In the late 19th century, the pine forests of North Florida were alive with the sounds of industry, particularly the demanding work of turpentine extraction. These remote camps were populated by laborers, many of whom were African American, living and working in harsh, isolated conditions. It was in this setting, at a turpentine camp near the small town of Fort White in Columbia County, that a man named John Bell, of unknown age, found his life abruptly and violently ended.
His death on March 25, 1893, would eventually be linked to one of the era's lesser-known serial killers.
On that Saturday, John Bell was in the company of Sessom Calhoun when they were confronted by Thomas J. Hampton, a drifter who worked at the camp. For reasons that remain lost to history, Hampton, who was known as T.J., pulled out a gun and opened fire on the men. A third man, J. W. Holliday, was also shot but managed to survive the brutal attack. Bell and Calhoun were not as fortunate; both were killed on the spot. The sudden violence shattered the rough-hewn peace of the camp and set in motion a manhunt that would last for years.
Authorities acted swiftly in the immediate aftermath, and Hampton was soon arrested and charged with the murders of Bell and Calhoun. Justice, however, was not to be swift. Before he could be brought to trial, Hampton managed to escape from custody, disappearing and leaving the community with a sense of unease and unanswered questions. For eight years, he remained a fugitive, his whereabouts unknown, while the story of the double murder near Fort White faded into local memory, an unsolved crime lingering in the pine-scented air.
The case was finally revived in 1901 when law enforcement recaptured Hampton. He was brought back to Columbia County to face charges for the murders he had committed nearly a decade earlier. His trial for the deaths of John Bell and Sessom Calhoun resulted in a conviction on two counts of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to death by hanging. The racial climate of the Jim Crow South was fraught with tension, and threats of mob violence were so significant that Governor William Sherman Jennings assigned state troopers to protect Hampton, an African American man, from a potential lynching before his sentence could be carried out.
On December 6, 1901, Thomas J. Hampton was taken to the gallows in Lake City. In his final moments, while calmly smoking a cigarette, he made a startling confession. He admitted to the murders of Bell and Calhoun, for which he was about to be executed, but he didn't stop there. He went on to confess to three other murders he had committed during his years as a drifter. His killing spree began in 1887 with the murder of a train conductor in Lexington County, South Carolina. He also admitted to two additional, unspecified murders in Georgia.
With Hampton's execution, the legal case of John Bell's murder was closed. The deaths of Bell and Sessom Calhoun were the second and third of five murders proven to have been committed by Hampton between 1887 and 1893. While justice was ultimately served, the passage of time has obscured the personal stories of the victims. Little is known today about John Bell or Sessom Calhoun, the lives they led, or the families they may have left behind. Their names are preserved primarily in the grim record of a serial killer's confession, a final, chilling testament to the violence that found them in a Florida turpentine camp so long ago.
