National Peace Officers Memorial Day: Thankfully, list of heroes has not grown

May 15 is National Peace Officers Memorial Day. In 2002, we listed Palm Beach County’s murdered lawmen.

The good news: In eight years, the list hasn’t grown. But we take time to again honor them. As always, let us know if we’ve missed anyone.

Aug. 27, 1921: Palm Beach County deputy George C. Douglass was shot trying to arrest a theft suspect near South Bay.

June 1, 1923: Palm Beach officer Joseph Nelson Smith was shot by turtle poachers.

Jan. 9, 1924: Deputy Frederick Baker was shot in a raid on the Ashley gang near Hobe Sound. Feb. 9, 1924: West Palm Beach officer William Payton was shot.

Oct. 6, 1924: Kelsey City (now Lake Park) deputy town marshal Walter S. Stroman Jr., was shot trying to make an arrest.

Aug. 7, 1937: West Palm Beach officer Lewis Allen Conner was shot by armed robbery suspect.

Jan. 15, 1953: State corrections officer Grant Dohner was shot during an escape attempt at road prison west of South Florida Fairgrounds.

April 6, 1967: West Palm Beach officers William Fletcher and David Van Curler were shot by a bank robber.

Jan. 24, 1971: Pahokee officer Samuel Stephens was killed by two armed robbers.

Aug. 10, 1974: Delray Beach police officer John D. Kennedy was shot in his patrol car.

Aug. 14, 1974: Riviera Beach officer Meredith Runck was shot at a domestic disturbance.

Dec. 3, 1982: Sheriff’s deputy Frank Genovese was shot during standoff at Greenacres home.

Sept. 14, 1984: Florida Highway Patrol trooper Fred Groves was shot in suburban West Palm Beach.

June 24, 1987: Glades Correctional Institution guard Fred Griffis was shot during a botched escape attempt in West Palm Beach.

Aug. 22, 1988: West Palm Beach officer Brian H. Chappell (above) was shot by an escaped prisoner.

Aug. 22, 1989: Sheriff’s deputy James Dickinson (above) was shot at a Royal Palm Beach home.

Feb. 26, 1993: Sheriff’s deputy James “Rocky” Hunt was shot west of Lantana investigating four suspicious people at an ATM.

Next Week: T-Coast heroes.

The March 2, 1993, funeral for Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputy James ‘Rocky’ Hunt drew about 1,500 people to the Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church in West Palm Beach.

Tags: death, notorious crimes, police

Ashley gang robbed bank at different corner

Our Dec. 17, 2009, column on the Ashley Restaurant drew this response from Josephine Paradise of Stuart:

“The 2/23/1915 robbery was not at the restaurant location but at the first Stuart bank, which was on the corner across from the Ashley Restaurant.

“This building is still there but now houses some kind of a fellowship

“My grandfather, John E. Taylor, was a bank teller during that first robbery and actually tried to talk John Ashley out of committing the robbery. “I have in my office two witness subpoenas for my grandfather to appear as a witness. “The second robbery, in 1924, was at the restaurant site.”

We also received this from Debbie Moore of Plant City:

“It upset me greatly, for the Ashley Gang wasn’t evil; they loved each other and many of their neighbors. However, Sheriff Baker had to be evil to the core; what could be more cruel than taking a dead man’s glass eye to use as a fob?

“John Ashley and my grandfather were cousins. My grandfather died when I was 3 so I don’t remember the stories he told about the Ashleys, only that he loved them.

“My grandfather worked for Tampa’s mobster, Charlie Wall. So did two of my cousins. But my Papa was the sweetest man I have ever known. And I imagine John Ashley was too.

“I don’t condone their actions of robbing and killing. But a man is worth more than his worst deeds.

“My mother is 87. She would never talk about the Ashley Gang or say much about my grandfather being a mobster because she was ashamed. But now she’s different and not so concerned about her image. So I just recently learned how closely related I am. “I went down to Stuart on Nov. 1, the anniversary of John’s and Hanford’s deaths, and put roses on their graves. I thought some of my relatives who live in Stuart might be there and I would get to meet them. But, other than a few golfers, we were the only people around. It was quite sad.”

Palm Beach Post file photo
The Ashley Gang was a band of smugglers, moonshiners and killers who lived in the area in the early 1900s. Among their crimes were robberies in 1915 and 1924.

Tags: notorious crimes

Ashley eatery used to be Stuart Bank

When the Ashley restaurant in downtown Stuart closed in September, it closed a window into South Florida’s wild past. The place operated as an eatery for years. But in a past life it was the Stuart Bank, forever linked to the infamous Ashley gang.

On February 23, 1915, John Ashley — along with his brother Bob and an associate, Kid Lowe — robbed the bank of $4,300 and forced a customer to drive them away in a car they hijacked from the front of the bank.

As they fled, they fired guns to show that they were serious gangsters.

Kid Lowe’s shot shattered John Ashley’s jaw, with the bullet resting against his left eye.

