published: Friday, July 10, 2009

Remember When

Following is an account of two bank robberies at the Citizens Bank in the early 1930s, as told to Miriam Johnson (co-author of "Clermont Gem of the Hills") in 1983 by George Brady, who then lived in Minneola. Brady was assistant cashier in the 1930s. Citizens Bank was located at the northwest corner of 7th and Montrose streets (now home to The Herb Shop.)

This story was published in the 1984 "Centennial Edition" of the South Lake Press in celebration of Clermont's 100th birthday.

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"Right at noon one day in December 1930 I was working the cashier's windows at the front of the bank when two men came in the front doors, closed them and pulled the shades on each side of the glass doors. They were wearing motorcycle-type goggles and white painters' uniforms, had their caps pulled down over their eyes, and wore false mustaches.

"One drew a gun on me and the other on Paul Settle, who was working at the bookkeeping machine. Cashier Charley Baker (Sarah Jane Seaver's father) was attending the Kiwanis meeting at the Lakeview Hotel.

"The gunmen forced Settle and myself to lie on the floor while they took the money from the drawer. Then they took us into the vault and threw the door shut. What they didn't know was that Mr. Baker had fitted the vault door with a safety device consisting of a piece of coarse wire looped over the plunger that goes into the lock. Nobody would even notice it unless you were looking for it, yet when you threw the handle of the vault it wouldn't completely lock. That's what saved us.

"After several minutes we opened the vault door and called Mr. Baker, who called the police. Then we closed the Bank to tally out how much had been taken.

"A man by the name of Montgomery had been hanging around Clermont in those days. He had come into the Bank several weeks before the robbery with a draft to be collected from a bank in Havana, Cuba. In about 10 days the draft came back from Havana marked "no such account.

"Both times he came into the Bank to see about the draft I noticed that he went walking around looking the place over, but he had been known around town and no one paid much attention to him.

"Marshal Charley Lee, who was a good sleuth, snooped around and found out that Montgomery was in town the day the Bank was robbed. One of Mrs. Mayo's boys had seen Montgomery parked in a car close to the side of the Bank on 7th Street.

"Lee found out that Montgomery had a couple of cronies in Arcadia and it was finally determined that those two men were in the town the day the Bank was robbed. The three men were arrested on suspicion and taken to the jail in Tavares.

"When the case got to trial, Paul Settle and I were sure they were the men, but we could not positively identify them because they were all cleaned up and really looked like they might amount to something. We didn't want to send an innocent person to the penitentiary, so they were let go.

"However, they were caught red-handed months later robbing a bank in LaBelle in the Okeechobee area, were sent up and served time.

"The second robbery occurred on June 16, 1931. At that time Harry Stokes was cashier, Settle was bookkeeper and I was assistant cashier. Two men came into the Bank about closing time, closed the doors and pulled the shades, and I knew we were in for it.

"They pulled out their guns and marched us into the vault, but they were not disguised and I got a quick look. One was a hefty sort of fellow and the other quite young, fair skinned, slightly built and had reddish hair.

"They tied us up with hemp rope with our hands behind our backs and taped our fingers with adhesive tape. All three of us were made to lie on the floor of the small vault.

"The robbers did not know that they were standing close to $40,000. They closed the vault the same way the first robbers did and went out to get the money out of the till.

"Of course, this time we were tied up and we did not know how long it would be before we could get ourselves untied.

"Finally Settle worked a knife out of his pocket and managed to hold it while I opened it with my teeth. Settle held onto the knife while I started sawing the ropes. By the time we got loose, we were pretty exhausted because there was no ventilation in the vault. We jumped up, pushed the bolt back and got out.

"Stokes called the police while I went down the street to Doc Scott's Drug Store and got Doc to come back with some ether to take the adhesive off of our hands.

"The robbers got about $5,000. No money was ever recovered and nothing else happened for quite some time. The insurance company made us hire a guard after that.

"About this time the Ma Barker gang -- under assumed names -- had rented a house at Ocklawaha in Marion County. They were living there as respectable citizens. Ma Barker was even teaching a Sunday School class.

"The gang consisted of Ma and her five sons, as well as Alvin Karpus, a notorious gangster. Some of the Ocklawaha citizens became suspicious of them and notified the FBI.

"A raid was planned early one morning. The agents surrounded the house and one of them, with a bull horn, yelled up to the Barkers to surrender. The Barkers fired from upstairs and the agents returned fire for some time.

"Finally the Barker's colored cook arrived and was sent inside. He found Ma Barker and one of her sons dead. The rest had left the previous day.

"While the two bodies were in the morgue in Ocala -- as no one would claim them -- a group from Clermont, including myself, decided to make the trip to Ocala purely out of curiosity because they were such a notorious outfit.

"When I walked through the door there was the young fellow laid out by his mother -- the young boy that had been involved in the second robbery of our bank. The other robber was never identified or apprehended. The Ma Barker gang is still the talk of the town of Ocklawaha, Florida."