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Governor Sam Houston Jones
Born: July 15, 1897 in Merryville, LA Died: February 8, 1978 in Lake Charles, LA Elected Governor of Louisiana in 1940 Sam Jones broke the 12-year hold on the Governor's office enjoyed by the Long faction in Louisiana politics. Following the "Louisiana Scandals" of 1939 which focused voters' attention on the corruption of Long's followers, Jones won the gubernatorial election of 1940 defeating Earl Long. Jones had no experience in state government but promised - and delivered - an honest administration. He enacted civil service legislation, established competitive bidding for state purchases, and abolished the practice of annual voter registration. Jones governed during wartime, a difficult period to administer new policies. The reduction of executive power further hindered him. Jones did continue several of the Long programs including free lunches for school- children, equal pay for black and white teachers, increased funding of state colleges and aid to the blind, elderly and indigent families. Chiefly, he restored state and national respect for Louisiana. Jones did not build a political dynasty. He ran again in 1948, against Earl Long but, as one historian wrote, "Long outpromised Jones." Jones' heritage of good government continues in a group he helped found, the Public Affairs Research Council. |
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Chris "Red" Cagle
Born: May 1, 1905 in DeRidder, LA Died: December 26, 1942 in New York, NY Born in DeRidder, LA he was one of eight children, including 5 brothers and 2 sisters. Christ attended Merryville High School from 1922 until 1929. According to legend, he was known for getting off the bus and racing it to school, a race that he quite often won. The football field at Merryville High School is named Kenner Cagle Field in his honor. Chris secretly married Marian Haile after meeting her at Louisiana-Lafayette. Marriage was forbidding at West Point and he was forced to resign from the academy. Cagle died in 1942, at 37 years of age, from a peculiar mishap the day after Christmas. He was discovered unconscious at the bottom of a Manhattan subway stairwell. According to a report he tripped and fell the full length of a flight of subway steps. He died three days later of a fractured skull. Chris "Red" Cagle played college football eight years. He starred at Southwestern Louisiana 1922-25, scoring 235 points on touchdowns, extra points and field goals. This was a school record that lasted until 1989. Cagle played four more years for Army 1926-29, and was All-America halfback the last three years. His longest runs were 75 yards against Yale, 1928; 70 yards against Ohio Wesleyan and 65 yards against Yale, 1929. In four years at Army he scored 169 points, averaged 6.4 yards per attempt in rushing and 26.4 yards on kickoff returns. He was team captain at SW LA in 1925 and Army in 1929. Cagle was a dashing runner who played with the chin strap loose from his helmet, and sometimes without helmet. Southwestern LA had a 23-11-3 record in his time; Army was 30-8-2 with Cagle. Thus he played in 53 winning games in college. He was listed at 5-10 and 167 pounds. He also played five years in pro football and in 1934 founded the Touchdown Club of New York with Pudge Heffelfinger, John Heisman and Charles Pearson. Chris was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1954. http://www.collegefootball.org/famer_selected.php?id=20021 |
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On May 15th, 1956, at Lether Frazar's inauguration as Lt. Governer, the Merryville High School Band was chosen by him to march behind his limo in the parade. That was an honor. I remember being fed some really good fried chicken after the parade. He personally came by to greet the band. Uncle Earl also came by to greet us. That trip to Baton Rouge was memorable.
~~ Charles Burr |
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The following is an article (written by Ralph Ramos) that was published in the Beaumont Enterprise-Journal on September 15, 1974. It outlines Seab Rogers’ eyewitness account of the Grabow Riot in 1912. Rogers, 79 at the time, was the last-known remaining survivor of the riot. He died a little over a month later, in October 1974. Ramos was masterful at saving stories. It’s a long read, but quite interesting. (Also in this post — a photograph of the union prisoners (and ladies with meal), a photograph of the Galloway Mill, the 1912 bill of indictment for the murder of AT Vincent from the Beauregard Museum Archives, and an image of Decatur Hall)
“𝐀 𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐎𝐟 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡” - 𝐁𝐲 𝐑𝐚𝐥𝐩𝐡 𝐑𝐚𝐦𝐨𝐬
DERIDDER, La. — The year 1912 was tumultuous in the sawmill communities of western Louisiana. It saw sawmills at Merryville closed, protected behind 12-foot walls with hard-case militiamen bringing further aggravation to the strike-torn community. The year saw death. Several died at Merryville, perhaps 10 shot to death at the Grabow mill and, to climax it all, there was the bushwhacking of the legendary Leather Britches Smith. Seab Rogers, who’ll be 80 Jan. 26, saw it all. He was there. His are the pale, cold, blue eyes of a determined fearless man. Seab Rogers is a sprightly six-footer whose walk has a bounce in it and whose bearing is ramrod erect. More than likely he is the only survivor of what sawmill people called “The Grabow Riot” of July 7, 1912. Rogers figures at least 10 killed and says 66 men were charged in the death of one. The International Workers of the World (IWW) was organized sawmill workers and every non-union mill was target. A.L. Emerson was the organizer making the sawmill rounds and speaking on this particular Sunday.
