By Dallas Reese
But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death. Revelation 21:8
James Franklin Jowers as a young Baptist Minister
Minden Louisiana
In a lonely bayou six miles north of Minden Louisiana on the D'orcheat Road, in the swampy waters beneath the Caney Creek Bridge, floats the ghost of a once devoted Baptist Minister named James Franklin Jowers. He was my Great-Uncle. Drive there late at night and you might hear Frank crying out about the dastardly deed that prematurely took his one life on this earth on Halloween night 1927. Frank's story reads like it's straight out of the movies, but unfortunately it is as real as the life and death we all face.
The story of Frank Jowers was one of the darkest chapters of my family's history on my mother's side. It centers around the untimely death of my Great Uncle, The Reverend James Franklin(Frank) Jowers at the age of 49 on October 31, 1927 in Haynesville, Louisiana. Frank was a younger brother to my Great Grandmother Margaret Rebecca Jowers Demby from Chesterfield County, South Carolina.
In the 1800s, the Jowers family lived in Jefferson, SC, a tiny spec of dust town off State Road Hwy 151 and 265 in a place not many people know about or would remember if they passed . The town is only 50 miles southeast of the metropolis of Charlotte, North Carolina but couldn't be further away from nowhere, and even more so in the 1800s. Farms covered the area like a blanket of survival. Cotton was king. A place where every kid in every family picked cotton whether they wanted to or not. A place where hard work was a way of life. Where each day farmers would wake up to starting over. Existence was predicated on prayer and subservience to weather in an economy that lived, breathed and owed it's daily existence to agriculture. Jefferson served as the epicenter of where my mother's family lived and farmed for centuries. And thus to this very different day and age where technology now rules, it's ours, as much as one can want a place nobody else wants.
When I was a kid my mom me told bits and pieces of the Jowers family story but there weren't enough details to satiate my inquisitive nature. I was fascinated by the fact that the family had left South Carolina to live in far away Louisiana. I thought of them as great adventurers and gypsy souls, sort of like myself. Fragments of the story had been handed down to my mom from her aunt, Ola Demby Oliver who had corresponded in letters to many of the family in Louisiana.. In 1993 when I moved back to North Carolina from Nashville Tennessee, I took it upon myself to begin an investigation into this story that intrigued me. In the early 1990s the internet was in it's infancy and not much was available without traveling to state archives, libraries or other repositories so that's what I did. I would have never have guessed at that time the sheer amounts of information that would become easily available by 2020. With the digitization of mountains of records I have finally been able to fashion together all the pieces of this tangled story.
William James David Jowers circa 1900
Frank Jowers' parents, and my Great-Great Grandparents William James David Jowers & wife Ellen Jane Sowell Jowers began married life together January 16, 1873 in Jefferson, South Carolina. One year and three months later my Great-Grandmother Margaret Rebecca Jowers was born on April 18, 1874. A couple years later their first son, George Lewis Jowers was born, followed by another son, James Franklin Jowers on June 12, 1878. Then another son, William James David Jowers Jr. (Will) in 1880 and then several girls, Mary Sue and Sara Jane. Then in 1886 their final child, Della Jowers was born on April 22, 1886.
Just over one year later on April 22, 1887, five days after little Della had turned one year old, the unthinkable happened and Della passed away. This was the first heartbreaking tragedy for the Jowers family. A life that looked to be filled with so much promise, was gone. I'm sure this was something little Frank, nor his parents or sisters and brothers ever got over. The death of an innocent child is the cruelest of it. It brings despair, anger and guilt at the inherent unfairness of it all. I don't know if this played a part in the decision eight months later to move, but it certainly could have played a small part.
By late 1887 it was decided, William and Ellen Jane Jowers would pick up with their six small children and move to the swamps and oilfields of Minden, Louisiana.
This audaciously bold move from their homeplace in Jefferson South Carolina to Minden, Louisiana in December 1887 was unprecedented in the Jowers family and would be the biggest move since the family had immigrated from England to South Carolina over a century earlier. The Jowers family had farmed the land in Chesterfield County South Carolina for over half a century and before that in the 1700s in Kershaw District SC near Cheraw.
