leather sole shoes and carried a gun, I didn't know
whether I was supposed to or not, but anyway I had one that I put in my
belt. We crawled up there and they were in there working before daylight.
We could hear them talking. Then just at the first cracking of daylight the
agent told me he'd rush in and flush it and said, 'They'll run toward you
and you can catch them.' So he went around on the other side and one of the
bootleggers walked out and saw him. He hollered back at the others,
'Revenuers!'. They ran; the one I really wanted to catch took off and I
went after him. I ran and ran; I'd fall down and he'd fall down. We were in
waste deep wire grass and with those leather sole shoes on it was hard. I
ha lost my gun but I just kept on running. I got real close up on him and I
was give out, but I just made one big last dive like a football tackle and
I threw him down. I got him by the belt and he said, 'Well, you the first
that's ever caught me. I've outrun 'em 16 times and this is the first I've
been caught.' I went back and found my gun. It had fallen in a little clean
spot.

     "The circuit court opened up the first month in January and we went to
court just a few days after. We'd had the jury box purged and made sure
some women's names were in it. I remember there were two ladies -- Dr.
Watson's wife, Lillian was one -- that served on the jury. He had hired a
good lawyer, and Ted Duncan was the State Attorney. They put me on the
stand to tell what happened. Then they put the defendant on the stand. They
asked him what happened, and he said, 'Well, I was just going through the
woods out there, going over to Commissioner Kirkland's house to see about
getting some dirt hauled and the sheriff jumped up out of a stump hole
there and caught me and I hadn't done nothing. His lawyer said, 'Have you
ever been convicted of a felony?' And, he said, 'No, I've never done
nothing wrong, unless it was sing too loud in, church.' When he said that,
the courtroom went up in laughter hahahahaha. And the judge had me call
order in the court. I beat the gavel down hard and called order in the
court. Everything got real quiet. Before the jury went out, Ted Duncan
said, 'Now the people over here voted to do something about moonshine and
bolita in this county. The state takes a position that we want to
cooperate, too. Either you believe this defendant or you believe this young
sheriff.' That's all he said, and the jury filed out. They were back in
about 10 minutes with a 'Guilty as charged' verdict. Judge Patten sentenced
him right there. He was to be delivered by the sheriff to the state prison
for a year or two. That was my first victory We took him right on over.
Later on, we became good friends. This happened time and time over and the
most touching thing to me was when we would start to load 'em up at the
jail to take them over to prison, the wives and mothers and children coming
to tell them good-bye. That was a touchy thing and I didn't enjoy that very
much, but we really went on a crusade catching everything we could and not
looking back.

     "We worked on a fee system then, $7,500 was maximum annual salary. In
order to make enough fees we had to work traffic just to keep the Baker
County Sheriff doors open and the bills paid. I had to provide my own car,
and my own deputy car. I remember I borrowed money from Jesse Frank Morris
to buy my deputy car with. I had it painted green and white and put some
sheriff department signs on it. Wilbur Mobley, a good honest man, was my
first deputy. Later we added G.W. Rhoden, Eddie Nettles, Morris Fish and
Wallace Dupree. I never had more than three deputies at one time. Someone
who read about me in the newspaper from California sent me a pair of white
tennis shoes and the Times Union came out and took a picture of me putting
them on. I caught everyone I ever chased, in fact I caught some two or
three at a time.

     "I made an agreement with these boys before I got elected. I told
them, 'Now if I touch you and tell you that you are under an arrest and you
jerk loose and run, I'll just go get you after you get home, But if I don't
ever catch you and you can ever outrun me, then that's your good luck.'
That was a gentlemen's agreement and they liked that. It was fair play. I
never did get a warrant for one unless I caught him. These bootleggers were
smart. They'd watch to see where I was going and if they thought it was
safe they'd go fire up their still. I remember one Sunday morning I went to
church. I went in the front door and out the back door and had the state
beverage agent pick me up. We left and went up to Baxter and found a still.
This time I flushed it. Two had left and gone to their car so I hid behind
a tree and when they were returning with those big jugs on their shoulder,
just walking along there talking, I jumped between them and tackled them.
The agent kept the dynamite at his house and we used that to destroy most
of the stills.

     "A lot of them I caught sent me billfolds and belt buckles from
prison. I caught them fair and square, most of 'em pled guilty, and they
weren't mad. They didn't like it of course, but they felt it was fair
play."

     Yarbrough, now a minister, said one of his deacons is a man he caught
and arrested. "We're very good friends today. He told me it changed his
life."

     He even preached one of their funerals.

     Yarbrough said one his biggest quests came when he was in the office
just a few months.

     I passed by a local bar and saw this particular man coming out. I
could tell he had too much to drink, so I took him in my car to the jail. I
radioed up ahead for Mr. Shuler to have the jail gates open. Just as we got
there, the man kicked at me. I had a little black jack with me and we
fought a little. He was like a bull, but I finally got him in the cell. By
this time, news had gone all over town and people were all out in the
street, especially the bootleggers. They drove back and forth in front of
the jail all night. The next morning I went down to the Blue Haven and I
noticed everyone was calling me sheriff. They said, 'Hey, Sheriff.' Up to
that time they'd been calling me Ed. I became sheriff over night. I had
mastered the toughest guy in town. He was the bull of 'em all, and kinda
run the town. He and I later became close friends and he attended the
church I pastor.

     Yarbrough said he was on his way to Baxter one day with his young son,
Klate, riding along with him when suddenly a tire rod fell off the car as
it was travelling about 70 miles per hour down the road. The car spun in a
ditch that was slick with slim pitching the car sideways. Otherwise it was
headed for a big pine tree and sure injuries or death.

     "The man in the Walking Tall movie would look like a choir boy
compared to what we had to do around here," he said. "From then on, I
started inspecting my car real well before I used it. I found several
things on occasion that were suspicious, so I had to be real careful."

     Yarbrough said it was a common occurrence to see young men, who should
be in school, squandering their time in the local bars and pool room during
the day.

     "These men were really the losers in the moonshine game. They'd run a
still maybe every other week or two for someone else and they were paid so
much a jug. Or they might haul some supplies. Then, when they weren't
working, they would come squat in the windows like a bunch of turkeys on a
roost and watch everything passing by. We had a vagrancy law, so I started
arresting them. I'd ask them what they were doing for a living and they
would say they were farmers. I knew none of 'em owned an acre of land, so
they'd say, 'Well, I'm helping my daddy out.' I've kept a few of them
locked until they promised me they would go back to school. One of them
told me recently how much he appreciated me doing that.

     "I'd tell them if they would quit I'd find them a job, but if they
waited until I caught them, not to expect me to try and get them out of it.
Pretty soon, the moonshine business began to die down."

     The first moonshine conspiracy case made in the State of Florida was
initiated by Yarbrough while in office.

     "We caught two young boys at a still one time and it was a real
sensitive thing. I called the state Attorney the next day and he came over
and talked to those boys. They told us who they worked for and who paid
them. Bill Eddy, the state-wide beverage agent, came and helped me with it.
We made a case against that man and he got the longest sentence of anybody
at that time. I think it was three years. The federal men could make
conspiracy cases, but it's in the law books that it was the first case made
in the state of Florida.

     Yarbrough's feeling about Junior Crockett, reputed Shine King, was
voiced with respect.

