OLD AGE IS NOT FOR SISSIES

NOTHING IN LIFE IS TO BE FEARED

When Location Becomes Their Story

by Filed Under: Books, Following Old Trails, Genealogy, Palmetto Pioneers

One of the most important parts of writing the book “Palmetto Pioneers” was research. Studying the location of my chosen ancestor became an important next step.

But let’s take a step back. I didn’t begin looking at the locations. I began reviewing what I already knew about my main character, Mary. I went back to my original research, first to my paper files, then my online files, such as her family’s Ancestry tree.

This review identified all the places she had lived or traveled. This was easy because Mary lived in Colleton District, South Carolina and traveled by wagon with her parents and extended family to Jefferson County, Florida. It appears she lived there for the rest of her life, so I only had three locations to research, but one of which was fluid.

I asked questions. Where was she married (Jefferson County, Florida marriage record)? When and where were her children born (census records which showed when and where she lived)? Where and when did she die? I also looked for land, court, and probate records.

Full Book Cover–Front, Back, & Spine

An important part of this process was making a timeline for the family. It had three columns—one for the event, one for the date, and another for the place. It helped tremendously when trying to find events or write about them in the correct order they happened.

It also showed flaws in the research. Not everyone’s memory is the same for any event, and people make mistakes when recording important dates. Timelines helped me find the discrepancies and then helped me either fix the discrepancies or explain them in the book.

These earlier steps, used to analyze Mary and those around her, brought me to the next part of my research.

Where did these events take place? And what did I know about them?

Using census records for her father and the other Walker heads of household in the family, we know she came from South Carolina, most likely Colleton District, southwest of Charleston. But what did I really know about that area? This became an important question for the next step.

I began with the courthouse in Colleton County, but before making a trip up there, I researched the courthouse itself and where I could expect to find records. Right away, I discovered that though the courthouse itself did not burn during the Civil War, its records did. Because they were on the path of Sherman, they sent their records for safekeeping to their capital, Columbia. After marching through Colleton County and leaving its courthouse untouched, Sherman made a beeline to Columbia and burned the capitol and Colleton’s records there.

However, I learned that there are land records in neighboring counties that show lands near the county lines. They reflect who owned the land across the line. Barnwell County’s records for Lightsey lands showed the Walkers were their neighbors in Colleton County. I also learned that people have donated records from their families to a local Genealogy Room, which was in the same building as Colleton’s extension service. There is also a genealogy room at the county library.

Roadtrip!

This led to my favorite pastime—travel. Add a trip to a genealogical site, and for me it is a match made in heaven. I chose one of the old routes, certainly not an interstate highway, and I drove from Monticello to Walterboro, wondering if these families may have used a trail or road nearby.

Family Search Wiki, Colonial Roads in America

Using all this information, I made several trips to Walterboro, the county seat, and to the location of the Walker lands near Carter’s Ford on the Little Salkehatchie River. This location research was invaluable to the story, especially when the family still lived in South Carolina. It was wonderful to walk where they had walked almost two hundred years before, but why did they leave? Studying their first location could help provide answers.

The Florida State Genealogical Society featured a speaker last month during their Poolside Chat series. Diana Elder suggested in her presentation entitled, “Locality, Locality, Locality: Putting Your Ancestors in Their Place,” that one should create a “locality guide.” I wish I had listened to this about six years ago. It would have saved me later headaches.

I should have created a “Colleton County Locality Guide,” with a section for “Background Information,” showing “Quick Facts” such as laws that changed the economic environment for the family and their dates, purchases of property, natural disasters in their area, when South Carolina became a colony, and so forth. One event I found was the building of a nearby railroad, which might have changed the family’s mind about moving since the railroad provided better opportunities to reach new markets.

In the Locality Guide, “General Collections” shows where to find information as well as “Online Research Guides” and “Maps and their Dates”. Here, one records maps that show the changes in state and county lines. Within Colleton County, they divided the county into parishes. The family lived in the St. Bartholomew Parish, but did they always? The guide is used to collect all the information found about a location.

The Walker Migration Route

Another important research project was trying to find how they got to Jefferson County, Florida, from Colleton District, South Carolina. I knew the names of several trails between the two areas, and I began my research quest by studying those trails.

Later, though, I discovered that the best place to begin this research was Family Search Wiki. Simply enter the words “migration” and the location to find the different trails and roads in an area. It gives you a list of trails and roads plus maps and other resources.

Usually, I began by googling the name of a town, river, road, trail, or anything else on which I needed more information. It usually sent me to other sources, such as maps, gazetteers, trails, and so forth.

Several gazetteers became important. You can find them using Family Search Wiki. Search for “gazetteer”(singular) and then enter the location you wish to find. We can find the digitized ones this way, but I found some that were not digitized in the bibliographies of other historical works. Always check their sources. It will surprise you what you uncover.

Maps became very important to the story. They showed me how they got to Florida.

I began with trails, because they built most of the older roads on old Indian or military trails. I found some on old maps, especially the earliest maps. William Dollarhide has done much work in identifying old trails throughout the nation. His books were very important to my work. I also used diaries and journals to learn what they saw on the trails and roads when they migrated south. In the book, what the Walkers saw on their journey south was in those diaries and journals.

Something I did not use is the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) on the United States Geographical Survey (USGS) website. I discovered it well after I had finished my research. Here you can search for the names of trails, and also towns, post offices, lakes, and rivers nearby.

Once I had sufficient information about the trails and roads available, I analyzed them for the families’ most likely route. Because they drove a foundation herd of cattle with them, I cut two of the more popular routes from the list—not enough water.

Why Florida?

The next step was to study her final home. Why did the family choose Florida? What else was out there? Newspapers seemed to be a good place to start, and there were Charleston papers that they may have read. Mary’s father and uncles were educated men. I discovered a wealth of information about moving to Florida, some of it from the South Carolina papers in their era.

I also had records already in my files. Federal censuses showed us when they made the move. Some children were born in South Carolina, and others in Florida. Land records showed us when the land was available for the family to buy. The Walkers came here before the land was available in the area they settled. They probably squatted on that land and made improvements that gave them the first dibs.

An early probate record for her grandfather told a story about how hard it was to live with local diseases such as malaria. Court records showed when they made their trips eight miles away to the county seat. All of this was important because vital records mostly did not exist. There were no death records or birth records in territorial Florida. There were only church records and Bible records, but few.

I mentioned a boundary issue earlier while they were in South Carolina. Though the boundary did not change, some in Colleton County were lucky to live near the boundary of another county, whose records did not burn. Atlas of Historical County Boundaries is a website by The Newberry Library which shows how a county’s boundary changed. It also shows state boundaries, too.

When the Walker family moved to Florida, it appears another group of Walkers moved just north of the state line in Georgia—an area less than ten miles away. We know from DNA they are kin to each other and from census records; they lived in Colleton District, too. We could never determine if they made the trip down together, though.

https://historygeo.com/

Later, Historygeo.com showed me who first bought the lands next to them once they bought land and settled in Jefferson County. History Geo even showed me how far away two massacred families lived during the Second Seminole Indian War. Using the sound of a gunshot, I determined which of them the family could hear from their home. I decided all of this using locality research.

Finally, I spent a lot of time studying the history of Jefferson County. It provided clues why they came when they did. For example, our state government only recently formed Jefferson County. It was less than two years old. Its land was just becoming available for sale from the state.

