By Mike Simmons
The 1819 Transcontinental Treaty between the United States and Spain ceded Florida to the United States, defined the western boundary of the Louisiana Purchase, and renounced the United States’ claim to Texas. As part of that treaty, future U.S. President James Monroe ordered future U.S. President Andrew Jackson to Pensacola where the ceremony would take place to accept Florida for the United States. The ceremony took place in Plaza Ferdinand on July 17, 1821.
Two days later – July 19 – Jackson appointed a constable to police the new city. James Craig became the first Pensacola Police Officer. 76 years later, in 1897, the first known photo of the police department was taken. Below it are the names of the officers.
On the front row, seated on the far left is Marshal Edward A. Wallace. He was elected on June 7, 1895. The job of Marshal was far different from that of police chief today. Marshal Wallace placed several notices in the Pensacola News Journal during his tenure. He announced that a pawn ticket had been found, he ordered that all boxes and buckets be picked up from back yards, he announced that he found a suit of clothes hanging from a tree, he announced that a cow was for sale, and he kept was said to keep ‘tramps’ out of the city.
In 1895, he was on hand with Mayor McHugh at the first trial of executing dogs at the city pound. Later that year, in a ceremony at the police station, he presented the mayor with an expensive fountain pen and desk ornament. It seemed that the mayor and marshal were close. They spent a lot of time inspecting the city’s utility poles and ensuring the owners paid the taxes on them.
That’s when things got strange. First, in 1896, W.E. Anderson ran against McHugh for mayor in a hotly contested race. Finally, the case went to court, and Anderson was declared the winner. The ex-mayor went back to being a businessman. However, in June, McHugh’s business burned to the ground, and he left town. The building was fully insured. But McHugh was back the next year and was re-elected. Then, it seemed that there were inconsitencies in the marshal’s financial account. The city’s finance committee opened an investigation. Nothing happened – yet.
In October, he was still marshal. But in January 1898 he was listed as the ex-marshal and was making bond after having been arrested. It turns out that he and Mayor McHugh were involved in several extortion and blackmail schemes, but when Wallace was arrested…McHugh had vanished! He went into hiding, leaving his friend to face the music alone. Wallace was sentenced to a year at hard labor for one case and five years in state prison for the other. Needless to say, his days as marshal were over. He was replaced by Assistant Marshal Frank Wilde.
The next year Wallace was out and had gone to work for the railroad. That is when his old ‘friend,’ Pat McHugh, arrived back in town. He plead guilty and had to spend a year in jail and pay a fine.
On July 2, 1900, at the age of 39, Wallace was involved in a railroad accident near Selma, Alabama in a small town called Aldrich. He was a conductor on the Southern Railway run between Selma and Birmingham when he lost his footing and fell beneath the train and was killed. His wife’s brother Fred Massy was given the responsibility to go to his Warrington home and inform his wife of her husband’s death. His body was returned to Pensacola and buried in St. Michael’s Cemetery.
