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| Jimmy Lyons-Macclenny, Florida Part I
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...Post On 24 Jul 2008 |
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Sitting in his office behind his desk at North East Florida State Hospital, Jimmy Lyons feels sheltered and unscathed. He has been there for 34 years working his way up through the ranks from aide to supervisor of the laundry
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| E.W. “Junior” Crockett Continued from last week . . .
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...Post On 18 Jul 2008 |
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"What ever the moonshiners needed to make whiskey, I got it for'em. Sugar, syrup, automobiles, etc. I was their supplier. I'd find surplus supplies, get good prices for 'em, and pass it on. We all worked so good
together and I can't even remember one case where anyone got tricked by
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| Moonshine Legacy
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...Post On 10 Jul 2008 |
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January 29, 1953. Headlines in The Florida Times-Union blared, “SHINE KING SUSPECT NABBED”. U.S. Agents, long on the trail of E.W. “Junior” Crockett had at last fulfilled their quest and captured their man. They
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| Moonshine Legacy continued from last week . . .
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...Post On 02 Jul 2008 |
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Marcus Gene Thrift
In 1950, Doris Thrift gave birth to a baby girl, Vicki. Marcus was proud of his sister.
When he graduated from high school in June of 1953, his classmates elected him “Most Athletic” and “Most Popular”.
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| Moonshine Legacy Continues . . .
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...Post On 26 Jun 2008 |
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If ever there was an all American boy, it was Marcus Gene Thrift. If ever shock waves traveled throughout Baker County, it was when he was tragically killed while returning home one night from hauling a load of whiskey.
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| Moonshine Legacy continued from last week . . .
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...Post On 19 Jun 2008 |
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Charles Ross, a Beverage Dept. investigator, said the sheriff's records showed that his office had made a total of eight arrests for moonshining during 1953. He said he was in Baker County five days and never
saw the sheriff. Other investigators had similar reports. Asked why they and other Alcohol and Tax Division agents did not include Sheriff Coleman in
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| Moonshine Legacey By La Viece Moore-Fraser Smallwood
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...Post On 12 Jun 2008 |
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Part I . . .
No one is certain when illegal whiskey was first made in Baker County, but it was probably long before anyone living today was born. The industry is not just a backwoods affair. It has a history that extends all the way to the
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| Moonshine Series
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...Post On 05 Jun 2008 |
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In the upcoming weeks the Home Town Journal will be printing a volume of the Once Upon a Lifetime in Baker County series that will be very different. Its subject is very sensitive, one that evokes strong emotions. For many, these stories have aroused pain, regret, remorse, and even shame, but still,
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| O.U.L.
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...Post On 29 May 2008 |
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"It didn't matter how young or old you were, you worked," he said. "We'd bury our water in holes to keep it cool while we worked" said Edwin.
"Mama would put her crawling babies at the end of a row to play while she worked in the fields," said Belle, "and the babies would crawl around in the
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| O.U.L.
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...Post On 22 May 2008 |
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Hardy Rhoden was a determined young man when he went courting Carrie Hogan. He would walk as far as he could through the dense woods, and when he got to the big river he would take his clothes off, hold them up over
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| O.U.L.
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...Post On 15 May 2008 |
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What was it like around the late John D. McCormick's home about seven decades ago in Baker County? Well, two of his surviving daughters say it was like, "John, my kids and your kids are fighting our kids." That's because
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| Once Upon A Lifetime
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...Post On 01 May 2008 |
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“Living for others makes a satisfied mind.” This could easily have been a motto for Mrs. Kate Fullerton Wolfe, better known to us that knew her as "Miss Kate" because of her young-at-heart attitude, or "Mama Wolfe" because of her loving, kind and understanding way.
