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INNERARITY'S CLAIM

Robert Register and James Hargrove

North of the Apalachicola River bridge, Market Street intersects Forbes Street, Leslie Street and Panton Street. These streets were all named on the 1835 plat of Apalachicola as a legacy to three partners of Panton, Leslie and Company, the old Indian trading firm that was renamed John Forbes & Company in 1804. 

THE FORBES PURCHASE

The future Apalachicola was sandwiched between two of Forbes’ immense land claims, which were the largest Spanish land grants in the Territory of Florida. To the east lay over 1.4 million acres called Forbes Purchase, which John Forbes & Company had sold to the men who founded the Apalachicola Land Company in 1817. To the west lay a 1.2 million acre grant that was named Innerarity’s Claim on Searcy’s 1829 map of Florida. 

INNERARITY'S CLAIM

Whereas the Forbes Purchase had originated in an 1804 land cession from the Creek Indians in payment for bad debt, Innerarity’s Claim resulted from losses sustained from British-provoked attacks and looting during the War of 1812-1815.

Assisting Americans during the First Seminole War

After their defeat to General Andrew Jackson at New Orleans, British forces returned to Apalachicola and Dauphin Island in 1815 to plan a large scale invasion that would capture all American possessions along the Gulf of Mexico and give them control over the Mississippi River. In early February, a large British force had begun to attack Ft. Boyer at Mobile Point (present-day Fort Morgan) when news arrived that the Treaty of Ghent had been signed.

In May, Col. Edward Nicolls sailed for England, leaving the former British fort on the Apalachicola River in control of a regiment of erstwhile black Colonial Marines and Choctaw Indians he had armed and trained. Even though the fort was in Spanish territory and the War of 1812 was over, the men continued to fly the British flag and promised to defend the fort against American forces.

Shortly after the British departed, two of Colonel Nicolls’ former lieutenants, George Woodbine and Robert Ambrister, went to the Seminole town at Suwannee in an attempt to wrest Florida from Spain. They were joined by a trader from the Bahamas named Alexander Arbuthnot, who opened stores on the Ochlockonee and Wakulla Rivers to confront the rival firm of John Forbes & Co. Arbuthnot, Ambrister and Woodbine planned to act as agents for the Creeks and Seminoles to help regain their lands, meanwhile carving an empire out of the territory much as William Bowles had attempted 20 years earlier.

At risk to their lives, Forbes’ agents William Hambly and Edmund Doyle were then managing the store at Prospect Bluff and plantations that they owned up the Apalachicola River at Spanish Bluff. Hambly wrote to Arbuthnot, warning him to stop fomenting an Indian war and associating with Woodbine, Ambrister, and the outlaws in the fort.

Hambly had helped build and manage the British fort at Prospect Bluff, and knew the layout perfectly. Afraid to keep working close to what had become known as the Negro Fort, Hambly made his way up the river to a U.S. garrison at Fort Scott on the Flint River, and explained the fort’s defenses to the commander, Lt. Col. Duncan Clinch, just before U.S. generals Andrew Jackson and Edmund Gaines ordered that the fort be destroyed.

Clinch was joined on the river by two U.S. Navy gunboats that sailed to Prospect Bluff from Apalachicola Bay. On July 27, 1816, they moved the gunboats into range, and sailing master Jairus Loomis fired a heated cannonball that struck the powder magazine of the fort. The gunpowder detonated and killed 270 of the 300 defenders. The attack incensed Arbuthnot, Ambrister and the Seminoles, who blamed William Hambly for the destruction of the fort, just as Colonel Nicolls had blamed James and John Innerarity for British losses in the battles at Mobile and New Orleans.

Destruction of the fort at Prospect Bluff shortly initiated the First Seminole War, sparked by a massacre of 36 men, women and children on the Apalachicola River. In 1818, Andrew Jackson’s forces invaded Spanish Florida, burned the Seminole town at Suwannee, and captured the Spanish fort at St. Marks. Woodbine escaped back to Nassau, but Ambrister and Arbuthot were captured and executed. The United States began negotiating with Spain for cession of Florida, and the treaty of 1819 stated that only Spanish land grants deeded before January 24, 1818 could be valid. That provision was to decide the fate of Forbes Purchase and Innerarity’s Claim.

Decline of the trading empire

Constant warring from 1813-1818 had ended Forbes & Co.’s trade with Indian tribes, and 14 of its stores closed, leaving James and John Innerarity managing the last two in Mobile and Pensacola. Lawsuits to recover their estimated losses of $100,000 were overturned in British courts.

John Forbes and his daughters moved to Cuba in 1817, where he closed out his days running a sugar mill with his sons-in-law on the Canimar River. In 1818, he petitioned the Captain-General of Cuba, Don Jose Cienfuegos, to repay John Forbes & Co. for its losses by awarding title to all the land from the mouth of the Choctawhatchee east to the point where Sweetwater Creek enters the Apalachicola River. Without consulting the inhabitants of West Florida, the governor agreed to grant the company over 1.2 million acres of land. 

PENSACOLA'S JOHN INNERARITY

Andrew Jackson was sufficiently impressed by John Innerarity’s good reputation in the Pensacola community that, days after the general assumed command as governor of West Florida in 1821, he appointed Innerarity to the town council of Pensacola. Within a month, however, this cordial relationship became strained because Jackson sided with Mercedes and Caroline Vidal of Pensacola in a minor lawsuit against Forbes & Co.