Historical books for a county can be important. Being from the county, I am a local and I knew which books to use. However, the National Genealogical Society has a series of books entitled “NGS Research in the States.” There is one for Florida, and it tells you where to go to find information on any county in the state. I also visited Family Search Wiki to look at their state timelines. It provided me a beginning for my in-house state events timeline.

In Jefferson County, the WPA did a research project in the 1930s, and they generated a book. We call it the Green Book. It includes first-hand stories from the children of these early settlers. A University of Florida professor wrote another county history book in 1976. Contracted by the Jefferson County Historical Association, it is an excellent source. Add to these the various diaries and journals kept, and they provided plentiful information about what Monticello and Jefferson County looked like when the Walkers arrived.

Jefferson County Courthouse, replaced in early 1900s

Locality research was vital to the book and an understanding of who these people were and what happened to them. It helped me determine who they were in South Carolina, how they got to Florida, and what impact they had on their new community once they arrived. Location research provided a wealth of information. I could not have written “Palmetto Pioneers” without it.

I’m Back!

by Filed Under: Family Life, Palmetto Pioneers

Several years ago, I wrote a farewell post letting all of you know that I was taking some time off. The post is here.

Chuck’s dementia and the book I was writing took too much of my time. I suspended the blog for the interim.

I am happy to announce that the book is finished and finally published. I knew it was taking me forever, but the book is now three books of the “Palmetto Pioneers” series. Here is a post I did on the book back in 2016.

The first book in the series is entitled, “The Emigrants”, and it follows the main character’s life from the age of 7 until Florida becomes a state in 1845, when she was 23 and married. Her family moves to the territory of Florida in 1829.

Full Book Cover (Front, Spine, and Back)

The book has three purposes. The primary purpose is to help her descendants understand what it was like to move to Florida during that era. It describes what Monticello looked like when they arrived, and how it and Jefferson County changed over the early years of its founding.

A secondary purpose of the book is for Jefferson County and its residents to understand the area’s heritage.

A third purpose is for Floridians to understand this part of the state and the role it played in the formation of the down-state areas. Many of these families migrated farther south after the Indian wars and the Civil War.

So I am back writing posts for this blog. Chuck is doing as well as can be expected. He no longer drives and lacks his short-term memory, but he is still fairly independent, especially after we moved from the larger house to my much smaller family home. We are in walking distance of downtown with its coffee shop, barber shop, and vegetable and fruit stand.

Chuck walks everywhere and enjoys his newfound freedom. He has no trouble finding his way back home as long as he can see the courthouse which is higher than anything else in town. From the courthouse, he knows to go toward the bank and keep walking.

More to follow!

I won’t post weekly like before, but will try to post at least once a month.

Following Old Trails: The Trail to Tallahassee

by Filed Under: Following Old Trails, Genealogy, Palmetto Pioneers, Travel

In an earlier post Chuck and I followed some old trails and roads which we felt the Walker families may have used when they migrated to Florida from South Carolina in the late 1820s. If you remember, our daylight ran out around Milledgeville, Georgia; and I said that I would continue the trip in a later post.  

Well, this is it–a later post and a continuation of their and our journeys from Milledgeville on down into Florida.  We recently made this trip; but they traveled it about 1828, almost 200 years ago.  I need to stress, though, that I’m less certain of the route they took, as you’ll see later.

After the family left Fort Hawkins, which was the old fort south of Milledgeville that set on the eastern edge of the wilderness, they followed the Lower Creek Trading Path.  

As mentioned earlier Milledgeville was the Capitol of Georgia in the 1820s and it also set on the Fall Line Rd. Well, the Lower Creek Trading Path was essentially an extension of the fall line road that led on through Georgia to Alabama and Mississippi. The Path was also known as the Old Horse Path and was used by the Carolina traders before the foundation of Georgia. 

The wilderness west of Fort Wilkinson belonged to the Creek Nation until the Fort Wilkinson Treaty of 1826. This treaty opened the wilderness to migrating settlers; and by the time the Walkers traveled this route in 1828, it had only been opened two years. Most of the roads in the wilderness were widened Indian paths, except for the Lower Creek Trading Path. 

This route was not as primitive as one might imagine, because it had been opened earlier as a postal route leading to New Orleans. The Creek Nation allowed our postal carriers to use this path, and our government widened it and made it easier for travel.   

This road on its way to New Orleans crossed the Chattahoochee River nine miles south of Columbus, Georgia. State historical markers in Chattahoochee, Marion, and Taylor Counties today show the route through those counties. 
 
The road was previously very well traveled by the Indians of that area, who initially used it as a trading path. As mentioned earlier our government negotiated for our postal service to use the path; and years later during the War of 1812, it became, under another treaty, a military road. General Andrew Jackson and his army needed a faster route to get to New Orleans so they could ‘fire their guns cause the British kept a comin’. 

This Lower Creek Indian Path is also called the Federal Road and follows SR 112 south out of Milledgeville, and we can safely say it follows this path to Ft. Wilkinson. While I’m fairly certain how to follow the lower path of the Lower Indian Path/Old Federal Road out of Milledgeville as far as Ft. Wilkinson, I’m a little uncertain about where the Old Federal Road went from there. But I believe it followed the fall line.

There are different theories though as to where the road went from this fort. One theory is that it wandered south and west through Toomsboro towards Hawkinsville. This is also called the Vinson Highway, but Hawkinsville seems too far south of the Chattahoochee crossing mentioned earlier. Also, this road does not followed the fall line.

The other theory is that it followed the fall line on into Alabama and Mississippi. This one seems more correct. The next rivers over are the Ocmulgee in Macon and the Flint River on the western side of Crawford County. If you draw a line between these points and the fall line on the Chattahoochee below Columbus, the Old Federal Highway mostly follows US 80. I feel more certain that this is the Old Federal Road/Postal Horse Path.

More About Ft. Wilkinson 

South of Milledgeville on SR 112 is a marker that says that 300 yards east of the here is where Ft, Wilkinson stood. This fort, built in 1797 on Georgia’s Indian boundary, was an early trading house, where the Creek’s were supplied under the Treaty of New York of 1790. It is also where the 1802 treaty was signed when the Creek’s ceded the land westward to Commissioner’s Creek.  

There are also documents showing that this is the fort where the soldiers stayed when they widened and built the Lower Indian Path into the Federal Road.

In 1897 the Ft. Wilkinson garrison moved to Ft. Hawkins near the Ocmulgee River fall line, near present day Macon. Macon grew up around this fort. I believe this move is why it is so hard to follow the Federal Road, as the beginning of the Federal Road comes from two locations–the earlier one was Ft. Wilkinson south of Milledgeville and the later one was Ft. Hawkins near Macon.

So we first followed SR 112 past the site of Ft. Wilkinson until we came to a problem. We found that there is one section of the road where it does not follow SR 112. When SR 112 gets to US 23 northeast of Hawkinsville, the road here follows Coley Station Rd, which later becomes the Old Milledgeville Rd. After which it intersects with Alternate US 129 which goes southwest into Hawkinsville. This is a pretty drive, not as developed as the SR 112 route which bypasses this.

Another reason I believe SR 112 may have been built on an old road, not necessarily the Old Federal Rd., is because of a document that named several cities that were built on on it. This document actually calls this road the Old Federal Road, too. Actually, there are at least three Old Federal Roads in Georgia, one north of Atlanta, also, which was once an old Cherokee trading Path.