     "I don't think Crockett was really into making moonshine, he dealt
more or less in selling shine and supplies. I don't know of it if he ever
made any of it himself. When I ran for office, Crockett never said anything
to me, but after I won he stopped by the jail one day and began to tell me
what he was doing. He said it could mean something to me if I was
interested. It had something to do with pin-ball machines I think. He
didn't say whether or not it was legal or illegal and I didn't ask. He
asked me if I was really going to enforce the law like I said, and I told
him the people had voted to do something about it and I pledged my whole
reputation to do it. I told him I was going to do my best. I told him I
hoped we could be friends, but if he did anything illegal I would treat him
just like anyone else. We had a good understanding. Junior left and I never
did know of him doing anything in the county after that. He let me know
that he respected the ballot box, and that the majority had voted. "Junior
was a real likeable person. My daddy always liked his daddy and one time
when daddy had appendicitis Dr. Crockett let him and my mother stay in his
home until he recovered because we didn't have a hospital back then.
sheriff's Posse 1950s And I remember when Junior ran for State
Representative. He almost beat Mr. Johnny Dugger, a banker who would loan
some people money and they didn't even have to sign for it. He was very
popular. Junior ran a good race, I know our family supported him. He was
very young back then, and I've often wondered since then just how far he
might have gone in politics because he had such a likeable peronality. He
had an excellent mind and he'd do a man a favor in a minute. I think he may
have been successful because he was very political minded. That's what I
think if circumstances had been different. Junior had lots of friends, and
I'm sure a man like him would have gone on to the senate and possible
higher. He had a real knack for business and he is a man who knows how to
promote and get along with other people. He's the kind of fellow I would
have liked to have had in my business."

     What do you say to the people who say you took money to protect the
moonshiners and business people who sold liquor in their business on
Sundays? Yarbrough was asked in the interview.

     "Well, nothing could be farther from the truth than that because I
didn't. And I didn't have a middle man either. If anybody got paid they
didn't bring it to me. All shine sales were shut down. I caught everyone I
could and there's nobody that can tell you honestly that I never did that.
I never took a pay-off., no one ever offered me one. Crockett mentioned
something to me about a business, but never any money. I never remember a
man offering me a nickel for shine or bolita peddling.

     "I tried to be fair but firm with the people and I think most of them
will remember it that way."

     Yarbrough's fame spread as headlines blared across newspapers
throughout Florida. The people in surrounding counties, adjoining Baker,
began to insist on clean- up campaigns in their areas.

     In 1965, while serving his third term as sheriff of Baker County, he
was appointed Director of the Florida Sheriff's Bureau by Democratic
Governor Haydon Burns. He resigned his job as sheriff and moved to
Tallahassee. He resigned the appointed director's position under the
political reign of Republican Governor Claude Kirk, saying at the time, 'I
refuse to compromise my principles.'

     In 1979, Yarbrough was baptized in the little St Mary's River by
former Sheriff Asa Coleman, the man who chose not to run again the year
Yarbrough was elected. (See interview and experiences of these two men in
Volume 2 of Once Upon a Lifetime)

     Today, he divides his time between his large 500-acre farm in Taylor,
a large congregation of worshipers in The Lord's Church where he is pastor,
and a security guard and detective agency in Jacksonville. He and his wife,
Faye, recently built a large rambling log house with all the modem
amenities. His easy chair faces west and he can view the evening sun
setting on the vast fields where roaming Hereford cows add to the
picturesque scene. It is his legacy, a place where his revered ancestors
settled more than a century ago when they ambled in with a now aged land
certificate dating 1883. Today, the treasured document, fashioned from
antique parchment and signed by U.S. President Franklin Pierce, hangs on a
prominent wall in his living room.

     Intelligent and keen, still robust and masculine at 68, Yarbrough's
enormous contribution to Baker County's rejuvenation may never be
completely realized, but he was the man who was in the right place at the
right time and his endowment will go down in the pages of Baker County's
history as a man who was "walking tall".


                          Phillip Yeats Tomberlin
         State wide special investigator, Baker County, 1949-1972

     For 23 years, Phillip Tomberlin traipsed the backwoods and by-ways of
Florida looking for illicit moonshine operations. He was a Florida state
beverage agent who had the authority to cross over into Georgia and
Alabama, if circumstances made it necessary. He knew the Baker County
moonshiners, most of them anyway, by their first name. They called him 'the
white-haired man' or Phillip, because they couldn't remember his unusual
last name.

     He chased them on foot through the native palmetto thickets,
treacherous swamps, and along the sandy river banks, He risked his life at
speeds of 115 miles-per-hour, racing down the narrow two-lane highways and
dusty unpaved backroads in his revved-up Chevrolet with its Corvette
engine, pitted against the shine hauler's souped-up Chryslers. Now, at the
age of 81, he has little trouble recalling the many events of those days
when moonshining was, he said, 'a way of life' for many Baker Countians,
And he holds the distinction of being the first lawman instrumental in
uncovering the county's first underground moonshine still operations.

     "I had a keen smell for fermenting mash and whiskey," he said, as he
recalled the days that are definitely a part of Florida's history, yet
largely remain unrecorded by those who lived through them. 'I was kinda
like a bird dog," he noted.

     It was a clear day, back in the early '50's, when Tomberlin and four
of his state agent buddies were riding south of Macclenny, heading west on
Woodlawn Road. An east wind blew through the windows of their
non-airconditioned car. Tomberlin sniffed the air He was certain he smelled
whiskey.

     "Back in those days, we carried our lunch to work with us in a paper
bag, so we decided to stop down by this creek to eat and have a look
around," he said. " We checked the area out, but couldn't see any signs of
an operation. There was an older agent with us by the name of Miriam, and
two others named Spinks and Claude Veal. I told Miriam, who was driving, to
stop at this nearby residence. There was a cypress pond on the east of the
property that you couldn't see through, and I could smell something that
reeked of whiskey or fermented mash. I got out of the car. The home had a
picket fence around it, and directly south adjoining it, was about two
acres. I recall it was fenced-in with barbed wire. "So I left the vehicle
and walked south of this fenced-in area, climbed over the fence and went
around to the east side of it. I couldn't smell it anymore, so that
eliminated the fact that the still might be in the cypress pond. As I stood
there, I saw four old-fashioned chicken coops behind the house, located on
the south side of the residence, I noticed a green rubber hose coming from
one of the coops and observed that some fluid had run out on the ground. I
picked up some of the damp sand and smelled it. Agent Veal had followed me
around there, and I said, 'Smell this, it smells like whiskey is in it, and
Veal remarked, 'Well, these old country folks wash clothes and pour that
water out and it kinda sours.' I told him, 'Well, it doesn't smell like
that to me,' I looked down, and noted that where I was standing was black
dirt, and on the other side of the fence I observed that, where either rye
of oats had been planted, was clay. I thought, 'Now, they don't haul clay
in to plant oats.'

     "By this time it was about 4:30 in the afternoon and Miriam was
hollering, 'Lets go, lets go,' so I returned to the car. I said to the
agents, 'Well, we have heard about these underground stills, but we have
never found one.' About that time, a car drove up in front of the residence
and agent Miriam said, "Well, if you feel that way about it, I'll go back
up there to the house and talk to the man,' So I got back out of the car
and crawled through the barbed-wire fence. I walked to the first chicken
coop and looked in to discover Ball fruit-jar cases stacked up about
shoulder high to me, and I'm about six feet tall. And as far as I could see
was wooden barrels, I had found the underground still. It was relatively
new. The man, who was Tommy Register, told us he had just come back from
making arrangements about shipping the whiskey out that night. He talked to
us freely, and was very nice. We took our fire axes and started tearing the
operation up, but the more we tore up, the deeper it got and the stronger
the fumes, so we had to get out. We went back the following morning and had
the people come out of the house while we put dynamite in there to blow it
up.

     "By golly, two weeks later we got a call about another underground
still about four or five miles north of Margaretta. It was at a place we
referred to as the old Kelly place and it had an old two-story home up
there on it. We couldn't get too close to watch it, but used binoculars
from a distance. We saw enough to get a search warrant.

