South Alabama Tag-O-Rama (including NW Florida)

[LDHunter]

Hey JetWrench,

Are you a figher jet mechanic? You have a really great Avatar!

Where do you live?

$bob$

[LDHunter]

Originally Posted by KawDlr

KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN you may want to research this tag and hit the streets before the sun sets on the NEW TIME. Don't forget to reset your clocks. I love late afternoon rides on Daylight Savings Time.

Jody,

If you've picked out the spot can you humor me/us with a few clues tonight before you take the picture(s) tomorrow so we can be thinking about it and doing some research?

I have my wife coming in my office every few minutes asking if I need her help. She's even more keen to figure it out than I am and, don't tell her I said so, but she's pretty darn good at figuring out stuff. That must be why I can never slip anything by her.....

I guess I'm hooked huh?

$bob$

[KawDlr]

Tonights teaser will come with few details, but hopefully give you an idea of where I am going with this tag. It'll have to wait till morning to shoot the tag photo, so by noon you will be able to access all of the information and get searching.

Going to keep updating this as I go along for those keeping tabs tonight......

First: This road is shared by two road numbers on google maps, both of which are three number roads and are in sequential order. They each share two of the four numbers in the secquential order. (I.E. 231 & 431 not the roads I am describing, though).

Second: A legendary, kinda creepy, wouldn't want to stay here over night.

Third: Not a quite location as described by Everyday in his last post.

Fourth: By the way the crow flys, it is 40 or so miles towards the setting sun from my latest snatch and grab.(for those tech savy guys)

Fifth: Lets not get carried away with this posting business I have thirty six hours from my tagged time, Don't I?

[LDHunter]

Originally Posted by KawDlr

Fifth: Lets not get carried away with this posting business I have thirty six hours from my tagged time, Don't I?

Baloney... We want more clues... We want pictures... Get to work!

$bob$

[KawDlr]

Here you go guys, just in time the sun is coming out and it's warming up!

Over the wood and through the dale, this spot must have been hell for one man, a man of the faith, not of this country.
He spoke two languages, one which is quickly becoming known around these parts today, and not of the Southern persuasion,
much farther East. It was a time of turmoil in this country; his family not known round these parts, nor his wife’s either.
He would go on to serve more than just God when he felt needed.
Security systems provide home guard, but during this era they didn’t exist the way we know them today.
With that clue… brear’s group came upon him and turned his world into a hell in one fatal pharmaceutical run.
Being ambushed, he had no due process, just a lonesome spot where earth harldy stands still and leaves its banks on occasion.
Sweeping occurs here nightly, and the legend would send shivers up anyone’s spine that spoke of it or camped near the woods
by this span. He’s not been seen round these parts since that horrific winter day, but the legend lives on till this day in Spirit.
The rushing took away the site, and the marker stands in a new location, to testify what went down that cold December day back in the 1800’s.

TAG:


Shot of the site described:


View of the span:


Entrance to tag #4:

It is the stuff of ghost story legends and has appeared in published works, once the tag has been located, I will reveal the entire story.

Happy Haunting!

[Dan Stark]

Didn't expect that did ya!

[Dan Stark]

Great clue's! My wife read a book a while back that contained 13 ghost stories in Alabama. She remembered one about a hole in the ground that would never fill up. Anyway, she did a search on "Ghost Stories in Geneva County" (cause that's about 40 miles due west of the last tag) and up came the Sketo's Hole story.

I got sucked in to the Hartford area pretty good by the clues, never could find one road with two numbers like 134/123.


Looking forward to the rest of the story!

[tat2trav]

man, sux to be stuck in orlando, i knew that one! cool reminder of some old 'bama' history jody!

[KawDlr]

WELL DONE EVERYDAY! Not bad timing either. That's 2hrs and 18 mins a record for SATOR! Seems like somebody's getting better at this game. I guess it's game on now. NO MORE EASY ONES!

Hey Travis, Wish you were here too, It sure would be a lot more fun if we could get more of our friends involved. Hope you had a blast at the races, you'll have to call and give me a ride report on that one.

OK Everyday, you nabbed that one in just over two hours, why the long wait to post the next tag? Been nearly 5 hrs...........

Originally Posted by EveryDay

Great clue's! My wife read a book a while back that contained 13 ghost stories in Alabama. She remembered one about a hole in the ground that would never fill up. Anyway, she did a search on "Ghost Stories in Geneva County" (cause that's about 40 miles due west of the last tag) and up came the Sketo's Hole story.

