Rube Burrow, king of outlaws, and his band of train robbers

by George W. Agee

“I believe there is a detective under every bush in the county; you had better leave.”

Rube concluded his father was right, and on the twentieth day of November, just about a month after their arrival, Rube and Joe left Lamar County again. The two men went afoot to within a few miles of Columbus, Miss., having resolved to walk into Florida and avoid the necessity of hiding out in the brush all winter in Lamar County.

Joe Jackson was not as robust as Rube, and was not physically equal to the task of walking several hundred miles. He proposed, after trudging about eighteen miles, to return to Lamar County, purchase horses, and make the trip on horseback. Rube dissented, fearing their trail would be discovered and that pursuit would ensue, but suggested that they return to the home of Jim Cash and purchase a yoke of oxen and a wagon owned by him and make the trip in that way. Joe Jackson was averse to this proposition at first, but Rube argued that as drivers of an ox-cart they could assume the role of laborers and thus fully disguise themselves. Returning, therefore, to Cash’s house, the oxen and cart were purchased.

It was the custom of Allen Burrow and Cash to make frequent trips by wagon across the country to Columbus, Miss., and so it was arranged for Allen Burrow to take the two men, in a covered wagon drawn by two horses, to within one mile of Columbus. Jim Cash, according to arrangement, followed with the ox team, and in the outskirts of the town, after dark, on the night of November 28th, the four men met. Through the intervention of Cash an ample supply of provisions, purchased from a store in Columbus, was stored away in the wagon, and at ten o’clock at night the outlaws, in the garb of plodding ox-drivers, resumed their journey southward. Cash and Burrow returned home the next day, the former announcing that he had sold his ox team in Columbus.

The detectives were not long in discovering, by the bearing and manner of the friends of the outlaws, that they had left Lamar County. Detective Jackson, knowing the habits and methods of Rube, was not satisfied with Cash’s story that he had sold his oxen in Columbus. Investigation developed nothing to corroborate the reported sale, and Detective Jackson declared: “We must find that team, for it’s just like Rube to give us the slip that way.”

Going to Columbus, the faithful detective, day by day, sought diligently to discover the missing team, but it was not until about January 15th that his labors were rewarded in finding the trail near Carrollton, in Pickens County, Miss., forty miles south of Columbus. The detective was on foot. The outlaws were then forty-five days ahead of him, and were evidently heading for southern Alabama or Florida. Returning and reporting the discovery, it was deemed best to go by rail to Wilson’s Station, on the Louisville and Nashville Railway, and thence to Gainestown, a landing on the Alabama River, about forty miles distant, where it was thought the men would cross. The conclusion had been wisely made. The cunning detective had shrewdly divined the very spot at which the robbers would cross the river.

Arriving at Gainestown January 24th, Jackson found that the ox-cart, in charge of two men, had crossed the river on the night of December 11th. Encouraged by this discovery the officer pursued the trail on through Escambia County, and found that on the evening of December 14th the two men had driven into Flomaton, Ala., a small station on the Louisville and Nashville Railway, forty miles north of Pensacola. Here it was discovered that the men had camped about half a mile from the station, and had made inquiries concerning a logging camp in Santa Rosa County, Florida.

Leaving Flomaton on the morning of January 29th, Detective Jackson went to McCurdy’s ferry, on the Escambia River, two miles south, and there ascertained that a man calling himself Ward had crossed the ferry with an ox team on the morning of December 15th, and that he was alone. Pursuing the trail south some twenty miles, Milton, Florida, was reached. Here it was found that one man had crossed Blackwater with an ox team at that point on the night of December 17th. The belief that Joe Jackson had separated from Rube at Flomaton was confirmed, for the man in charge of the ox team was, beyond question, Rube Burrow.

Leaving Milton, the detective went to Broxton’s ferry, on Yellow River, about ten miles south. Arriving at the ferry he was confronted by a stream about thirty yards wide, whose tortuous length stretched itself through a jungle of cane and cypress which seemed to defy his further progress. There was no boat in sight, and the unbroken wild-wood on the opposite bank gave no sign of a mooring. The screech of an owl from his perch in the dark cover of the jungle broke the stillness that prevailed, and awakened the detective from his lonely reverie.

Jackson learned from a man, who came stalking through the brush at this juncture, that the opposite bank was that of an island, and in order to reach the south side of the river the point of the island must be turned by rowing about half a mile down stream and then stemming the current for a like distance along the opposite shore. While the distance across the island from shore to shore was only about five hundred yards, the view was wholly obscured by the canebrake that covered it.