     "When we arrived, the still was in operation, We had obtained a
daytime search warrant that had to be served before the legal sundown. We
had seen a man several times come up from the underground with a jug of
whiskey on his shoulder, and then he'd go back down with a sack of sugar.
One of those we arrested that day was Hamp Register, brother to Tommy, And
just before dark, we saw headlights coming down the road. It turned out to
be Junior Crockett driving a brand-new Cadillac. I think it had 350 miles
on it. We were surprised that he would show up at one of the stills because
he was one of the big ones. Then, driving in right back of him, was Glen
Johnson, driving either a ton-and-a-half or a two-ton truck that had 640
gallons of moonshine in one-gallon tin cans, Crockett didn't attempt to run
but Johnson ran and got away from us.

     "We had also found at that location an international truck with a
closed in body. It had Capitol Paper Company written on both sides of it.
When I first saw it, I said, 'By golly, I've seen that truck on occasion
between here and Miami and between here and Tallahassee, and I know it must
have been hauling whiskey in parts of Georgia and other places as well.

     "The best I can recall, they had run off about 400-500 gallons at the
Kelly place, and they had brought that 600 gallons in there to load on the
Capitol Paper Company truck. We seized the Cadillac and the two trucks and
arrested Crockett with Register, and three black men, Herman Rewis, Lewis
Moore and Albert Mitchell.

     "That first underground still was the beginning of a conspiracy," he
continued. "It was on Crockett, and eventually it turned out he was
responsible for the hole being dug. We found out a man from Palm Valley, in
St. Johns County, carried the equipment out there to dig the hole."

     Tomberlin's feat received headlines in The Florida Times Union on
January 29, 1953, heralding the arrest of Junior Crockett, 'Kingpin' of the
Baker County moonshine operations. The still was said to consist of a
600-gallon capacity distilling pot and 70 barrel fermenters, containing
3,500 gallons of mash, The agents reported seizing approximately 1,000
gallons of moonshine liquor in one-gallon cans, wrapped in onion sacks.

     The article reported that the 'under ground hole' was about 40X40 feet
with shoring to hold up the ceiling and about two feet of earth above the
ceiling, The article described the site as being concealed in a chicken
yard with out-buildings that covered the vents. Below the ground, bottled
gas was being used to heat the pot. The mash was fermented from the
fermenter to the pot by an electric pump. The place was equipped with
electric lights. The article described the operation as 'elaborate.'

     It appeared that someone was squealing and bringing a halt to the
longtime operation of moonshine in Baker County that once was shrouded in
trust and confidentially. The beverage department's phone lines were
ringing continually.

     Tomberlin continued his story describing the conspiracy, "We soon
received information on another underground still located about three miles
north of Macclenny on the Thrift farm. There were Thrifts out there and
they were all kind of like a lieutenant and sergeant for Crockett in that
business. That still operation was pretty easy to get a warrant for because
we could hide right across the road to observe the activities. As it turned
out, there was a Sigers place up there and we later found one on that
property that had fallen in. Actually we found two that had fallen in
later. It was one of the neatest stills, it had an electric fan, a cement
floor, and good water."

     Tomberlin's triumph this time was the destruction of Harley Thrift's
underground still. Not known to Tomberlin at the moment he seized the
Thrift still, just a few hundred yards away, another underground still was
in full operation by the Sigers brothers, Elzy and Ralph, The brothers
hurriedly finished making their whiskey and closed down for the night,
Harley's nephew, Willard Thrift, who lived near-by, and his father, Londa,
had a whiskey operation going in the back of a pick-up truck parked in the
barn. He watched the invading activities that night from the cornfield with
Harley's brother, James. At the same time, across the road from Harley
Thrift, sat a truck loaded with freshly manufactured whiskey in yet another
near-by underground still owned by Wallace Dupree and operated by Carl
Rewis. While the beverage agents were occupied dynamiting Harley's still,
Wallace and Carl hurried to drive their loaded whiskey truck to a safer
location. Then, to be safe, Wallace and Carl closed down their underground
operation and later moved the equipment to a more secure location.

     Eventually, the deserted underground structures crumbled to decay.
Some area residents still remember when the dynamite demolition of Harley's
still shook the very foundations of their homes miles away, rattling
windows and shaking walls.

     Tomberlin remembers another incident that occurred in the Osceola
National forest situated on, or about, the Columbia-Baker County lines.

     "It was a big one,' he recalled. "Me, along with two federal agents
named Frank Watt and Don Perry, located it about 10 a.m. one morning. There
was a jeep parked there with a flat tire on the front wheel and some
whiskey. The shine was ready to ferment, ready to cook, so we decided we'd
just stay around and wait on the shiners to return, 'About 2 a.m. we heard
vehicles coming. They were driving about a ton-and-a-half or a two-ton
truck. We hid in the bushes and while they were unloading we had agreed
that Watt and Perry would go to the rear of the truck and I'd go to the
front. The two unloading didn't resist. One was Junior Rewis and the other
a Dixon boy. Junior's brother had been standing there with a flashlight and
he started running down a fire lane. About 100 feet from there, we fell
into some palmetto bushes and I didn't know it until later, but I cracked
some of my ribs struggling with him. At the time, I was about 45 years old,
and this was a 23-year-old I was grappling with. He still held the
flashlight in his hand and when I couldn't hold him any longer, I grabbed
him by the leg and pulled him back down and could easily identify him with
the flashlight shining in his face. I recall that I called him by name and
told him, 'I'm not going to wrestle with you any more, but I know who you
are and if you run I'm going to shoot you,' I believe he had about $3,500
in his pocket and he was saying, 'Let me go, let me go, take this and let
me go.' But I said, 'No, I've been trying to get you too long, now you have
got to go to jail.'

     Tomberlin said it was 10 a.m. the next morning before all the vehicles
were cleared and arrangements made to tear the still up. "We had to get
dynamite because they had used steel vats for the fermenting. Several
hundred gallons of whiskey were already there at the still site. When the
whiskey was set out in the sunshine, it would turn an orange color, but you
could set it in the shade and take the stopper out of it and it would clear
back up.

     "The Rewis boys were the only ones really who tried to pay me off.
Every time they would see me, they were just as nice as they could be. They
called me 'Mr. Phillip'. I never had them be disrespectful.

     "I never could classify a man making whiskey with a man that would rob
a bank, shoot somebody, or steal a car, or things like that. I just think
this was a way for them to make a living like their fathers before them.
They'd been raised up that way. However, when they started getting as big
as Crockett and the Rewis boys, then those are some of the ones we really
tried to get at. We knew each other a1most by first names, I never believed
in mistreating anyone of them, but I didn't take anything off of them
either. I never had many of them resist me, and during my career I only had
to shoot one man and that was over in Clay County. There is a lot more that
could be told that happened out there, and to be frank with you, I don't
have any records left after so long a time. I had a pile, but I finally
just got rid of them.

     Tomberlin now relies on his memory, which is exceptionally keen at age
82.

     "It took us ten years trying the Crockett case," he said. "Crockett
appealed after a jury found him guilty, then at the next trial three men on
the jury, one a former beverage agent from Daytona, got into trouble with
jury tampering and one was convicted. Crockett was never tied to that, but
that incident got us a mistrial. By the time of the third trial the
witnesses were scattered all over the United States, some had died, and we
just never got any convictions.

     Tomberlin remembers an incident with Baker County moonshine hauler
Glen Johnson that happened up in Georgia.

     I recognized a big semi-trailer truck that I used to see in Macclenny.
Glen Johnson usually drove it. I think it had an Oldsmobile engine in it.
Anyway, I was to get in front of him and try to block him, but by golly I
failed to do that. The truck had a steel body on it, so the agent in back
of me on my side and agent Frank Watt on the passenger side attempted to
shoot the rear wheel tires out on it. They had a steel shield over those
tires and the bullets started bouncing back toward us. We crossed over this
little river and then Glen just pulled that thing over and jumped out. I
started running after him, but he out-ran me. We even had blood hounds, but
he eluded them. We confiscated the truck with seven or eight hundred
one-gallon cans of whiskey, Glen had left his shoes in the truck, so on a
later date I saw him in Macclenny and stopped him, I said, 'Glen, here's
your shoes you left in that truck up there in Georgia,' and he said,
'That's not my shoes!' Glen had little bitsy feet, but he sure could run
like a deer."

