Jim Bradshaw: 'Sporting proclivities' brought down a sheriff

The year 1904 was a hard one for Sheriff John Addison Perkins of Calcasieu Parish, which then stretched all the way from the Sabine to the Mermentau River.
He’d made a name for himself several years earlier with the arrest and execution of Ed Batson, who had been accused of multiple murders.
But at the beginning of 1904 Perkins had to go to court to try to hold onto his job.
Later in the year, when he was charged with running off with a lot of parish money, he didn’t even show up for court.
In the first primary election in 1904, former sheriff D.J. “Kinney” Reid got nearly double the vote for the incumbent Perkins, 1,370 to, 764, but two other candidates, S.M. Lyons and Aladin Vincent polled just enough votes to throw it into a runoff;.
Reid was 172 votes short of a majority in that first  vote.
Reid had been sheriff from 1884 to 1892, and, according to one press account, “his reputation for bravery almost to recklessness in handling the toughest kind of lawless characters who came into Calcasieu from Texas and other states … was known throughout the South and West.”
He’d been defeated when claims surfaced about “discrepancies in his accounts.” But those apparently were nothing like what was to come for Perkins.
Reid again beat Perkins handily in the second primary, but this time Perkins went to court and claimed Reid hadn‘t cleared up the old money problems.
That challenge was still pending and Perkins was still sheriff in early June 1904, when George Spyke, “a special officer from the Auditor’s Office,” came to visit. Spyke found out almost immediately that somebody’s hand had been in the parish cookie jar and was pretty quick to find out who’s hand it was.
The Welsh Rice Belt Journal reported on June 10 that “a warrant was sworn out for [Perkins’s] arrest … for the misappropriation of parish and school funds to the amount of $63,800.13.” That would be nearly $2 million in today’s dollars.
The newspaper also reported, “Before the warrant for his arrest was issued, Perkins absented himself from the city of Lake Charles and since that time his whereabouts have been unknown to authorities, although an effort has been made to locate him in many towns in Texas and Louisiana.”
A New Orleans paper reported. “Perkins’ downfall … was due to his sporting proclivities.
"Up to the time he became sheriff of Calcasieu Parish he had shown no tendency to flirt with the Goddess of Fortune … but he had not been in office long before he developed a weakness to play the races and became an inveterate poker player. …
"It was only a short time ago that he came [to New Orleans] and played poker. The play was high, and Perkins’ losses are said to have been heavy. People in Lake Charles had become suspicious of his conduct some time previous … and that is why he was defeated for re-election.”
The governor immediately suspended Perkins from office and appointed banker and civic leader John Albert Bel as provisional sheriff.  
But Coroner W. L. Fisher had already claimed the temporary job and refused to give it up, causing the Baton Rouge Times to report in July:
“The parish of Calcasieu … has four sheriffs, and yet it has none. The four sheriffs are D. J. Reid, the elected; John A. Perkins, the suspended; J. A. Bell [sic], the commissioned; [and] W. L. Fisher, the acting. Dr. Fisher … has assumed charge of the office, and it is intimated that he will not turn over the office to the provisional sheriff recently named by the governor.”
Reid was eventually certified as the election winner and given the OK to take office.  Meanwhile, other creditors rushed to claim Perkins owed them another $10,000 (about $250,000 today) or more.
All of these cases went to court in mid-August 1904, but Perkins was nowhere to be seen.
According to an Aug. 19 press account, “The various cases against John A. Perkins … came up in the district court at Lake Charles Tuesday for trial. There are six cases all told, and there was a formidable array of legal talent at the bar. Perkins … had no representative in court, and there being no opposition, the cases went against him by default.”
He eventually came home again, but as a ruined man.
The 1910 federal census shows a John A. Perkins of the right age living in New Orleans, and the 1920 census found the former sheriff living in Calcasieu Parish with his son-in-law W. L. Fitzenreiterr.
His family genealogy shows that Perkins died in DeQuincy in October 1940 at the age of 78.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA.