Colonel Horne and the Reinschmidt murder case

Story Submitted by Aucilla Research Institute

There is no detailed history of the community on the lower Aucilla River known as “Nutall Rise.” It is randomly mentioned in narratives related to the Native American and early Spanish presence in Florida but there are only scattered accounts of how the permanent settlement developed.
One oral tradition suggests it originated in the aftermath of the Civil War by Confederate veterans or, possibly, draft dodgers or deserters, passing through or hiding in this remote wilderness. As to draft dodgers and deserters, this is likely a mistaken reference to the nearby Econfina River which did, in fact, harbor such individuals and their families during the war. Prior to 1900 the Aucilla River area was sparsely populated by intrepid homesteaders with names like Kinsey, Strickland, Chancy, Ward, Brown and others, including Benjamin Lewis who migrated to the mouth of the river prior to the turn of the century. A diary kept by a member of a roving band of Alabama hunters in 1871 suggests the remains of a few old buildings at Nutall Rise. However, without question, the great timber boom in Taylor and Jefferson counties, circa 1900 to 1940, led to the establishment of the present-day enclave.
Never destined to become a fancy resort, Nutall Rise evolved into an isolated fishing and hunting destination with a small group of residents who largely subsisted as commercial fishermen, guides, and lumbermen and by a little bootlegging at times.
No paved road provided access until 1951-1952 when U.S. Highway 98 was built. As late as the 1960’s, only a small Coca Cola sign emblazoned with the faded words, “Nutall Rise” marked the intersection of a dirt road on the North side of Highway 98, roughly 23 miles West of Perry.
Traveling this road generally raised copious clouds of limerock dust such that one’s vehicle was almost white when it reached the assemblage of homes and camps at the final rise of the river. For many years the hamlet remained an obscure, distant place encapsulated by a wild environment provided by the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge to the Southwest and elsewhere by the large land holdings of Buckeye Cellulose and the St. Joe Paper Company, much of which would later be controlled by the State. Today, an internet search for “Nutall Rise” will often lead to one man and a brief discourse on a segment of Florida’s political history. It is here that our story really unfolds.
Raeburn C. Horne is well remembered by those long associated with Nutall Rise, although you would hear him referred to as “Colonel Horne,” not from any military service but from an old custom of granting that appellation to venerable attorneys. Often those acquainted with him would further comment that at his lodge and fish camp more laws were passed at Nutall Rise than at the capitol in Tallahassee. The “Pork Chop Gang” was a powerful block of rural state senators who largely controlled politics in Florida circa 1950 to1965. Raeburn Horne was a prominent member of this coalition, having served as both a State representative and senator from the Madison district. His Nutall Rise retreat was a favorite gathering place for the “Pork Choppers” to map their strategy while avoiding public scrutiny. Bourbon flowed liberally through the evening poker games, and hunting and fishing expeditions were the rule of the day. Fish, oysters and wild game dominated the menu of the meals prepared and served in a long screened in outdoor kitchen behind the main lodge.
S.D. Clarke, A.K.A. “Dill Clarke”, from Monticello, was known as the “Grandaddy” of the Pork Choppers, having led the group for many years while setting a record for the longest tenure as a State Senator. Turner Davis from Madison, among others, also played a significant role, and their ally was reputed to be Edward Ball who guided the DuPont fortune in Florida.
R.C. Horne was born in Jasper, Florida in 1896. Early in his legal career he moved to Madison, advancing to a local judgeship and soon to success in politics as previously mentioned. A feisty legislator, he once engaged in a brawl with a fellow legislator and cut him with his pen knife. The wound with his co-combatant would both literally and figuratively heal when his adversary later became the State Attorney General. By the late 1940’s, Horne made the decision to leave front line political office and become a lobbyist. His primary client was Florida’s small loan industry which no doubt paid well for his services but subjected him to the wrath of some reformers. Henceforth, he became a fixture at every session of the legislature, exercising his influence over any bill impacting his client’s interests. Observing from the gallery, he would often employ hand signals to his allies on the floor directing their action toward his objectives. He was occasionally chastised for this “wigwagging,” a term applied to such gamesmanship. Never easily deterred, Colonel Horne was highly effective in his lobbying efforts, assisted by his Pork Chopper associates whose legislative dominance was undiminished until reapportionment destroyed it in the aftermath of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1964.