     In 1949, when Tomberlin started work in Baker County, Asa Coleman was
sheriff. "Florida's governor, Dan McCarty had died and Charley Johns from
Starke was appointed to complete his term. He called Sheriff Coleman to
Tallahassee, along with me and Frank Watt. That resulted in the governor
telling the sheriff to clean up Baker County, and he gave him 30 days to do
it. Well, I was the man Sheriff Coleman called most of the time when he'd
get information. We couldn't get home and get to bed good when he'd call
and say, 'Well, I found another, be here in the morning.' That's when I
started working with his deputy, James Barton, and they really cooperated
with us, they really did. I never heard that Sheriff Coleman, or his
deputy, ever took money or anything other than just maybe leaving the
shiners alone. I never heard of the shiners paying them off and I don't
think anyone ever did. After Sheriff Coleman left office I worked real
close with Sheriff Ed Yarbrough. I never knew of him being unethical and I
worked pretty close with him. Anything to the contrary was just rumors, or
talk, because I worked with him for years and we caught the violators. I
never knew of anything he did indicating that he ever took money or
pay-offs or that he looked out for anyone in the business. I can say that
truthfully. I knew all of them shiners, most of them by their first name,
and I believe I'd have heard from them had it happen. I even contributed to
Ed's campaign because I wanted him to win so bad and I had that kind of
faith in him. He did a good job for Baker County."

     Tomberlin said his work picked up after the state provided him and
another state agent with better more powerful vehicles.

     "Mr. Grady Cochran, who was the state beverage department director,
lived in Lake City and I got well acquainted with him. We told him if he
wanted us to catch those shiners, he'd have to provide us with faster cars.
So me and another state agent, a fellow by the name of Bill Eddy, were each
ordered a 1957 Chevy with a Corvette engine and two four- barrel
carburetors. They would run 115 miles per hour in second gear After that we
were able to compete with their Chryslers. That's the kind of car most of
them preferred to haul whiskey in because they could load over a ton of
whiskey in one of them and it would still cruise at 115 mph."

     Tomberlin retired in March of 1972 and today lives a quiet and
tranquil life with his wife in their lovely Mandarin home located on the
beautiful St. Johns River.

     "I retired two and a half years early because by 1972 we had pretty
well broken up the bootlegging commercially and I didn't want to work on
licensed premises and in such thing as gambling and prostitution. And, too,
dope was beginning to come in. Things got boring and I was in a position to
retire at an early age because I had worked on high hazard. So I chose to
get out of it, and did. And I wouldn't want any part of it any more," he
said emphatically.

     Tomberlin married his wife of 55 years, the former Monteen Clements,
in 1940, The two first met at a dance in Live Oak. When she left high
school at the age of 15, she enrolled in Massey Business College in
Jacksonville, Six months later, Louis Wolfson's oldest sister arrived to
interview some of the girl students for employment in the old Florida Pipe
Supply Company, located on Myrtle Avenue. Monteen began work on December
13, 1935, at the age of 16, and is still with the Wolfson family business
interests after nearly 60 years of devoted service. She is on the Board of
Trustees for the Wolfson family Foundation, and serves as the corporate
secretary.

     Tomberlin said he occasionally joins his wife on a few of the many
travels connected with her employment, but for the most part he stays home
and enjoys retirement and life in general.

     "Most of my old buddies are scattered now, and I seldom run into them
any more. Some have even passed away. I'm 82 and sometimes it takes me a
minute to think about those days, but when I do, the events come back to me
as if they happened yesterday."


                            William 'Bill' Eddy
              Special Investigator, State Beverage Department

     Bill Eddy is as salty and tangy as his language. He is incredibly
ethical and speaks with candor as his bright hazel eyes sparkle and his
infectious smile captivates. At the age of 79, the jovial six-foot former
Florida Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent can talk non- stop about his
remarkable 56 years in law enforcement, but listens seriously with intense
concentration as you speak. It's safe to say he is a living legend among
Florida's most colorful sleuths and more than likely holds the distinction
for being the most acclaimed and commended of his profession by many of
Florida's governors and Beverage Department directors during more than a
half century of the state's legendary moonshine era.

     Does he remember Baker County's infamous moonshiners? -- You bet he
does! Was Baker County truly the moonshine capitol of Florida? -- it was,
he says.

     If you want to know why he speaks so positively, he's eager to tell
you why.

     "There was more illegal whiskey being made and hauled out of Baker
County than any other place in the state," he said. "At one time I could
have told you where there were at least 52 stills in St. Johns County, but
Baker County had fewer, yet larger stills, that produced more whiskey. It
was hauled all over Florida, South Georgia and Alabama in semi trucks from
Baker County," he said.

     How does he know? -- It's easy. He conducted the largest and most
productive moonshine conspiracy investigation and raid in Florida's
history. It's all documented. It's all factual. With his little instamatic
camera, trusty manual typewriter and faithfully kept diary recordings, he
gathered first hand information that is now recorded on film and through
the written word. It's all lined up against the walls of his home, spilling
over into the middle of the room. Time-worn and fading scrapbooks, boxes of
incriminating photographs, books detailing the chronology of events
recorded into case histories, court trials, vital miscellaneous records,
witness statements and photographed exhibits -- It's all there. And his is
the watchful eye that guards his massive archive.

     Eddy came to Florida from New York in 1939 after graduating from
Delahanty Police institute. His first job was with the Palm Beach Police
Department as a member of the county's bicycle patrol, making $90 a month.
He quickly advanced to the rank of captain, and his genius for
investigative work spread.

     In late 1954, the Florida State Beverage Department enticed him to
join them, offering to furnish him a car to use as his own, and pay per
diem. When he accepted, they handed him a list of Florida's Ten Most Wanted
bootleggers and said, 'Go after them.' At least three of the names on the
list were from Baker County.

     "I remember that there was an old tin barn there in Macclenny where
the moonshiner's cars were 'souped' up," he said. "They modified a Pontiac
and it had a horsepower of 520. That thing would do over 200 miles per hour
loaded with liquor.

     "At one time I had a 1957 Chevy, and Sheriff Ed Yarbrough had a brand
new Olds. We were out riding one night when we came upon two men and Ed
jumped out and said, 'Sheriff's Department,' and I said, 'Halt!'

     The men bailed out and ran, leaving their brand new Dodge. It was
either a '58 or '59 Dodge, a real nice sedan. Ed was thrilled and asked me
to drive the confiscated car back to the jail, but when I backed it up I
accidentally backed it into a pile of pulp wood, resulting in it being
damaged. Boy, was Ed upset. He wouldn't speak to me for two days," he said,
roaring with laughter.

     Throughout many years, Eddy was often 'loaned' by the Beverage
Department, with approval from Florida's various governors, to assist
county sheriffs throughout Florida. He served as a temporary deputy sheriff
for 11 different Florida sheriffs, including a three months assignment in
Baker County. Once, in the absence of Baker County Sheriff Ed Yarbrough, he
was given the authority to be the county's acting Sheriff for three days.

     He met moonshiners he remembers, like L.E. Wilkerson.

     "Wilkerson was an old- time bootlegger. That's the way he fed his
family, and you don't fault a man for that. It wasn't like dope is today.
Men can always get alcohol legally if they want it and if they are going to
drink, they are going to drink anyway. And there is the good chance that
he'll be ready for work on Monday even if he drinks. But you take this
crack. You can't get off it. You gotta have it two times a day, then four
times a day, and the next thing you know you are breaking into your
neighbor's house, or worse. Moonshine wasn't like that. You take these old
time bootleggers. if you caught them fair and square, and wouldn't lie on
them to make a case, then there was a mutual respect between you."