Rogers picks up the story as an eyewitness: “We had been to Merryville, Singer, Newlin and Carson and were headed for Bon Ami. Before we could get there someone came up and warned that Bon Ami was filled with gunmen and that we’d certainly be killed if we went there. There were 15 wagonloads of us. Most of the men were armed. We headed for Grabow instead. I was driving the lead wagon, a brand new one pulled by a span of mules. Emerson was in my wagon. Somewhere along the way Emerson traded hats and coats with Decatur Hall. It was about 3:30 in the afternoon when we pulled up before the Grabow office and the shooting started right off. Three men were killed in my wagon. ‘Kate’ Hall went down first, I guess they figured he was Emerson, what with him having Emerson’s hat and coat on. Then a fellow named Martin was shot and another whose name I don’t recall right off went down with him. I don’t know how many were barricaded behind the steel saws fastened inside on the office wall. There were at least two others shooting at us from a stock car that was on the mill siding. Everyone was shooting. I was out there trying to hold my mules. I didn’t get scared until they killed a man standing beside me. I saw fellows running with their coattails straight behind them trying to get out of there. Three men climbed into the fire box of an old boiler in an abandoned mill nearby. Jeff Brown had his pipe shot out of his mouth and his hat blown off his head. When he got away he carried two rifles back to Merryville with him. I got out of there fast as those mules could run and they was scared. They liked to killed themselves before we got back to Merryville and my new wagon had 17 bullet holes in it. I could still hear the shooting when I was several miles away from Grabow. I’ll never forget that day as long as I live.”
Rogers said he heard later that the union men’s gunfire had knocked the protecting saws down off the Grabow office wall and that seven of the company people were killed. He doesn’t really know how many union men were killed at Grabow, saying, “There were several dead but some were shot in the Merryville troubles.” Grabow wasn’t a union mill and was cutting about 60,000 feet of lumber daily. It was owned by the Galloway Brothers. Rogers said soon after the riot the mill got into financial trouble and was sold. Along about 1918, Rogers says the mill cut out and shut down. Merryville, he relates, had three mills employing about 1,300 men who joined the IWW and walked out. Mill owners built a 12-foot high fence around their property and hired non-union men where they could. To protect these workers, Rogers says, the militia was called in. “They beat lots of people up.”
Leather Britches was in that Grabow fight. He rode one of the wagons. Rogers has always been impressed by the man and says, “He could shoot better than any man I ever saw or heard of. He could turn his rifle bottom upwards and shoot a hawk.” He describes Leather Britches as being a little man, dark complexioned, heavy set, standing about five feet, six and weighing about 135 pounds. He carried, according to Rogers’ memory, a .38 Winchester rifle and a .45 caliber pistol. Rogers said he was a deadly marksman with either. Rogers says the sawmill people wanted Leather Britches out of their way and put a nine-man posse out to get him. “They wouldn’t have got him the way they did but someone gave him away. Leather Britches was fixing to leave the country so the sawmill workers made up a pot for him. A fellow told him the pot was gathered and for him to go down the tracks to pick it up. “It was early in the morning when Leather Britches left the pump house where he drank coffee with the pumpman who was named White. He walked down the high railroad dump a ways then rifle fire broke out. There was five hidden in the brush on one side and four hidden on the other. Leather Britches couldn’t get a shot at anyone. He finally made it back to the pumphouse where he told White he hadn’t been able to locate anyone to shoot at. Then he was dead. Before the posse would come out of hiding, though, they waited for White to make sure Leather Britches was dead. Assured that he was, they came for his body. He was taken to town and put down under ice in what we called the ‘pest house’. A few days later a couple of laws from Texas came to Merryville. They looked Leather Britches’ body over real good then said he wasn’t the man they were looking for.”
The reaction to the ambush was varied in Merryville, with Rogers saying, “People were scared of Leather Britches. Most were glad he was dead. But almost everyone said they shouldn’t have waylaid him.” People were afraid of him, Rogers explains, because of the demands he made upon them, for instance, “He’d walk up to a farm yard, shoot the head off a chicken and pitch it to the woman, ordering her to cook it. She would, too. He was used to getting what he wanted by demanding it and not paying for it.” Of the times Rogers says, “Those were tough days. Everyone carried a gun, maybe not intending to ever use it but carrying one just the same. And that didn’t change until fairly recent times. Folks carried justice right with them. One time I saw nine men hanging to one tree outside Starks. They had been caught stealing cattle.”
Like the man says at 79, “I’ll never forget as long as I live.”
~~Post by Beauregard Museum
“𝐀 𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐎𝐟 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡” - 𝐁𝐲 𝐑𝐚𝐥𝐩𝐡 𝐑𝐚𝐦𝐨𝐬
DERIDDER, La. — The year 1912 was tumultuous in the sawmill communities of western Louisiana. It saw sawmills at Merryville closed, protected behind 12-foot walls with hard-case militiamen bringing further aggravation to the strike-torn community. The year saw death. Several died at Merryville, perhaps 10 shot to death at the Grabow mill and, to climax it all, there was the bushwhacking of the legendary Leather Britches Smith. Seab Rogers, who’ll be 80 Jan. 26, saw it all. He was there. His are the pale, cold, blue eyes of a determined fearless man. Seab Rogers is a sprightly six-footer whose walk has a bounce in it and whose bearing is ramrod erect. More than likely he is the only survivor of what sawmill people called “The Grabow Riot” of July 7, 1912. Rogers figures at least 10 killed and says 66 men were charged in the death of one. The International Workers of the World (IWW) was organized sawmill workers and every non-union mill was target. A.L. Emerson was the organizer making the sawmill rounds and speaking on this particular Sunday.
