Gus Potsdamer (Pottsdammer) was born in 1853 in Germany. He died on Friday, Jan. 4, 1918 and is buried in the Evergreen Cemetery in Jacksonville, Fla.
Jacksonville Florida Times Union obit, Saturday, Jan. 5, 1918: Gus Potsdammer, 63, a well-known resident of Live Oak, died in this city early yesterday morning, after an illness of over a year's duration. He was formerly Sheriff of Suwannee County and for many years was engaged in the undertaking business at Live Oak. The funeral took place yesterday afternoon, Rabbi I L Kaplan, of the Temple Ahavath Chesed officiating. The interment was in Temple cemetery.
The 1880 Census for Suwannee County shows Gus Potsdamer at 26 years of age as working in Turpentine. He is a prisoner from Germany.
Records show Gus Potsdamer to be the Suwannee County Sheriff from 1889 – 1893. Gus was a well-known and well-liked Undertaker in Live Oak for a number of years. REFERENCE: Several obituaries in the Live Oak Daily Democrat (1906 – 1907). He was again appointed Sheriff of Suwannee County in 1913 and suspended in 1914.
THE HUGHES MURDERERS
The public hanging of Bob McCoy and Willie Hicks occurred on April 3, 1890 in Homerville, Clinch County, Ga. The two men were tried and convicted of the double axe murder of William Hughes and Ellen Sellers Rice Hughes, an elderly couple of Dupont, Ga. The story of the murders and the pursuit of the killers were reported in newspapers from New York to California. Robert Saxton, a third party who aided in this inhuman act, was killed while resisting arrest, thus cheating the gallows of what he deserved.
Hicks and McCoy were both captured by accident, as it were—that is to say, they were arrested for other crimes, and from a sense of guilt confessed their complicity in the Hughes murder.
Hicks was in Jasper, Fla., one night and got into a cutting affray at a Negro candy pulling and was arrested by Constable William Hinton, to whom he confessed.
Robert McCoy was arrested in Live Oak for carrying concealed weapons, by Sheriff "Gus" Potsdamer. Sheriff Potsdamer was himself an ex-convict, having been sentenced and later pardoned for the murder of another sheriff. McCoy said to Potsdamer, "You have arrested me for something else than carrying a gun, and can't fool me in this way." "What else?" asked Potsdamer. "For the Hughes murder," replied McCoy. "And I was not by myself in that thing. Robert Saxton and Bill Hicks helped me."
A curious coincidence in the matter is that Sheriff Potsdamer, Constable Hinton and John P. Lanier had been trying for a couple of weeks to ferret out the criminals and by accident two of them almost fell bodily into the hands of their hunters.
Join us next week for more Suwannee County history and be sure to like our Facebook page!
Susan Coleman Fennell is a part of the Suwannee County Historical Commission & Museum, located at 208 Ohio Avenue North in Live Oak. She may be reached at suwanneehistorical@gmail.com.