In the 1700s and 1800s most of my mother's family from Chesterfield County South Carolina lived and died there. That's just the way it was for all families in that area. In a time when cars didn't exist, when a family decided to just up and move 850 miles and four states away, that was a big deal. My Great-Grandmother Margaret Rebecca Jowers was 13 years old when the family moved. Her younger brother Frank had just turned nine in the summer of 1887.
The Jowers family didn't have much money, so I surmise there is no way they could have afforded to travel to Louisiana by train. In 1887 the only other ways to travel were by foot or horseback. You could cover 20 to 40 miles per day by buckboard or buggy, or by wagon, usually 15-20 miles per day average, that is if all went well, and the weather held and no breakdowns. A conservative estimate of 15-20 miles covered per day would mean the family would have had to left Jefferson, SC by the second week of November 1887 in order to arrive by Christmas 1887.
As the cold of late December 1887 settled in over Louisiana the Jowers family arrived at their new home in Minden and a seemingly bright future lay ahead in a new place. But fate had different ideas and a mere three weeks after the family arrived in Louisiana, just after the new year of 1888 dawned, my Great-Great Grandmother Ellen Jane Sowell Jowers died at only 31 years old. The long journey that took weeks, had been too much for her. So William James David Jowers now had Margaret (my great grandmother) 13 years old, George, 11, Frank, 9, William Jr., 7, Mary Sue 5, and Sara Jane, 3 to raise. It would be a monumental task for a single dad.
Ellen Jane Sowell Jowers
died Jan 13 1888 in Minden Louisiana
So Frank, my Great-Grandmother Margaret and their brothers and sisters were left as motherless children and the duty of helping to care for the younger kids, at least for the time being would fall to My Great-Grandmother Margaret Rebecca and her brother George Lewis. Now if Ellen had not died, I might not be here, because of the circumstances of that tragedy the entire trajectory of the Jowers' family life changed.
When those double barreled tragedies occurred inside of a single year the family was at a crossroads. An understanding of how not one, but two family members' deaths fit into the scheme of life is difficult and probably seems unattainable in the present day. Regardless, William James David Jowers knew he would need help to raise the kids. So he decided to move back home to Jefferson, SC and this was the move that would eventually keep my Great-Grandmother in the Jefferson area, where she married my Great-Grandfather John Richard Demby. I'm thankful that things ended up they way they did, because had it not ended up that way I wouldn't be here to write this.
My Great-Great Grandfather William James David Jowers had family help with the kids until seven years later, when he remarried in 1895 to Sallie Kirkley. Together they carried on as best they could. They had two children together. Wayland Jowers in 1896. And Beulah in 1900.
As the year 1897 dawned, William James David Jowers grew restless of the life in Jefferson, SC and the struggles there and so the family decided to move back to Minden in Webster Parish, Louisiana. Two years prior on December 1, 1895, my Great-Grandmother Margaret Rebecca Jowers had gotten married to John Richard Demby in Jefferson, South Carolina. There they would remain in Jefferson and raise a family together, which included my grandmother Nell Demby Johnson who came along in August of 1900.
After those brief several years back in Jefferson, SC, My Great-Great Grandfather William James David Jowers took his three sons, George Lewis, Frank & William David Jr and two daughters Mary Sue & Sara Jane and his new wife Sallie Elizabeth Kirkley and baby daughter Wayland back to Minden, Louisiana in hopes of making a better life for the family. This decision was fateful for Frank Jowers' life and not for the good. Frank was 19 years old when they moved back to Minden. Only my Great-Grandmother Margaret Rebecca Jowers remained behind in Jefferson, SC because she had just married John Richard Demby .
And so it was, James Frank Jowers had grown up mostly in Jefferson SC and then came back to Minden as a man.
Somewhere along the way his faith grew and he answered the call of God and became a Baptist Minister and began preaching around the Webster & Red River Parishes in Louisiana. While preaching a revival service one night in Red River Parish, near Coushatta, Louisiana, Frank met Ella Essie Cavna Turnbow, who went by Essie. Essie was a native of Red River Parish and had one brother, Nichols Turnbow and several half-brothers. At the time Frank was unaware that he would fall under the spell of a modern day Cleopatra, whose deception, manipulation and charm would prove to be Frank's undoing.