     Eddy remembers the time he and Ed Yarbrough were deep in the Baker
County woods looking for moonshine operations and operators. "Along came
two men, Wade Crawford and Edward Anderson, with a mule and cart hauling
shine from their still. We caught them fair and square and they even posed
for a picture," he said. "You could not have asked for anyone to be nicer
than they were. They knew it was wrong, but they were not like a criminal.
It was no more than if someone caught you sitting at your dining room table
filling out your income taxes and you had cheated Uncle Sam out of some
taxes. It was like, 'Oops! You caught me!'

     "To tell you the truth, I could have put almost every sheriff in
Florida in the penitentiary back then, at one time or another. There were a
few exceptions and let me tell you something about Sheriff Ed Yarbrough. He
was one of them. He was my favorite sheriff to work with and I knew them
all. He was out there to catch the violators, and he did it fair. If he
ever took a penny pay off I would have known about it because those things
get out. Near the last of the moonshine business, it seemed everyone was
telling on everyone else. I would have been the first one called on to
investigate, and I never heard one thing. Baker County's sheriff had a good
reputation.

     "I worked with Sheriff Asa Coleman before Sheriff Yarbrough. He really
let his deputy, James Barton, do all the work. Now they were two fine men,
and I never heard of them doing anything except maybe not making arrests.
But I ate at the jail a lot, and that was some good eating."

     He remembers one incident that happened once in Baker County that
possibly might stir up someone's ire even after the years have rolled away
the past.

     "Me and another agent, Frank Watts, slipped into Junior Crockett's
garage when he lived in that big house up there on the hill. We didn't have
a search warrant. He was listed on our 'Ten Most Wanted' list because he
was one of the big ones. We crawled under a fence and when we got inside we
found everything needed to set up and make a moonshine still. We
inventoried everything including hundreds of these 4x8 sheets of steel used
to construct moonshine stills," he said.

     (Crockett, whose own account of his moonshine operations in Baker
County appears in this book, admits he was a supplier to the moonshiners,
but never owned or operated his own still. He adamantly denies ever having
stored sheets of steel in his garage.)

     Eddy remembered a conspiracy case in Baker County that resulted in
several arrests of men who operated moonshine stills and made illicit
whiskey sales. "I employed three black males who worked with me on previous
investigations and who fully understood the importance of evidence and
accounting for all their actions, movements, and recording each event
during an investigation.

     "One such black male, muscular 6' 3" Jimmy Lee Howard, with a record
himself for violation of the state beverage laws and who had served a
prison sentence, lived in Miami. He was listed on our Ten most Wanted list.
I sent the three undercover males to Miami to acquaint themselves with him,
and seek employment in his moonshine operations.

     "They gained his confidence and began work on October 24th. They were
paid $100 for each load of 200 gallons of whiskey. On October 25th the men
were given $750 and told to go to Macclenny, Florida, and contact a white
bootlegger named Sigers, where arrangements had been made for them to buy
200 gallons of whiskey.

     "The three males arrived in Macclenny on October 26, and went to the
home of Elzy Sigers, north of Macclenny. Sigers was not home, but they were
advised to go to the Sigers store, located on Highway 23 about three miles
North of Macclenny, where someone would be expecting them."

     Continuing, he said, "on arrival at the Sigers store they met and
conferred with the operator of the store, Billy Burnsed, who was given a
deposit of $300 on the whiskey. They were advised to return about 4 a.m.
the following morning. Burnsed met them, left for a few minutes, and
returned with Henry James Conner. Burnsed then instructed the undercover
men to follow him and led them into the State of Georgia where they picked
up 90 gallons of whiskey at one place and 110 gallons of whiskey at
another. They paid the remaining money for the whiskey and returned to
Florida. As they drove past the jail with the load of whiskey, I escorted
them to Raiford, Florida, where I examined the cache and took photographs
and fingerprints from the glass jugs filled with moonshine.

     "On October 30th, the undercover men were given orders to return to
Baker County to pick up 200 gallons of whiskey. They were furnished an old
model, blue-and- white school bus bearing a 1960 Florida license 24WW-438
to haul the whiskey.

     "On October 31 they drove the school bus north of Macclenny to Sigers
store, where they contacted Elzy Sigers, Billy Burnsed, and Henry James
Conner, who loaded the whiskey on the bus. Then they were directed to the
farm of Paul Crews in Charlton County, Georgia, where Paul Crews and two
unidentified teenage white boys loaded more whiskey on the bus. The bus was
then driven back to Sigers store where more whiskey was loaded on the bus,
making a total of 330 gallons in various types of containers."

     In all, Eddy said, the bus made three trips to Baker County where the
undercover men purchased moonshine from Sigers. As evidence was gathered,
case histories were being compiled against the defendants. The agents
examined the contents on each trip, took photographs, gathered
fingerprints, and noted that after the purchase, no tax stamps were affixed
thereto to denote payment of the proper tax.

     On November 22, about 11:25 a.m., Eddy arrested Billy Burnsed and
seized his 1957 Chevrolet bearing a 1960 Florida license 52-1570. That same
day, officers executed an arrest warrant and arrested Paul Crews at his
farm in Charlton County, Georgia. They seized a 1952 Chevrolet, a 1954
Chevrolet sedan and a 1950 Chevrolet pickup truck. Traces of sugar were
found on the vehicles that added to the evidence.

     On that same day, Elzy Marvin Sigers was also arrested for violation
of the internal revenue laws.

     In 1950 Billy Burnsed had been convicted in Waycross, Georgia, by the
federal agents and received probation. In 1956, he was convicted again in
Waycross and sentenced to serve one year and one day. He was paroled after
serving five months.

     Paul Crews had no previous violations. Nor did Henry James Conner or
Elzy Marvin Sigers.

     The 161 legal pages of Federal Case No. 13272-M contained testimonies
of all witnesses with descriptive accounts of their involvement, resulting
in convictions.

     Eddy said the conspiracy operation was conducted between October 24,
1960 and November 22, 1960. During this period, at least six different
distilleries were set up and operated. A total of 1,175 gallons of
non-tax-paid whiskey was transported from Charlton County, Georgia, and
Baker County, Florida, to Okeechobee and Miami, Florida, resulting in a tax
fraud of approximately $14,850 from the month-long investigation.

     A total of nine vehicles were seized as a result of the investigation,
with a total value of $8,000.

     In January, 1963, Eddy received a letter of commendation from State
Beverage Department Director Thomas E. Lee, Jr. for his work in directing
'Operation Shine Down', calling it the 'greatest drive against moonshine
the State of Florida has ever recorded in history.'

     Director Lee wrote, "The concerted effort devoted to this drive
resulted in the destruction of 90 stills and was responsible for more than
100 moonshine arrests."

     Apprehensions in the conspiracy were made as a result of evidence
accumulated since March 1959 by the Beverage Department and several
affiliated law enforcement agencies. The defendants were charged with being
connected with 27 illicit distilleries seized in the Northeast Florida area
during the period of investigation conducted by Eddy, who calculated the
amount of known excise tax fraud resulting from these operations at
$460,000.

     In a news release from the State Beverage Department in Tallahassee,
State Beverage Director Lee commented that this conspiracy case was
probably the largest tax fraud case ever made by law enforcement officials
in Florida. He pointed out that the organized moonshine racket was
depleting the State and Federal treasuries of fantastic amounts of tax
revenues.

     Director Lee stated that 'Only when the key figures in moonshine
operations, such as those arrested today, June 2, 1961, are brought before
the courts can this vicious racket be curtailed.'

     Lee commended Eddy and Sheriff Ed Yarbrough, and other enforcement
officers who participated in the investigation, for carrying out the duties
connected with the conspiracy in an outstanding manner.