Raburn Horne’s rise to power, his membership in the Pork Chop Gang and their meetings at his Nutall Rise fish camp are all well documented. However, long before Horne arrived at the Aucilla River, another ambitious and enterprising character had established his presence there. His path and Horne’s were destined to cross and set in motion the forces which led to Raeburn’s acquisition of the property which became his political sanctuary.
John Leo Reinschmidt, often called J.L., was the son of German immigrants who settled in Cullman, Alabama circa 1870’s. The family prospered there and successfully operated a cooperage business manufacturing wooden barrels. The expanding naval stores industry in the Southeast generated increasing demand for their product. Florida and Georgia soon were target markets, and a new plant was built in Pensacola which became the center of the Reinschmidt operations. Sometime around 1900, the decision was made to further expand manufacturing into South Georgia. By this time J.L. Reinschmidt and his brothers were running the family business, and J.L. and his wife Alice moved to Quitman, Georgia where he built a cooperage plant. Their marriage produced four children, two sons and two daughters. The Reinschmidts became prominent in Quitman, and J.L. enlarged his interests to include a veneer mill and ownership in the General Quitman Hotel which was constructed in 1927 and still stands today. He also ventured into banking, becoming Vice President of the Peoples National Bank of Quitman in 1928. His stature was such that, during this era, he was elected president of the Quitman Chamber of Commerce.
The cooperage business required a source of oak wood for the barrel staves. White oak was the favored material, and it could be found in abundance among the hardwood hammocks along the Aucilla River. By 1917 J.L. found his way to Nutall Rise where he bought land and timber rights from J.W. Oglesby, Jr. Thereafter, the Reinschmidt Stave Company installed a small stave manufacturing operation on land overlooking the rise of the river. By 1923, J. L. had also built or acquired a “lodge” nearby, according to an article in the Cullman Tribune newspaper which describes a trip by friends of Reinschmidt, first to his “palatial” home in Quitman, then to his lodge at Nutall Rise on a hunting and fishing expedition. By all accounts, John L. Reinschmidt had reached the pinnacle of his success and good fortune by 1930 but events in Greenville, Florida would soon open a very dark chapter in his life.
English B. Smith was originally from Quitman. He was veteran of World War I, having served in an American expeditionary force, deployed to Siberia in a little known attempt to rescue a Czechoslovakian army unit from Bolshevik revolutionary forces. In the aftermath of the war he returned to Georgia and married Shelly Driggers who appears to have been raised in Madison County, Florida. By 1931, English, aged 50, and Shelly, aged 30, were having marital difficulties and were described as estranged. At some point J. L. Reinschmidt had become acquainted with the couple, perhaps through some business dealings with Smith. According to widely published newspaper stories, on August 2, 1931, Reinschmidt, a married man 63 years old, traveled to Greenville and picked up Mrs. Smith for an afternoon automobile tour of Madison county. Apparently intrigued by the beauty and wondrous sights of the countryside, all the more enhanced by the excessive consumption of spirituous beverages, their sojourn lasted four hours until they returned to the home of Mrs. Smith’s mother, Mrs. F.C. Driggers. At this juncture, all witnesses agreed on the fact that a very irate English Smith appeared on the scene and accosted them. All further agreed that Reinschmidt exited the car intending to speak with the husband who was not in a conversational mood. Armed with a heavy stick or club, English Smith struck Reinschmidt and beat him to his knees. There is consensus among all accounts that English then turned his back on his victim and started toward a fence presumably to obtain a heavier cudgel to finish his handiwork. Later testimony would diverge but no one denies four shots were fired into the assailant’s back, resulting in his quick demise. Law enforcement soon arrived and, according to the early investigation, Shelly Smith stated she had shot her husband. A coroner’s inquest was subsequently held, and initially it seemed Shelly would be solely charged with murder, and Reinschmidt would walk away. However, testimony from the mother Mrs. F.C. Driggers undoubtedly muddied the proverbial water. Mrs. Driggers maintained she saw all that occurred from the time the couple arrived in her yard through the shooting. She stated J.L. and Shelly were both intoxicated and she saw a pistol on the seat of the car. According to her account, Reinschmidt placed the pistol in his pocket before exiting the vehicle in the face of threats by English Smith to him, mother and daughter. Having been knocked down, she claimed that a bleeding Reinschmidt then pulled the gun from his pocket and shot English in the back when he turned away. Given the conflicting testimony as to who did the shooting, both Shelly and J.L. were charged jointly as principal and accessory to murder.
