Identity elements
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Collection
Title
James Horace Alderman's "The Life Story of James Horace Alderman" typescript
Date(s)
- 1929 (Creation)
Extent
1 Box
Name of creator
Biographical history
James Horace Alderman was born around 1882 near Tampa, Florida. He spent several years in the Thousand Islands area of southwest Florida as a farmer, fisherman, and field guide. With his wife Pearl and three daughters, Bessie, Ruby and Wilma, Alderman lived variously in Chokoloskee, Caxambas, Palmetto, and Tarracia Island before settling in Fort Meyers around 1911. After World War I and the passing of the National Prohibition Act, Horace Alderman began smuggling illegal immigrants and alcohol from Cuba and the Bahamas to Florida. In the 1920s, he set up a base of operations in Miami.
On the afternoon of 7 August 1927, Alderman and his associate Robert Weech were intercepted by a Coast Guard cutter in the waters between Florida and Bimini. After a series of events, Alderman killed Boatswain Sidney C. Sanderlin and Secret Service agent Robert K. Webster. The cutter's machinist, Victor A. Lamby, was seriously wounded and later died. Alderman was convicted for these three murders and sentenced to death in January 1928. Dubbed "the Gulf Stream Pirate" by the press, Horace Alderman was hung on 17 August 1929 at Coast Guard Base Six in Fort Lauderdale, the site of Bahia Mar Marina today. It was the only hanging ever carried out by the Coast Guard, the first hanging in Fort Lauderdale, and the only legal execution in Broward County.
Content and structure elements
Scope and content
James Horace Alderman (circa 1882-1929) was a Prohibition-era smuggler and rum runner who in 1927 killed three Coast Guard agents and was hanged two years later in Fort Lauderdale. This collection consists the typescript "The Life Story of James Horace Alderman," a memoir he wrote in the days leading up to his execution.
System of arrangement
Conditions of access and use elements
Conditions governing access
This collection is open for research.
Physical access
Technical access
Conditions governing reproduction
Permission to publish materials must be obtained in writing from the Head of Special Collections.
Languages of the material
- English
Scripts of the material
Language and script notes
Finding aids
Generated finding aid
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Custodial history
Immediate source of acquisition
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information
Accruals
Related materials elements
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related archival materials
Holdings in Special Collections:
Caudle, Hal M. The Hanging at Bahia Mar. Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.: Wake-Brook House, 1976.
Lehman, Frank. Encounter with the Gulf Stream Pirate. S.l.: s.n., 1979
Other Resources:
Crankshaw, Joe. "Finding God on Death Row an Old Story." The Miami Herald, February 9, 1998.
Rowe, Sean. "The Gallows and the Deep." New Times Broward-Palm Beach, December 4, 1997.
Related descriptions
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Rights Statement:
The text of this webpage is available for modification and reuse under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License and the GNU Free Documentation License (unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts).
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Archivist's note
Collection title updated on 01/2021, by Kalani Adolpho