For Sale —American Paradise by Willie Drye Page A

filming a shoot-’em-up thriller in Florida for Lubin Studios of Philadelphia. The film starred two heartthrobs of the early days of motion pictures, Ormi Hawley and Earl Metcalfe.
    The script included a scene in which armed robbers boarded a train and robbed the passengers, and Terwilliger had made arrangements to shoot it on the FEC’s tracks, just across the St. Lucie River from Stuart.
    On Monday morning, the southbound train carrying Terwilliger and his film crew and actors stopped at the raised drawbridge that spanned the river. Terwilliger started putting his actors through a very realistic rehearsal. Men with guns climbed aboard the train and pointed them at passengers, who appeared to be horrified.
    The sheriff’s posse, still hunting for the previous night’s robbers, saw what was happening.
    â€œThen,” reported the Philadelphia Evening Ledger , “things started.”
    â€œSeveral shots were fired, whether as a signal to other sheriffs or at the Lubin players has not been cleared up as yet,” the Ledger said, “but from every direction armed man-hunters carrying rifles appeared.”
    The actors, now genuinely terrified, scattered as men brandishing weapons swarmed aboard the train.
    â€œSome fled into the train—others stood still, frightened still, thinking they were about to be held up by a band of Florida robbers,” the Ledger reported. “Three of the sheriffs grabbed two of the Lubin ‘robbers.’ Everyone talked, no one understood.”
    Amid the chaos and shouting, director Terwilliger noticed that one of the men waving a gun was wearing a lawman’s badge. Terwilliger grabbed the man by his suspenders and shouted “Moving pictures! Moving pictures!”
    â€œLight then began to dawn on both sides,” the Ledger said. “The sheriff explained to Terwilliger and the latter explained to the sheriff.”
    Guns were lowered and holstered, pounding heartbeats subsided; there may even have been a few laughs. And the posse apparently was stagestruck.
    â€œAfter the company had recovered from fright, rehearsals were resumed,” the Ledger reported, “and the sheriff and his deputies, at their own request, acted in the pictures and then resumed their manhunt.”
    A guide leading a group of hunters in the Everglades may have accidentally found what lawmen had been seeking—one of the Ashleys’ hideouts. Around nightfall on February 16, C. C. Myers and a boatload of tourist hunters were about to land on a canal bank to set up camp for the night. Suddenly a man with a shotgun appeared on the opposite bank of the canal.
    â€œIf you want to see blood, make your campfire there!” the man shouted. Then he raised the shotgun and fired.
    Myers was hit in the back by the pellets. The hunters fled. Myers survived the painful attack.
    They couldn’t identify the angry gunman who’d shot Myers, but the cops assumed it was an Ashley. And lawmen also thought the Ashleys had robbed a store in Deerfield, a small village south of West Palm Beach, a few days later.
    On Tuesday, February 23, the Ashleys committed the crime that would clearly demonstrate to local lawmen that they were dangerous criminals. On that morning, teller A. R. Wallace was absorbed in taking a deposit from a customer at the Bank of Stuart. A movement caught his eye and he glanced up.
    He was looking up the muzzle of a rifle that was pointed at him by Bob Ashley, kid brother of John Ashley.
    â€œHands up!” Bob said.
    Wallace thought he was joking.
    â€œHands up!” Bob Ashley repeated more forcefully.
    Wallace glanced around and saw that John Taylor, the bank’s cashier, had his hands in the air.
    â€œBetter put ’em up, Wallace,” Taylor said. “He means it.”
    Wallace raised his hands “All right,” he said. “What’s next?”
    John Ashley, a gun in each hand, waved one of his pistols at Wallace. He