Bruised and in disarray, the gang scattered into the woods, where Sheriff George Baker was able to catch up with John Ashley (pictured above). Lowe and Bob Ashley got away.

Newspaper accounts of the robbery referred for the first time to “the Ashley gang.” Some reveled in their daring exploits; others con-Ashley refused surgery to remove the bullet lodged in his head, saying that there wasn’t much point if he was to be hanged on a pending murder charge.

The eye was later removed, and he was fitted with a glass one.

The courts went through 150 potential jurors before giving up and moving the trial to Miami. The Dade County sheriff ordered extra locks and chains for Ashley, saying that he didn’t trust the gangster to stay put. He was proven right; Ashley’s brothers tried a bloody and unsuccessful jail break. Ashley was convicted in the Stuart bank robbery and sentenced to 17½ half years at the Florida State Prison in Raiford. He later would escape into the Everglades. And most famously: in September 1924, a woman in a white blouse, a long black skirt and a hat entered the Stuart Bank. It was really Ashley gang member Hanford Mobley in disguise. Two cohorts fled in a getaway car they had stolen from a man whom they had tied to a tree. How crazy was the strategy? Asked to describe the robbers, witnesses no doubt remembered only the dress.

Palm Beach Post file photo: The three men killed on the St. Sebastian Bridge are buried in the family plot. The men were part of the notorious Ashley gang, rum runners from the 1920s who also robbed banks and caused grief for the law enforcement community. John Ashley died in a 1924 shootout.

Tags: notorious crimes

Butterfly Ballot Doesn’t Crack Area’s Top 10

This is our 500th column since Post Time began Jan. 19, 2000.

Special thanks go to recently retired Managing Editor Bill Rose, who had the idea, and Neighborhood Post editor Tom Peeling, who’s shepherded all 500 columns, along with all the copy editors who caught my mistakes.

But we couldn’t do it without your interest. Keep the questions coming! To honor the moment, we’re running an updated version of a list we compiled in 1999 of the 25 top events. Several state and local historians volunteered to rank them. The list was revised with help from Bill McGoun, retired Post editorial writer and author of Southeast Florida Pioneers.

Here’s 25 through 11:

25. Dairy industry bought out, 1980s-1990s.

24. Scandals send three county commissioners and two West Palm Beach commissioners and alleged accomplices to prison.

23. Proposed U.S. Sugar deal would restore sugar fields to Everglades (2009).

22. Downtown revitalized, 1980s-2000s.

21. 1980s spark increased growth.

20. Interstate 95 missing link completed through region, 1987.

19. Florida Atlantic University founded, 1964.

18. Civil War, 1861-65; Jupiter Lighthouse darkened to help blockade runners.

17. Battles of Okeechobee, Jupiter help push Seminoles into Everglades, 1837-38.

16. Region struggles through integration woes, late 1960s-early ’70s.

15. Refugees from Latin America and Caribbean change region’s demographics, 1960s-90s.

14. Jonathan Dickinson chronicles Indian groups now extinct, 1696.

13. Anthrax attack starts in Boca Raton; local aspects of Sept. 11.

12. IBM, Pratt & Whitney and others bring high-tech industry to Florida, 1950s-’60s.

11. 2000 election and Palm Beach County’s butterfly ballot change presidential election.

Palm Beach Post file photo: Visitors examine some of the super engines built by Pratt & Whitney in northern Palm Beach County during an open house in 1978. Pratt and IBM, which was in southern Palm Beach County, brought the high-tech industry to Florida in the 1950s-’60s and provided thousands of jobs.”

Tags: agriculture, Civil War, economy, immigrants, notorious crimes, schools

Cracker Johnson: King Of Black W. Palm

In honor of Black History Month, we’ll revisit three people or places who’ve made historical contributions. From a Feb. 11, 2004, column:

Cracker Johnson was the king of black West Palm Beach.

James J. Johnson, born in 1876 or 1877, was a son of a mixed marriage. He earned his nickname because he could pass as white. He came to West Palm Beach in 1900 and started spending money.

He bought a building on Banyan Street — a rooming house upstairs, pool tables downstairs.

Climbing onto the real estate boom, he built the Dixie Theater on Rosemary Street, along with homes and rental operations, and bought more property statewide.

He opened the “Florida Bar” and a club for “colored gentlemen.”

Many who couldn’t borrow from white-owned banks borrowed from him.

He made pals with white business leaders and lawmen, at the same time reportedly smuggling liquor during Prohibition and running the bolita numbers game.

Johnson, who couldn’t read or write except to sign his name, reportedly raked in up to $10,000 a week by the 1940s.

Local newspapers mostly ignored blacks unless they were arrested or murdered, and so it was with Cracker.
On July 2, 1946, he saw a friend being attacked behind his bar. He rushed to help and was mortally wounded in a gunfight. One of the attackers, who were brothers, was killed; the other was later captured. The death prompted a brief news story.

Cracker Johnson’s funeral was standing-room-only. Hundreds of people, both black and white, came to bury a king.

Tags: African Americans, Black history month, notorious crimes