After an acquaintance of only several months Frank & Essie Jowers got married and began a new life together in Coushatta, Red River Parish, Louisiana. Frank was almost 11 years older than Essie. She was 15, he was 25, almost 26 years old. For a number of years they resided in Coushatta. While there Frank worked in the oil fields in Harmon, Louisiana and Essie worked as a commercial dressmaker. After several years they moved to Minden, where Frank preached full time for a number of years, including a stint as the pastor at Evergreen Church where his mother was buried. Later still they moved to Haynesville where Frank opened a grocery store to supplement the meager earnings he acquired as a Baptist Minister.
In the ten year period between 1908 and 1918 Frank & Essie Jowers had five children. Norma, born in 1908, Grover in 1910, Annie in 1916, and Elvis in February 1918, and then remarkably less than ten months later Frank Jr. was born in late December 1918.
Pictured above: Frank Jowers, daughter Norma Jowers, Essie Jowers & son Grover Jowers.
For many years, at least on the surface, it appeared the marriage of Frank and Essie Jowers was a happy one. From gathered newspaper reports, it is apparent that Essie grew restless with the drudgery of having had children at such a young age, and living a home bound family life had turned her spirit restless. This is merely conjecture on my part, but in knowing this Jowers side of my family and from reading many thousands of newspaper and magazine accounts of this story, I have ascertained that my Great Uncle Frank was a kind and generous man who prayed with his children every night, worked hard and was very thrifty and also very dedicated to God and lived his life in accordance with his belief that the Bible was the inerrant word of God.
--------------------------------------------------------------
I also have direct knowledge from conversations with Edna Gertrude Jowers Giddings who was Frank's half sister. Edna was the youngest daughter of Frank's dad, my Great-Great Grandfather William James David Jowers. Edna was born near Minden, Louisiana in 1912 and knew the entire story very well from her own experience (she was 15 when the murder happened) and she also had many conversations with her father William James David Jowers who did not die until 1941. In fact Edna told me that her daddy (and my Great-Great Grandfather) W.J.D. came to many sessions of the ensuing trial of Frank's wife Essie Jowers and her paramour, Elisha J. Swift.
Edna Gertrude Jowers Giddings and I also exchanged a series of letters in the late 1990s before she eventually passed away in 2002 and she told me much about how kind and God fearing Frank was and that he was taken advantage of by a cunning and greedy wife who was filled with lust for another man and wanted Frank out of the way. Edna told me she never liked Essie because she was so deceptive and underhanded. And Edna told me my Great Uncle was a God fearing man who had an incredible work ethic and was a devoted father and husband.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Here's what happened that fateful Halloween night October 31, 1927 in Haynesville, Lousiana.
Frank Jowers had been worried for some time about his wife Essie. She was on edge and pushing him all the time. Even though Frank had a successful grocery store, Essie was tired and restless and wanted more. She most certainly had been intimating that she would rather take up with someone else. The pressures of raising five kids certainly had to be immense. I know well the pressures of having kids, because I have seven myself. But one must not shirk responsibilities in life, no matter how much desire tempts.
About a year prior to his death, Frank Jowers sent a letter to Mrs. William Hester of Warren, Arkansas. Mrs. Hester was a half-sister to Essie Jowers. In the letter Frank told Hester he feared his wife was having an affair with another man, and he implored Hester to come visit their home and talk to her half-sister, because Frank feared he was losing his wife. Frank's patience had been tested for many months prior. Elisha Swift a Nehi delivery driver for a soft drink company had been visiting Mrs. Jowers far too much. Swift had first met Essie Jowers back in 1925 when he made a delivery of soft drinks to the Jowers Grocery store. Sometime after that Swift moved in as a boarder with the family after an auto accident had severely injured him.