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| The Historic Franklin Mercantile
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...Post On 17 Apr 2008 |
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For decades it has stood guard, watching over the serene and peaceful little town of Glen St. Mary through two world wars, the Great Depression, and natural disasters. The Franklin Mercantile has
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| Once Upon A Lifetime
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...Post On 03 Apr 2008 |
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Have you thought about the kind of life your family doctor lives? Well, I can tell you this much, the life of Dr. John E. Watson was a busy one - that's for sure - but he found the time for his family. When I arrived at the Watson home for an informal chat with him, I met him on the way
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| Mollie Wilson
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...Post On 20 Mar 2008 |
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Mollie Wilson has lived in Baker County for more than 50 years yet has never set eyes on it.
“I just knows what I hear,” said Mollie, as she sat in the home of her friend of forty years, Marguerite James. “I ain't ever seen her face either,” said Mollie, “yet I goes just about every where with her.”
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| OUL
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...Post On 06 Mar 2008 |
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In 1940, Abbie Cook traded her wood-burning solid iron stove for a new electric range.
"I sure wish I had it back. That wood stove cooked the best biscuits and cornbread you've ever tasted," she said. "Of course, today's cornbread will never taste the same as that we used to
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| Continued from last week . . .
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...Post On 22 Feb 2008 |
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Most of those who remained in St. George during the early years had grubbed a living out of the earth, and nearby rivers and streams. Area employment, mostly pulpwood
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| ONCE UPON A LIFETIME NEAR BAKER COUNTY FLORIDA
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...Post On 14 Feb 2008 |
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A 1981 interview with John Arthur Barker, (first rural mail carrier in St. George, Ga.), his wife Sara, Alex Hodges, wife Dorothy, Walter and Roxie Chesser Renshaw, near the Okefenokee Swamp.
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| Ed Yarborough
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...Post On 31 Jan 2008 |
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Ed Yarborough awoke and slipped quietly from bed on the morning of December 14, 1978, built a fire in the fireplace and impatiently waited for dawn.
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| Asa Coleman
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...Post On 17 Jan 2008 |
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“I guess at one time we were both self-made men disregarding the laws of God, thinking we could do and say anything we wanted to, and we came mighty
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| Andrew Jackson Mobley
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...Post On 10 Jan 2008 |
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He walked the city streets and country roads of Baker County barefoot, long before there was one paved road. He was grown before he got a taste of ice cream.
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| Tillman and Nettie Bynum Dorman.
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...Post On 03 Jan 2008 |
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On the southwest corner of McIver and College streets in Macclenny stands one of the most beautiful, unique, and inviting homes in all of Baker County. A sign on
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| Duncan Rhoden
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...Post On 20 Dec 2007 |
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The year was 1958 when I visited the north Fifth Street home of ‘Uncle Duncan’ Rhoden as he was fondly called by most townspeople. He was 76 years
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| Sarah Canady Fish
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...Post On 13 Dec 2007 |
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Should you get up mornings, prepare breakfast for 12 children on a wood cook stove, dress the children and see them off to school, then fluff up the feather
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| Leafie Ola Bryant
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...Post On 06 Dec 2007 |
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For nine decades Leafie Ola Bryant has lived six miles south of Sanderson. She was born on the 600 acre farm of her parents, John Wesley and Mary Jane Rigdon Mann on October 22, 1902.
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| Verdie Fish
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...Post On 06 Dec 2007 |
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Most of the early pioneers in America built their first homes and furnishings from materials obtained off the free land and fed their families the same way.
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| ONCE UPON A LIFE TIME IN SANDERSON, FLORIDA
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...Post On 26 Nov 2007 |
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“For more than 30 years it was up to us to deliver the phone messages that came into Sanderson rain or shine. People knew something usually bad had happened when
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| Ella Nancy Dowling
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...Post On 15 Nov 2007 |
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Ella Nancy Dowling was born to Taylor area pioneers John Riley (1860-1904) and Emma Crews (1859-1947) Dowling. She cherishes her memories of a life she said was better than most.
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| Charles Turner
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...Post On 08 Nov 2007 |
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Many of the early Baker County settlers are gone now; even their posterity has vanished from the scene. The Turner family falls prey to this category except for one important thing.
