Have you ever wondered what life was like in Jacksonville half a century ago? It was a different era of history, culture and politics but there are often parallels between the kind of stories that made headlines then and today. As interesting as the differences may be, so are the similarities. These are some of the top stories from this week in 1961. The items were compiled from the Jacksonville Public Library’s periodical archives by Staff Writer Max Marbut.
• Two prisoners escaped from a detention cell behind a second-floor courtroom in the Duval County Courthouse by walking through doors officers had failed to lock.
One of the fugitives, Daniel Clyde Boatwright, was apprehended an hour later after scuffling with a County detective who found him hiding in a house on Newton Road.
The other escapee, John McCoy, remained at large.
The sheriff’s office said the escape was the first from Criminal Court detention facilities in the courthouse.
Minutes before the escape, McCoy had been sentenced by Criminal Court Judge William T. Harvey to the maximum prison term of five years on a plea of guilty to assaulting a woman with a dangerous weapon without intent to kill her.
Boatwright also appeared before Harvey, who deferred disposition until Feb. 1 of two worthless check charges, pending receipt by the court of additional bad check charges.
McCoy and Boatwright were with a group of prisoners in a detention cell behind Harvey’s courtroom in the charge of two sheriff’s deputies when they made their escape. When court adjourned for the day, the bailiffs found the two men missing.
According to Deputy Sheriff O.D. Dorman, who was one of the officers in charge of the prisoners, investigation showed the escapees had walked down a corridor behind the two courtrooms assigned to Criminal Court, then walked into a detention cell behind the courtroom assigned to Criminal Court Judge A. Lloyd Layton.
The prisoners apparently found the doors leading to Layton’s courtroom had been left unlocked by bailiffs assigned to that courtroom. Since Layton’s court had adjourned for the day prior to Harvey’s adjournment, nobody was in the room. The prisoners simply walked out of the cell and into the courtroom, then through the unlocked doors and down the hallway to freedom.
A man standing in the hall saw the two men heading for the bank of elevators and thought he recognized one of them as a prisoner. He went to the sheriff’s office and an alarm was sounded, but McCoy and Boatwright had disappeared.
Acting on information they received, two deputies went to a house on Newton Road owned by Thelma Fisher, a friend of Boatwright’s. She gave the officers permission to enter the home, where they found Boatwright and arrested him after a brief scuffle.
• The Board of County Commissioners voted to support a proposal to use public schools as polling places in future elections.
On motion of Commissioner Bob Harris, the board unanimously voted to ask the Board of Public Instruction for permission to use any school designated by the supervisor of registration for voting purposes.
The Harris motion was in reply to a statement by Carleton Barber, former County Civil Service board member, that the proposal would disrupt the schools.
“I understand a half dozen schools have been designated as voting places. You can’t bring politics around the schools. I don’t understand how you can do it and the school board hasn’t approved it,” Barber said.
Harris and other commissioners defended the proposal as a way to familiarize students with one of the great American privileges.
“I’d like to see every school in the county used as a polling place,” Harris said.
Addressing Barber’s charge about bringing politics around schools, Commissioner Lem Merrett said the law specifically ruled out politicking at a polling place.
Assistant Supervisor of Registration Robert A. Mallard said the Board of School Trustees favored the use of schools as polling places. He said he had written Schools Superintendent Ish Brant requesting an audience with the school board for the purpose of asking for use of the schools.
Mallard said Brant told him it would be all right to proceed with advertising of some schools as voting locations, subject to further approval by the school board.
According to Mallard, the supervisor’s office had “great difficulty” obtaining polling places with sufficient space for machines and voters. He said if confusion did develop at the schools, perhaps the school administration could set up their planning days for teachers each year to coincide with election days, since children did not attend school on planning days.
• Two indictments charging Henry Trafficante, a “notorious Tampa underworld character,” and 29 other defendants with conspiring to violate the federal wagering tax laws were dismissed by U.S. District Judge Bryan Simpson.
The dismissals came on a motion by Edward Boardman, U.S. attorney, and were authorized by the Department of Justice. The reason for the motion was that Trafficante was tried in Pinellas County on state charges based on state law but which were founded on the same charges as the federal indictments, and a mistrial resulted.
The motion stated Trafficante pleaded guilty to certain of the state charges and was serving an indefinite sentence of eight months to five years in the Florida State Prison.