I got sucked in to the Hartford area pretty good by the clues, never could find one road with two numbers like 134/123.


Looking forward to the rest of the story!

[KawDlr]

Like the late Paul Harvey would say, and now the rest of the story....

Kinda long so stay with me

Nobody has ever actually seen the ghost of Bill Sketoe, but people going
along the road from Newton near where the old bridge crossed the
Choctawhatchee river can tell that the ghost has been there. Invariably the
hole under the tree where Sketoe was hanged is clean, as clean as if a brush
broom or a pine top had swept it out.
Even if the hole is heaped high with dirt every day, the dirt disappears
during the night, and the next morning the hole is there again.
Bill Sketoe, whose ghost apparently keeps the hole cleaned out, was born
in Madrid, Spain, on June 8, 1818. When he was a little lad he came with
his father to Dale County and settled near Newton, a small town in the
Wiregrass section of Alabama.
There were not many Spaniards in that part of the country, and some people
were suspicious of foreigners. But Bill was a good boy who won the respect
of his neighbors and when he grew up he became a Methodist minister.
After he entered the ministry, Sketoe became known as "the Bible-reading
preacher from Spain," and he was invited to preach at churches throughout
the area. He was made pastor of a log cabin Methodist church at Newton, and
he was a kind pastor as well as a powerful preacher. It was while he was
preaching at Newton that he met and married an attractive girl, and they
built a home in the community.
When the Civil War began in 1861, Sketoe was one of the first men from his
county to join the Confederate Army. He fought bravely for three years,
being in the thick of many battles and miraculously escaping serious injury.
Then in the fall of 1864 he received a message that his wife was very sick.
Having come from a country so far away from Alabama, Sketoe had no
relatives to turn to for help. His wife did not have any close relatives
either, at least not any who Sketoe felt he could ask to stay with her in
Newton to nurse her. Sketoe decided that the only thing he could do was
to hire a substitute to take his place in the army so that he could go home to take care of his
wife. It was not at all unusual for Confederate soldiers to pay other men
to fight in their places during times of personal emergencies. The asking
price for substitutes was about one thousand dollars, a lot of money for a
rural Methodist minister turned soldier, but Sketoe somehow managed to
scrape up the needed cash. As soon as his substitute reported for duty,
Sketoe jumped on his horse and headed for Newton, making the trip back home in near record time.
His wife was so glad to see her husband and so relieved to have him at
home that she began to improve immediately. However, her long illness had
left her weak and frail and Sketoe felt he had to stay with her until she
regained her strength. The threat of defeat hung heavily over the South in 1864 and the
Confederacy was in desperate need of every soldier it could get. Under
these circumstances, Sketoe's prolonged stay at home began to arouse some
resentment and suspicion. A few of his neighbors, who knew Sketoe was a
foreigner, began to wonder if he might not be a traitor as well.
At Newton there were a number of men who had organized themselves to round
up and punish deserters. They called themselves Captain Brear's Home Guard.
There were some accusations that the Guard had been organized for the
purpose of keeping its members safe at home while other men were away
fighting for the South, but defenders of the unit said its members really
were too old or too infirm to serve in the military forces and that they
performed a commendable service for the Confederacy.
Be that as it may, the Guard heard about Sketoe's return from the Army,
jumped to the conclusion that he was a traitor and laid plans to ambush him
and give him a deserter's punishment. On the evening of December 3, 1864,
members of the Home Guard gathered at the foot of the bridge on the west
side of the Choctawhatchee River to waylay their victim. When Sketoe appeared,
two men engaged him in conversation, an apparent gesture of friendship to which
Sketoe responded gratefully. He answered their questions about his wife's health and even
showed them the medicine he had gone to town to purchase for her.
As they talked, the other men who had been hiding in a thicket of
huckleberry bushes crept up behind Sketoe and slipped a noose of new rope
around his neck. Sketoe was a big, strong man, but he was treacherously
surprised. Although he struggled valiantly to escape, it was to no purpose,
His arms were pinioned to his back by a tight cord, his feet were tied
together. Then his captors shoved him to the ground the took turns kicking him
as they forced him to try to crawl in the deep sand. Tiring of the this sport and
wishing to get on with the punishment theyhad planned, the members of the "military court"
threw Sketoe into a buggy and maneuvered the vehicle to a spot underneath a stout limb
jutting out from the south side of a big post-oak tree. This was to be Sketoe's hanging tree.
At this time Wesley Dowling, who knew and admired Sketoe, came down the road.
When he saw what was happening, he stopped and began to beg the Home
Guard to give their captive a fair trial. Instead of accepting this plea,
one of the men gave Wesley a hard cuff and threatened to hang him too if he
interfered further. Alarmed lest other passers-by should see what they were up to,
the men in the Guard hastened their preparation for Sketoe's hanging.
They threw the rope over the limb and then asked Sketoe if he had any last
words. He replied that he would like to pray. This answer made the men a
little uneasy, but how could they refuse to let a man have a final prayer,
particularly if the man was a preacher? So they granted his request.
Instead of praying for himself, as they had expected, Sketoe prayed for his
tormentors. "Forgive them, dear Lord. Forgive them," he prayed.
This prayer so infuriated the Home Guard that, even before the doomed man
had finished praying, Captain Brear gave a sharp lash of his whip to the
rump of the red horse hitched to the buggy. The frightened animal plunged
forward, jerking Sketoe out of the buggy. Sketoe's neck should have been broken,
but in making their hurried plans for the hanging the Home Guard members had not
allowed for their victim's height and size. Sketoe was tall, and his frame was not spare.
So the limb to which the rope was tied bent under Sketoe's weight, and his toes touched
the ground. Quickly George Echols, a cripple, grabbed his crutch and used it to dig a
hole in the sandy soil right under Sketoe's feet so that his toes could not
touch the ground and his body would swing from the rope. The noose
tightened and did its deadly work.
News of what was happening near the bridge reached Newton too late for
friends to save the minister's life, but several men (among them Josh
Morris, Dave Young, Bill Ard and James W. Judah) went to the spot, took
Sketoe's body down from the tree, and laid it out in a cotton house across
the road. He was later buried in the graveyard at Mount Carmel Church were
his tombstone may be see today.