     And thus ended the largest moonshine operation ever conducted in
Florida. It was climaxed by the participation of Florida's then-Governor
Farris Bryant, whose plane landed on interstate 75 near the still before
the raid. Accompanying him were State Beverage Director Richard B. Keating,
Regional Coordinator Hugh Miller, District Supervisor Jack Garrett and
Administrative Assistant A.S. 'Sonny' Mann, all of whom took part in the
raid. The 500-gallon weekly capacity still, located northwest of
Gainesville in Alachua County, was in full operation at the time of the
lightning-swift raid. The report said that a Baker County native (name
withheld), then living in Jacksonville, was felled with a flying tackle and
arrested on the scene by A.S. (Sonny) Mann, the Beverage Department's
second-in-command. Another man from Macclenny, John B. Altman, was also
arrested.

     It was reported at the time of the raid that 'Moonshine in Florida is
a $320 million retail business. More than a half-billion dollars in state
and federal taxes is avoided each year while public and court apathy make
jail sentences light.'

     Eddy is still working, sometimes day and night. His 'boss,' as he
calls her, is Lieutenant Sandy Williams with the St. Johns County Sheriffs
Department.

     "He's my best process server," she said, adding that his official
duties require him to serve misdemeanor subpoenas, eviction notices, small
claims and repossession notices.

     "I'll be going out at 2 am in the morning," said Eddy
enthusiastically. "Why in the world would I want to retire?' he asks. "All
they do is die."

     Eddy said that all his life he has wanted to be a police officer and
dreamed about the future while he fed the chickens, goats, and cows, or
while riding the old plow horse to the creek when he was young.

     Grief engulfs the naturally jovial man who hides behind the facade of
his big grin. Twelve years ago, the spark and light of his life faded away
in death. She was the former Bertha Bird, his wife of 43 years.

     "If I could change one thing from the past, it would be to tell my
wife that I loved her, before she died; the three most important words in
Webster's dictionary, yet I never told her," he said.

     At her death, he locked the door to his home, removed the telephone,
and stopped entertaining friends.

     "You're the first woman to enter the door since she died 11 years
ago," he told me.

     Most things, if not all of Bertha's possessions, remain as she left
them. Her bright red sweater still lays on the chair at the piano. The
drapes remain closed, shutting out the light.

     Although physical life went on for Eddy, emotionally he closed down.
Much of his grief is compounded by the fact that he does not know who he
is.

     "I don't know who my parents are, their nationality, their names, the
place of my birth, or even when I was actually born," said Eddy, the smile
fading into the first signs of seriousness.

     "The people who raised me, Grace and Leeland Eddy, saw an ad in the
newspaper one day, placed there by a woman who said she was seeking someone
to care for her infant baby for three months and that she would pay. The
Eddys' answered the ad, but the woman, supposed to be my mother, never came
back. It was during the war. The Eddys' raised me but never adopted me.
They couldn't have any children of their own when they answered the ad, but
had two after they took me in. I left home after I graduated from high
school when I was 15 and worked my way through Delahanty Police institute
in New York, then I came to Florida."

     And the rest is history for the man who says his days are still filled
with excitement, despite his personal tragedies.

     "Every time I leave the house I say, 'Goodbye Bertha, good morning
God.' During the day if something nice happens to me, I'll say, 'Thank You
God, Thank you Bertha,' just talking to myself."

     Eddy's only child, William Randolph 'Randy' Eddy is a successful
realtor in Orange Park. He takes pride in his father, and in his
accomplishments.

     The best advice Eddy said he ever received was from Senator Verle Pope
of St. Johns County. Eddy answered a question of the Senator's with 'I
think so.' The senator said, 'You either know or you do not.'

     "Well, I'm 79 years old and I still do not know who I am," he said.

     "I know 51 widow ladies and see each one about once or twice a week,
mostly when they put the porch light on and I stop to find a stray dog or
opossum in the garbage can.

     "But there's no need to worry, God has my timetable all planned."


              Baker County Citizens Speak Out About Moonshine

Larry Dupree

"Growing up in Baker county in the 1950s was one of the most unique
childhoods a youngster could experience. Our county had a reputation known
far and wide as the moonshine capitol of the South. I'm sure most perceived
us as whiskey-making hillbillies with little to do other than drink our
excess shine and puff on a corn cob pipe. That perception was all wrong.

     "The facts are that moonshine became a way of life out of necessity --
the necessity to supplement meager farming or timber incomes that simply
were not enough to feed a family year-round. As time progressed, the
moonshine industry became much more than a simple means of feeding one's
family. It was living on the edge, with fast money, and even faster cars.
it produced settings and characters that made Robert Mitchum and Thunder
Road look like what it was ... only a movie. This was real, and the people
who lived it were real, with stories that have carried from generation to
generation.

     "My family was involved from my grandfather, my father, my uncles, and
even an aunt who drove a 1954 Chrysler loaded with 275 gallons of illegal
hootch. I guess by the grace of God, and a mother who threatened my
father's life if he allowed me to become involved, I was never a
moonshiner. I have often joked through the years that I was 16 years old
before I knew moonshining was illegal. I know it was wrong, but my memory
of those times and those involved were good memories, even cherished
memories. Those men of that era were good men and men who had great
compassion for each other. Today, some of the most trusted friends I have
are former moonshiners. I'm glad I had an opportunity to be a part even if
it was from the outside looking in. Thanks, Mom!"

Larry Dupree, former captain, University of Florida Gators Football Team
and All American



Alan "Pete" Harvey

     "My family was farmers, and we lived on a farm south of Glen St. Mary
in the Manning section. We made our living from the farm and my father
didn't make any moonshine, but he certainly consumed a lot of it.

     "When I was growing up, I learned from hearsay who was making
moonshine and transporting it. You could always tell the people that
transported moonshine because they had extra spring leaves put in the rear
of their cars and had them souped up to run fast. Growing up I never
thought of the people that made moonshine and the ones that transported it
as doing anything wrong; that was just a way to make a living.

     "My only participation in the moonshine business happened when I was a
senior in high school. A classmate's mother had a coupe car and he
persuaded me one night to go to with him to haul a load of moonshine --
about 10 five-gallon jugs -- and drop it off in the woods outside
Gainesville. We loaded up these 10 jugs and went to Gainesville. He never
told me who he was transporting moonshine for. When we were unloading it,
we broke one of the jugs in his mother's car and we had a time getting it
out of the car and fumigating it so his mother wouldn't know what we were
doing. My parents never knew I did such a thing, and I don't know if his
mother ever found out or not. We were scared to death and we never did it
again."

-- Alan 'Pete' Harvey, former Superintendent of Baker County Schools


Joe Rhoden

     "The one thing I remember about the bootlegging days in Baker County
is the first underground still. I was out hunting quail in south Macclenny
and I saw this bulldozer digging the biggest hole I've ever seen. I stopped
to look for awhile and then went on my way. Some months later, it was
destroyed and I knew then what they had been digging. They had a chicken
house over the still and to get underground you had to go into the chicken
house first." (Author's note: The still belonged to Tommy Register, whose
story of the still appears in this volume.)

     "One night, me and a pal were going to haul a load of whiskey over to
Gainesville, and they were going to unload in some woods. The jugs were in
croaker bags and when we arrived, my buddy had taken two jugs and sat them
down. I came along with my two jugs and it was so dark I couldn't see very
well. When I sat them down on the ground by the other two, one of them hit
the other jug and broke all to pieces. Needless to say, there went our
profit and, boy, I sure didn't do that any more. It was the blackest night
you've ever seen."

--Joe Rhoden


Ray Odom

     "When I first came to Macclenny in 1950 and opened up a retail
business, I learned that moonshine was part of the county's economy. I just
had a little old department store and those who traded with me helped me
make a living. I catered to the people who were involved in it; most of
them were nice people and, after 45 years, are still my friends today,
although they are no longer involved in it.

