Here is the local legend of the ghosts of Saint Sebastian, a haunting still experienced in the area.
Not far from this very spot, on the old, original wooden bridge just to the west of where this one is now, members of the notorius Ashley Gang, including their leader, John Ashley, met their tragic, or justified end, depending on whose side you're on, on October 31, 1924, Halloween night, riddled with bullets. You can read more in the accounts below. Each Halloween since, their ghosts have haunted the area, hoping to enact revenge.
John Ashley 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 and along the east coast from Hobe Sound to Okeechobee. 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. Many of the local settlers respected John Ashley, who gave money and food to those in need making him a sort of Florida cracker Robin Hood. 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.
By 1915, a mobster from Chicago named Kid Lowe joined the gang and taught John about robbing trains with the two robbing a passenger train early that same year. Also, two more members joined the gang around the same time: John Clarence Middleton and Roy Young Matthews.
Shortley after another bank robbery, during a raid on one of the gang's hideouts, his father Joe "Pa" Ashley, died in a shootout with Deputy Fred Baker, who was also killed. John Ashley, along with the remaining members of the gang, stole a car and made plans to drive up the Dixie Highway, later named U.S. 1, to Jacksonville. Somehow, Sheriff George Baker, The deputy's cousin, learned of not only the escape route but the date and description of the stolen vehicle.
Knowing that the gang had informers in the area, Sheriff Baker planned on capturing them on the Sebastian River bridge, north of Ft. Pierce. Sheriff Baker sent Chief Deputy H. L. Stubbs, along with deputies Elmer Padgett, I.B. Thomas, and the Stuart Town Marshal O.B. Padgett to inform St. Lucie County Sheriff J.R. Merritt of the plan to capture the gang. Sheriff Merritt, now in charge, added his Chief Deputy C.E. Wiggins, and Ft. Pierce chief of Police J.M. Smith to the detail.
On October 31st, the officers drove to a wooden bridge that crossed the Sebastian River. After crossing over into Brevard County, they hid their vehicles and walked back across the bridge. A chain was suspended across the entrance to the bridge and a red lantern was attached to it. Before the gang arrived, two local men, Ted Miller and T. O. Davis, drove up to the chain and stopped, making them witnesses to the arrest.
Ashley and the gang arrived at the bridge and stopped at the chain. When the lawmen emerged from the woods, Ashley reached for a rifle but Sheriff Merritt and Chief Deputy Wiggins interceded. The gang members were then removed from the vehicle. At this point, the sequence of events becomes lost to history. Some testimony indicated that the gang members were being handcuffed but other testimony suggested that the gang members reached for pistols that were concealed. Regardless, in the confusion all four gang members were shot and killed by the officers similar to the ambush of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker in Louisiana in 1934. All four bodies were loaded up in the stolen car, taken to Ft. Pierce, and laid out in front of W.I. Fee’s Funeral Home; a common practice at the time.
The old wooden bridge has long since been demolished and replaced. The gang, almost forgotten. But still, some folks have claimed to hear the bandits crying out in the distance,among the echos of the wind along the river. You may hear them as well as you search for this well hidden cache.
There's room for only a log and very small swag. Bring your own pen, and good luck.
Cache maintained by coleclan