And in favor of the late Paul Harvey....And that's the rest of the story...

[Dan Stark]

Good read and a solid tag. I have been researching all afternoon for a good tag and burned up my daylight. I have decided however, where the next tag is going to be. The area will not be difficult to navigate. The terrain will be urban, but the traffic an obstacle around all 19.

One more thing. Tag won't be posted till tomorrow afternoon, probably around 5:30.

[KawDlr]

Originally Posted by EveryDay

Good read and a solid tag. I have been researching all afternoon for a good tag and burned up my daylight. I have decided however, where the next tag is going to be. The area will not be difficult to navigate. The terrain will be urban, but the traffic an obstacle around all 19.

One more thing. Tag won't be posted till tomorrow afternoon, probably around 5:30.

WHAT..... 5:30 Are you banking on dark thirty before I get it figured out.

Keep in mind tagging after dark is ok too....

[LDHunter]

Originally Posted by tat2trav

man, sux to be stuck in orlando, i knew that one! cool reminder of some old 'bama' history jody!

Howdy Travis! Good to hear from you. Hope your school is going well. Look me up when you get back and let's RIDE!!!

[LDHunter]

Originally Posted by EveryDay

Didn't expect that did ya!

Way to go EveryDay!!! You Da MAN!!!

I can see that I'm gonna have to take it up a notch if I'm gonna expect to ever get another tag with you around...

Jody was working on my bike when you grabbed it so I have the excuse that my motor was in pieces while you were riding hell for leather to steal "my tag"...

At least my doohickey is now safe along with a few more mods he made for me, and I can now take it up a notch with my KLR to pour on the coal and pass you up.

Anyway... Dang it... I'll have to work for the next 3-4 days before I can get a day off so I might have to miss the next tag or two.

Anyway... Congratulations... You sre SMOKIN' HOT now and gonna be VERY hard to catch!

OH Yeah... So where's the new tag...

$bob$

[Dan Stark]

LDHunter, glad you got your Doo done. That's good piece of mind. I changed oil in mine and cleaned the air filter so I'd be ready for a week of tagging. I may do may check my valves again pretty soon. Jody mentioned you guys were going to be working on the bikes. I thought about riding over. I would like to meet up with you guys sometime.

Don't worry about catching me, I'm about to bail off into a big schedule change at work, so I'm going to get pretty wrapped up myself. I'll still be playing, but it's going to get more difficult.

Oh, had the wife looking at KLX's on line this afternoon. Gonna drag her over K of D one of these days to see some in person.