But documents said that this Federal Road went through cities such as Ashburne, Rochelle and Toombsboro, etc. If you look at the road that runs directly between these cities, it is State Road 112. But my question is where did this Federal Road stop and a possible new route opened for the new settlers moving into this area immediately after the 1826 treaty. If it was SR 112, when did this road open. I have no idea.

My problem now is how far did this old road follow SR 112. SR 112 pretty much will take you all the way to Cairo, GA which is where I can definitively say one can follow the Lower Hawthorne Trail, which will be explained later. Since I have no idea when this road opened, I decide that the other theory has more believability.

The Second Theory

It is said in several documents that the Lower Indian Path/Old Federal Road crossed the Flint River near the Old Indian Agency Headquarters in Crawford County. The Indian Agent Benjamin Hawkins lived here, and his burial site is by the river on the west side of Crawford County. His home and the community that grew up around it was called Traveler’s Rest. So we have a good idea where this was.  

If you look at a map, SR 112 goes in the wrong direction to intersect with this point. On face value SR 112 is not the path I’m looking for, unless it was blazed directly down from the old path south of Ft. Wilkinson. It does look like a good option, but again I believe it is wrong.

A better road was probably the one that came directly down from Traveler’s Rest and which Old US 19 was built upon. Old US 19 was changed over the years, and you can find its roadbed as SR 3 in most places now. I believe SR 3 beginning in Baconton, GA was where Hawthorne blazed his new trail.

What was the Old Federal Road Like?

By the time the Walker families traveled the Old Federal Road in 1828, the road was no more than 16 feet wide. It was widened in 1811 by the military to make it sufficient for moving supply wagons, cannons, and men on horse and foot. in other words it was a military road.  The Walkers spent weeks traveling this road and they camped on land beside it. 

 Its swamps and streams were causewayed and bridged. Stumps were ordered not to exceed 6 inches above the ground and to be pared around the edges. The settlers through their journals and diaries said that often the road climbed sandy ridges and rambled.

 The vegetation removed from the surface of the sandy loam soils caused the road to erode rapidly, especially on the sloped up and down grades. The pressure of the horses’ hooves and the iron bands of the wagons wheels disturbed the soil even more. They said that gullies formed everywhere. It was rough going.

The Old Hawthorne Trail

Some documents say that the Old Hawthorne Trail ran from Columbus all the way down to St. Marks, Florida, which is a riverport near the Gulf below Tallahassee. Some say that the road crossed the Flint River at Traveler’s Rest in Crawford County, Georgia. Almost all agree that it had been a Stagecoach Road. 

And I found where a Stagecoach road existed that ran south down from Albany. I began thinking this was the road that may have been a part of the Hawthorne Trail since this is the location where I lost the trail when traveling north on the lower part of the Hawthorn Trail. 

It is said that William Hawthorne blazed the road in 1818. The Walkers didn’t use it until 1828, a decade later. Many great and distinguished men traveled this old road, and it probably was used by Gen. Jackson while he was governor of Territorial Florida when going to and from The Hermitage, his home near Nashville, Tennessee. And this may be why they thought it went all the way to Columbus. He came down from Nashville which was north and west and then turned east using the Old Federal Road until he got to Traveler’s Rest.

My problem finding the Old Hawthorne Trail begins with a document that says that the old trail went south from Baconton. For a while I thought this was old US 19 which is now SR 3. 

There is a problem here in Baconton, Georgia, though, because Baconton did not exist when the Walkers came through in 1827-28. It wasn’t established until 1866.  

Instead, there was a little community east of Baconton on SR 93 which was called Gum Pond. It was a town then, and it sits on the Florida Stagecoach Road that ran from Albany to Thomasville through Camilla. I wonder if this is where the Hawthorne Trail runs south, not in the current downtown of Baconton. This area has the address of Baconton today, and this may be why folks thought that it pulled off from Baconton. This old Stagecoach Road runs parallel to SR 3 about three miles to the east. 

 

Also, State Road 112 coming down from Milledgeville through Sylvester intersects with The Old Stage Coach Rd. at Greenough just a little south of where Gum Pond was located. One can then take SR 112 all the way down to Cairo from here.

In Cairo is where there are signs that mark the Old Hawthorne Trail. These Hawthorne Trail signs run west of the city. These street signs call it the Upper Hawthorne Trail which run southeast into Cairo.  

Here the Upper Hawthorne roadbed is clay, reminiscent of the country music which romanticize red clay roads.  

This road runs through pine forests and cornfields before crossing US 84 which runs from Bainbridge to Thomasville through Cairo.  

On the north side of US 84, though, we spotted an old cemetery, the oldest one we’ve seen here. We walked through it, and I found a grave with a date of death of 1841. In graveyards this old, there are always unmarked earlier graves. Many graves in this area are unmarked because the Indians would dig bodies up. It was part of warfare to give one’s enemy a bad death.  

This cemetery could be old enough to have been here in 1828, when the Walkers came to Florida. This road forks left off of SR 112 which runs up through Camilla and intersects the Old Stage Coach Rd. just a few miles south of Gum Pond. So this is where we know the Old Hawthorne Trail existed.

For the first time today while on this old clay road I can really imagine what it might of been like as the family moved along through this area. Mostly these are just farms and forests through here now. It’s a good road but I wouldn’t want to be here when it rains. 

But north of this point between SR 112 in Greenough and here, I really have no idea if this is the trail. Poor Chuck. He’s driving and I’m directing first up this road and then down that road. He finally points out that he’s beginning to feel like Hoke in ” Driving Miss Daisy.”

As you get farther south, though, toward the Florida line, the Old Hawthorne Trail is marked both on maps and by signage on the highways. We followed it through Lower South Georgia south of Cairo. It is a pretty little two-laned grey asphalt road, canopied by trees in some areas. 

You can find it on the maps south out of Cairo on State Road 111, which is also marked as the Lower Hawthorne Trail.  
You’ll find where the Lower Hawthorne Trail pulls off of SR 111 way south of Cairo on your left. It becomes County Road 157A here.

This road is surrounded by farmland and is wooded in the lower areas. When you get to the end of 157A there is a street sign that says Concord Rd. If you follow this road, it dead ends in Florida. 

We turned right on Concord Rd. and over our shoulder noticed a sign that said Lower Hawthorne Trail with an arrow pointing back down towards the Concord Road. This is very helpful as it tells us that the historians believe that 157A or the Concord Road is also a part of the Old Lower Hawthorne Trail. Georgia has marked it side of the trail, but not Florida.

The Concord Rd. (Old Lower Hawthorne Trail) came down to about a mile east of Concord, Florida on State Road 12. To find current day Concord, we turned west on SR 12 and drove to the little intersection with its little service station. This is modern day Concord, and I believe the Old Bainbridge Road leading down to Tallahassee may also be part of the Old Lower Hawthorne Trail, but again I’m not sure, though some documents say it went all the way to St. Marks, Florida on the Gulf coast.

So it is my best guess that the family followed the Old Federal Road, which follows the fall line, out of Milledgeville. At Traveler’s Rest they turned south on a trail that later became Old US 19 until they traveled through Gum Pond and met up with the Hawthorne Trail which I believe began in or around Greenough, Georgia.  At least that is how I plan to write it in my book, adding all the research used to come to this conclusion.

But I’m not quite ready to begin writing.  I think I want to make one more road trip on this route to stop in at some key libraries just to test my theory one last time.  Besides I get the chance to follow this old trail again. And I love that as much as I love a good road trip.  

