CORA BELLE SMITH

Cora Belle Smith, by all accounts a pretty young woman, age 22, bore bullet wounds in her head, above her heart and in her left arm, Her brother, Otis Smith, age 30, suffered a gunshot through the bottom flap of his left ear. One was in an undertaking parlor.  The other behind bars.

At 5:30 p.m., May 6, 1908, four shots rang out in a West Adams Street boarding house where moments later the beat police officer found Belle Smith lying in a pool of blood and Otis Smith standing over her, sloshing in the cooling blood and holding a smoking pistol. A reddish body fluid spouted from his left ear.

When the doctor was called, he determined nothing could save the young woman, not yet dead and moving feebly through the fluid. He dressed her wounds and waited for death to creep in. A later determination declared the shot to the head to be Belle’s fatal injury.

Although her brother held the smoking gun, he denied shooting her. In fact, he denied knowing her. Unable to account for the young woman or her wounds, Otis was arrested and charged with murder. He already possessed a corrupt reputation having been previously arrested for fighting and disorderly conduct. This time he was proudly transported to the local jail on the elevated charges of murder.

Otis Smith finally admitted he knew the unknown woman to be his sister, who enraged by some remark he’d made, had grabbed a pistol from his trunk and shot him. In the struggle for the pistol, because she was short, she wounded only the bottom of his ear. Smith still could not account for his sister’s wounds except to say they occurred during the scuffle. Due to the suspicious meandering pool of blood and Otis’ unfortunate reputation, he was arrested and charged as stated.

Both Smiths worked for printing companies.  Belle was well-liked, morally respected and thought by her boss to be one of his best “girl” employees.  Otis, by contrast, had recently lost his position, blaming his sister for talking shamelessly about him behind his back.

One following the other, witnesses at his murder trial reported Otis’ jealousy of Belle and his accusations of her immorality. They further testified to his beating her and threatening to shoot her in the ear. When he demanded her eight-dollar weekly salary and she refused, her rejection severely hurt him causing the riotous conduct for which he was arrested.       

Belle was compelled to surrender three of her eight dollars to him for repayment of his bailor. Others related that instead of repaying the bailor, he used two of Belle’s three dollars to purchase the gun often referred to as the murder weapon.

The jury found Otis guilty of willful murder (he intended to do it) and sentenced him to death by hanging. During the year the citizens awaited the big event, Smith, awaited while imprisoned. He declared himself a changed man. A true Christian. According to him. 

Otis Smith acquired many followers and spiritual counselors, as well as young women who brought him plentiful, tasty food. His lawyers too believed his innocence and transformation. They not only appealed his case to the Florida Supreme Court, they brought him before the pardoning board proximate to his execution. 

Nonetheless the body of Otis Smith shot through the trap of the scaffold at 10:07 a.m., June 11, 1909, and he was pronounced dead ten minutes later, the second man of his race (white) to be hanged in Jacksonville in 30 years. Smith spent the last night of his life prayerfully gobbling the food offered by his many feminine admirers. Those who watched reported Otis slept calmly throughout the night in sweet thoughts of salvation.

In a brief statement, Smith admitted living a life of vice and evil, but having made peace with God and having lived a Christian life within the jail cell for the previous six months. He felt the latter had been the very best part of his existence. 

In letters printed in the newspapers after his death, he forgave those who had transgressed against him, admonished others to live the sanctified life he was leading and continued by describing the immorality of his sister who had strayed from the path with a man from Atlanta. The newspaper elected not to print the latter libelous material.

Smith wished to be buried next to his sister to watch over and protect her. Instead, he was interred on the other side of the tracks where he couldn’t see a thing. Also, some scalawag placed a pot of delicate pink geraniums on the spot of ground that supposedly covered his eyes.

Some batterers seem generally repentant after a violent episode, but often strike again as their frustrations rekindle. Of course, Cora Belle Smith, a pathetic soul, as much as she desired it, would never know of Otis’ future behavior and felt relatively safe in the circumstances.

 

MRS. EMMA BROWN DODD

                                  MRS. EMMA BROWN DODD

On facebook, several months ago, there was particular interest in ghosts at Evergreen Cemetery including the Dodd mausoleum. The initial attraction to this gorgeous mausoleum was that this object of beauty could have been in such a pitiful state of disrepair. It is no longer. And whether ghosts dance at Evergreen is for individual contemplation, but the true story of the Dodds is probably just as interesting.  Cemetery records indicated Dodd family members were all interred on April 15 and 16, 1911. A mass murder, a fire, a buggy crash?   

The Dodds buried in Evergreen Cemetery were born in England, but the only Dodd who was a Jacksonville, Florida resident when she died was Emma Brown Dodd. Her probate file was therefore in the Duval County Courthouse. Full of information, it chronicled Emma moving into the luxurious Ambassador Hotel apartments at 320 West Church Street. She owned the block abutting it framed by both Church Street and West Julia, and collected rent from tenants on that property.

 According to the probate files, she died at “about 60," on January 8, 1910. Her death in January may have been caused from an accident in October 1909 based on a drugstore receipt from Wm. Fairlie Prescription Druggist at Bay and Florida Avenue. On the list, among other things, were bandages, oiled silk, codeine, and epson salts. However, Emma died at the DeSota Sanitorium, now St. Vincent’s hospital in Riverside. After a six day stay there, she was billed $33.88, which included room and board, special nursing and supplies.

After her death Emma Dodd Brown waited for her vault to be finished almost 16 months. She lay in the holding vaults at Evergreen Cemetery, constructed partially underground similar to prairie dirt houses. She rested among those being shipped north during the winter season waiting for the spring thaw so the ground could be shoveled in their frigid homes. At last everything and everyone was ready and the Dodds moved into the lovely mausoleum.