Frank Jowers had previously hired Swift to do some work for his family so when the accident happened Frank kindly offered Christian charity and allowed Swift to live and recuperate in Jower's home in Haynesville. In fact Swift boarded at the house for several years. This was Frank's first mistake, he was too kind and it would come at a dear cost
Essie, nursed the apparently kind, yet half witted beverage salesman back to health but as she did so she fell in love with him and began a backstabbing infidelity in her own home with her children present.
In early 1927 Katie Jane Swift was fed up and told her husband Elisaha Swift to quit seeing Essie Jowers. Mrs. Swift knew her husband was up to no good and fooling around with another married woman and she wanted it to cease immediately. But like a loving wife she would let it continue for months more on end until she finally broke.
Elisha Swift was a heartless man with not much in the way of brains. How he even scored a first wife and had four children is beyond me because from everything I've read he was loser with a capital L. Swift had a record with authorities already, he had been caught running illegal booze, as prohibition was in full swing in Louisiana in the 1920s. In June 1927 Swift was jailed for 30 days after being caught running booze. His wife Katie Jane Swift had already separated from him at this point for his n'er do well ways. Swift had four children who he completely deserted and left for his wife to raise. After getting kicked out of his own home by his wife this left Swift to his own devices and with no place to live he begged Frank Jowers to continue letting him live at the Jowers residence.
And for the record the Jowers place was tiny compared to homes of today, there was barely room for Frank & Essie and their five children, much less a boarder. Swift had spent more time at the Jowers home in the past year than in his very own home with his own wife and kids. It was despicable behavior on Swift's part and no doubt deserved punishment even then. Frank Jowers was a nicer man than me, I would never have allowed that. Call me mean, call me whatever you want, but I would not have allowed that. It was ill advised and not a smart decision fraught with Christian charity. It was wrong.
The audacity and boldness of how Essie & Elisha carried on their affair in the home of the Frank Jowers, a fine Baptist Minister full of charity, faith and love is beyond me. The very fallible human hearts of Essie Jowers and her paramour Elisha Swift proved capable of a mountainous measure of depravity. Perhaps that diabolical duo of "duh" were clouded by the lust of the moment, or more so, sheer stupidity and an almost childlike ignorance from lack of moral education.
Finally by October 1927 Frank Jowers could take no more. After many months and when Swift was fully healed, Jowers ordered Swift to leave his home. This was about the first week of October 1927. Jowers told Swift to stay away from his home but it was too late. Elisha and Essie were caught up in a sordid love affair and Swift would not and did not stay away. Frank sent a letter to his younger brother, William David Jowers Jr. to come meet him in Haynesville to discuss the issue at hand. Will came to see Frank, and Frank proceeded to stand on the street and unburden his heart to his brother for two hours about the fact that Swift was dishonoring Frank's family. Frank sought Will's advice about what to do. Will suggested Frank leave with the children, but Frank, because of his children, was averse to breaking up the home and leaving it without a mother's care. So for Frank, divorce was not on the table. He cared too much for the kids to take their mother away from them. Ironically, his caring so much left Essie desperate to escape the marriage at any means and the children ended up fatherless and motherless in the end. A cruel unjustice was about to be served on those five innocent children, and at an unbearable life altering cost.
About a week later Frank awoke to his normal routine, drank his coffee, ate a quick bite then made his way to the grocery store to open it to customers for the day. A little while later as he was sweeping the front porch of the store, he became dizzy and had to sit down. A passerby noticed he looked faint and assisted him in getting to a doctor. It seems that Essie had tried to poison his coffee but had not used enough of the poison to take Frank out. He just became queasy and suffered an upset stomach and nothing more. After going to see a doctor Frank's blood was tested and doctors made a surprising discovery; the residue of a poison commonly used at the time to try and kill people. It was the first attempt by Essie to rid herself of Frank Jowers. But she had failed.