In 1830, John Innerarity purchased the remaining Forbes & Co. property in Pensacola, thereby ending the firm’s activities there. In addition to enjoying the company of his family, including the marriage of two of his daughters to Americans and the third to his nephew, William Panton Innerarity, he maintained a prominent social and economic status in Pensacola. A respected citizen, in 1830 he was appointed as the vice-consul of France, for which service he was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor in 1846.

MOBILE'S JAMES INNERARITY

James continued as the main partner of John Forbes & Company at Mobile from 1818 until his death in 1847 when Forbes & Company ceased to exist. But during some years from the 1820s to the 1840s, he also lived on a plantation in Cuba, where he met Laura Manual Centeno, by whom he had five children out of wedlock.

Richard Keith Call intervenes

Richard Keith Call

Land ownership controversies like “Innerarity’s Claim” were the most pressing problems facing the government in Florida Territory. Not until 1828 did Congress pass a law allowing claimants of large grants like Innerarity’s Claim and Forbes Purchase to file suit against the United States in the Superior Court of the district where the disputed land was located. 

Even though he was a partner with James Innerarity in the purchase of property on Santa Rosa Island, lawyer Richard Keith Call was the last person Innerarity wanted to represent the United States when his case came before Judge Henry M. Brackenridge’s Pensacola courtroom in the fall of 1830. Call, who had served with Jackson at Mobile and New Orleans, was appointed to assist government attorneys in settling larger Spanish grants.

Through service as Florida’s territorial delegate to Congress and as Receiver of Public Monies at the public land office in Tallahassee, Call had become an expert on Spanish land grants and was convinced that all of the Spanish land grants issued in the last days of the regime were frauds. In preparing for the case in 1829, Call received a federal commission that paid him to sail to Havana in pursuit of original documents pertaining to the case.

Call returned to Pensacola and showed Judge Brackenridge that the actual date of the land grant had been altered in order to make it conform with the provision in the treaty that made it illegal to make land grants in Florida after January 24, 1818. In the original document, a line had been drawn through “March” and the word “January” written above it. By a matter of days, James and John Innerarity lost the land grant that compensated Forbes & Co. for wartime losses.

Indian title to the land had already been extinguished by the Treaty of Moultrie Creek with the Seminoles, so the title to land west of Apalachicola was clear. In 1831, Robert Butler, the Surveyor-General of Florida, ordered surveys of the townships west of the river. By 1834, the land was being purchased at the Tallahassee land office for about two dollars an acre.

If R. K. Call had not found the fraudulent date on the original Forbes grant to the land between the Apalachicola and the Choctawhatchee, the land where old St. Joseph was built in 1835 as a rival port to Apalachicola would not have been available.  The saga of the St. Joseph Canal and Railroad Company building a shortcut to Iola would not have happened, and James and John Innerarity would have been among the richest men in Florida.

For decades, the fact that James Innerarity had warned Andrew Jackson about British plans to invade New Orleans was kept secret. However, Richard Keith Call knew of the meeting, and he recounted the event in a speech he gave at Jackson Square, New Orleans in 1855. His account was confirmed by letters found in Andrew Jackson’s public papers, and we now know that John Forbes, James and John Innerarity, and William Hambly all contributed to Andrew Jackson’s victories in the Creek War, the battles of Mobile and New Orleans, and the First Seminole War.

 William Russell Smith (1815-1896) 

page 31 to page 45 of REMINISCENCES OF A LONG LIFE by William R. Smith:  https://www.google.com/books/edition/Reminiscences_of_a_Long_Life/6aUEAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Reminiscences+of+a+long+life%22+%22William+R.+Smith%22&pg=PA88&printsec=frontcover

 William Russell Smith (1815-1896)page 31 of REMINISCENCES OF A LONG LIFE by William R. Smith:

JAMES CHILDRESS AND THE COUNTERFEITERS 

Major James Childress was conspicuous amongst our earlier pioneers He built his first cabin on the hill upon which now stands the old State Capitol This cabin was his residence for several years and I have heard it said of him that he used to stand on his porch and shoot down wild deer as they ran through his grounds. Major Childress afterwards removed to another locality east of the town about a quarter of a mile west of the University and there built a commodious cottage in which he resided up to the time of his death 1836.

 CHILDRESS HILL 

When the question of selecting the site for the location of the new State Capitol was mooted there were several places mentioned as eligible but the one selected was that known as Childress Hill and here the building was erected on the spot where the old cabin used to stand. Thus I am enabled to do for Tuskaloosa what no historian ever did for Rome i. e. to state distinctly the name of the individual who first broke ground on the identical spot of earth where stands the capitol of the State. Major Childress was known as a good rifle shot and as a daring man And he it was who led the raiders that captured the notorious Davis and Randall gang of counterfeiters and brought them to punishment.

 THE PURSUIT AND CAPTURE OF THE COUNTERFEITERS 

Great was the excitement in the village of Tuskaloosa with its 2,000 inhabitants when the news went abroad that the town had been done for by a gang of counterfeiters and that several fifty dollar counterfeit bills had been left in the hands of a prominent merchant for goods sold to that amount. Every cabin in the village was emptied of its inhabitants men women and children agape for news and craving revenge. 

At that time the penalty for the crime of counterfeiting was death. And in this particular case the honor of the town called for pursuit capture and execution. Within two hours after the spreading of the news of this outrage a band of bold citizens was organized for the pursuit and Major James Childress as leader came rapidly riding into the village on a large iron gray horse accoutred with rifle and pistols and in hunter's garb followed by a lively pack of hounds yelping in response to the mellow winding of the huntsman's horn. 

This band was made up of the best and most daring of the citizens of Tuskaloosa and North Port well armed and accoutred for the emergency and with a wagon drawn by two mules supplied as if for a party on a camp hunt. The raiders took the road leading to Walker County as it was known that the counterfeiters had come from that direction.