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| Bob Kirkland
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...Post On 01 Nov 2007 |
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Two miles north of Macclenny on 23-A, Bob Kirkland Road jets to the left before it ambles off to the right about a mile down the road onto an unpaved country lane.
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| Clyde Sands
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...Post On 25 Oct 2007 |
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Turning off Georgia Road 185 onto the peaceful rural lane that leads to the Clyde Sands compound is an exhilarating experience, that is, if you like country. On either side of the by-way,
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| A.L. Ferreira
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...Post On 18 Oct 2007 |
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When your roots lie buried deep within Baker County soil, it doesn’t matter that you were born in Fernandina and raised in Jacksonville. At least that’s the way A.L. Ferreira felt about it.
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| Bob & Myrtle Burnsed
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...Post On 11 Oct 2007 |
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Former State Representative and County Judge B.R. “Bob” Burnsed and his wife Myrtie Mattox Burnsed enjoyed the fruits of their labor upon their retirement on their 800-acre
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| Jimmy & Marie Burnsed
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...Post On 27 Sep 2007 |
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It wasn’t too many years past when one could drive one mile north on SR 125 out of Glen St. Mary and pass by the 250-acre farm of Jimmy and Marie (Rowe) Burnsed and find the couple
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| Alvin Chace
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...Post On 17 May 2007 |
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Alvin Chace’s great grandfather arrived with his large family in the territory now known as Baker County with the first wagon train of settlers in 1830. He settled along the
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| Carl Rewis
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...Post On 26 Mar 2007 |
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ONCE UPON A LIFETIME IN BAKER COUNTY FLORIDA
North, East, South and West—Carl Rewis lived a nomadic life in every section of Baker County during his formative years.
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| James Benjamin Fish and his wife Kizzie
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...Post On 05 Nov 2006 |
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Among the first pioneer settlers in the Taylor area of Baker County were James Benjamin Fish (1856-1913) and his wife Kizzie (1859-1935). In 1880, the couple farmed with oxen, driving them also, to Jacksonville to sell
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| Evie Anderson Byrd
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...Post On 30 Oct 2006 |
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When 18-year-old Elvie Anderson saw Travis Byrd for the first time, she told her co-workers in the Glen St. Mary Nursery greenhouse, “Hands off! He’s
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| Olustee
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...Post On 19 Oct 2006 |
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A.G. St. John and Vonceil (Dobson) Fraser Alvarez were friends for more than 80 decades, in Olustee, a small Baker County settlement eastward
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| Lula Thrift
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...Post On 13 Oct 2006 |
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In the curve of the Georgia Bend, Lula Thrift lived comfortably and among memories in the house her late husband built for her in 1919. It cost him
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| Lillian Mae Prevatt
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...Post On 07 Oct 2006 |
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It is often said, ‘They’re made of good stock,’ and if I had to describe Lillian Mae Prevatt, that is probably at least one of the things I’d say along with a
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| Cincinnati Dicks Mobley
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...Post On 01 Oct 2006 |
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Cincinnati Dicks Mobley was the authentic model of an extinct class of southern women. During her lifetime, she represented a bygone era of
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| Harry Richardson
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...Post On 22 Sep 2006 |
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When Harry Richardson was laid to rest among the graves of his pioneering ancestors in South Prong Cemetery south of Sanderson on Monday,
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| Corbett Yarborough
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...Post On 14 Sep 2006 |
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When James Corbett Yarborough was eulogized in 1984, at the Macclenny Church of God, the minister likened the virtues he possessed to the greatest
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| Coy Taylor
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...Post On 03 Sep 2006 |
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The reddish-black water flows jubilantly around the middle prong of the Little St. Marys River and laps gentle waves upon the white sandy shoreline as it has for centuries. The little community of Taylor, Fl., rallies early. A gentle
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| ONCE UPON A LIFETIME IN BAKER COUNTY FLORIDA
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...Post On 14 Aug 2006 |
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Often times when we grow older, we have a tendency to live in the past—but not Pearlie (Thrift) Lyons. In 1993, at the age of 91, she said she preferred living in the future,
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