The saga of Escambia County’s first black outlaw began when a Negro man by the name of Bill wandered into the town of Atmore looking for work. The year was about 1885 and the man was approximate thirty years old, with a slight frame, 5’6” and 140 pounds and uncommonly high cheekbones. He worked all through the area in a variety of jobs such as a herdsman tending hogs and sheep, a turpentine laborer collecting pine sap, and as a railroad worker laying and repairing tracks up and down the line. Because of his current job on the railroad and his disinclination to give them any name other than Bill, most people just called him “Railroad Bill.” He was a quiet man, who displayed a fascination for guns, especially his Winchester rifle that he carried with him everywhere he went. Some say that he even carried it from tree to tree when he was collecting the pine sap from the tin trough-like pans used in the turpentine trade. Because of this obsession with his rifle many people felt he must have been running from some sort of dark past or even maybe from the law.
None knew at the time that his real name was Bill McCoy with an alias of Morris Slater, of which neither name was wanted by anybody. Although he was said to be a crack shot with his rifle, he was basically a peaceful man who loved doing magic tricks for all the little white and black children around his work sites. Bill claimed to have learned his skills during the seven years he had worked in a circus. He would spend hours showing children an entire assortment of tricks he had accumulated along the way. One trick was to swallow an entire egg and then spit it back out without ever breaking the shell. He could even walk or run on his hands or shoot a coin tossed into the air with deadly accuracy both with equal enthusiasm.
It was these unusual tricks that would later cause the local Negroes to credit him with supernatural powers. For instance, one such legend stated that he could change himself into an animal at will or even render himself invisible. In other words, he was in direct league with the devil who gave him these “changeling” powers. The stories spread far and wide about Railroad Bill as word began to circulate among the back woods people that perhaps he was not human at all. Some people even said years later that only a silver bullet would be able to kill him. Other stories were passed from mouth to mouth that after his death, the man tending his body had been accidentally scratched by Bill’s fingernails causing the instant death of the caretaker. One woman in the area even related that she saw Bill coming down the road one day and just before he got to her he turned himself into a sheep right in front of her. (Continued)