  

Traveling Old Trails

by Filed Under: Following Old Trails, Genealogy, Palmetto Pioneers

I have several interests, but one of them is traveling old trails.  About twenty years ago my Dad and I talked about traveling the Oregon Trail.  I even went as far as figuring out which paved roads came closest to it.

 

 

The Oregon Trail Historic Marker

 

 

I found out that the beginning of that trail had several jumping off points, so we picked Independence, Missouri as our point of beginning.  But time and events both his, my Mom’s and mine got in the way; and we kept putting off the trip. Dad died in 2003, and we never got around to it.

 

 

Rock Creek Station

Rock Creek Station on the Oregon Trail (a Pony Express Station)

 

 

But several years later while Chuck was in Idaho on his annual fishing trip with his buddies, I flew to Independence and followed the Oregon Trail by car all the way to Boise, Idaho where Chuck joined me. We continued until Oregon City, Oregon at the trail’s end.

 

 

End of the Oregon Trail

The End of the Oregon Trail

 

 

It was a great trip, though not as great if Dad had shared it with us.  There were times, though, when I felt he was there.  I even made a comment or two for him, such as my first sighting of wagon ruts still visible today.  I remember being alone and saying out loud as if he were standing right there beside me, “Well, Daddy, these are pretty darn cool, aren’t they?”

 

 

Wagon Ruts

Wagon Ruts on the Oregon Trail

 

 

Years later I spent some time again following the Lewis and Clark Trail, again while Chuck was fishing .   I began in nearby St. Louis, Missouri and ended at Great Falls, Montana.  I’ll do the rest of this trail later—in fact some of it later this year.  This trail is a water trail mostly following the Missouri River and then other westerly rivers, but it is almost impossible to do it by boat because of all the dams.

 

 

Lewis & Clark Trail

Lewis & Clark Trail, Wiki

 

 

Chuck and I just did another one of the old trails and several old roads back in March.  We were on our way back from staying at my sister’s bedside in Winston-Salem, NC.  We thought she was doing better because she was progressing so rapidly, and Chuck needed to get some stitches out from an outpatient surgery that had been done a few days before Pam was placed in the hospital.

 

So on our way back down to Florida, we picked up this migratory route in Lodge, SC and followed it all the way west and south to Millegeville, Ga. where our daylight ran out.  This research was for my book “Palmetto Pioneers”.   I was trying to determine how the Walker Family migrated from their home in South Carolina to their new land in Jefferson County, Florida.

 

I know that my Walker family migrated to Florida around 1828 to 1829,  and so I tried to figure out how they got here.  I learned through research that the area west of Macon, Georgia, had just recently opened up due to a treaty between the Creek Nation and our government. I also learned that the only road into this part of Florida at that time was one of the old trails called the Hawthorne Trail.  It started somewhere up on the Old Federal Road west of what is now Macon and passed down near Cairo, GA before ending near Concord, Florida north of Tallahassee near the Florida/Georgia state line.

 

 

Old Hawthorne Trail

The Old Hawthorn Trail

 

 

But how did they get from Lodge, SC all the way to the Macon area on the Old Federal Road?  So starting in Macon, Georgia, I  looked for roads that were here in 1827; and since there were few and many times only one road or trail, I worked back using these roads or trails to their home in SC.  It is speculation or at best an educated guess.

 

The Hawthorn Trail ran south from the Old Federal Road.  For our purposes the Old Federal Road ran from near Macon to the west, all the way to Mobile.  It connected with the Fall Line Road which ran through Milledgeville, GA, which was then the capitol of Georgia.  The Fall Lind Road was one of the oldest roads in America, and it ran from Philadelphia all the way down well into Alabama.  For our purposes, though, we are only interested in that portion which ran from Augusta, Ga., to Milledgeville.

 

 

The Fall Line Road & other Trails

The Fall Line Road, a Family Search Wiki Map

 

 

But again how did they get to Augusta from Lodge, SC which is located in the South Carolina low country southwest of Charleston?  I found an earlier route or road between Charleston and Augusta.  Actually it was called the Fort Moore-Charleston Road. Fort Moore was located across the river from Augusta in South Carolina.  It was an earlier trading post, and Augusta grew up around this area.  The commerce continued between the Indians and Europeans until eventually the fort closed and was abandoned, but this area across and up the river to just before the fall line is where the city of Augusta continued to grow.

 

 

Fort Moore-Charleston Trail

Fort Moore-Charleston Road

 

 

Once I discovered these early trails or roads, I looked for a current road or roads which followed it as closely as possible.  It turned out to be US 78 which ran all the way from Charleston southwest to where Fort Moore used to be then from Augusta and down through Thomson, Georgia.   I found it amazing that one major road today followed a good part of this early migratory route.  So with my research fairly complete, Chuck and I first began near Lodge, SC, our point of beginning, which was the Walker families’ point of beginning, too.

 

We quickly found northeast of Lodge the Little Salkehatchee River and immediately on the other side of the river was Carter’s Ford Baptist Church.  What a great find.  My 5th great grandmother was a Carter from here as was her mother-in-law.  It seems that Joel and Elizabeth Walker were kin to each other before they married.

 

Carter's Ford Baptist Church

Carter’s Ford Baptist Church

 

Below are the families that migrated from here in 1828-29.

 

  • Joel & Elizabeth’s son Jesse & his wife Elizabeth Wilson Walker including their children 6-7 year old Mary Adeline (my 3rd great grandmother), 4-5 year old Henry, 2-4 year old Sarah, and 1-2 year old James J. all born in SC
  • Joel & Elizabeth’s son James & his wife Elizabeth Padgett Walker including their daughter 0-1 year old Delilah who was born September 28, 1828 in SC
  • Joel & Elizabeth’s son Littleberry Walker, who was 17-18 years old, born in SC
  • Joel’s son Stephen Walker, who was 22-23 years old, born in SC (We are still unsure if he traveled with the family to Florida, though).

 

There is a possibility that the parents of Jesse, James, Stephen & Littleberry Walker came down to Florida with them; but their daughter Mary Jane Walker & her husband Stephen Lightsey did not come down until between July 12, 1832 and 1835.  Family lore says that the parents came down later than their Walker sons.   If they did come down later this is probably their party:

 

  • Joel & Elizabeth Carter Walker with their son 13-16 year old David
  • Mary Jane Walker & Stephen Lightsey with their two sons 2-5 year old John Adams and 1-3 year old Joel Walker

 

 

Carter’s Ford was a natural ford on the Little Salkhatchee River.  The Walker land was nearby, quite possibly across the road from the church.  Today, that road is SR 217.  Using old maps, it looks as if their land is north of the road on the west side of the river.  It looked like prime cotton land or land for cattle.  The Walkers did both.

It was neat to stand where they probably lived and thrived for several generations before moving on. The land here is up on a ridge, high and dry.  The fields here lie fallow; but when I got out to take a photo, a covey of quail jumped up in front of me.  This land with its palmettos in the flood plain next to the river and its cypress swamps and stands of pine remind me of the Aucilla River and its river swamps.  This is the low country just before rising up to the coastal plans below the fall line.  We’re about 22 miles from Waltersboro, which was then and still is today the county seat of Colleton County.