After crossing North River eight miles from town the party encountered John W Prewitt, a sterling young pioneer just then beginning to expand into a man of means and power. He was returning home from a trip into the upper end of Walker County. Prewitt the day before as he stated had met a party of men going from Tuskaloosa to Walker and who told him they lived on Clear Creek. Prewitt's description of the men seemed to cover the objects of the pursuit and he was at once put in possession of the facts of the passing of the counterfeit money and was requested to join the party in pursuit. When the word counterfeit money fell upon Prewitt's ear his eye flashed and his face glowed as if something had stung him. He put his hand in his pocket drew out his wallet of money and examined its contents. A black frown passed over his face as he returned his wallet to his pocket when he exclaimed with much eagerness in the response to the request that he should join the party. "Yes, yes boys I'm in," while he at once wheeled his horse into the road and placing by Major Childress inquired into the particulars.

The fact is that Prewitt in examining his money found that the rascals had put upon him two fifty dollar bills paid him as boot in a horse swap. 

He had parted with a magnificent young filly of his own raising for that amount of money and the horse he was now riding which was a fine roadster deep black and of good size. While Childress and Prewitt were talking apart Brown one of the North Port squad rode up to Prewitt and said familiarly, " John, where did you come across that horse? I saw him in North Port day before yesterday." 

The explanation that followed convinced Childress and Brown that the man who had swapped horses with Prewitt was one of the men pursued and that his party was composed of the identical counterfeiters. 

Major Childress now called the party to a halt and said, "Men, we know the neighboring locality of the homes of the persons we are pursuing.  It will be unnecessary to spend more time in making inquiries. I advise you to say nothing to any persons we may meet about our real object but to let it be understood that we are out on a camp hunt. Our destination is Clear Creek in Walker County where we will pitch our tent to morrow about sunrise."

Our hunters traveled all night and next morning about daylight pitched their tent on the edge of a bluff on Clear Creek in the neighborhood of a mill. In the meantime several wild turkeys had been shot and the breakfast was such as only Daniel Boone had ever enjoyed.

 As a caution Childress had suggested to Prewitt that he had better leave his horse behind for if discovered it would give a hint of the pursuit to which Prewitt readily assented and the black steed was left with a thrifty young farmer on Crabb's road about six or eight miles south of Wolf Creek and thirty five miles north of Tuskaloosa. About half a mile from the camp there was a rude log cabin on the edge of a small clearing of four or six acres of land on which corn and cotton (the latter in a small patch had been produced). In this cabin were found a woman and two small children. The cabin was of the rudest sort but fresh built only one room about twenty feet square a bed in each of the four corners. About fifty yards off was a row of small stables of logs very strongly put together four in number by the side of a small but very substantial crib well filled with corn and oats. Our hunters agreed to spread themselves around the neighborhood as observers for the day. Childress and Prewitt visited the cabin and inquired for the master of the place. The woman said that her husband had gone to Huntsville she did not know when he would be back for it is "a good way out there." Loitering around Prewitt looked in at the stables and noted that in each stall there was a horse freshly fed and groomed. And lo in one of the stalls he saw his veritable filly. Upon this discovery he called Childress and exclaimed, "We have treed the coon. There stands my filly. It is all a lie about going to Huntsville. It takes men to look after stock in this way."

 Childress was of the same opinion and concluded from the facts that the counterfeiters were in the adjacent woods. The party was speedily made acquainted with the facts and every rifle and pistol was well prepared for whatever emergency might arise. Childress took pains to conceal from the women in the cabin that he had made any discovery and the idea of camp hunters was sedulously cultivated. But Prewitt insisted that the stables should be picketed and four men were detailed with special orders to keep an eye on the stables while the party carelessly scattered themselves up and down on the edges of the bluffs and cliffs of the creek each with an eye for discovery. 

If CLEAR CREEK was in Switzerland it would be renowned for its scenery. It is a small stream but its fierce waters dash along within their craggy confines uttering a sound as if made up of the mingling of a thousand rivulets yet soft and distinct the harmony never ceases. Here are crags to be castled in the future with adjacent lands in valleys surpassingly rich. Here for the distance of twenty sinuous miles is room for as many mills with natural power to drive enough spindles to clothe the population of a small empire. The whole is broken into numerous cascades over one of which the water rolls without a break for the width of nearly one hundred feet and with a ten foot plunge that seems the mimic of an echo of some far off Niagara.

 Near this just above on one side is a frightful crag overlooking the bed of the stream with a continuous threat to topple over and bathe its rugged limbs in the lucid waters below while on the farther side the bluff is of moderate height declining gradually into a rich valley. 

Just below this fall comes in from the adjacent hills a frothing rivulet a never dying feeder to the larger stream and empties itself as if dropping its fleecy treasure from great baskets of snow.

But our camp hunters are suddenly excited and at the same time perplexed by having discovered a very light curl of smoke issuing from a crevice in the edge of the crag near the summit. Clambering up to the locality of the bluish emission they discovered the mouth of a miniature crater about the size of the head of a large barrel. The conclusion was that the smoke came from a cavern below and the gang began reconnoitering the place to find an entrance having jumped at the conclusion that the counterfeiters were concealed under ground. While our hunters were eagerly looking around for a trail, a little girl one of the children from the cabin aforenamed came dashing down the hill with a little water bucket in her hand. 

Major Childress hailed her and looking into her little bright eyes which glowed like those of a scared minx in her full round face he inquired where she was going. "To the spring," she said her face nothing exhibiting excepting the flushing eagerness natural to a child running. She was about six years old very alert and active in her bare feet her long black hair was twisted into two rolls after the country fashion of putting up pigtail tobacco. 