Essie Turnbow Jowers posed for a picture from her jail cell in Haynesville, Louisiana in December 1927
October 30 1927 began cold and bright in Haynesville, Louisiana. Frank, in a desperate measure, went to the Haynesville police and filed a report that Swift had been trespassing on his property after he had told him to stay away. On the afternoon of October 30th Swift was then incarcerated on a charge of disturbing the peace. Jowers had a change of heart and failed to appear to press charges because he knew the details of the affair would come out in a hearing and he did not want his families good name to be dragged through the mud. So Swift was released on the morning of October 31st. It was a fateful decision for Frank, because Swift was now free to kill his competition.
On the night of October 31, 1927 Elisha Swift, with the help of Essie, snuck into Frank Jowers' home and lay in wait like a slinking hyena holding the most sinister weapon a slayer can wield, a hammer. There, in Jower's own home, and with the full knowledge of Essie Jowers, Swift waited, hiding in a closet. After Frank arrived home from work, he ate, said prayers and tucked his children in. Frank then retired to his bedroom where he kneeled beside his bed to pray, while Swift hid in the closet behind him. Jowers then laid down to sleep and once he began snoring, Essie & Elisha went to work. Essie held a light while the evil Elisha struck the fatal blow to Frank's head. Blood was everywhere, but the end had come. Now the illicit lovers thought they could start their life together. But oh how wrong they were.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------
O Lord, God of vengeance, O God of vengeance, shine forth! Psalms 94:1
Like a muddied spring or a polluted fountain is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked. Proverbs 25:26
Several days went by and Essie Jowers protested that she did not know where Frank had gone. She wrote to Frank's brother Will Jowers and asked if Frank was staying there. Will Jowers went to Haynesville where Frank was declared missing and alerted Sheriff Coleman to be on the lookout for anything amiss around the Jowers home.
Claybourne Parish Sheriff John Coleman wanted to pay his condolences, not knowing at the time that his sympathy visit would blow the case wide open. Coleman went by the house on a Sunday, the Lord's day, the day when nobody worked. When Essie Jowers came to the door dripping in sweat with a mop and said that the children had dropped something on the floor and she was trying to get the stain up by applying varish. Now Sheriff Coleman knew this was very out of sorts and odd because it was a Sunday. He immediately became suspicious and put a plan into place, but kept quiet in front of Essie. The stains Essie was trying to clean up just happened to be the blood stains from the night of Frank's murder. The sheriff waited until Essie left the house then he went in and scraped shavings from the blood stained floor. After sending the shavings to a lab for analysis it was confirmed it was human blood. The next day the sheriff and his deputies traveled to Arkansas where Essie had fled with her children. They approached them, and within minutes Essie and Elisha both confessed and were arrested.
After a few more days Frank's body which had been placed in Caney Creek, by Elisha Swift & his son Paul, floated down to a bridge about 3 miles north of Minden on the Dorcheat Road. It lodged there and developed an awful odor, and began to swell and rise to the top of the water. A family who lived nearby noticed buzzards circling in the distance. They decided something must be dead there and when they arrived at the bridge, they saw what appeared to be the remains of a man.
They were so frightened that they left and went into Minden to get the sheriff. The body was weighted down with some iron objects, but it had flouted and brought the iron objects up with it. One of the things was an old fashioned flat iron.
My cousin, Alice Jowers Miller, said that they had to keep her Uncle Frank's body on the porch of the funeral home here because of its decomposition and odor.
As the pieces of the murder fit together, Essie and the Nehi beverage delivery man. Elisha Swift, were arrested and tried for the murder. The trial was held at the Claiborne Parish Courthouse in Homer, Louisiana and was quite a sensational event. The story dominated the front page of the Shreveport Times for months. The story received nationwide media attention from December 1927 until early February 1928.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them Ephesians 5:11
EPILOGUE:
Both Essie Jowers and Joshua Elisha Swift received life sentences at the notorious Louisiana Angola Prison Farm. But they didn't serve life. Alas, the U.S. justice system in the 1920s was just as corrupt and unjust at times as it is now. Seems many criminals then and now never truly pay enough for the crimes they commit. Almost 90 percent of all criminologists nationwide believe the death penalty does not deter crime and they'll try to give you empirical evidence all day to prove their point. But, I think they're all dead wrong and here's why; Dead people can't commit crimes again, period. But I'm just an armchair judge with no law degree and a fiery keyboard, not a gavel, so my opinion means nothing. But I'd be remiss if I didn't give it.