The four principal defendants in the federal indictments, Trafficante, his brother, Santo Trafficante Jr., Salvatore Lorenzo and Joe Perrone, succeeded in securing a separate trial from the other defendants in the case as well as a change in venue for the trial from Tampa to Jacksonville.
The case required almost a month to hear and ended with one of the most dramatic moments in the history of the federal court.
The trial began Nov. 16, 1959, and ended Dec. 12, 1959. When Perrone listened to his verdict of not guilty, he dropped dead of a heart attack in the courtroom.
The jury in Pinellas County also found Santo Trafficante not guilty, declared a mistrial as to Henry Trafficante and U.S. Judge J. Earl Major, who presided, directed a verdict of acquittal for Lorenzo.
• A maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment was imposed upon Floyd Charles Fallen, 39, who was convicted on three charges stemming from the Sept. 2, 1960, burglary of the Whitehouse Post Office.
U.S. District Judge Albert Reeves rejected a plea for leniency by Fallen, who repeated his contention made on the witness stand that he knew nothing of the robbery until after it had taken place.
Fallen was charged with conspiring with James Theodore Dickson and Donald Jackson Alford to burglarize the post office, with aiding and abetting in the break-in, and with stealing and converting to his own use office funds and other valuables worth more than $100.
Maximum penalties provided were five years imprisonment on the conspiracy charge, five years on the break-in, and 10 years for the conversion of post office funds. Reeves specified that the three sentences be served consecutively.
Fallen’s accomplices
in the burglary pleaded guilty. Dickson was given a five-year sentence and Alford, who was the government’s key witness at Fallen’s trial, was placed on probation for three years.
As he discussed the sentence, Reeves told Fallen he had been furnished with a “complete catalog of your previous crimes and convictions.”
“You are a menace to society. The fine jury which tried you was fully justified in convicting you, and by its verdict, it also found that you committed perjury when you were on the stand and denied any part in this burglary,” said Reeves.
Fallen was paralyzed from
the waist down as result of an automobile accident in 1951.
“I’m sympathetic with your condition, but you will receive excellent medical attention at the institution to which you will be sent. It is my responsibility to
see that society is protected from you for a long time,” Reeves
said.
• Nurses at Beaches Hospital in Jacksonville Beach were seeing double in the nursery for the first time since the hospital opened July 31, 1961.
Twins, a boy and a girl, were born to Mr. and Mrs. Elmore Greer of 130 N. Fifth Ave.
The infants were the first multiple births in the 176 babies delivered in the hospital since it opened, said Harry Smith, hospital administrator.
• Rufus Allen Gelsey, 33, was sentenced to 15 years in state prison for manslaughter in the killing of a man that climaxed a two-family neighborhood feud on Cone Court.
Gelsey went to trial in Circuit Court on an indictment charging first degree murder in the June 9 shooting of 26-year-old Billy Felt Jr. The jury found Gelsey guilty Nov. 29 of the less serious charge of manslaughter.
Evidence brought out by the prosecutor, Assistant State Attorney Nathan Schevitz, showed Gelsey shot and killed Benton in a yard near their homes.
Evidence showed there was a “wild fracas” a few hours before the shooting involving Benton and Gelsey’s wife, Corine. Schevitz said Benton accused Gelsey’s children of throwing rocks at him, Benton was accused of striking one of the children, and Gelsey’s wife fired a number of rounds at Benton from two handguns.
During the altercation, Schevitz said, Gelsey’s mother-in-law, Pearly Mae Drew, was shot in the foot.
Schevitz said when Gelsey came home, he went looking for Benton and the two men, armed with pistols, met and fired at each other. Benton suffered a fatal wound in the abdomen.
Gelsey told police Benton fired first and then he fired five times at Benton and threw the pistol at him.
According to Schevitz, Gelsey’s wife was awaiting trial in Criminal Court on a charge of assaulting Benton with intent to commit first-degree murder.
• Carl Lee Noble, 24, was sentenced to two years of probation after he pleaded guilty to possessing marijuana at his home in Mandarin Sept. 26.
Criminal Court Judge William T. Harvey suspended sentence and imposed probation on Noble on recommendation of the probation officer in the case. Harvey said the solicitor’s office and the State Board of Health’s Bureau of Narcotics concurred with the recommendation.
