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A History of Columbia County Florida (1996) Edward F. Keuchel 133/340

The Era of Reconstruction
turmoil had not passed. At the state level, Republican control was
waning, and there was some controversy within the party before
Governor Marcellus Sterms was renominated. Sensing victory, the
Conservative-Democrats nominated by acclamation George F.
Drew for governor. Even though Drew had been a Whig before
the Civil War and a wartime Unionist, who had voted for the
Republican Ulysses S. Grant in 1868, he was nominated because it
was recognized that he had the best chance of winning. Columbia
County Democrats endorsed him even though he was “recently of
the Radical party.” Jesse J. Finley of Columbia County and R. H.
Davidson of Gadsden County were nominated for Congress. In the
election Democrats carried the county by some 200 votes.41
To insure victory some Democrats resorted to tactics of earlier
days. On October 17, 1876, on a road south of Lake City, William
McNish, Thomas Boyd, Stephen Thomas, Joseph Simmons, and
Joseph King, all blacks and active members of the Republican club
in the county’s Tustenugee settlement, were stopped by a force of
white men armed with double-barreled shotguns. The blacks later
charged that they were told they would be treated as James Green
had been when he was tortured and murdered in 1869. A rope was
put around King’s neck, and he was led to believe that hanging was
imminent. The men begged for their lives and were spared after
agreeing to vote Democratic. Each man was forced to make a
pledge that he would join the Democratic club and bring in others.
They kept their pledge and convinced Stephen Sherman, Solomon
Wright, Harvey Einsich, Murray McNish, and Isaac Chrisholm to
join the Democratic club. Einsich had been vice president of the
Republican club and Sherman was secretary. No convictions
resulted from the incident.42
Many charges of fraud, intimidation, non-residents voting,
convict voting, minors voting, repeat voting, and so forth were

4IShofner, Nor Is It Over Yet, pp. 301-10.
42Senate Report, No. 611, Ser. 1733, pp. 24-25, 89-103.

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