I tracked the pardon process and for a full ten years after her sentence, Essie Jowers attempted each year to obtain a pardon from the Governor of Louisiana. She lied, she cajoled, she begged and pleaded with the parole board each and every year. Yet each time she was turned down. Finally after about 15-20 years she was released,(according to Frank's half sister Edna Giddings) but she died not long afterwards of tuberculosis, adrift and alone. A fitting end.
If I had been the judge a sentence of death would have been served. An eye for eye would have been the most proper remedy for Essie Turnbow Jowers and Elisha Swift. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If everybody lived like that this world would be a better place.
I'm not sure of the exact date but Elishsa Swift was eventually pardoned as well and went back to where his wife's family was from, Harlem, Georgia (near Augusta) He died on January 26, 1955 at the age of 72 and is buried beside his wife Katie Jane at Harlem Memorial Cemetery in Harlem, Georgia. I traveled to this cemetery in 2019 to see for myself the resting place of one so evil. His stone is non-descript and does not even mention the name Elisha. It's listed as Joshua E. Swift. Another twist, some of Swift's kids and grandkids turned good and had upstanding careers, lives and families. Still some of his other grandkids continued the troubled legacy of his family and became criminals, owing to the fact that there probably is some sort of genetic component to the propensity for deranged personality traits. Yes I did the research and tracked them down because I wanted to know how his kids and grandkids turned out. I fully believe criminal behavior does have a genetic component and the propensity for the errant psychological issues can be passed to descendants through faulty DNA. Researchers have definitely established an association between gene variants and criminal behavior, but the exact link is still somewhat unclear. But there are many factors that make people criminals and regardless, we all have to answer for our own behavior and actions in this life, good and bad. We are influenced by our surroundings, our families, our friends and our own upbringing, yet ultimately we are responsible for making moral decisions and differentiating between right and wrong. Elisha Swift and Essie Jowers did not.
But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” Revelation 21:8
After the sensational trial ended and a conviction was handed down on February 1, 1928, the son of Elisha Swift, Paul Swift, was sent to reform school. Paul grew up and married Mabel Swayze and had a daughter. Tragically his father-in-law was killed when the father-in-law rushed into a burning house to attempt to save Paul's wife and daughter. Paul's wife and daughter survived that fire, but the father-in-law succumbed to smoke and flames.
Frank Jowers' brother William & his wife took the three younger children of Frank and Essie to live in their home. Frank & Essie's daughter Annie Ruth was the same age as William and his wife's daughter, Alice. Later, the oldest daughter of Frank and Essie, Norma Jowers came back and took the younger girl with her without their permission. The boys Frank Jr., Grover and Elvis Jowers grew up, joined the military and never came back to Louisiana. Grover died in Santa Clara California in 1963. He never had kids that I have been able to find. Elvis married and divorced twice and died in Santa Clara California in 1978. I have found no proof that he ever had any children. Frank Jr. died in Oregon in 1983. He did marry but I don't know if he ever had any children either. I still have not found out exactly what happened to the oldest daughter Norma. I believe the younger daughter Annie Ruth Jowers married and ended up in Kansas City Missouri.
Near Minden Louisiana the bridge on the Dorcheat Road is named the Caney Creek Bridge, but many old timers still refer to it as the Jowers Bridge, because the ghost of Frank Jowers, is still there, exclaiming we are but sinners in the hands of an angry God............
"Late at night there's a steely melody, floating outside Minden town,
On Caney Creek, you can still hear the sound
Ghost of Preacher Jowers, Bible in his hand, raising his fist to the sky,
Exhorting a fiery damnation to all who deny"
A hammer of wickedness silenced him
but he did not live in fear
A day of reckoning will appear
You can hear Jowers' words, floating through the bayou
"You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary
and you will not dwell with God forevermore,
if you neglect and forsake him like Essie & Elisha did.
Repent or burn eternal death."
Dallas Reese
December 2020
Daytona Beach, FL