Florida Stories
A Desperado on the Florida frontier
Article published on Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2007 |
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| Shown is a composite photo of Florida outlaw John Ashley and his notorious gang. |
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Long after civilization calmed the American West, Florida remained a rough, tough frontier with its share of outlaws. John Ashley was among the worst. “The King of the Everglades,’’ as writers dubbed him, Ashley refused to rob women, but all others were fair game.
He led his desperadoes on a 13-year spree of murder, robbery, bootlegging, moonshining and high-seas piracy. Their crimes stretched up and down Florida’s lower East Coast, reached the Bahamas and touched as far inland as Lakeland and Plant City.
Rakishly handsome, a deadly shot and cunning as a panther, Ashley memorized the twisting waterways and remote hammock hideouts of the Everglades when he was a youth learning the trapper’s trade. In 1911, the 18-year-old committed his first known crime when he killed Desoto Tiger, a Seminole, for $1,200 worth of otter hides.
When Palm Beach County Sheriff George B. Baker sent two deputies to arrest Ashley, he and his brother sent them packing with a message to the sheriff: “Tell him not to send any more chicken-hearted men or they might get hurt.’’
Ashley fled the state, but returned in 1914 and gave himself up. His first murder trial ended in a mistrial, and he broke out of jail while awaiting the second.
In 1915 one of his gang members, Kid Lowe, accidentally shot out Ashley’s left eye while helping his boss rob a Stuart bank of $4,300. From then on, the King of the Everglades wore a patch and used a glass eye, which the sheriff swore he would one day wear as a watch fob.
Ashley never served time for Desoto Tiger’s murder; prosecutors had dropped charges. But he was convicted of the Stuart bank robbery and sentenced to 17 years in the state penitentiary at Raiford. After serving two years, he escaped from a road gang and resumed his criminal life, hijacking boats of illicit liquor between Florida and the Bahamas. He was recaptured and sent back to Raiford, but escaped again.
The end came in 1924. Posses had flattened most of the Ashley gang’s hideouts. One raid killed the outlaw’s father, a man who had cut railroad ties for tycoon developer Henry Flagler.
On Nov. 1 of that year, Sheriff Bob Baker, who had replaced his father George as top Palm Beach lawman, received word that Ashley would be on the road. Baker’s deputies set up a roadblock between present-day Melbourne and Vero Beach.
When Ashley and three of his men got out of their car at the blockade, lawmen shot them dead. Witnesses said the men were handcuffed first. A coroner’s jury ruled justifiable homicide. Ashley was 31 years old.
According to local lore, the outlaw’s sweetheart, Laura Upthegrove, walked into Bob Baker’s office, drew a .45-caliber pistol and demanded her lover’s glass eye. She is said to have snatched it from the sheriff, stalked out and challenged him to “come out in the Glades and get it if you want it.’’
Baker never did.
This story is provided by the Florida Humanities Council (www.flahum.org), a nonprofit organization that sponsors public programs exploring Florida’s history and cultural heritage.
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Article published on Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2007
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