Rogers picks up the story as an eyewitness: “We had been to Merryville, Singer, Newlin and Carson and were headed for Bon Ami. Before we could get there someone came up and warned that Bon Ami was filled with gunmen and that we’d certainly be killed if we went there. There were 15 wagonloads of us. Most of the men were armed. We headed for Grabow instead. I was driving the lead wagon, a brand new one pulled by a span of mules. Emerson was in my wagon. Somewhere along the way Emerson traded hats and coats with Decatur Hall. It was about 3:30 in the afternoon when we pulled up before the Grabow office and the shooting started right off. Three men were killed in my wagon. ‘Kate’ Hall went down first, I guess they figured he was Emerson, what with him having Emerson’s hat and coat on. Then a fellow named Martin was shot and another whose name I don’t recall right off went down with him. I don’t know how many were barricaded behind the steel saws fastened inside on the office wall. There were at least two others shooting at us from a stock car that was on the mill siding. Everyone was shooting. I was out there trying to hold my mules. I didn’t get scared until they killed a man standing beside me. I saw fellows running with their coattails straight behind them trying to get out of there. Three men climbed into the fire box of an old boiler in an abandoned mill nearby. Jeff Brown had his pipe shot out of his mouth and his hat blown off his head. When he got away he carried two rifles back to Merryville with him. I got out of there fast as those mules could run and they was scared. They liked to killed themselves before we got back to Merryville and my new wagon had 17 bullet holes in it. I could still hear the shooting when I was several miles away from Grabow. I’ll never forget that day as long as I live.”
Rogers said he heard later that the union men’s gunfire had knocked the protecting saws down off the Grabow office wall and that seven of the company people were killed. He doesn’t really know how many union men were killed at Grabow, saying, “There were several dead but some were shot in the Merryville troubles.” Grabow wasn’t a union mill and was cutting about 60,000 feet of lumber daily. It was owned by the Galloway Brothers. Rogers said soon after the riot the mill got into financial trouble and was sold. Along about 1918, Rogers says the mill cut out and shut down. Merryville, he relates, had three mills employing about 1,300 men who joined the IWW and walked out. Mill owners built a 12-foot high fence around their property and hired non-union men where they could. To protect these workers, Rogers says, the militia was called in. “They beat lots of people up.”
Leather Britches was in that Grabow fight. He rode one of the wagons. Rogers has always been impressed by the man and says, “He could shoot better than any man I ever saw or heard of. He could turn his rifle bottom upwards and shoot a hawk.” He describes Leather Britches as being a little man, dark complexioned, heavy set, standing about five feet, six and weighing about 135 pounds. He carried, according to Rogers’ memory, a .38 Winchester rifle and a .45 caliber pistol. Rogers said he was a deadly marksman with either. Rogers says the sawmill people wanted Leather Britches out of their way and put a nine-man posse out to get him. “They wouldn’t have got him the way they did but someone gave him away. Leather Britches was fixing to leave the country so the sawmill workers made up a pot for him. A fellow told him the pot was gathered and for him to go down the tracks to pick it up. “It was early in the morning when Leather Britches left the pump house where he drank coffee with the pumpman who was named White. He walked down the high railroad dump a ways then rifle fire broke out. There was five hidden in the brush on one side and four hidden on the other. Leather Britches couldn’t get a shot at anyone. He finally made it back to the pumphouse where he told White he hadn’t been able to locate anyone to shoot at. Then he was dead. Before the posse would come out of hiding, though, they waited for White to make sure Leather Britches was dead. Assured that he was, they came for his body. He was taken to town and put down under ice in what we called the ‘pest house’. A few days later a couple of laws from Texas came to Merryville. They looked Leather Britches’ body over real good then said he wasn’t the man they were looking for.”
The reaction to the ambush was varied in Merryville, with Rogers saying, “People were scared of Leather Britches. Most were glad he was dead. But almost everyone said they shouldn’t have waylaid him.” People were afraid of him, Rogers explains, because of the demands he made upon them, for instance, “He’d walk up to a farm yard, shoot the head off a chicken and pitch it to the woman, ordering her to cook it. She would, too. He was used to getting what he wanted by demanding it and not paying for it.” Of the times Rogers says, “Those were tough days. Everyone carried a gun, maybe not intending to ever use it but carrying one just the same. And that didn’t change until fairly recent times. Folks carried justice right with them. One time I saw nine men hanging to one tree outside Starks. They had been caught stealing cattle.”
Like the man says at 79, “I’ll never forget as long as I live.”
~~Post by Beauregard Museum