Obviously, J.L. now had a serious problem on several fronts and needed a good lawyer with influence in Madison County and the ability to pick a favorable jury. The choice was clearly Raeburn Horne who joined the defense team on the eve of the trial which commenced in October of 1931. Four eye witnesses, some of dubious merit, gave testimony on Reinschmidt’s behalf, naming Shelly Smith as the shooter. Mrs. Driggers was the principal witness for her daughter, repeating the same story as previously given to investigators. Mrs. Smith took the stand denying her earlier statement to law enforcement and categorically framing Reinschmidt as the killer. Reinschmidt testified as well, contradicting Smith’s assertion and describing himself as a would-be peacemaker in the deteriorating Smith marriage. Quitman lawyer Leo Branch delivered the closing argument for the Reinschmidt defense, emphasizing the eye-witness testimony on behalf of his client, casting doubt on the reliability of a mother’s defense of her daughter and setting forth the legal premise that charging both parties as a principal and accessory to murder was not valid. Finally, he said that no matter who did the shooting, it was justifiable homicide, given the husband’s threats and violent assault. David Lanier, attorney for Mrs. Smith, closed by stating Reinschmidt had come from Georgia, got his client intoxicated and broke up the Smith home which he paraphrased as “the devil entering Paradise, taking Eve and breaking up the Garden of Eden.” Further quoting Lanier, “such men as Reinschmidt are destroying the homes of America.” The jury deliberated for five hours but came to the conclusion that Mrs. Driggers’ story was reliable thereby delivering a guilty verdict against Reinschmidt and absolving Shelly Smith of any crime while recommending mercy for the condemned man. Mercy bought John Leo Reinschmidt a twenty year sentence in the state penitentiary. However, this did not mark the end of the case. Upon appeal, the defendant was granted a new trial which took place in 1932 but ended in a hung jury.
The State refused to let the matter go, and Reinschmidt was, once again, put on trial in 1933. Late on the night of October 17th, after four and a half hours of discussion, he was finally acquitted. Although he retained the support of his wife and family, his social standing and business interests suffered. Subsequent litigation documents his failure to pay various debts and considerable financial stress. In particular, he made the serious error of failing to pay one shrewd and relentless creditor. Records show that R.C. Horne obtained a judgment against Reinschmidt for unpaid legal fees in the amount of $1,365. This judgement was later foreclosed in a sheriff’s sale whereby Horne was deeded 974 acres of land belonging to Reinschmidt at Nutall Rise in Taylor and Jefferson counties. Colonel Horne spun off the bulk of this property but kept the waterfront and adjoining acreage which enticed him to the Aucilla River and provided the genesis for what became his fish camp and the Pork Chop Gang’s retreat.
J.L. Reinschmidt left Quitman in 1936 and lived in Valdosta and Bainbridge, Georgia for a while before passing away in 1946 at his daughter’s home in St. Augustine. In death he was returned to Quitman and buried in a cemetery there under a small and simple marker.
Raeburn Horne died in1962 a few years before the demise of the Pork Chop Gang. Its esteemed leader and dean of the Florida Senate, Dill Clarke, passed away in 1966, marking the end of a colorful, albeit controversial, era in state politics. Both Horne and Clarke have local highways named for them. Colonel Horne’s old lodge still stands at Nutall Rise but the long, screened kitchen with its wooden dining tables is gone. Passersby are largely ignorant of the history residing there. No longer do laws flow from Nutall Rise but the ancient Aucilla River rolls on to the Gulf as an analogy to the lives of man. Running free and steady in the sunlight, it is periodically pulled into the cavernous earth where it struggles to rise again and again, finally making its way unimpeded to the open sea.