LIVING HISTORY
The Bank of Stuart, site of two Ashley robberies, is now the Ashley Restaurant, which exhibits
photos and news clippings of the gang. The floor is perhaps unchanged, the same the Ashleys
walked on in two robberies.
“I never wanted do that radio program on the Ashleys, I
never wanted to speak about them and I never wanted to
write about them because my joy is in telling about the
good people who helped settle this place, and we had far
more good people here than the Ashley Gang,” Williams
said. “But so many people said they wanted to know about
the Ashleys, too. I didn’t want to be known for writing
about the Ashleys.”
Williams, now 87, has never revealed the identity of her
informant and still refuses to do so. In her charming
Southern manner, she simply deflected my questions with
a pause, a smile and a slight turn of her head.
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“This deputy was one of the
deputies who raided the still where Joe
Ashley was killed, and John had
threatened that he’d kill every one of
the deputies when he got the chance,”
she says.
According to a book by Hix Stuart,
Palm Beach County Sheriff Bob Baker
got word of the gang’s intention to travel
to Jacksonville, apparently to hide out
and rob a bank along the way. Baker,
fearful that if he made the trip to follow
them friends of the Ashleys would tip
them off, telegrammed Merritt and
asked him to set up a roadblock at
Sebastian Bridge. Merritt brought two
of his deputies, including O.E. “Three
Fingers” Wiggins, and Baker sent four
of his: Elmer Padgett, Henry Stubbs,
L.B. Thomas and O.B. Padgett.
In her book and an interview, this
is the account she says one of the
deputies gave her:
Knowing that the Ashley Gang
would be driving over the Sebastian
Bridge, the law officers set up a chain to
stop them and then hid from view. But
first another car carrying two men
stopped. When the Ashley Gang pulled
up behind the first car, the law officers
came out of hiding and surrounded the
members of the Ashley Gang.
The four gang members – John
Ashley, Ray Lynn, Handford Mobley
and Clarence Middleton – had their
hands in the air. The deputy who
became Williams’ informant handcuffed
John Ashley and told him not to move
and to keep his hands over his head,
while the other deputies were off to the
side putting handcuffs on the rest.
Meanwhile, Merritt asked the two
men in the other car – who arrived at
the scene by happenstance -- to give
him a ride over the bridge to get his car
so that he could transport the prisoners
back to Fort Pierce. “Merritt was not the
one who ordered it done,” Williams
says. “Some people thought he did, but
he had gone to the end of the bridge
where his car was.”
Perhaps it was the slightest movement
that caused the demise of the Ashley Gang. “The
deputy was afraid John might have had a gun hidden, and
he was known to be a sharp shooter and quick actor,”
Williams said. “He had warned John not to drop his hands
and said that if he did he’d shoot him.”
In her book, Williams writes: “Suddenly John Ashley took
a quick step forward and started to drop his handcuffed
hands, and the deputy guarding him fired. He said that he
supposed the other prisoners tried to break, or that the
deputies feared that John had fired on him, for suddenly
there was a lot of shooting, and they were all killed.”