News Articles for Hillsborough County, Florida

Newspaper articles concerning the surnames that I am researching: Buzbee, Pitts, Swilley, Hewett, Sumner. All of these articles are about a family member, whether close or distant relation. Two Old Graves Dug Into In Riverview Cemetery. Two graves have been mysteriously dug into in an out-of-the-way cemetery south of Riverview and authorities say they are at a loss to explain what was behind the "grave robbing". Sheriff's Deputy Wayne Swanson said a skull from each of the two graves was left outside along with part of a leg bone of one person, and then the graves were covered up. The digging apparently was done about two weeks ago. Swanson said he believes the graves were dug into by some "crank". The graves are located in a pioneer family plot, which includes about 40 graves. It is located behind the property of H. H. Lamp on Bell Shore Rd. The plot was used by the Barnes and Buzbee families, and has not been used for burials since 1940. Graves dug up were those of Mrs. Caroline Buzbee, who died in 1887 at the age of 63, and Lydia Viola Barnes, who died in 1902 at the age of 9. The tombstone on the first grave was moved, the one on the girl's grave was broken, and another stone, on the grave of Zena Everlina Barnes, was broken. Swanson said a man who attended the funerals of many of the people in the cemetery told him that he didn't think any of them were buried with valuables. The Buzbee woman's tombstone was impressive, however, which could have led someone to believe that valuables were buried with her. I don't know what to think, it's got me puzzled. Swanson said. But he indicated he leaned to the possibility that was suggested by one man living in the region that "some crackpot" wnted to talk to dead people. Swanson said the Barnes girl died on the same day that two other children in the family died-during the typhoid epidemic. [Source]: Tampa Tribune-Mrs. Caroline Buzbee was the 1st wife of my great-great grandfather, Lawrence Buzbee. Second Man Dies in Gibsonton Wreck An 80-year-old man became the second fatality Tuesday in a Gibsonton accident from the day before. James G. Buzbee, 80, and Oliver P. Buzbee, 87, both of Gibsonton, were transported to Tampa General Hospital after a crash at State Road 45 and Cliff Road. Oliver Buzbee died Monday night. James G. Buzbee died Tuesday morning. Florida Highway Patrol said Oliver Buzbee made a U-turn into oncoming traffic and collided with a 1989 Mercury. Memo: Correction (11/17/06): Oliver P. Buzbee, 87, survived an accident Monday night in Gibsonton that killed James G. Buzbee, 80. Oliver Buzbee was treated and released from Tampa General Hospital. Stories Tuesday and Wednesday incorrectly said Oliver Buzbee also died. [Source]: Tampa Tribune; James G. Buzbee and Oliver P. Buzbee are the sons of Oliver Perry Buzbee of Gibsonton. Oliver Perry Buzbee was the son of Oliver Henry Buzbee. Unidentified woman killed Sep 5, 2001 An unidentified woman was killed Tuesday night when she was struck by a van while walking along Gibsonton Drive. Hillsborough Sheriff's deputies think she might have been walking home from work at a nearby fast-food restaurant. The accident occurred about 8:30 p.m. just east of Interstate 75. Sheriff's Office spokesman Sgt. Rod Reder said the woman, believed to be in her early 30s, was walking west on Gibsonton Drive when she was struck from behind by a 1998 Dodge Van driven by Spencer Buzbee, 57, of Riverview. The woman died at the scene. Buzbee has not been cited with any offense, though deputies were still investigating the crash late Tuesday. [Source]: Tampa Tribune Woman Identified Sept 6, 2001 TAMPA - Investigators have identified a pedestrian struck and killed by a car Tuesday night as a 33-year-old Gibsonton woman. Doris Ruth Bennett, of 10024 Alavista Drive, was killed as she walked along Gibsonton Drive near Interstate 75, Hillsborough sheriff's deputies said. Investigators said Bennett was walking along the north side of the road at 8:43 p.m. when she was struck by a Dodge van driven by Spencer John Buzbee, 57, of 4134 Causeway Blvd. Bennett was pronounced dead at the scene. No charges have been filed against Buzbee. [Source]: Tampa Tribune William C. Buzbee Graduates May 28, 2001 Air Force Airman 1st Class William C. Buzbee graduated from basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas. He is the son of William C. Buzbee and grandson of Doris Buzbee, both of Ruskin. He is a 