Now just below this cascade the bed of the creek widened considerably and the body of the water spreading out over a larger extent of space disclosed the rocky bottom so that the stream was very shallow. 

Twenty or thirty yards below a row of rocks had been thrown making a foot path over which one could pass almost dry shod. Over this path the child glided and went up toward the cascade on the other side where there was a spring by which she sat down resting her bucket on a stone. In the meantime the hunters had crossed the rocky foot path and bent their course into the woods beyond. Childress walking up to the spring where the little girl sat said,"Will we find plenty of deer out in this direction?"

 "Oh yes, pap killed a buck over there yesterday." 

The little girl kept her eyes on Childress as he passed along until she thought he was out of sight when she darted like an arrow and disappeared under the waterfall. 

Childress had seen her and at once beckoned to his friends who were on the lookout and four of the gang besides Childress followed the child under the waterfall hastily. 

There was a space of about three feet between the cascade and the bluff serving as an opening so that one could pass in and under keeping at the same time perfectly dry. They found over head a flat rock extending the entire width of the creek over which the waters rushed in a body with a regularity and precision as if the hands of man had made the dam out of solid timbers for the express purpose of letting the stream pour over it .

There was also under foot a solid rock without a perceivable crack in it and this was dry within a few feet of the plunge. Under the edge of the rock over which the waters poured and for eight or ten feet inwardly there was light enough to see clearly across the cavern but beyond all was darkness impenetrable. The five men passed rapidly across and at the side beyond groped onward in the darkness feeling every step of the way by pointing their rifles ahead above and under foot. The rock was firm beneath while above and all around them was nothing visible The hunters touched each other to assure themselves said nothing and moved on cautiously listening.

Suddenly a gleam of light flashed upon them as if from an opening shutter. 

"What is it, Lizzie?", said a gruff voice at the opening.

"There's a gang of men here hunters they say just now crossing the creek."

 The opening was closed and the hunters advanced rapidly to the spot. Feeling their hands came in contact with a rough plank or slab upright and firmly set as if in a wall. It was about two feet wide six or seven feet high on one edge of it was a strip of undressed raw hide running all the way from top to bottom and was nailed to the slab on one side and to a post on the other and was undoubtedly used as a hinge for the slab to swing on.  Childress made a light from his tinder box and took the surroundings. There was a cavernous yawning on each side of them in front a wall with a slab door. The men arranged themselves on the opening side of the slab the light was extinguished and they waited for events supposing that the door would open directly to let out the little girl.

 There were voices within but unintelligible. In a very little while the door swung open the girl passed out and a naked brawny and stalwart arm was extended grasping the edge of the shutter with intent to close it. Childress clutched the wrist of that arm in his left hand with a deathly grip and with his right hand seized the man by the throat and dragged him at once out of the door and to the ground placed his knees upon his breast and cried out, "Enter boys I've got this fellow," whereupon in an instant four rifles were leveled at the occupants within two men sitting on a bench in front of a log fire. The men sprang up. 

"Hands up!" cried Prewitt, "and surrender or die right here."

 The men were paralyzed they offered not the slightest resistance. One of them a tall straight man over six feet high simply said, "Don't shoot men," then turning to his comrade exclaimed "The jig's up."

 In twenty minutes the three were handcuffed and led out of the den. In the den were found quantities of paper counterfeits on the North and South Carolina and Georgia banks, tools and implements for engraving bills and dies for casting counterfeit coin of all denominations and a quantity of poorly executed counterfeit metal dollars half dollars quarters and dimes. 

The den was nearly triangular in shape with rugged walls but dry to the touch and with a solid stone floor. On one side of the den was an opening to another and a darker cavern which the hunters did not care to explore. A fire place quite snug had been made in the corner and over it was built up a sort of chimney by stones adhering to the walls on the inside so as to convey the smoke to the apex. The submissive men were mounted on their own horses and well secured. Prewitt had captured his lost filly on which he rode proudly pre eminent. Childress wound his melodious hunting horn, the hounds yelped a long and sonorous response when the hunters took up their homeward march. The raiders halted at Jasper for the night and the prisoners well ironed were lodged in the cellar of old Jemmy Daniel's house. About three o' clock on the second day after this the victorious raiders with their prisoners were entering the ferry boat on the Black Warrior River at Tuskaloosa.

 The news that the counterfeiters had been captured and were approaching was a signal for another emptying of the houses. There were no church bells in that day in that place but there was many a horn and they tooted many a toot. The storehouses were closed all business suspended the doors of school houses were thrown wide open the pupils boys and girls rushed out and men women and children exulting and hallooing darted down the long hill toward the river landing where on the brow of the bluff stood almost the entire population of Tuskaloosa to witness the crossing.

As the leader of the returning crowd, Major Childress was conspicuous on his old iron gray horse. But the eye was familiar with his figure and eagerly sought for the culprits amongst whom was seen towering above all the rest of the crowd a long lean man straight in his stirrups with a rugged face and clothed in butternut jeans. The long locks of his half gray hair fell down over his shoulder covering the collar of his coat. This was John Davis the leader of the gang. Straight to the jail the culprits were conveyed and the more alert and active of the crowd managed to get ahead of the troop and fix themselves about and around the jail so that upon the arrival of the prisoners there the locality was well packed with a solicitous multitude.