In Mrs. Dodd’s Will, she specifically requested the construction of a mausoleum not only to house her body as well as to have her families’ bodies moved from Sanford, Florida. Her husband and son, John Sr. and Jr., had died of typhoid fever as did her mother, Sophia Marchand. She further instructed land for the mausoleum was to be purchased at Woodlawn or Evergreen, which were together “near Jacksonville, Florida.” The Dodd mausoleum was to be constructed for no more than $3,000, but the bodies were to be moved no matter the expense. Moving the family cost $30 apiece, $15 from each funeral parlor involved. 

So strong was her desire for the safety of her remains that her executors, with permission of her beneficiary, added a marble veneer to the mausoleum costing an extra $1,600. Her beneficiary later wrote to the marble company “that from an artistic standpoint, the vault has been ruined. Its finest features have been lost although it probably has gained a 1,000 % increase in durability and 'perpetuality'."

The irony of this building’s miserable plight was Emma’s great concern for the excellence of her perpetual resting place which she had specifically ordered in her Will. Another interesting bit found in the probate records was a small but powerful contract, approximately 4” by 5”, between Dobbs and Evergreen Cemetery. The cemetery had agreed to maintain perpetual care of Mrs. Dobb’s plot no questions asked. In the present world, in certain places this promise seems to be an anomaly. However, as soon as existence of the contract, buried in an old manila folder for a century, was presented to the cemetery staff, the world began to heave and Evergreen returned the mausoleum, neglected for nearly 100 years, to its intended glory.

Pre-Christmas Outing in 1919 Turned Tragic at a Railroad Crossing

A Mitchell touring car

Full of seasonal spirit, prominent Springfield residents, including the teenage son of distinguished architect Wilbur B. Talley, drove a Mitchell touring car to pick Christmas greenery miles from home. They crossed the railroad tracks south of Fishweir Creek on the old Orange Park Road, now Roosevelt Boulevard. It was a scene laden with undetected danger.

At 4:40 p.m., Dec. 21, 1919, Atlantic Coast Line passenger train No. 85 stunned the car's occupants as the train hurled through the automobile which was traveling toward a small, iron bridge over Fishweir creek. It was not the first or last accident between train and car on Orange Park Road.

The merry group had driven to gather holly and seasonal foliage, southwest of Jacksonville, from homes north of town on Boulevard, West 7th Street, Silver Street and other nearby addresses in the vicinity. On the shell road in the St. Johns Park area, inclement weather dictated the passengers close the car’s storm curtains, reducing their view. The last victim to die reported they neither saw nor heard the train.

A Mitchell touring car

Six people rode in the large Mitchell touring car, a popular make of the time, despite the company’s recent bankruptcy. The train’s engineer, by all accounts a reliable and seasoned performer, stated the Mitchell simply drove onto the railroad tracks 50 feet in front of the engine. Although he blew his siren, had the car passengers heard the horn, it was still too late to stop the train.

In customary journalism of the time, The Times-Union story described in detail the dreadful injuries suffered by those in the machine (car). The two front seat passengers were scooped up onto the pilot (cow catcher) of the steam engine together with parts of the wrecked vehicle. Both individuals were dead when removed from the pilot, while two other riders, with broken necks and additional wounds, were pinned beneath the chassis of the burnt automobile. Two, still living, were transported by other drivers, coincidentally on the road, to Riverside Hospital, the nearest in the vicinity. One of the injured, close to death or in a “dying condition,” expired upon arrival at the hospital. The other died several days later.

When the train was finally able to stop, the last train car was only 200 feet from the crash. Passengers, jostled and stirred by the collision, emptied their seats to view the wreck. They did what they could for the dead and nearly dead scattered about the tracks. The southbound train continued its journey to Tampa, stopping at Yukon station south of Ortega to phone the news to railroad officials at Sanford, Sanford officials relayed it to Jacksonville.

Due to problems recognizing and identifying victims, it was difficult to send the dreadful tidings to relatives. At last, the car license, unearthed from the burned wreckage, identified the Mitchell as belonging to A.B. Simmons, proprietor of a meat and produce store on Main Street.

Meanwhile back in the city, A.B. Simmons was waiting for his son, Herbert, 14, to whom he had lent his car for the afternoon, to meet him downtown at 5 p.m., as they had previously arranged. That, of course, was not to be, for Herbert Simmons, the driver of the luckless car, seated in the front, had died a horrible death, his body landing on the pilot of the engine. His friends, James Selby, 13, and Ralph McMillan, 14, also died at the scene, trapped with their necks broken beneath the burning car. Roberta Cravy, 12, stepdaughter of H.W. Purvis, who was, ironically, superintendent of the Seaboard Air Line Railway, died at Riverside Hospital upon arrival, and Sarah Talley, 13, daughter of Wilbur B. Talley, architect and designer, lingered for several days, regaining consciousness enough to say she had no knowledge of the train or the accident.

The only adult in the car, presumably as chaperone to the children, was Nellie Talley, mother of Sarah, seated beside Herbert, the driver, also died beside him on the cowcatcher of the train.

All the children were buried before Christmas, Simmons and Cravy’s bodies being transported to their hometowns. Selby’s service was conducted at the funeral parlor of Marcos Conant by the Rev. Hobson of the First Baptist Church. His pallbearers were his school friends, as were McMillan’s whose service was at Main Street Baptist Church, under the direction of the Rev. Lacy Mahon.

When the child’s long deathwatch ended, Talley's daughter and mother, were buried Christmas Eve, three days after the accident. Wilbur Talley, who had designed many fine buildings and homes in Jacksonville, later left the city for Lakeland, where he continued to create memorable designs in several cities. Some are listed on the National Register of  Historic Places.