1996 graduate of East Bay Senior High School, Gibsonton. [Source]: Tampa Tribune Officer Kills Man In Effort To Stop Early Morning Row July 26, 1926-William Hewett, of Gardenville, loses life near Ruskin. John McCain, Serving Under Sheriff, Held in County Jail Climaxing a drunken brawl, William H. Hewett, 26, of Gardenville, this county, was fatally wounded early yesterday morning by John McCain, 62 year old deputy sheriff, of Ruskin, who shot Hewett after the latter had resisted arrest and followed the officer who left the scene for assistance. McCain fired one shot at Hewett after the latter followed him about 25 yards. The bullet struck Hewett in the abdomen and he died at 5 o'clock in the Gordon Keller Hospital. The deputy sheriff was lodged in the county jail by brother officers to await the meeting of the grand jury tomorrow. Sheriff Hiers, when informed of the shooting, immediately began an investigation and announced yesterday that he was convinced his deputy was within his rights in shooting Hewett. "So far as this office is concerned," Sheriff Hiers declared, "McCain has been fully exonerated. I investigated the case thoroughly, and I am convinced McCain did not shoot until it was necessary. "A lone officer, attempting to enforce the law on a drunken party at 3 a.m. in the morning, has little chance. We are holding McCain in the county jail for the grand jury." Hewett was unarmed, but, according to the deputies who investigated the case, was in a ugly mood and intent on picking a fight with McCain The shooting took place near Ruskin, about 25 miles from Tampa, at 3 a. m. yesterday morning. Hewett, Earnest Walthrup and George Kirk, all of Ruskin, were in an automobile when an argument arose over who was to drive the car. When Walthrup protested against Hewett driving the machine on account of his condition, the latter struck Walthrup with his fist and knocked him unconscious. In the meantime, McCain, who lives near the scene, had received word of the fight and arrived at the car a few minutes after the fight had ended. He attempted to arrest the men, but Hewett started to get out of the machine, declaring that he would not be arrested. The deputy then started to walk away, explaining later that he meant to get assistance and return. Hewett followed him, however, and when the officer saw that he would be overtaken by the man, he turned and fired one shot. Hewett fell to the ground mortally wounded, and McCain returned and stood by the wounded man until other residents of the neighborhood arrived. He then turned over his gun to George Stein, a citizen and asked that the sheriff be notified. Deputy Sheriffs McGee and Danville immediately went to the scene and placed their brother deputy under arrest. Hewett was sent to Gordon Keller hospital in a private machine but died without regaining consciousness. McCain has been a deputy under Sheriff Hiers for the past year. His district is a particularly difficult one in which to maintain order, Sheriff Hiers said, and the officer has made a good record. Attaches of the sheriff's office predicted that he would be officially exonerated. The body of the dead man was removed to F. T. Blount's undertaking establishment and will be buried Tuesday morning from their funeral chapel. He is survived by his father and a sister. (William Henry Hewett was the brother to my great-grandmother, Annie Belle Hewett Buzbee, he was 26 years old when he died) [Source]: Tampa Tribune Nebraska Can Tell You A Few Things About Living Old Sun City-He's a character, that old Nebraska Buzbee. He and Kansas, his twin sister, have witnessed nearly a century of life along the Little Manatee River. Ask their age and you may start a family argument. Nebraska say they were born in 1884. Kansas says it was in 1888. No one is going to quibble with them over a few years, and it's irrelevant next to the farming, fishing and basic living they have known. Their parents moved from Alabama in the 1880's, and the twins were born "off in the woods somewhere" near the river and present-day Ruskin. "Only it wasn't Ruskin then, when we was born," Nebraska said. "It's what they called Siberia. It was just wild woods then, and they had a convict camp down there." The convicts "pulled trees" for a nearby turpentine still. Nebraska laughed when he told of his childhood "You see now, we'd get out there and play all kinds of little games, and hide and seek and they'd have races," he said. The most interesting game to me