     "Moonshine was just a way of life for many people back then. Most of
them didn't even try to hide it. My store was located next to a downtown
service station and there are still scrapes today on the building that
those trucks made going in and out. Many of the trucks were parked back of
the station for servicing. It was just a way of life and when time for it
ran out, it was over.

     "I think some of them didn't want to change with the times, but law
enforcement got to be more sophisticated with better ways to detect the
moonshiner. The penalties got stiffer and some of them had to serve time in
state and federal prisons.

     "When the community became concerned, I worked on the development
commission to try and bring employment for them and others to Baker County.
I especially worked hard to bring the hospital here. All three of my
children were born there.

     "Farming was poor back then, and people needed new opportunities for
employment. The community worked to bring those opportunities into focus
with NEFSH, Ed Fraser Hospital and other industries.

     "Back then, we had the moonshine to help make a living and it wasn't
just for the moonshiner. For me, it would have been much harder to make a
living because they spent some of the money that came out of it with me and
it helped to keep my business opened. It was a part of life that benefited
many people at the time. The ones I knew who dealt in moonshine were nice
people and I respected them then and I do now."

-- Ray Odom, President of Pine View Golf and Country Club, Dealer-operator
of Pine View Chevrolet


Edna Sands

     "I was born in 1931, the youngest of seven children, and this was a
time when people were trying to make a living most any way they could. It
was about the end of the Great Depression and making moonshine was one way
to make a living without having to invest a lot of money. My Dad was a
farmer, living on the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp and the St. Mary's
River. To my knowledge, he never made any moonshine, but he sure didn't
condemn anyone that did because he knew it was good for the economy. He
liked to drink a little now and then, and he knew if the moonshiners made
good money, he could sell his fruits and vegetables. I cannot remember
having to go hungry and I always had clothes to wear."

Edna Sands, former Clerk of Baker County Courts


Woodrow and Gladys Lauramore

     "At one time, bootlegging was a way of life to live in Baker County as
there was not much going on to make a living. I was employed to drive a
delivery truck in those years and among the things I hauled was sugar and
rye for folks that made moonshine. They had stops by the road, so I would
stop and unload as many sacks of sugar and rye that was on their paid
orders. At one time I worked in logging in the woods and I knew where there
were a lot of stills but I never messed with them and the bootleggers never
messed with me. If only people knowed what went into that mess, they
probably would never drink so much of it. I saw opossums, coons, and rats
that would fall in those barrels. Also a lot of empty bleach jugs out there
that they had added to the barrels. They would also use the saw mill mule's
fertilizer to add in to the sugar and rye. I never made, drank, hauled, or
messed with any of the whiskey, but we had friends that did. It was the
only way of life they had."

-- Woodrow Lauramore

"When we moved north of Macclenny in 1950 there was a real loud blast one
day and it was so loud it shook the windows in our house. Later, I heard it
was an underground moonshine still that had been blown up by the revenuers.
I hope I never hear or feel that again. I thought a bomb had been dropped.
We had a lot of friends that worked in that business, and they had to work
hard and under a strain. They knew we didn't drink. I thank the Lord
Woodrow found work so we could go to bed with a clean mind."

-- Gladys Lauramore


Leon Sweat -- Sanderson

     "In 1935, when I was a 7th grader at Sanderson school and about 13
years old, I was visiting over at Mr. Lonnie Sweat's house, who was,
incidentally, no relation to me. He was the Constable of Sanderson. I was
playing with his two sons, W.C. and Frank, when these two men drove up and
asked if Mr. Lonnie Sweat was there. The boys told them their daddy was out
on the farm, so they wanted to know if we knew where the Lee Given's juke
was. I told them, 'Yeah, I know where it is,' so they said, 'Well, get in
the car with me and show me.' I didn't know who they were, so we drove out
to Johnsville, and parked close to Lee's juke. The two of them got out of
the car and came back with a man under arrest and they had a few bottles of
moonshine.

     "They brought me back to Mr. Sweat's house and put me out. A few days
after that, one of the men around the Sanderson area got my dad off and
said, 'if you think anything about that son of yours, you'll keep his butt
out of revenuer's cars, or something might happen to him.'

     "I don't know who it was to this day, and if dad knew he never told
me, but they came up in a very belligerent manner to tell dad that.

     "Back then, children would be absent from school for a day and if you
asked them what happened they'd say they had to look after daddy's still
while he went to town for something. So moonshine was not looked down on as
an occupation back then by the people. In fact, some people used to
seriously say it was the only way you could make a decent honest living."

-- Leon Sweat


John Barton -- Macclenny

     "My activities in moonshining was limited. Back in 1959 to
approximately 1964, I had a lot of friends that were bootleggers. My best
friend was a bootlegger. My only involvement in moonshining was that I
hauled a small load a few times and also hauled sugar for bootleggers to
make whiskey.

     "I learned a lot about bootleggers and bootlegging from the late Lamar
Knabb, a man whom I lived with from 1960-1965. He had a lot of friends that
made and hauled moonshine. He told me a lot of stories about his friends
being chased by the law and revenuers.

     "Back in those days, most people in Baker County thought making
moonshine was an honorable living. over half the families in Baker County
had a family member involved in bootlegging. It was just a way of life back
then for people in Baker County. The only time my Dad was involved in it
was when we lived in Mobley's Quarters in an old shotgun house and in 1956
to 1957 he used to sell it by pints, which was called pinting it out.
that's when they would sell it out of their home by the pint or half pint.
I remember he used to put Coca-Cola in moonshine to make people think it
was aged copper whiskey so that he could make more profit. A lot of his
friends would hang around and drink all the moonshine, so he just stopped
selling it.

     "I had a brother that got caught one time for making moonshine. I used
to drink it myself and the worst I ever drank was whiskey made with syrup.
When I was about 14 years old I used to pick up whiskey bottles and sell
them to an elderly lady we called Ma-Minnie for five cents each and she
would also give me candy. She had a Juke- joint where she sold moonshine.

     "That was my involvement in the moonshining back in bootlegging days."

-- John Barton, Supervisor of Registration, Baker County


Denver Dicks
Written by Denver and Laverne Dicks

     "While growing up in Baker County during the thirties and forties,
little did I dream I would one day look back and say, 'Well, that wasn't so
bad after all.' This was hard times, not only for Baker County, but for our
whole country as well. This is our history, never to be repeated, warts and
all. So here goes my two cents worth.

     "Some of this back ground goes back beyond my time but it helps me to
understand these wonderful people who took the bull by the horns and did
what was necessary to survive. And survive they did. Many reached the end
of the hard times with land they could have never paid the taxes on had it
not been for the only 'cash crop' available -- Moonshine!

     "You could feed your family on collard greens and taters if you had a
little land to grow it on.

     "Invariably, upon learning you were from Baker County, outsiders would
say, 'That's a bad place!' -- Not to me it wasn't. The ones I knew were
kind, generous (the shirt-off-their-back generous) and for the most part,
truthful. You could even buy load of 'shine' on credit. 'I'll pay you when
I get back if I don't get caught. In that case it may take a little
longer.'

     "Few of us can say our lives were not touched in some way by
moonshiners, directly or indirectly. Many of us finished school and some
managed to make it through college, but for most it meant three squares a
day.

     "OK! Enough justification. It was against the law and we did take some
hair- raising chances evading the consequences.

     "I was not very brave or smart either; for that matter, sneaky was
more my style and I managed to sneak by most of the time. "We all depended
on each other. It was your civic duty to notify your neighbor immediately
if you saw the men (revenuers). The 'men's out' grapevine worked very well.
Many a jug of 'shine' disappeared and many a still was running right along,
all by itself, the shiner already home with that 'Who me?' look on his face
by the time the law arrived.

