Document text
February 2,1939
DeWitt Hines, Sheriff
Columbus, N.C.
Adyleen G.kerrick,Writer
Dudley W.Crawford, Reviser.
Original Names
DeWitt ines
Polk County
Fingerville S.C.
Charleston S.C.
Elizabeth Bannard
Columbus
Spartanburg, :13.C.
George Duff
woodson
White Oak kountain
Joe ikiaddon
Changed Names
John Hogan
Parks County
Zanesville, S.C.
Clarkville, S.C.
Eliza Banks
Caton
Sparta
Jim Duffy
Goode
Pine ;.iountain
George :.'onk
Sheriff John Hogan is six feet, four inches
tall, powerfully built, with the physique of an athlete.
Attentive to his job as sheriff of Park County and fair
in all his dealings, he holds the respect of the community
he servesotriving always to keep the peace and avoid
trouble whenever possible.
Swinging along at an unhurried gait, his forty
five strapped over his right hip pocket, he makes a
striking picture of strength and alertness.
He was born at Zanesville,S.C., in 1880, and
is the oldest of a family of fifteen.
He can still remember the first ape ding money
he ever earned. Cne year he and his two sisters were
given an acre of land to plant in cotton;from this labor
came the first real earnings. John purchased his first
suit.of ready wade clothes.
The followtig 5/(,:ar they raised turkeysland
with profits from their sale John -earned money to make
a trip to Charleston,' C. where he found work with a
street car company, later to be promoted to conductor,
then 1:otorman. After two yers he was a_ given
promotion and mane an inspector at a considerable increase
in py.
While working in CAarksville he met Eliza Hanks
whom he later married.
Sheriff Hogan chuckled when he came to this
-2
part of his story, "Eliza was sure a handful" he said,
"I was a long ti:Le getting her to make up her mind to
marry me, first she said,' she wasn't sure she wanted
to get married;Ithen/she 'believed we were both too
young to know what we were doing', next,' we'd better
wait a while until I had a little more saved up'.
"1 courted that girl faithfully for two years
and still she couldn't make up her minds One day I
got riled up and decided if Eliza wasn't going to marry
me I wasn't going to spend any more time trying to get
her to say 'yes'. I decided I'd leave and go to New
York where I could get a job as a moterman. Weil, when
Eliza found this out, and I didn't try very hard to
kkep it from her$ she made up her mind all right. We
were married that same week. She reminds me to t -is
day about my not giving her time to get ready for a
church wedding, and how I was too busy to take more
than two days, Saturday and 3unday, for a wedding trip
to :gallivants island. I :tat, right worried about that
to this day; seems like I did act sort of thoughtless,
but I didn't know wimmen set so much store by weddings
and the like.
"I often wogder what would have become of me if
Eliza hadn't made up her mind when she did. I went to
New York once,took a prisoner from Caton, and I just
don't believe, after seeing the place, that I would have
done well there, everybody's in ssch a hurry. Don't seem
as if they have time for strangers much, and then there is
noise both day and night so a body can't get good rest.
No, I don't believe I'd liked it up there, I guess it's
a good thing I didn't go.
"Eliza and I lived in Clarksville until after
the children began to come. It was awfully hot in the
summertime, hard on the little fellows, so we decided
it would be healthier for them in the mountains and
moved to Park County, near Caton. I rented a right good
farm and we have been her. ever since.
"Eliza liked living in the country; she was busy
all day planting in her posey garden every chance shegot
when she wasn't busy at something else.Eliza loves flowers;
old folks say she has algrowing hand'. Any how she can
sure beat the world making things grow and bloom. We
have ten children nowt so &he doesn't have much time
to garden. She says she is migi,ty glad she looked far
enough to plant things that would sort of care for them-
selves while she was so busy looking after the babies.
Eliza's garden is awfully pretty especially in the spring
when snowballs and lilacs bloom and all sorts of yellows
push Op through the ground almost before you know it.
"Looks like those are the days :;liza slips out
just a little on the housekeeping job. I'm pretty apt
to find her busy weeding and working with her flowers
-4
when I come home, and have her tell me 'I've set out your
dinner on the kitchen table, don't wait for me, I'm not
hungry'. Those are the Jays I get short ratios and no
attention to speak of. I eat and leave in a hurry too.,
before she puts me to work digging in the flower garden.
"In 1929 I was made deputy sheriff of Park
Count' and held that job four years. With the defeat
of the sheriff in 1932 I lost my job as deputy. A few
mont:s later I was given the work of Superintendent of
Prison Camps; not much of a job but a fellow can4.4
till a good one comes along when he has a wife and ten
children to look after.
"We've been pretty lucky about the children
too, not any of them has ever given us cause to worry;
and we have lost only one. Sometimes i wonder how they
managed to escape death with all their wild pranks.