 MAJOR JAMES CHILDRESS, the hero of this adventure, was not only distinguished for intrepidity he was an educated gentleman of cultivated literary taste and polished manners he was noted for his amiable hospitalities and for the great care he bestowed on the education of his children. His home was one of refinement and in the early days of the University his house was a happy resort and hospitable retreat for the students but the truth of history forces me to record that his bee gums were not always safe and that his fat turkeys were sometimes mistaken for wild game. Childress's gobbler got to be a college by word carrying along with it an aromatic flavor and a gormetic significance.

 Of Major Childress's two sons, James L. is especially remembered by me as an amiable playmate in our boyhood and later as a thrifty energetic citizen. He died early of yellow fever at Citronelle. 

Of the two accomplished daughters Annie P became the wife of Erasmus Walker, a young lawyer and at that time one of the editors of the Flag of the Union. Mr Walker had also been one of the editors of the Alabama State Intelligencer and was highly esteemed for his attainments as well as for the brilliancy of his writings.

 The second daughter, Susan W., is the wife of Dr John B. Read who graduated at the University of Alabama in the class of 1834. He was one of that bright galaxy of Huntsville boys who came to the college the first year embracing Clem C. Clay, Jere Clements, James Mastin, Porter Bibb, Joe Acklin and others. Dr Read was afterward charmed to take up his residence in Tuskaloosa where he has become distinguished as a physician and has made himself widely known in the scientific world as a man of superior genius having invented an implement of warfare a celebrated shell which was adopted and used extensively during the late war. 

THE FATE OF THE COUNTERFEITERS

 John Davis and Randall, one of his associates, were tried convicted and sentenced to be hanged. Randall furnished the State some facts without which Davis could not have been convicted and for this he was reprieved but this fact was not communicated to him until the halter had been put around his neck under the gallows. I was an eye witness to this scene Randall's conduct under the gallows was notable amusing and disgusting. He sang shouted and danced called for water and whooped an Indian yell. Everybody was anxious for him to be hung and great was the disappointment and disgust when his reprieve was made known to the crowd. 

The public feeling toward Davis was very different. His demeanor after his arrest had created a universal sympathy for him and the intrepid manner in which he met his fate was long the theme of admiration coupled with expressions of regret. He was a splendid specimen of a man physically over six feet high and elegantly formed. His hair was long and turning white his eyes gray and sparkling his face was expressive of benevolence and animated with intelligence.

 His behavior under the gallows was significant of great courage his composure was perfect there was deep  disdain depicted on his lips but whether this expression was caused by his disgust at the conduct of Randall or by a deeper feeling of resentment at mankind it would be difficult to determine.

Davis was said to be a Kentuckian and of good family. Nothing was known or suggested against his character excepting the present case of counterfeiting but it was admitted that he was the chief actor the scribe of the gang in other words the brains and the pen of the conspirators

"The jig's up," said Davis when he was arrested; a most ludicrous remark but significant of his sagacity as well as of his resignation. He was a fatalist.

 Randall's reprieve was for thirty days. He was brought under the gallows a second time a month after Davis had been executed. The rope was again adjusted to his neck and he went through the same antics that had distinguished him before. It seems that he had been kept in ignorance of a pardon up to the last. He confessed to many and great crimes. He exhorted, he wept, he sang, he danced and shouted while the excited crowd surged restlessly around as if they were angry at the possibility of being cheated out of a "genuine hanging"for it had been hinted during the day that a complete pardon had come. Hence, there was little surprise when the sheriff pulled from his pocket a long paper with a great red seal attached to it. This proved a pardon at the exhibition and reading of which the crowd dispersed and Randall was escorted back to the jail. 

But Randall was not allowed to escape scott free. A mob gathered about the jail and when the convict had been discharged by the sheriff as he came forth out of the jail with his little wallet on his shoulder and was about to go on his way rejoicing the mob seized upon him and taking him off into the woods tied him to a stump and inflicted upon him a terrific whipping with cow hides whereupon he was ordered to leave and never again show himself in that community. Judge Lynch was more lenient then than he is in these latter days. Randall disappeared with universal execrations howling after him. In the machinery of the gallows upon which Davis was hung there were no springs, traps, falls or levers- no break neck stratagems, it was an old fashioned hanging two upright posts with a beam over head the hemp rope the primitive cart and the inevitable mule. "Get up!" was the only signal.

 I could locate the spot of this scene within twenty yards. I have passed near it a thousand times since. It was in an open space within half a mile of the center of the village in an old field with no dwelling near only a gin house contiguous but now the most beautiful dwellings and mansions in the city with their yards and gardens embellish the locality. To name the spot would be to hang a gibbet in some friend's yard to glare at him. 

[I had here described the locality minutely but the thought in the lines above occurring to me I made haste to blot out the description forever and I do not believe there is now another person living who can designate the locality. ]

The crowd on this occasion was a vast one for that day. Amongst the spectators was a gang of Indians, men and squaws with babies tied upon their shoulders, agape with curiosity at this development of the new civilization .These Indians have gone to their hunting grounds; and that vast assemblage, where are they?. 

It is believed that this was the only instance of an execution for counterfeiting in our State. If all the forgers and counterfeiters of this day had to be hung Broadway would not be able to furnish space for the gibbets. 

 

 

This article was published in the September-October 2013 issue of PANAMA CITY LIVING MAGAZINE Volume 8 Number 5

ROADHOUSE BLUES AT THE OLD DUTCH:

Good Time Memories That Last A Lifetime

And just a few you might want to forget…

“Yeah, keep your eyes on the road,

Your hands upon the wheel.

Keep your eyes on the road,

Your hands upon the wheel.

Yeah, we’re going to the Roadhouse.

We’re gonna have a real

Good time.”

