John Ashley

John Hopkin Ashley (March 19, 1888 – November 1, 1924) was an American outlaw, bank robber, bootlegger, and occasional pirate active in southern Florida during the 1910s and 1920s. Between 1915 and 1924, the self-styled "King of the Everglades" or "Swamp Bandit" operated from various hideouts in the Florida Everglades. His gang robbed nearly $1 million from at least 40 banks while at the same time hijacking numerous shipments of illegal whiskey being smuggled into the state from the Bahamas. Indeed, Ashley's gang was so effective that rum-running on the Florida coast virtually ceased while the gang was active. His two-man raid on the West End in the Bahamas in 1924 marked the first time in over a century that American pirates had attacked a British Crown colony.

Among poor Florida "crackers", he was considered a folk hero who represented a symbol of resistance to bankers, lawmen and wealthy landowners. Ashley's activities also hindered Prohibition bootleggers in major cities, whose importation of foreign liquor undermined local moonshiners. Even the newspapers of the era frequently compared him to Jesse James. Almost every major crime in Florida was blamed on Ashley and his gang and one Florida official called him the greatest threat to the state since the Seminole Wars. His near 13-year feud with Palm Beach County Sheriff George B. Baker ended in the death of Ashley and his three lieutenants in 1924.

Biography Early life and Desoto Tiger murder John Ashley was born and raised in the backwoods country along the Caloosahatchee River in the community of Buckingham, Florida, near Fort Myers, Florida. He was one of nine children born to Joe Ashley, a poor Florida woodsman, who made his living by fishing, hunting, and trapping otters. The Ashley family moved from Fort Myers to Pompano in the 1890s, where Joe Ashley and his older sons worked on the new railroad being built by industrialist Henry Flagler. In 1911, Joe moved his family to West Palm Beach and briefly served as county sheriff. John Ashley spent much of his youth in the Florida Everglades and, like his father, became a skilled trapper and alligator hunter.

On December 29, 1911, a dredging crew working near Lake Okeechobee discovered the body of Seminole trapper Desoto Tiger. An investigation was held and John Ashley soon came under suspicion. According to fellow Seminole Jimmy Gopher, Ashley had been last seen with Tiger traveling in a canoe together with a boatload of otter hides to sell at a local market. Authorities were later told by fur traders in Miami, the Girtman Brothers, that John Ashley had sold them the hides for $1,200;

In his trial for the murder of Tiger in 1910, despite overwhelming evidence, Ashley was not convicted. In a second trial in 1915, he was sentenced to hang for Tiger's murder, but that conviction was overturned by the Florida Supreme Court. Ashley repeatedly escaped from various local jails and eluded law enforcement until he was gunned down at the St. Sebastian River bridge in Roseland. Although he was incarcerated for other crimes, Ashley never served any time for the murder of Desoto Tiger.

Formation of the Ashley Gang When the Seminole Nation raised protest over the murder, the US federal government threatened to intervene. John Ashley fled to New Orleans for a year or two before returning to Florida around 1914. When Ashley attempted to get medical attention for his eye, he was captured and held in the Dade County jailhouse to await trial. and left with his jail keys. He then ran from the house to the garage where gang members had left him a getaway car. When he found he was unable to drive the particular car left for him, he attempted to force several men at gunpoint to drive the car for him. Each of the men claimed to not know how to drive the car either so Bob Ashley jumped on the running board of a passing truck and forced the driver, T.H. Duckett, to take him out of town. A deputy, officer J.R. Riblet, spotted Ashley and gave chase. When the truck suddenly stalled in the middle of the street, a shootout occurred resulting in the deaths of both Bob Ashley and Riblet. Angered by Bob's killing spree, several thousand Miami residents threatened the jailhouse and talked of lynching John Ashley in his cell. It was only after police paraded the body of Bob Ashley through the streets that the mob dispersed. the local Black community helped the Ashley gang.

In early 1924, Baker finally got a lead on Ashley's location. Through his informants, Baker learned that Ashley was staying with family members in a moonshiner's cabin hidden in a swamp about south of the Ashley family home. The short bushes and palmetto scrub made it very difficult, if not impossible, to approach the cabin, making it an ideal hideout. Baker was determined to capture Ashley and, with weapons from the Florida National Guard and deputized civilians, made plans to surround the cabin and starve him out. On January 10, 1924, he sent eight of his deputies to the house early in the morning; they were in position by dawn. winner of the 1999 Chautauqua South Book Award and the 2013 French Grand Prix du Roman Noir Étranger. John Ashley and Laura Upthegrove were the subject of the 1973 film Little Laura and Big John starring Fabian and Karen Black. The Ashley Gang is a Folk/Americana/Acoustic Rock band based in Sebastian, Florida. It is named after the gang and its original songs include, "The Ashley Gang". The Destroyer song "Blue Eyes," from the 2011 album Kaputt, features a lyric referencing the "King of the Everglades."