 

 

Walker Land near Lodge, SC

Possible Site of the Walker’s Land

 

 

By studying the old maps, I’m fairly certain they went northwest from their home to meet up with the Fort Moore-Charleston Road.    The only other route which intersects with US 78 goes southeast through a very low long swampy area, so I felt they didn’t take that route because of the wagons.  They also would have had to cross the Little Salkehatchee here, and it is wide.

 

 

The Little Salkehatchee River

 

 

We drove on into Lodge which is really just a crossroads and did not exist when the Walkers lived here.  The old road today travels closest to US 64 and US 601.  They built the latter road in 1927 and most likely on top of the already well-established trail.  Just before we got to Bamberg, we crossed again the Little Salkehatchee River; but it is narrow here.  They probably used a ferry because the river looks deep.  The rest of US 601 like US 64 was high and dry.  Today, there aren’t any old forests, but I felt like there might not have been any then either.  After all they were moving on because the ground was worn out cotton fields.

 

We intersected with US 78 at Bamburg, SC.   I looked up the history of Bamburg to see if it was a town when they passed through here about 1828. The town was founded around 1750 by French Huguenots and Scots-Irish so it was definitely there then.

 

As we drove west on US 78, I looked to see if there was a wiki page on this road.  I found much more info.  There are wiki pages for most federal and some state roads in the US.  They contain great historical information about these routes.

 

I questioned what the weather was like in the fall of 1827, but I found nothing online.  I need to read local papers from Charleston, Augusta (1828 to 1829) and surrounding towns to see what I can find.  Today, though, it is wet.

 

When the family got to Bamberg, the town then was called Lowerys, a crossroads on the Fort Moore-Charleston Rd.  I was able to look up the history of each town as we passed through.  I looked for answers to questions like:  when was the town established, what buildings are still standing today that were standing in the 1820s, and what was the town like in 1820?  I was trying to figure out what the family saw as they passed through.

The next town of Denmark, a railroad town in 1830, was built on the earlier town called Graham’s Turnout.  If the railroad was built to Denmark by 1830, then this means they built the railroad here when the family traveled down this road.   It helps me picture what they saw.  I’m sure they used slave labor, because this was before the Civil War.

The next town is Blackville.  Blackville is in the part of South Carolina called the “Back Country.”  Due to a plentiful supply of water for drinking and transportation, settlers came to this area prior to the Revolutionary War.  They fought the Battle of Slaughter Field north of Blackville near the Mennonite church.   When the railroad built between Charleston and Hamburg, John Black chose this area as an overnight stop for the train.  Several hotels sprang up, as did a bustling railroad town.  Blackville was established in 1833 and chartered in 1837.  So though we know there was a settlement here when the family passed through, it looks like they built the hotels and railroad station a little later.

Just so you know, though, Blackville became a marketing and transportation center and thrived until the Civil War.  By February of 1865, though, sixty thousand Union troops had passed through the town.  General Sherman met with his generals here, burned much of the town, looted, demolished the railroad, and continued on his march. So whatever existed when the family came through just before 1830 Sherman probably burned.

Next we got to Williston, South Carolina. We noticed that all of these towns are about 6-10 miles apart.  We know that the Wills family came to this area before the 1790 census, and that a settlement grew up on this road.  When the family came through here, we’re not sure whether it was called Williston or Willis Station.  It became another railroad stop, but stagecoach service existed between Charleston and Augusta, so it could have been a stage station, too.

Finally, the family got to the Augusta area, but their road did not go directly into the city before crossing the Savannah River.  Instead it came to a ferry down river from the city.  When researching this ferry, I found that it had been called the Sand Bar Ferry; and someone took a picture of the abandoned ferry before it disintegrated.  It is below.  This ended Fort Moore-Charleston Road.

 

 

Sand Bar Ferry

The Sand Bar Ferry on the Savannah River

 

 

So what was Augusta like when the family came through there in 1828-1829.  The Native Americans used Augusta as a place to cross the Savannah River, because of its location on the fall line.  They also traveled a fall line path, which later became the Fall Line Road.  I found an old map which shows how the Fort Moore-Charleston Trail entered Augusta and how the Fall Line Road left the town.

 

 

Old Augusta Map

Old Map of Augusta Showing the Fall Line Road leaving Augusta up and to the left near the falls on the down side of the river and the Fort Moore-Charleston Road entering Augusta at Fort Moore.

 

 

Oglethorpe named the town Augusta, in honor of Princess Augusta, wife of Frederick, Prince of Wales.    The town was laid out on the flat slopes of the Savannah River.  The townspeople got along peacefully most of the time with the surrounding tribes of Creek, Yuchi and Shawnee Indians. The Shawnees in the region were known as the Savano Indians. The name of the Savannah River is an anglicized version of their tribal name.

When the family came through the city, it was already incorporated and had been since the 1790s.  Still standing in the city today are two buildings that were standing there. They are the First Presbyterian Church and a mansion called Ware’s Folly, the home of the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art.

 

 

 

First Presbyterian Church, Augusta, GA

First Presbyterian Church, Augusta, GA

 

 

The house built by Ware was called his folly because he spent $40,000 to build it in the early 1800s.  In today’s dollars it would be a $12 million house.  I could see the Walker families riding by just to see what a $40,000 house looked like.

 

 

Ware's Folly

Ware’s Folly

 

 

Leaving the city, the families took the Fall Line Road.  This road follows a geographical (water) fall line, where rivers drop to the coastal plain. Towns grew up on the fall line because cargo on boats had to be portaged around the waterfalls. These falls served as an early source of water power, so mills sprang up harnessing the power supplied by the falling waters,  In time towns grew around the mills.

The Fall Line Road (or Southern Road) was the road built to connect most of those growing mill towns. It followed, though, an old Indian path as so many of these roads did. It was well established by the time the Walkers  traveled it in 1828-29.

 

The Fall Line Road continued on this path as far south as west of Milledgeville, GA until a series of Indian treaties from 1790 to 1826 opened up the Georgia and Alabama parts beyond the Macon area.  Notice that this area opened up in 1826 and the Walkers moved south around 1827 to 1828.

 

The road here still follows US 78 and will until we get to Thomson, GA.  The first town past August is Harlem, but it was called Sawdust when the family came through.  It was a lumber town and was quite wild. It was known for a lot of drinking, gambling, prostitution and carousing; and it was full of men. I don’t really believe they stopped here to spend the night. Not with the young children, though some of the men may have slipped into town on the pretext of needing some supplies.

 

There are now several more small towns between Harlem and Thomson, but they did not exist when the family migrated through.

Thompson Georgia was called Slashes in the late 1820s.  The area between Harlem and Thomson is rolling hills and less of the flatlands that we drove through on the other side of the river in South Carolina.  This is a very pretty area with lots of farmland, but when they passed through it was a booming timber operation.  I guess that is why one town was called Sawdust and the other Slashes.  It makes me wonder if this was all old forest timberland back then or if much of it had already been timbered out.  Looking at the economics of the town will probably give me that answer.

Once we passed Thomson, we then took SR 16 through Warrenton and down to Sparta where we took SR 22 all the way down to Milledgeville.  This continues to follow the Old Fall Line Road.

Warrenton, Georgia was a town with a wooden courthouse when the family came through here in 1827.  The Stagecoach Inn was here, and the family may have stayed there since they were not destitute and everyone probably needed a good bed and bath.  We know that the Marquie de Lafayette stayed in town at the Allen House in 1835, and he gave us a pretty good description of the town in his journals.   The Allen House has since been moved to Oglethorpe where it stands today.