Assistant Solicitor Harry Gaines said evidence showed Noble was growing marijuana in two small plywood boxes in his carport in view of passersby.
Gaines quoted Noble as saying he “received some seeds from an acquaintance two or three years ago, didn’t know what they were, and grew them out of curiosity.”
Noble had no prior criminal record. He could have received a maximum term of two years in prison under his plea.
• Prime F. Osborn III was installed as president of the North Florida Council, Boy Scouts of America at the Annual Scouter’s Appreciation Dinner at the garden center.
Osborn, who succeeded Frank Hancock, was vice president and general counsel of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad.
Also installed were four vice presidents: M. Elmer Taylor, E. Marion Pope, Frank S. McGehee and Dr. Charles Hillyer.
About 500 people representing 15 counties served by the North Florida Council attended the dinner and heard an address by Rev. Thomas Stevens Haggai, a Baptist minister from High Point, N.C.
Kenneth Wise of Troop 10 was presented a plaque for heroism for rescuing a young boy March 15, 1961. The youth was recognized for his bravery in jumping into Cedar Creek and saving a 6-year-old boy who had fallen into the waterway. The plaque was presented by U.S. Navy Adm. Joseph M. Carson, commander of Fleet Air Jacksonville.
• The State Development Commission agreed to condemn a parcel of land to help clear the way for a new Industrial Commission office building in Jacksonville.
The resolution to condemn the land, Downtown at the corner of Market and Adams streets, was approved at the request of the Industrial Commission, which had no such authority.
Plans for the proposed Industrial Commission building had been delayed pending a decision on whether other state agencies might share a part of the building with the commission.
Burnis Coleman, Industrial Commission attorney, said the commission hoped to finish the building by the end of 1962.
• Lynne Shirley of Jacksonville, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of Georgia, defeated 13 other contestants to win the title of Miss Florida National Guard for 1962.
Shirley was also Miss Jacksonville and a former Gator Bowl queen. She represented the 125th Fighter Group.
Runners-up were Sue Davidson, also of Jacksonville, representing the 1st Automatic Weapons Battalion of the 265th Artillery of Jacksonville; and Judy Hyde of Tampa, who represented that city’s 1st Howitzer Battalion.
• It was noted that Jacksonville’s 2nd annual Delius Festival would begin Feb. 1 at Jacksonville University.
The event celebrated the life and work of Frederick Delius, an English composer who, at one time, lived in Solano Grove near Mandarin.
Philip Emanuel of London, England, co-trustee of the Delius Trust and Mrs. Henry Richmond were to be honored at a luncheon at the home of university president Franklyn Johnson.
An open house would be held at the Delius home at the JU campus, with tours conducted under the auspices of the university’s college of music and fine arts and Dean Frances B. Kinne.
There also would be a banquet and address by Emanuel and the awarding of the first Delius Memorial Scholarship by the university.
• Circuit Judge W.A. Stanly reserved decision on whether Jacksonville lawyer Martin J. Pearl should be disbarred on charges of misconduct in his office of attorney.
The disbarment motion was filed by State Attorney William J. Hallowes on orders of Circuit Judge Roger Waybright.
In the motion, Hallowes charged that Pearl had failed to notify a female client in a divorce action of various proceedings taken in the suit. Pearl was charged with failing to notify his client that a decree had been entered against her or of the time for a final hearing in her case.
The client hired another attorney to reopen the case, but lost a move to regain custody of her minor children.
In an answer filed for him by attorney Dennis Dingle, Pearl admitted all the motion’s allegations. Hallowes said that Pearl’s response was “tantamount to a plea of guilty.”
Pearl, who had been an attorney in Jacksonville for 25 years, stated that he was “under great mental and physical strain” at the time of the divorce proceedings because his own wife was suing him for divorce after 29 years of marriage. He also said he was “suffering terrific pain” from gallstones.
Pearl further said he attempted to notify his client about the final hearing the day before it was held but was unable to contact her. He said his mental and physical condition prevented him from attempting further contact with his client or the court.
Pearl admitted to Stanly he had a “drinking problem,” but denied he was drinking at the time he failed to keep his client notified. He said he since had taken a “28-day cure” at a state institution.
“I feel the best I’ve felt in years,” Pearl said.