~ ROADHOUSE BLUES by The Doors

The Old Dutch was the first bar ever built on Panama City Beach and for thirty five years, from 1940 until 1975, billed itself as “The Oldest Recreation and Pleasure Center On The Beach” and was the first on “America’s Finest Beach” to advertise to the public to “Eat, Drink, Dance & Make Merry In The Cool Gulf Breezes.” By the 1960s, the kitchen had all but closed except for short orders and the old bar and dance hall had gained fame as a Spring Break and summer vacation destination for college students all over the Deep South. In the words of Wilbur Walton, Jr.,” It was a Mecca for dancing, fighting and music; like the Wild West but without the guns.” Simply mention the three words “The Old Dutch” to most any aging Baby Boomer who went to college in the Deep South during the Sixties and you’ll put a smile on their face. There are exceptions to that rule as well. Many a relationship met a premature end in the alcoholic excesses that characterized The Old Dutch.

When you walked into the barroom of The Old Dutch, you felt as if you’d just stepped into a rustic Florida roadhouse time capsule lifted out of some Forties film noir classic. The bare cypress log walls were covered with various clocks, curios and stuffed hunting and fishing trophies; all crowned with a high ceiling of exposed rough cypress beams. As you entered you faced a huge stone fireplace, constructed from 113 tons of rock that could burn logs five feet long. The anchor of the old 160 ft. coastal freighter, Tarpon, sunk off Phillips Inlet in 1937, stood mounted on the mantelpiece. To the left was the unpolished bar made of cypress lumber and blackened by the tobacco and whiskey it had dispensed since 1940. Not only did The Old Dutch offer its hospitality to the Sixties college student but it had done the same thing for their grandparents in the Forties and for their parents in the Fifties.

The story of The Old Dutch began over 75 years ago when Sylvan Beach, New York’s Frank Burghduff pulled his “palatial” nineteen-and-a-half foot mahogany and steel travel trailer down Highway 98 for the first time and fell in love with Bay County’s beaches during the winter of 1936-’37. Burghduff and his wife, Etta, parked at the newly opened Sea Breeze Hotel near the Y. They made their headquarters in this first hotel on the beach to offer hot and cold running water and began meeting “the powers that be” in the St. Andrews Bay area.

Burghduff could not have chosen a more perfect time to arrive on the soon-to-be Miracle Strip than in the winter of 1936-’37. On the Panama City beaches time scale, this was equivalent with the “End of The Ice Age”. The Phillips Inlet Bridge had been recently completed in ’35, finally opening the Coastal Highway. J.B. Lahan had begun development of his Laguna Beach and Gid Thomas held his grand opening for his Panama City Beach on May 2, 1936. When the Coastal Highway Association was formed a few years later, Burghduff was recognized for his pioneering achievements to promote tourism and was elected secretary while only two other men were selected to represent the interest of the beaches: A.W. Pledger who was the son-in-law of deceased Panama City Beach founder Gid Thomas and J.E. Churchwell, the owner of Long Beach Resort.

Burghduff returned to the beaches in the winter of ’37-’38 and by 1939, after purchasing a piece of beachfront from Wells, Dunn, Hutchison, Bullock & Bennett, was ready to begin fulfilling his dream of building a one-of-a-kind beachside roadhouse. Unfortunately, while construction of The Old Dutch was underway, Burghduff’s wife, Etta, whose family was also from the Lake Oneida, N.Y. area, developed a partial paralysis and passed away in September after being transported to a hospital in Dothan. She was buried in Greenwood Cemetery along with Frank where both of their grave markers bear similar inscriptions, “Etta Burghduff -Wife & Pal” and “Frank Burghduff-Husband & Pal”.

When the summer season of 1940 commenced, The Old Dutch opened its newly constructed doors for the first time but with little fanfare. The first advertisement we find in the News-Herald is printed on September 28, 1940, inviting “Panama City Folks” to come out to the beach for “low winter prices” and listing “Special Meals, Cocktail to Dessert 75 cents, Seafood Grille 45 cents, Real Italian Spaghetti 35 cents, Western Steaks $1, $1.25, $1.50” This ad is significant because it’s the first time a Bay County restaurant ever advertised “Western Steaks”. At this time, the Florida cattle industry was in its infancy and most Americans considered Florida beef inferior and only good for the Cuban market.

In November of 1940, Burghduff began to purchase small ads in the local papers promoting weekend floor shows but his publicity machine really cranked up in December when he began broadcasting a short Friday afternoon program on radio station WDLP which was still in its first year of existence. Among the first to appear on this radio show promoting The Old Dutch was Neal McCormick and his Hawaiian Troubadours. McCormick, a Northwest Florida Creek Indian who had never even visited Hawaii, felt that the Hawaiian label went along well with his band’s pioneering use of the electric and steel guitars plus discrimination against Hawaiians was far less in the Deep South than it was against Indians. McCormick was the first to hire Hank Williams as a musician and there’s a good chance that a seventeen-year-old Hank Williams played with the Hawaiian Troubadours during the first New Years Eve show ever put on at The Old Dutch in 1940.

The first hint that there was going to be trouble in paradise for Burghduff occurred when a short comment was printed in a gossip column that appeared on the editorial page of the Panama City Pilot on Friday, July 18, 1941.  In “Our Town: Off the Record Bits and Views”, we read, “Apparently the sheriff’s office is going quietly about investigating the $700 burglary of

The Old Dutch Tavern last weekend. That office has a habit of going quietly about a good many things.” Not only was Burghduff missing his proceeds from the July 4 holiday but before Christmas, he ran an ad announcing to the public that they needed to “make reservations now for your Christmas party and New Years party”. Also included was the first of many more to come announcements of a change in management. The Old Dutch was now being run by Maud B. Meyers of the “Exclusive Spinning Wheel of Virginia, Specializing in Southern Fried and Bar-b-cued Chicken and Seafood.” More importantly, 1941 ushered in something far greater than a change of management. It brought WWII to the beaches.