 

 

The Stagecoach Inn in Warrenton, GA

The Old Stagecoach Inn in Warrenton, GA

 

 

We crossed the Ogeechee River, and the fall line rapids are very visible from the road.  I was about 95% sure that this was the Old Fall Line Road, but now I’m 100% sure.  We stopped and took a picture of the rapids.

 

 

Ogeechee Rapids

Ogeechee Rapids, as seen from the road

 

 

 

This is beautiful country through here.  I wonder if they thought about stopping?  Maybe some of their party did.  We have found no journals or diaries, so we wouldn’t know for sure.

If they had waited five or six years later, they could have had it much easier.  Railroads were being built several years right behind them.

Jewel was the next town.  It is very near the Ogeechee, but I cannot find any sign that Jewel was there when they came through. It seems that it became a mill town later on, a mill town sitting on the river.  There probably was a ferry here at one time, and they may have used it to cross.

Sparta was here, though, when they came through.   It was called Sparta and may have gotten its name because it is said that its frontier residents fought like Spartans during the Creek War of 1811-1815.  Major Charles Abercrombie laid out the town from his own lands in 1795, and his former home still stands on Maiden Lane today. Rabun Street, named for Matthew Rabun, the father of Georgia Governor William Rabun, became known as Maiden Lane when Sparta’s Female Model School was organized there in 1831.   Abercrombie’s house was there when the Walkers came through.

I imagine that the family looked forward to seeing Milledgeville.  It was already established as the capital of Georgia and had been since 1804.  The Treat of Fort Wilkinson (1802), in which the people,, hard pressed by debts to white traders, agreed to cede part of their ancient land.  This opened up this part of Georgia.  The restless Georgians and Carolinians quickly pressed west and south in search of new farmland; and the town of Milledgeville, which was carved out of the Oconee wilderness, helped accommodate their needs.   So this was settled by the time the families came through here in the late 1820s.

The town was laid out and modeled after Savannah and Washington, DC. It  included four public squares of about 20 acres each. It stood on the edge of the fall line , where the Upper Coastal Plain merged into the Piedmont.  Its Gothic revival style state capital was built by 1809, and it was then known as the first United States public building built in America.  I believe the families would have wanted to see this building, which is still standing today.

 

 

Georgia's Old State Capitol

Georgia’s State Capitol in Milledgeville

 

 

By the time they got to Milledgeville, the town had been prosperous especially after the cotton boom of the early 1800s.  There were elegant houses with colossal porticoes, cantilevered balconies, pediments adorned with sunbursts, and fanlighted doorways. There were several very nicely built churches on its Statehouse Square.  Imagine how they felt seeing this city, but remember that they lived a short distance from Charleston and had probably visited that city as well.  Elizabeth Carter Walker’s mother was a Middleton, a family well-known in South Carolina and Charleston, so we feel certain the older members of the families had visited Charleston.  Milledgeville, though, was a much newer city.

Finally, the families left Milledgeville and entered the newly-opened territory, the area that the Creek’s had just ceded to the government.  And that is where I will stop this post for this week.

The next section of their travels was much harder to research because there were no settled communities and the old roads were hard to follow, both for them and for me.  That will be discussed hopefully soon

Below is a little list of questions that helped me determine what old trails my ancestors used when they migrated from SC to Florida.

 

 

List of Research Questions

  1. What date did they first appear in their destination?  (I used birthdates of children to help me figure out a range of dates—1828-1829 and 1835-1838.  This showed me that the family migrated to their destination of Florida in two groups.)
  2. What old trails or roads were available during these dates?  I used old maps to help me determine what trails and roads were available.)
  3. What towns did each of the old trails or roads pass through?  (I used Wiki and local historical information to try to find what was happening in the town and what buildings were there that are still standing today.  Also, to find out when it was settled to make sure it existed when they passed through.)
  4. Look at the history of the areas to see what might have led to or aided  their migration down these old trails or roads?  (The history of their home county or point of beginning showed an economic collapse of cotton , and the history of the Indian treaties showed an area that opened just before their migration. Also, in Florida, the First Seminole Indian War had ended and Jefferson County was just formed.)
  5. Who used the old trails or roads?  (We know from diaries, journals and historical accounts that the railroad was being built between Charleston and Augusta and that freight was already hauled on the trails or old roads from Augusta, Milledgeville and other river ports  up and down the Fall Line Road.   We also know that Georgians and Carolinians were migrating on to Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and points beyond.   Finally, there was a stage line operating on these roads, too These roads were also postal routes.)
  6. I have not looked up the surnames along the migratory path yet, but it would be good to see if anyone stopped and stayed behind. (Use Census records.)
  7. Look up the weather for that time period. Was it normal, wet or drought? (Use newspaper articles, diaries and journals.)
  8. Finally, this question unique to this study needs an answer. How much of the forests had already been removed on the Fall Line Road southwest of Augusta?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Independence Day in Old Florida

by Filed Under: Genealogy, Palmetto Pioneers, This & That

What do you think Independence Day celebrations were like for those who actually fought in the Revolutionary War? Or for the signers themselves?   What was the 4th of July like ten or twenty or fifty years after the signing when some of these men were still living?

 
Today, we meet as communities or families to celebrate our nation’s birthday. The holiday, though, is actually the day the initial signatures were placed on the Declaration of Independence.

 

Current Celebration

 
But how did our ancestors celebrate this day? And what happened when the north was fighting the south during the Civil War?  Did we quit celebrating down here in the south during those War years?

 
I’ve been researching the time period in North Florida between 1827 and 1871 for my book “Palmetto Pioneers.” It was a time when Florida was a territory until 1845, when the Seminole Wars raged until the late 1850s, and when Florida seceded from the nation to join the Confederacy in the early 1860s. We call these eras Territorial Florida, Antebellum Florida, and War & Reconstruction Florida.

 
Remember, though, that 1827 was only about 50 years after the Revolutionary War. To Floridians in 1827 the American Revolution would have been remembered much like some of us today remember the assassination of President Kennedy or the Vietnam War, both of which happened only 50 years ago.

 

 

img_8111

 
So the 4th of July celebration to these Floridians would have been valuable indeed. There would have been veterans of that war living in their communities and maybe even within their families.
In some of their home states, there would still have been scars from the battles which were fought in these areas. Mary’s family came from near Kings Mountain and the Cowpens, both well remembered Revolutionary Battles.

 
So just how did they celebrate the 4th of July over 150 years ago? I found several pieces of research to give us an idea–most of which were newspaper articles, but one of which was an actual program used in 1851.

 
My main character Mary Adeline Walker came to Monticello, Florida about 1828, and the first recorded Independence Day Celebration there was one year later in 1829.
Jefferson County and Monticello were named after President Thomas Jefferson and his home respectively. The county itself had just been formed in 1827 from Leon County just one year after President Jefferson died.

 

 

Tombstone of Jefferson

 

 
The newly formed county originally stretched from its original western boundary near its current western boundary just east of Tallahassee all the way east to the Suwannee River.
Of course, every school child knows that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, but did you know that Thomas Jefferson died on July 4th in 1826, the very day we celebrate his actions for signing the Declaration of Independence. It was an amazing coincidence.

