James T. Magbee, known as J. T. Magbee, was a pioneer of Tampa, Florida, the town's first lawyer, and the federal collector of revenues at Tampa.[Ossian Bingley Hart: Florida's Loyalist Reconstruction Governor, page 101, Canter Brown, 1997, Magbee was a Florida State Constitutional Convention delegate, a Florida State Senator, a newspaper editor and a judge of the Circuit Court. He owned slaves prior to the Civil War.Tampa in Civil War and Reconstruction by Carter Brown Jr. Page 12
He edited the Tampa Guardian.
During the American Civil War, he prosecuted James McKay Sr., once mayor of Tampa and a cattleman, for treason against the Confederacy. McKay was accused of trading with the Union forces in Key West as well as being a Federal spy. The trial was postponed and McKay left Tampa only to be arrested by the Union for smuggling.
After the war Magbee became a "scalawag", a term of derision, when he changed affiliations from southern Democrats, to northern Republicans. Known for his public drunkenness, Tampa residents spread molasses and cornmeal on his unconscious body where it lay in the street and pigs reportedly ate off the sweet mixture along with some of the judge's clothes.http://scholarcommons.usf.edu, University of South Florida, Scholar Commons, Digital Collection - Florida Studies Center, Publications, Digital Collection - Florida Studies Center, 11-1-1994, Sunland Tribune 20/01, Tampa Historical Society, pg 28, He was impeached as a judge in early 1870. However, in January 1871, the impeachment was abandoned without an impeachment trial verdict.
Magbee is buried in downtown Tampa's Oaklawn Cemetery.
References
Further reading JAMES T. MAGBEE; "Union Man, Undoubted Secessionist and High Priest in the Radical Synagogue” by KYLE S. VANLANDINGHAM