A war with Germany put many Bay County tongues to wagging about the tavern keeper at the beach with the “German” name. In January, Burghduff had to take out a large ad in the News-Herald denying the “false and damnable rumors” about him being picked up by the FBI on several occasions because he was a Nazi spy with a short-wave radio.  He declared his pride in his “Dutch blood” and emphasized, “I AM AN AMERICAN CITIZEN 100%”.

But big ads in the local paper could not reverse the changes Burghduff faced on the home front due to the war effort. The influx of workers at Wainwright Shipyard and GIs at Tyndall Field could not make up for the fact that pleasure driving had been made illegal and the Old Dutch being located by the Gulf meant that all its lights had to be extinguished from sunset to sunrise. Being located ten miles out of town did not help in a world where everyone had to beg, borrow, barter and save ration stamps just to get gas and tires so they could go to work. Even ten buses running up and down the beach from downtown to Sunnyside twenty hours each day was not enough to prevent Frank from having to repeatedly run ads throughout 1942 and 1943 declaring that The Old Dutch really was “Open For Business”. By 1944, the pressure was too much and Burghduff packed up and sold out to Cliff Stiles, the manager of downtown’s Dixie-Sherman Hotel.

Cliff Stiles had arrived in Panama City during the fall of 1938 to take over the Dixie-Sherman after his hotel chain had purchased it. Stiles owned hotels all over the Southeast and in 1946, he purchased one of the largest hotels in Birmingham, The Redmont. Much of the talent that later appeared on the stage of The Old Dutch would be recruited from the Redmont.

From 1944 until 1950, not much was heard from The Old Dutch. Stiles kept a low profile and there were no promotions and no efforts to attract tourists. Construction on the beach exploded in the late Forties so that brought in business from the workers and Stiles remodeled the cypress log cabin and began building a motel around it. During its first ten years, this roadhouse was generally known as “The Old Dutch Tavern” and, occasionally, “The Old Dutch Inn” but after 1950, it was known almost exclusively as “The Old Dutch Inn” and by the mid-Sixties, “The Old Dutch Motel and Nightclub” or, more popularly, as simply, “The Old Dutch”.

The “Gala Opening” of The Old Dutch “under new management” occurred on April 22, 1950. The Joseph brothers out of Birmingham were brought in by Stiles to run the show and a variety of talent was recruited from the stage of the Redmont as well as the Joseph brothers own Jack-O-Lantern Club in Birmingham. It is not within the scope of this article to examine the careers of all the entertainers who performed on the stage of The Old Dutch but an excellent insight into the status of show business on the Gulf Coast in the middle of the twentieth century could be gained from a study of this variety of musicians, dancers, acrobats and comedians.

The management of the Joseph brothers may not have contributed to the events of June 1952, but the arrest of The Old Dutch Hotel manager for embezzlement brought Auburn’s H.H. Lambert in as the new proprietor of the “air conditioned” Old Dutch Inn. Lambert lasted two years on the beach and when he turned in his keys in September of ’54, he returned to Auburn where he built the War Eagle Supper Club, an institution that continues to do business in the present day and which remains, in the words of singer Taylor Hicks, “a true southern roadhouse” that promotes itself with a slogan that could have been applied to the Old Dutch in its heyday: “Cold Beer. Hot Rock. Expect No Mercy.”

By 1957, Stiles had begun selling his old properties while acquiring Holiday Inn franchises. After building the first Gulfside Holiday Inn on property adjoining The Old Dutch on the west in ’63, he hired Betty Koehler to manage The Old Dutch Motel and Nightclub. As The Old Dutch acquired its reputation as the classic Panama City Beach bar during the Golden Age of Beach Music, Stiles began to sell his newly constructed Holiday Inns and he ceased to lease out the roadhouse’s premises to managers. Betty and Cliff worked together and formed a team that turned The Old Dutch into “a nickel silver plated money baling machine”.

Exotic dancers continued to perform during the Sixties but the “bread and butter” performers during the season were rock and roll bands composed of young guys in their late teens and early twenties. Any dreams they ever had of a summer filled with sun, surf, sand, beer and bikinis were crushed when they realized their schedule included at least eight sessions a week and as many as twelve a week during the week of July 4. Guitar players regularly changed out their strings every week from the wear that was enhanced by the salt air and sweat. These young musicians had to be dedicated and determined to show the world that they were special. During July 4th week, multiple bands were hired and after 1971, live entertainment began every day at noon and went on in continuous four hour shifts until 4 A.M. in the morning.

There was no such thing as a fire code in The Old Dutch and the dance hall often looked like a smoke filled cavern; packed to the walls, shoulder to shoulder. More than one musician who played there has made this remark using the same words, ”I didn’t know you could get that many people in a room.”

You grew up fast when you played The Old Dutch. Many a teenage guitar player witnessed his first striptease act standing behind the stripper while providing her with the music to which she was dancing. Many of the cocktail waitresses and Go-Go girls didn’t appreciate male affection and many musicians first witnessed their first open “display of affection” between a same-sex couple when the waitress’ short-haired “boyfriend” came to pick her up dressed in madras shirt, pressed khakis and penny loafers. The first time many a Tri-State male saw a woman go out in public without wearing a bra was at The Old Dutch. To craft your first fake I.D. and use it to get into The Old Dutch was a Gulf Coast rite of passage.