was whenever we had cornshucking time. We had big cribs of corn, you know, and the first one to find the red ear of corn got to kiss the prettiest girl! "I'd hunt that red ear as hard as I could, and when I found one, that girl would get up and run, and I'd have to run her down to get a kiss!" he laughed. "We used to have a real time like that when we was kids, you know. We used have a real time," he added with a grin. The Buzbee family had seven children who learned early about respect and obedience. "Well, I'll tell you, if I didn't mind my momma, I got a palmetto switch on me!" Nebraska said. "I'll tell you that, we knowed to mind" The only school in the area was five miles from the Buzbee homestead, too far for the young twins to walk. Neither had much formal education. "I learned from the good Lord's works," Nebraska said. An adult today transplanted into the Buzbees' early home life would find it grueling, but Nebraska and his sister merely see it as different. "We didn't have nothing in this country when I was born," Nebraska said, laughing as he often does. "We'd burn an old kerosene lamp, and next you'd wake up and your nose would be plumb black with the soot!" "We had a good nice woodstove," said his sister, Mrs. Kansas Jahn. "We baked in that, pork or cakes or whatever you wanted to cook." Almost all staples were raised and consumed on the family farm, with very little being shipped to market. "We plowed two oxen and a horse," Nebraska said. "We raised sweet potatoes, and corn, peas, melon, everything." Sugar for sweet cakes was made at home from homegrown sugar cane. "Dad would boil it down pretty well, then put it in a sack up there and drip it and make white sugar," he explained. "We made molasses, we made syrup, and we used to grind cane for all the folks around," he said. The cane mill for molasses had three rollers. "You stick your cane in there, and them three rollers mashes all that juice out that cane. That leaves a pulp there, and the juice has all run out of the barrel," he explained. "That's all you can make your syrup out of is the juice, you know." Spoilage was a problem which had to be circumvented by the early settlers before refrigeration became a common solution. "The hogs and our sausage was smoked in smokehouses," said Nebraska's sister. "That's how we kept it from spoiling. some of the hogs that was too fat, they'd saw it up for bacon." "Rice was grown in a pond, and when it gets ripe you take it out and dry it," she explained. "They had a big mortar there that you pulled down and beat the husk off it." "Then you carried a sheet out there and the wind was blowing to blow all that stuff off," she continued. "Well, you could bag that rice and keep it, just like you can now." The family needed a winter supply of vegetables. "We'd bank them," Kansas said. "You take a lot of straw and put a bin around. Put turnips and rutabagas in that, and put that straw on them. Then you could go out and get that pine bark, any kind you wanted, and you made something like a hut, a indian hut." She explained, "In the winter, when there wasn't no vegetables growing, they would sprout and have big, long leaves on them and we'd have our vegetables." If anyone in the family "took sick," the family doctor or a home remedy would provide the cure. "We had an old country doctor," Kansas said. "He lived in the woods not too far from here, old Doctor Sims. "If you took the fever, they had a weed, they called it fever weed. Weed grew up like that, about a foot, with a little blue flower on it," she said. "They'd take that and make a tea out of it. "Then there's Jerusalem oak. Take the buds of that and boil it and make candy out of it. They gave us that for worms," she remembered. "Quin's delight," another weed, made a tonic for the blood, she said. Nebraska's cure for fever was different from "fever weed." He used Dodson's Liver Tone. Nebraska related some of his youthful adventures, which took place when Tampa was also young. " I remember when they didn't have nothing in Tampa but one block street. Well, me and my brother used to haul potatoes to Tampa with the oxen and wagon for 25 cents a bushel." "When they put the street cars in there, the old oxen would fight the street cars and we'd have a time." he laughed. "That old oxen would go up and run into that street car, and we couldn't keep him from it to save our life!" The rugged life style of the period necessitated not only close family cooperation but fostered