The Smoke Eater of Geneva County
Autobiography of Eddie Alford
by
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About the middle of the evening one day we saw a commotion across the street from the Ford place in front of the Bus Station. It was Casper "Red" Hemby, the part-time policeman who was filling in for Chief Stafford while he was on vacation and his honeymoon, trying to arrest Casey Danley and another man. They had come to town drinking and there had been a public disturbance, but they had told Red in no uncertain terms that he could not arrest them, so he left to go and get a backup. In the meantime, the drunks left and came back with an automatic shotgun and were back at the bus stop doing loud cursing about what they were going to do to Red if he came back after them. John Merritt was still the night policeman and he came to help Red with the arrest. John and Red planned to have Red come down the alley behind the bus station and through Speed’s Service Station next door and out the front where he would be to their side. John was to come down the sidewalk in front of the bus station so that they would have Casey in a crossfire if he tried to shoot. As Merritt approached him, Casey backed up until he was in front of Speed’s Service Station. As Merritt passed the front of the bus station door, David Walters, who owned the bus station, handed him an automatic shotgun. Casey kept telling John not to come any closer, but he just kept walking toward him. After telling him two or three times not to come any closer, Casey shot John Merritt in the left side with the shotgun. John fell down to a sitting position and lost his shotgun, but attempted to get back up when Casey shot him again. Red had never come out the front of Speed’s, but was watching from the inside. When the first shot was fired, we saw him running across the railroad track behind the service station as fast as he could. He went to the home of Calvin Johnson, who lived just across the tracks behind Speed’s station, and remain there until some time that night when Calvin made him go home. When the shooting started, David Walters ran toward his back door and ran against the counter and broke his knee. Fate Speed, Marlin Lee, and Roy Pridgen were sitting in front of the service station and they jumped up and ran down the alley away from the shooting. Roy Pridgen had one short leg, but Speed told me later on that even though he was running as hard as he could, Roy passed him and yelled, "Stand there, you damn fool, and get shot—I’m getting out of here!"
Brown Howell, Ray Weeks, Jimmy Lewis, and myself had come out in front of the Ford place, and Brown, Ray, and I was leaning against the gas pumps, with Jimmy leaning against the rear of Brown’s car. Whenever Casey shot Merritt the first time, we went back inside and shut the door and locked it and Brown went to the office, got his pistol, and called the Sheriff. He told them to get someone up there quick because Casey Danley had shot John down and Red had run off and left him.
After he shot John the second time, Casey got out in the middle of the street, hollering and cursing loudly, and wouldn’t let anybody go to John to help him. "Cef" Harper was the night watchman for Alabama Gin and Peanut Co. and was on his way to work. He walked up to Casey and began talking to him for a few minutes, but then walked away and went on to work. John was still sitting on the ground with Casey forbidding anyone to help him, when a man named Haman Braswell, Jr., came out of the bus station and said, "Casey, the old man’s hurt and can’t get up. Let some of us take him to a Doctor." Casey finally agreed to this and Braswell and some others got him up and took him to Enterprise Hospital. I was told much later that Harry Walters paid the hospital bill because the City didn’t have the money for it.
Sot Hall had been on a taxi run and was just arriving back at the taxi base at the Ford place. We let him in the Ford place and he asked what was going on. We had already locked all the doors in preparation to going home for the day and Sot went to the door between the Parts Department and the shop in the back and opened it up. When we asked what he was doing, he said, "I ain’t gonna let anybody with a shotgun hem me up in here!" and went out the back door.
Casey had already left the scene when the Sheriff arrived and they came over to the Ford place to ask where he was, but we didn’t know anything except that they had left. They then went to Casey’s father’s home and were told that they, " . . . were in the swamp—they know that swamp like the back of their hand and you won’t ever find ‘em." They were in the Danley Swamp, which was named after his great-granddaddy who settled all the land in that area (south Geneva Co. near the Florida line on Co. Road 10). His father told the Sheriff to leave him alone and that he would find him the next day and bring him in to jail, which he did. He was later tried and sentenced to prison. A few years after he was released from prison, he was trying to break into his brother’s house and his brother shot and killed him.
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About the Book
As the Chief of the Samson Fire Department for 46 years he cared for the town’s welfare and devoted himself to that for 24 hours each day; with a constant presence on the city streets most of his long work life he saw their lives unfold; running a wrecker service, he saw their tragedies and hardships; working for the City for over 20 years taking care of its concerns through so many political administrations, he saw the mundane and the sublime. Likely there is no other person outside of a small-town doctor who may have been so involved with the lives of his neighbors.
High Noon shoot-outs in the middle of the street; powerful city barons controlling the politics and the lives of the citizens; unsolved murders; family tragedies and heroics—Mayberry meets Peyton Place!
At the ending of the movie, The World According to Garp, when Garp has been shot and realizes he is dying, he turns and says to his wife beside him, "Remember!" She says, "Remember what, my Darling?" And Garp replies, " . . . everything!" In this book, Eddie has, for all of us, remembered everything.
About the Author
The town of Samson, Alabama was hardly ten years old when William Edward Alford was born in 1916 to a hardscrabble pioneer existence just outside its borders.
He moved from the farm to the town of Samson in 1938, seeking a better life, and filled with the youthful enthusiasm for new experience. The circumstances of his life soon led him to a lifelong commitment to volunteerism and community involvement. He served as a member of the Samson Volunteer Fire Department for 56 years and as Chief of the Department for 46 of those years. He was one of the first men from the rural southern counties of Alabama to go to the State Fire College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in 1949 to learn the more formal training and operating procedures that are essential to successful firefighting organizations. Throughout his 46-year career as Chief of the SFD, he worked diligently to improve the department until it had emerged from a primitive hole-in-the-wall facility with ancient equipment (including a Model T Firetruck) to a modern facility with multiple firetrucks, rescue vehicles, full safety equipment, and a modern functional building rivaling that of most professional departments. He also shared the training, experience, and insights obtained from his education with other towns and communities in the area, thereby helping to advance the progress of the entire county.
His vocations over his lifetime were on the streets of Samson where he was involved in the Civil Air Patrol during the Cold War, organization of the first Rescue Squad, wrecker service, clerical work, and finally as the general City Superintendent. In a sense, his autobiography parallels much of the history of the City of Samson and provides a cultural documentary of very rural life in a small farm-based town that is unique in its perspective.