 

 

 

Original draft

Original first draft of the Declaration of Independence

 
There is also something else very interesting about Monticello and the 4th of July. There were people living around Monticello who were kin to Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson’s mother’s maiden name was Randolph and his grandson Francis Eppes moved to Florida along with the Randolphs establishing a plantation about 12 miles northeast of Monticello called L’Eau Noir (Black Water).

 

 

Graveyard Plaque

Chart Showing Who was Buried in the Jefferson Graveyard at Monticello in Virginia

 
I’m very familiar with this beautiful land where the Black Water Creek flows east of Tallahassee. It crosses US 90 between Tallahassee and Monticello west of Balm. I’ve hunted turkey near and along the banks of that creek both immediately north and far south of that crossing.

 
This is the land where I cut my teeth–calling birds for the first time. I could shoot turkeys all day with a guide, but the real challenge was to call in a bird all by myself.  This is where I got the most practice. I bumped birds all over this land and got to know it intimately. Some of my best turkey hunting stories took place on this property. At the time I had no idea that this land once belonged to Thomas Jefferson’s grandson.

 
So a lot had happened to little Monticello in the three short years after Jefferson County was formed; and Monticello became the place to observe Independence Day as early as 1829. People from all over Middle Florida came there to celebrate. The little town was not much more than a crossroad then, only a village. But Independence Day in America at that time was a very important event.

 

 

img_8106

 

 

Normally, the people gathered in the center of the village for Independence Day. A parade was staged to begin at the edge of town and to end at the appointed place at the appointed time, which was noon. So at the center of Monticello and beginning at noon and after the prayer, the Declaration of Independence was read. In every 4th of July celebration, I noticed that this was the highlight–the reading of the Declaration.

 

 

Declaration of Independence

 

 
Afterwards, a chosen orator spoke. He (yes, it was always a man) talked about the Revolutionary War itself or the people who fought or the founders or any other topic related to our nation’s independence.  Afterwards, there were numerous toasts, most of which were followed by liberal quantities of spirits. Most of the toasts and speeches were directed at the nation’s birthday.

 
We know that in 1829 in the center of the town Rev. William Mathers opened the ceremony at noon with a prayer. The Declaration was read and Philip Willie delivered a rousing address tracing the history of the US from Columbus’ voyage down to an “animated picture of the present”.

 
A sumptuous dinner was served, after which Dr. Thomas White and James Parish began the toasts. White praised the “venerable sage of Monticello” after whom the county was named. Parish toasted Joseph White (Florida’s representative to Congress) as “in every respect white, clear white.” Other toasts were delivered to Florida “the youngest child of this great family of States”. They also toasted several of the founding fathers and prominent men of the day.

 

After 1829 people began coming from all over the territory to celebrate the nation’s birthday in Monticello. Year after year they came. It was a tradition.  Although it began in the center of town, years later it was moved to a nearby park. A crowd gathered wherever it was held.

 
By 1832, the day began with the firing of a cannon and small arms at noon in the center of town. I wonder what happened to that cannon. I grew up in Monticello, and I can’t remember there ever being a cannon fired in town except for when the local team took the field down at the football stadium on Friday nights in the 1980s. That one was bought while Kelly Kilpatrick was the principal.
Then a procession formed in front of Martin Palmer’s tavern and moved to a stand prepared for the occasion in the center of town. We know from research that there still was no courthouse, and that court was held in this tavern when needed. I wonder if that raised platform set where the courthouse sits today? I also wonder if the toasts had gotten out of hand so they moved it indoors away from the women and children.

 

 

1800s Celebration

 

 
After Rev. Mather’s prayer, the Declaration of Independence was read and then George Warner spoke about the oppressed colonies in the days just before the revolution. It is believed that the women and children were there for this part of the celebration, but not for what followed as discussed earlier.

 
After the oration the men moved on to Palmer’s Tavern where Thomas Randolph and William Bailey presided over a dinner. It was recorded that 13 toasts were drunk. The one receiving the most attention was to “The Tariff may it be immediately adjusted to the satisfaction of all”. Darius Williams toasted “public school, the best guarantee of social progress.”

 
And Giles Easter toasted, “May we act with reason while the bottle is circulating.” That was probably the toast right around the sixth round, and obviously they paid it no heed.

 
There is mention years later that maybe the toasts were getting out of hand. I imagine the women added their own thoughts to this. So later they decided that there should be a committee for toasting.

 
The earlier orations stayed to the revolution itself or to the freedom that all Americans cherished; but later, the speeches began to more accurately reflect the issues of the day.

 
By 1838 there was concern about statehood and at 11 a.m. a large Independence Day procession of inhabitants and visitors from adjoining counties formed at the courthouse under the direction of Minor Walker, marshall of the day. It moved to a grove of oaks near a spring outside of town where a preacher opened the ceremonies with a prayer. The Declaration was read and an oration delivered. A barbecue dinner followed, again followed by the toasts.

 

 

4th of July 1800s

4th of July Celebration in Orlando in the 1880s. Florida Memory Collection

 

 
By 1839, they decide to form a committee for toasts to try to keep the number of libations within bounds. It must have helped though because by 1841 the Tallahassee Star of Florida reported that at the Independence Day festivities in Monticello 50 men drank four toasts each.

 
At the 1839 celebration they held an old fashioned Virginia barbecue which was planned by Smith Simkins, Zachariah Bailey, W. C. Smith, John Cuthbert, William Ware, John Tucker and J. R. Rowles. The committee on toasts was comprised of R. B. Houghton, B. C. Pope, B. Waller Taylor, W. H. Smith and William Wirt, Jr.

 
The orator and reader were selected by R. W. Tone, Andrew Denham, John Palmer, Ware and Cuthbert. Houghton delivered the oration and Abram Bellamy read the declaration. The Tallahassee press again carried this news.

 
These Monticello celebrations continued until the Civil War, but the town was not the only city in Florida to hold such August celebrations. While researching I ran across an actual program for the 4th of July Celebration held in Madison, just east of Monticello.

 

 

Madison 4th of July

 

 
I often wondered if the south continued to celebrate Independence Day during the Civil War, and I ran across an editorial in the “Family Friend”, Monticello’s weekly newspaper, dated in 1861. It said that Florida’s legislature did propose in 1861 to strike out the 4th of July from the days which public offices should close, but the proposal was ultimately rejected.

 
The newspaper’s publisher went on to say that Independence Day should be held in perpetual remembrance. He pointed out that the south holds claim to the author of the document just as much as the north.

 
He added that our declaration sets forth that when a government becomes subversive, as had the north, then it was the right and the duty of the people to throw off such a government. He said that the south had done just that.  And that as a body of people the south should cherish the declaration and continue to celebrate it.

 
He added that these principles which gave birth to our former union can never be destroyed until we all are slaves or are left to submit to tyranny and oppression.

 
So I guess that is what I carried away from all this is the realization that it is the Declaration itself that we should celebrate. Our ancestors understood that.

 
Happy Independence Day–no matter where you are or how you celebrate it!

 

 

Nieces Celebrating 4th of July

 

 

 

 

 

A Deer In the Cattle Herd

by Filed Under: Genealogy, Great Florida Cattle Drive 2016, Palmetto Pioneers

During the Great Florida Cattle Drive  one night at dinner, Chuck and I had the pleasure of listening to some young girls from Ocala talk about the excitement of what happened when a deer jumped up in the herd.  The girl’s group were riding with the cattle, so they got to experience this first hand.  It was exciting listening to them describe the pandemonium it caused.