Every time I go home one or the other of them has met
with some sort of grief. Eliza has spent a heap of her
time tying up toes and tucking in shirttails. They wear
on her so much with their mischief and getting hurt that
when vacation rolls around I sort X0' have to take them
off her hands in relays.
"We are right glad to have a big family thougha
troublesome or not. I just couldn't imagine what a Christ*
mas would be like with no children to get all worked up
about Santa Claus coming.
-5.
"After the children began growing up I sort
of planned to moved to Sparta, S.C. where I thought I'd
get a good start. I figured the oldest children might
get a chance to go to school at some of the colleges
there. Just about the time I'd decided to move, my friends
came to me and said,"John, why don't you run for sheriff
yourself this time'? I hadn't considered it much but they
kept behind me until finally I offered for election and
was elected to office 1936. It was a hard fight, lots
of days I wished I had never run, I had to borrow money
for my campaign. I never ran down my opponent, ,,nd I
didn't know enough to boost my own stock, its a big winder
I was elected. I guess my friends did a heap for me.
"This summer I ran for re-election against %he
man I had been deputy under. He seemed to think I ought
to have withdrawn from the race when he decided to limn
again but I couldn't ko that, I owed money I had borrowed
to run the first time; anybody knows it takes more than
one term in office to get even much less make a living.
A man is entitled to more than one term if he is any ood
in the first place.
"Prom then on the was in the fire and I had
to get right down to winninf; that election. I believed a
woman helped me win itjtoo. She said to me one day,'Sheriff
you quit passing out cigars and spending all your money and
time after men's vites. Women vote in Park County too, let
-6
them know you are conscious of the fact'. Then she just
laughed and walked off. I stood there and just studied over
what she had said and doggone if I didn't see when she
was right. I certainly went after their votes from then
until election dab and I won.
"Park County is a right law abiding section, most
of my work is raiding stills and running down bootleggers.
There is a lot of illicit. whiskey made in this county, lots
of trouble come of it. The presiding Judges raise sand
during court week about us cluttering up the docket with
so many liquor cases, but Id rather ,fee it that way than
murder trials. Park County only averages about one murder
case a year, sometimes not that, and has never sent a man
to the electric chair. Of my eight years in office I've
only had one cold blooded muderer to deal with, and just
one word saved him from the chair. Seems like he and a
school bus driver got in a row and there was bad feeling
which ended in a shooting scrape.
"No one saw the fight but Jim i)uffy's dying
statement said, 'Goode shot him in the back of the bus'.
Jim died from the bullet wound inflicted when Goode shot
him in the shoulder from the side of the bus, but Jim
didn't know it so aoode claimed self defense and got off
on the statement Jim made.
"A heap of just such evidence gets worked into
cases and causes justice to miscarry.
"Court is irsesion now but there is nothing of
enough importance to keep the Judge awake.
So far, I've been mighty lucky. I've only been shot
at twice, once when I was cutting 4 still over back of Pine
Mountains, and another time an escaped prisoner from Raleigh
took a crack at me. Of course, raiding 4 always has its
dangers, like the time we cut George Monk's still. It was
the second time in a month, and he got pretty riled, I guess.
Usually blockaders take it all right when a still is cut
occasionally, but this twice in succession got George upset.
We started out one night a little after dark and drove in
behind the mountain about two miles from George's still
we hid the car in an old deserted shed and walked on,
following a path that led through a stretch of woods to a
gpod siss stream of water.
"It was pretty bard going to find out way along
the waters edge. Before bong we could smell smoke, this told
us we were headed right. We crept along until we came to
a place where smoke was coming out of the mountains through
cracks in the rocks, and there et the mouth of a sort of
cave, was George's still, A e was sitting right in front of
the entrance with his shot gun across his knees like he
sort of expected us. We stopped to talk things over about
how would seem the best way to tun up on him. Just about
that time my deputy's foot slipped on a loose stone and
he went scattering through the bushes right into a stream
with a splash. I don't believe I'm a coward, but George
set into to shooting, I put distance between us. I located
4.
my deputy and we lit out for cover. After we had gotten
out of gun range we made a circle of the still and waded
down the stream from above George's still and surprised
him after all. He thought we were gone and feltAsure we
wouldn't come back again that night that he had gone to
sleep on a pile of sugar sacks, and we caught him easy.
I felt pretty cheap about his making us run, and catching
him like we did made me feel better,. Its all in a days
work thoujh, sometimes you catch them, sometime you don't.
°If I'm defeated next election I'm sort of
figuring on going down near Sparta, like I planned to do, and
get me a nice peach orchard. It ouelro pay, andithen, too,
I've never been able in all my life to make out to buy
as many peaches as I want to eat."