During the summer of ’65, a beach music classic was born on the dance floor of The Old Dutch. A band from South Alabama called the K-Otics were playing one week and during their breaks they visited the nearby Old Hickory where the Swingin’ Medallions were performing. The K-Otics loved “Double Shot of My Baby’s Love” and asked the Medallions if they planned to record it. The Medallions said, ”No,” so the K-Otics laid plans to cut the record. Later in the fall, the Medallions had a change of heart and recorded “Double Shot”. Both the Swingin’ Medallions and the K-Otics released their versions in the spring of ’66. The K-Otics had a regional hit and the Medallions’ record went national and the rest is history. Bruce Springsteen called “Double Shot”, “the greatest fraternity rock song of all time.” Columnist Bob Greene called it “the ultimate get-drunk-and-throw-up song. You heard it in every juke box in every bar in the world.” In 1993, Louis Grizzard wrote, ”Even today, when I hear ‘Double Shot of My Baby’s Love’, it makes me want to stand outside in the hot sun with a milkshake cup full of beer in one hand and a slightly drenched coed in the other.”

This article only scratches the surface on the story of The Old Dutch. Somebody needs to write a book about this old roadhouse. This is a story that transcends generations. The events of the four decades when The Old Dutch stood on the beach would chronicle the emergence of live entertainment on Panama City Beach.

This writer will never forget going to see a 60-something guitar player as he lay on his deathbed in a V.A. hospice. It was 2006 and Greg Haynes had published his giant thirteen pound book, THE HEEEY BABY DAYS OF BEACH MUSIC, with its 552 pages and 800 images. My friend forced himself out of his drug-induced coma so he could see the newly published book. He silently gazed at the pictures as I turned the pages for him. He held himself up as long as he possibly could and as I turned the page that had the image of The Old Dutch, he said, “Oh, I remember that place.” Those were his only words and I soon left and a few days later my friend passed away.

The Old Dutch passed away in 1975 due to damage produced by Hurricane Eloise and by the summer of ’76, it was ready for demolition.

The Old Dutch was built on shifting sand, moving each day in countless ways, reforming thousands of times. The beach itself never stands still yet The Old Dutch stood for over 35 years serving the migratory hordes of vacationers each summer. The memories of those excesses of so long ago were made within alcoholic oblivion but those memories of The Old Dutch are not lost. To my dying day, I’ll say, ”Oh, I remember that place.”

 

 

 

Chronology of the Effort by Alabama to Annex Northwest Florida

1819: Memorial to Congress from the Alabama Constitutional Convention in Huntsville requesting that Northwest Florida be added to Alabama.

1821: Memorial to Congress from the Alabama Legislature in Cahawba (the official spelling of "Cahaba") asking for all of Florida west of the Apalachicola River.

1822: An amendment to the bill to establish a territorial government in Florida is introduced by Senator John W. Walker of Alabama. The amendment is a provision for Northwest Florida to be annexed to Alabama. The bill fails to pass. Walker responds by declaring "the country belongs to us by position and common interests. Nature has given it to us, and Congress will not always withhold it."

1826: Alabama's annexation efforts are viewed as detrimental to chances of statehood by the Florida Legislative Council. These lawmakers wrote that Alabama's annexation activity "is calculated to destroy that which is their best hope of becoming a state government."

1838: Alabama's Legislature in the Capitol in Tuskaloosa passes an annexation resolution that is presented to the Florida Constitutional Convention at St. Joseph.

1840: 255 Escambia County citizens petition Congress for annexation to Alabama.

1845: The Alabama Legislature in the Capitol in Tuskaloosa passes a joint resolution calling for the annexation of Northwest Florida.

1858: The Alabama Legislature in Montgomery passes the same resolution again and appoints an annexation commissioner. The commissioner reported that the Florida government refuses to approve transfer on any terms.

1868: The Alabama Legislature authorizes the Governor to negotiate for the annexation. A commission of three members is appointed.

1869: The Governor of Florida appoints a commission to negotiate with Alabama. They travel to Montgomery and approve an agreement for the cession of Northwest Florida to Alabama. Alabama claims that the price is too high (a million dollars and payment of unpaid taxes at the time of transfer). This is the "high water mark" of the annexation effort.

1869: Northwest Florida counties vote for annexation to Alabama. 63% of the voters approve annexation.

1870: Alabama Legislature postpones action on the agreement with Florida.

1874: Florida passes a resolution providing another annexation committee. It takes no action.

1883: The L & N Railroad trestle is opened over the Apalachicola River permanently linking East Florida with Northwest Florida. http://www.wfrm.org/wfrmhist.html.

1900: The Alabama Legislature asks the Governor to appoint another commission. The commission was never organized.

1917: Former Dothan mayor Buck Baker visits the offices of the Montgomery Times and proposes that "a part of Alabama and a big portion of west Florida cut off and made a state with the metropolis of the wiregrass (ed. note: DOTHAN) as the capital of the new state." The Montogomery Times went on to print, "If such a movement is put on foot, The Times wishes to  nominate Buck Baker as the first governor of the new state."

from the January 30, 1917 MONTGOMERY TIMES

1963: State Senator John Tyson from Mobile proposes a resolution asking for annexation. Wallace kills it.

Source: E. W. Carswell. Holmesteading: A History of Holmes County, Florida.

 If ya wanted to create a DOTHAN VERSION of South Park, for the first episode you'll need cartoon versions of this little plant, the Zippo lighter Daddy had in Afghanistan, an old broken bamboo fishin' pole, a corncob and a broom sage patch just waitin' to be set on fire.