an unusual sense of community interdependence. Many community activities were both proactial and fun. "We'd let the whole community know when the cornshucking time was, and we'd have a big crib of corn," he related. "The Tuckers would do the same thing, and the Simmons." Games such as finding the red ear of corn were popular. "We'd gather up folks and go down to the bay fishing." he said. " On Sunday we;d go over and get them in the wagon. We had a little log church over there, and we'd all go over to the little log church." Dances were also a popular form of community entertainment. Buzbee was "courting" his wife to be for five years before they married in 1916, and often went to dances in Ruskin. "I was tugboating then," he remembered. "When I got ashore I'd come to see her. We'd talk about old times and talk about how we loved one another and all this that and the other, you know. Sometimes we'd go to the dances." Kansas' courtship with her husband to be was much stricter than that of most young girls today. "He'd come to my house to see me, and then go home," she related with a smile. Weather was colder and rain was harder and more frequent while the twins were growing up, they said. "We got lots of rain this year," Nebraska said, "but we ain't got no rain at all to what we used to get. "In those days the rain is not like it is now," his sister agreed. "When it started raining in the morning, it rained until the next morning, all day and all night." "It seems like it's hotter than it used to be," Nebraska added. "We used to have some good cold weather down here. I've seen icicles down here on the river eight and 10 feet long, but we don't have any more cold weather here." The inclement weather wasn't enough to keep politicians of the time from being just as active as they are today, however. Kansas remembered voting for county commissioner after woman's suffrage was added to the Constitution. "I was in New York," she related, "and I came back in and voted for Elbert Moor. He paid my way here, and he paid my way back, and I voted for him. Gradually modern conveniences began to infiltrate the area, and automobiles became an attraction. Nebraska and his brother built their first "horseless carriage." "We made us a car out of an old buggy and put a 10 horse engine on it. Put an old belt on the thing, and you go ahead but you couldn't back up. That was 1908," he remembered. The twins are both in good health. Nebraska fishes and recently passed his Florida driver's test without having to wear glasses. "I never drink any." he said. "I never drank that old drop of beer in my life. I don't smoke, and I don't cuss, neither. I leave all that for the other fellow." Kansas said her only secret for keeping in good health was to stay active. "You can give up and sit there, and pretty soon you can't get around," she said. "You've got to get a certain amount of exercise because if you don't you're going to get so stiff after a while that you can't get any." Both twins seem happy, but a bit nostalgic for the simpler days of wagons and cornshucking and courting in the home. "It ain't nothing like it used to be, honey. It's just nothing like it used to be." Nebraska said. [Source]: Tampa Tribune; Nebraska Buzbee was the son of Lawrence and Caroline Perry Buzbee of Ruskin Ruskin Girl Killed In Accident A six-year-old Ruskin girl was killed last night when she darted into the path of an automobile on West College Avenue, in front of the First Baptist Church. Dead on arrival at Manatee Memorial Hospital in Bradenton was Michelle J. Buzbee. Florida Highway Patrolman J. A. Johns said the child had apparently come from the church and was crossing to the church training union building across the road when the accident happened. No charges were placed against the driver, Orville L. Hart, 75, also of Ruskin. [Source]: Tampa Tribune; Michele was the daughter of Nebraska Jr " Junior" and Opal Buzbee of Ruskin. FOUR ALLEGED FLOGGERS HELD AFTER HEARING _________ Ruskin Man and Woman Say They Were Beaten at Night Two men and two women, accused in connection with an alleged attack on M. H. Davis, a fisherman, and Mrs. Osham Wright, in the Ruskin settlement, early in September, were held for criminal court in bond yesterday, after preliminary hearing before County Judge Cornelius. Mannie Grace and Dalls Busbee were put under $500 bond each, charged with assault with intent to murder. Mrs. Kansan Clark and Georgie Grace posted $100 bond each on