     Local law enforcement, while being very intolerant of other criminal
activity, for the most part was not concerned about what a man did on his
back forty.

     "This story was told for the truth but I will not use names in
deference to those involved. A young mother was before the court trying to
get child support from her ex- husband. The presiding Judge asked her if
her ex was employed. 'Well, Judge,' she said, 'He makes a little liquor.'
The judge looked away and pretended not to hear but not before the smile on
his face was seen.

     "Another story I liked, also supposedly true, was about a shiner who
was running his still with his old mule parked nearby for a quick get away.
Sure 'nuf, that old mule was fixing to earn his keep, for upon the first
evidence of the law, that old mule headed for the bar, the stiller hanging
on for dear life. The revenue men had no problem following the tracks of
the fleeing mule. When they arrived at the home, the mule was in the lot
and the shiner was hoeing his garden. The revenuers explained to the shiner
that the mule's tracks were followed straight from the still to his house.
The shiner, with a look of surprise on his face, said, 'Well, sir, if that
old mule done it, just git him and take him on in!'

     "If we were lucky enough to get the shine made, jugged and loaded
without getting caught, the fun was just beginning. The law liked to win
also, and could be right sneaky about it. There wasn't much they wouldn't
do to catch us, and not much we wouldn't do to get by.

     "Some of those Georgia sheriffs got down-right greedy. They probably
didn't have to buy deputy patrol cars, just use moonshiner's abandoned
vehicles, and abandon they did, if and when the law got too close.
Hopefully, you had a buddy watching your rear to pick you up. if not, 'Woe
is me.' Long night for sure!

     "I always -- well, most of the time -- had a legitimate job and
moonshined on the side. It would be hard to say if I profited from
moonshine or not. Probably not much, but I thought I did at the time.

     "About the time of my marriage in 1949, shining was getting a little
more dangerous, more criminal (it was now a felony), and less necessary,
for jobs were more available than in years past. This definitely was not a
wise future for a husband and father.

     "As many others, I was reluctant to give up my 'night job,' for
moonshine had served us well, but it was time to move on.

     "This period in our history is like the Old West, is never to return.

     "As we reminisce, we have a tendency to romanticize the moonshine era,
but there were dark days, also. Everything and everyone did not end 'and
they all lived happy ever after,' but then, that is their story. However,
we remember along with them.

     "I guess we expect a certain degree of integrity in most people, but
certainly not a law-breaker who makes and sells a product that makes you
drunk, sick and all the other things we associate with drunkenness. But,
remember, there was no law against making whiskey, or selling it, getting
falling down drunk, mean or sick. The law required you to pay taxes on this
product and observe the rules regarding it. That was the law the shiners
violated.

     "It seemed as though most of them tried to make up for this unlawful
necessity by being exemplary in other areas of their lives. "'Less I leave
the impression that shiners were extra special, let me say right here there
were some good people in Baker County who didn't shine. Some who tried hard
to keep me from being a complete idiot were Mrs. Rosa Wolfe, my 3rd grade
teacher; Mrs. Susie Barber in 5th grade, Mrs. Fay Milton, 1st grade, and
others. They did what they could, but I didn't exactly have an inquiring
mind back then. Not the least of these good people are Leo Dykes, who
turned no one away from his grocery store, money or not. There were
grocers, Cecil Day and 'Rooster' Thompson. And Dr. Brinson and Dr. Watson.
I'm sure they never got rich, but tried hard to keep us healthy.

     "Earle Chessman, owner of Chessman's Theatre, gave all us boys a job
although we were far from qualified for most things. There were many more,
not the least of these, my mama, who killed one peach tree using it on my
back side. After that didn't work, she looked to divine intervention.
Prayer was a lot less strenuous and, I'm sure, did much more good.

     "Finding employment that offered a future took me away from Baker
County. Both my wife and I still have family there and visit often. We have
memories that could be a book in itself.

     "My wife, Laverne Johnson, sister of Glen Johnson, who was somewhat a
colorful figure during this period, shares everything mentioned in this
narrative, good and bad. She shares my thoughts, feelings and secrets, for
me, I haven't told all.

     "She also helped in putting it all in words, because asking me to
write is like asking me to pray in church. I get deaf, dumb and blind, not
to mention breaking out in a rash.

     "For the record, I'm retired now and just sit around reminiscing and
waiting for the Social Security check. I can remember thirty or forty years
ago but please don't ask me what I had for breakfast!

     "I end this epistle with a story that explains the feelings expressed
here about moonshiners:

     "I loaned some money to a moonshiner who had a run of bad luck that
resulted, some years late, his spending some time in prison. Upon getting
out of prison, he came by my house in Lake city a few days later, and gave
my wife the amount of the loan.

     "When we all get to heaven, I'm sure the Lord won't let us run
moonshine, but maybe He will let us talk about it!"

-- Denver Dicks


Margaret Anderson

     "Edward was 21 and I was 16 when we married in October of '64. 1 knew
he was making whiskey, but at the time I thought whiskey was made in a
factory and not in the woods. I soon found out different. We were living in
the McCormick Apartments and Edward was working for Webb Feed Store during
the day. He would stay out until 2-3 o'clock in the morning and I thought,
'This ain't going to work.' I thought he was running around on me. So one
night he said, 'You can just go with me tonight, and I'll show you what I'm
doing.' So I went with him, and I'm going to tell you what -- I've never
been so scared in my life. We were in this old coupe and had just loaded it
with whiskey at a place near where the hospital is now in east Macclenny
and started with it to Taylor to unload. He gave me a pipe wrench, and
said, 'if the law gets behind us, just bust 'em,' meaning the jugs of
whiskey. I was so nervous I smoked two packs of cigarettes from Macclenny
to Taylor, and I said I'd never go with him again if I got home.

     "When we were unloading the whiskey, I was helping him and just as I
got in the middle of the yard, there was this police car that came by. I
just sat down on the jug of whiskey in the man's front yard. I'll never
forget that man saying, 'Lord-a-mercy, here we are trying to keep down
suspicion and here this white woman is sitting here in the middle of my
yard on a jug of whiskey.'

     "I never went to work with Edward again. I got pregnant two months
after we married, and when I was five months, Edward and two more people
who were helping him went over to Lake City to carry a load of whiskey - We
had an old '57 coupe that he hauled shine in and we drove around in, too. I
felt like something was going to happen that night, I just had that
feeling. I was crying and begging him not to go, but he went anyway. When
they got inside the man's door, the revenuers were there. They ran out the
back door and Edward crawled under a house in the quarters. The law got the
dog after him and he had to come out and that's how they got him. He was
sentenced to five years, but he was released early. Our son was 18 months
old when he came home and he never messed with shine again.

     "Edward worked for the airport in Lake City for awhile, and had been
with Western Southern Insurance Company for ten years. On May 22, 1989, he
was killed in a car accident driving home to Taylor. Twelve days earlier,
on May 10, our daughter, Shelia Darlene Thompson had just given us our
first grandchild, Kayla Ann. We now have four grandchildren. Shelia had
another daughter, Marion Marguerite.

     "Our son, Charles Edward Anderson, Jr., has a son named Jonathan
Edward, and a daughter Tiara.

     "Edward has an older son, Rodney Keith Brooks. Rodney's son is Aaron
Keith.

     "I'm not ashamed of Edward being involved in moonshine. His daddy was
a moonshiner too. Back in those days, almost everyone did something
connected with it. Edward was holding down a job at the feed store and
trying to make moonshine at night to help us get ahead.

     "The picture made with the mule pulling the wagon and Edward and Wade
Crawford posing with Sheriff Yarbrough and Special investigator Bill Eddy
was made before I knew him, but I know Edward would just laugh about it if
he knew it ended up on the front cover of a book. We're very proud of him."

-- Margaret Anderson