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PART TWO

This is an expanded version for premium digital subscribers of the story that appeared in the Fall 2024 print version of Indian River Magazine.

Life on the run

John Ashley is shown here with a shotgun in the Florida backwoods, where as the leader of Florida's notorious Ashley Gang he spent much of his adult life evading lawmen. He based himself near his parents’ home in the piney flatwoods of Fruita, which he used as a pathway to the Everglades. SANDRA MARIO PROVENCE ARCHIVE

John Ashley spent much of his career as a criminal on the run, hiding out in the Everglades while in frequent communication with his family in Fruita

BY GREGORY ENNS

An early Florida map of what would become known as the Treasure Coast shows Fruita and Gomez. C.S. HAMMOND & CO. MAP

While on the run for much of his 13 years as a criminal, John Ashley had a secret weapon more powerful than his marksmanship, good looks, intelligence, charm or even the undying loyalty of his family.

It was the Everglades.

After killing Seminole fur trader DeSoto Tiger on Dec. 29, 1911, he had fled Florida and roamed the country. Homesick, he returned after two years to hide out where he felt most comfortable: the Everglades.

In the years after John killed Tiger and had been on the run, John’s parents, Joe and Lugenia, had moved from West Palm Beach north to Fruita, part of an undeveloped region called Gomez. It was named after Don Eusebio Gomez, who was granted 12,000 acres in 1815 by the king and queen of Spain when Florida was a Spanish territory.