charges of assault and battery. Seven others, two women and five men, jointly accused in the attack charges, were released because of insufficient evidence that they took part in the affair. Those released were Belle Hatfield, Lovie Busbee, Ernest Busbee, Lee Hatfield, Gerald Johnson, Ray Batchelder and Clarence Bogan. Charges Denied Davis and Mrs. Wright testified that the accused persons went to the home of Mrs. Wright's father late at night, dragged Davis from an upstairs room where he slept, slashed him with knives and beat him with pistols, while women of the party beat Mrs. Wright, who occupied a room on the lower floor. The defendants denied these accusations. They admitted being at the home, but said the difficulty arose when Davis attacked a man named Lewis with a pocketknife. [Source]: The Tampa Morning Tribune, Thursday, October 6, 1927; page 5. CLERK AT GIBSONTON MISSING WITH $400 _________ While P. L. Busbee, a grocer at Gibsonton, and J. E. Nelson, a clerk were at a nearby barber shop getting shaved, a second clerk disappeared last night with more than $400 from the cash register. The missing clerk, Busbee said, had been employed in the store about three weeks, and had suggested that the other go to the barber shop. Four deputy sheriffs went to Gibsonton to investigate. [Source]: The Tampa Morning Tribune, Thursday, April 29, 1927; page 5. FOUR FISHERMEN ARRESTED _________ Four men were arrested yesterday by Louis Hall, county fish warden, on charges of stopnet fishing in Hillsborough Bay in violation of state laws. The four, N. B. Busbee, Ernest Busbee, Eddie Boone and Wilburn Pelham, all of Ruskin, posted $250 bonds, pending a preliminary hearing before County Judge Cornelius. [Source]: The Tampa Morning Tribune, Thursday, April 29, 1927; page 5. ALBERTA HAGIN Ruskin Girl Wins Award As Homemaker RUSKIN - Alberta Hagin, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Mabry Hagin of Ruskin, a senior at East Bay High School, has been named the 1960 Betty Crocker Homemaker of Tomorrow. Miss Hagin received the highest score in a 50-minute written examination on homemaking knowledge and attitudes taken by graduating senior girls. She will receive an award pin representing the slogan, "Home is Where the Heart is." Her examination paper will be submitted for competition with other high school winners to name the state Betty Crocker Homemake of Tomorrow. The test, prepared and judged by Science Research Associates of Chicago, was taken by a record number of 379,018 girls in 12,597 schools, and increase of 29,868 girls and 337 schools over last year. Each state Homemaker of Tomorrow will receive a $1,500 scholarship and an educational trip April 23-29 with her school adviser. The tour will include New York City and Colonial Williamsburg and will culminate with the American Table Banquet in Washington, D. C., on April 28, at the Statler Hilton Hotel where the All-American Homemaker of Tomorrow will be annouced. The runner-up in each state will receive a $500 scholarship; the school of each state winner will be given a set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The scholarship of the All-American Homemaker of Tomorrow will be increased to $5,000. The second, third and fourth ranking Homemakers of Tomorrow in the nation will receive $4,000, $3,000 and $2,000 scholarships, respectively. [Source]: Source: St. Petersburg Times - Jan 28, 1960. Transcribed and submitted by Sheila D. Massie Two Have Joint Birtday Party at Gibsonton Home ------------ Miss Marie Johnson and Benson Buzbee celebrated their birthday anniversaries jointly Saturday evening at the home of Mrs. Guy Buzbee in Gibsonton. A pink and green color motif was carried out in the party appointments. Games and contests were enjoyed during the evening, after which refreshments were served. Those attending were Miss Nellie Patterson, Miss Annie Byrd Buzbee, Miss Myrtice Buzbee, Miss Jessie Hill, Miss Maxine Meeks, Mis Corene Gurlie, Miss Marie Graves, Miss Evelyn Tucker, Mrs. Carrie Bell Lincoln, Mr. and Mrs. Ebb Buzbee, Mr. and Mrs. Guy Buzbee, Mr. and Mrs. N. A. Chesser, Mrs. Fannie Buzbee. Benson Buzbee, Buddy Buzbee, Frank Buzbee, Dan Reese, Byrd Moody, Roland Reese, Wilmer Meeks, Warren Thompson, #Eric Lincoln, Luther Thompson, Farrel Hill, Murdock Buzbee, Preston Sweat, Ralph Gurlie, Eugene Garden and Louis Messer. [Source]: Source: Tampa Morning Tribune - Tuesday - April 28, 1931. Page 8. Transcribed and submitted by Sheila D. Massie