I walked away that night with a story for my book “Palmetto Pioneers”, and this morning I wrote a brief scene.  It is below and is still a little rough, as I will make changes to it as I gather more information; but I thought you might be interested in how I fit their story into mine.

 

A Deer in the Herd

It has been family lore that several of the Walker brothers came down to Jefferson County, Florida from South Carolina and got things ready for their parents. We do not know if just the men came first and then brought down their wives and parents or if the men brought their wives and families and then sent for their parents. Those particulars have been lost over time.

We do know that Mary’s brother Little James was born in 1826 in South Carolina and that her next sibling William was born two years later in Jefferson County, Florida.

Cattle graze at a rate of about eight miles a day. When driving a foundation herd, such as what the Walkers brought with them in 1827, that is about how fast the family moved daily because there was no way to carry forage for the cattle. The cattle had to literally eat their way over 400 miles to Florida.

This means it took them at least 50 days to drive their cattle from near Walterboro, South Carolina to Monticello, Florida. I believe they probably stopped to rest at least one day a week, which adds seven days. Add a half dozen more days, and we get about 63 days or a little over two months that it took them to make the trip.

Their best time to travel would be in the fall, since it would have been better to get their cabins built before the bitter cold of December to February. By March North Florida is beginning to warm quickly, and it is past time to begin preparing for crops. The families would have wanted to be there in time to plant again.

Below I tried to recreate what a typical moment might have been on the trail as they made their west and south of present day Macon, Georgia.  The trail went from Walterboro to Augusta to Macon, down the Hawthorne Trail and down through north of Tallahassee near Coon Bottom.  These are all current names, as several these places had different names back then.

This is Mary’s story.  She was five when they made the move to Tallahassee.

*                                *                                 *

I remember it well.  Daddy and my uncles came in all excited. Mama and my aunts had them a good pot of stew to warm them up. This morning it was cold and wet, where it had rained the night before. Fall was definitely giving way to winter.

We had been gone almost two months. Last night Daddy talked about how the cotton would have been picked by now. Granddaddy and Grandma Walker were handling it for all of us. We were already missing them.

But today, the conversation around the fire was all about a deer that had jumped up in the herd. The poor thing was probably hunkered down in the wet brush and let the cows almost completely surround her before she decided to make her escape.

 

GFCD3

Deer were like that. Daddy says that this is how they protect themselves from predators. They just get real still.

One time Henry and I were walking back from Grandma and Granddaddy Walker’s house, and we were walking through the woods pushing our way through some low green vegetation. All of a sudden a tiny fawn just jumped up from under our feet.

We were literally inches away from stepping on the little thing. Mama said that the fawn’s mama was probably out foraging and had put the fawn there for safekeeping. She had probably told it not to move no matter what.

I remember asking mama if animals talk to each other. She said, “Mary, why do you ask such questions? I don’t know. And don’t get too friendly with any of these animals, because that is how we eat.”

Uncle Littleberry, who was standing next to the fire with steam coming off his clothes, said that the poor deer just didn’t know where to go and ended up springing this way and that, bouncing off the cows and causing them to stampede.

He added, “It was wild. The deer bouncing this a way and that’a way, the cows parting and stampeding in different directions, and all of us on horseback not knowing which way to go first. It took us several minutes to get the cattle to settle down and come back together. ”

All of us children were hanging on every word. “Was it hurt?”, said Henry. “No,” said Uncle Littleberry, “it didn’t look like she was; but it sure scared her”.

Mama, Aunt Elizabeth and I were hurriedly trying to keep the men’s plates full and their coffee cups filled. We had had trouble getting a fire going when we finally stopped today. The wind was beginning to pick up, and the temperature was dropping.

We all knew that there would be no fire that night when it was most needed. The front pushing through made a fire dangerous.

We were lucky that the rain stopped about mid-morning. At least least we had a fire to cook up a good dinner. Mama, Aunt Elizabeth, and Aunt Mary Jane cooked double so we would have enough for supper tonight. It wouldn’t be as good as having it warm, though.

While we were cooking, the little kids gathered firewood, berries and anything else that might be usable. I helped with the cooking when I could but it was my job to keep Sarah Jane from getting into trouble and to listen out for Little James. Mama had just nursed him, and he was asleep under the wagon by one of the back wheels.

As soon as the men finished they went back to the herd and all of us packed the wagons back up and began following. My mama and all my aunts could handle the oxen. Mama said that the soreness she felt those first weeks was gone now. She also said that her hands would never be the same again. They were rough and calloused.

Hostilities in the Neighborhood

by Filed Under: Genealogy, Palmetto Pioneers

Another teaser from my book, “Palmetto Pioneers”, a story about the Andrews and the Walkers in Old Florida.

 

Hostilities in the Neighborhood

Indian attacks in frontier Florida were frequent, especially during the Second Seminole War. According to Congressional records, this war which began in 1835 and didn’t end until 1842 was the longest and costliest Indian war in U.S. history.

The first settlers of Middle Florida, that area between the Suwanee and Apalachicola Rivers, bought their properties from the US Government and found a land in which all the native inhabitants were not ready to leave. These first settler families scattered throughout this region and were terrified by the attacks.

Some left the area for good, some sent their wives and children to nearby relatives in places like Charleston or New Orleans, and some stayed. The Walker families decided to stay.

Here is what might have happened to sixteen-year-old Mary Adeline Walker and her family when their neighbor Rev. Purifoy was attacked and his children killed on the last day in March of 1838. The Purifoy’s lived about seven miles southwest of her family’s home. All the dialogue is created by me to tell the story.

What we do know, though, is where the Walkers lived in proximity to the Purifoys, where Mr. Scruggs and the Lightsey family lived, and what kind of day it was the morning after the incident.

It was a blustery, chilly morning; and Mary along with her mother Elizabeth were in the warm smokehouse washing clothes. Last night, a front had moved through; but the skies today were clear and blue.

Her mama didn’t wash every week, but it was time. The family had a wash shed; however, because it was cold outside they were in the smokehouse today. Her dad had moved the big boiler out there as soon as it turned cold last November.

 

1800s Smokehouse, Holmes County, Florida; State Archives of Florida; Florida Memory; http://floridamemory/items/show/4036

 

Dark-haired Mary was a tall girl, having gotten her height from her father’s side of the family.  All her Grandmother Carter’s brothers and sisters were known for towering over most folks. Her mama Elizabeth, though, was average height like all the Wilson’s on her mama’s side.  Both Mary and her mother were thin, having plenty to eat but too much to do.

Mary was stirring the clothes in the hot boiling water, which had been amended with ashes and lye. Her mother, always hovering, explained everything as they went.

The smokehouse was a small cubical log structure. It had a steep roof for holding in the smoke, where cuts of pork were hanging overhead. The family had had its annual hog slaughter in November.

In the center of the earthen floor was a small square fire pit where there set several boiling pots. Elizabeth said, “Now add the ashes and lye. Too much and your hands will get chaffed. Too little and the clothes will yellow.” She added that their neighbor old Mrs. Lightsey taught her this in South Carolina.

Elizabeth pushed a damp curl back from her glistening forehead and continued, “This is so much easier than the way my mama did it”. She was talking about the act of washing itself.

She went on, “We all went down to the river to do our wash, and we would have to slap our clothes on the rocks to get the dirt out.”

She hesitated as she tried to scrub a spot out of a child’s shirt. “That’s why I try to do our clothes at least every two weeks because it is so hard to get the dirt out if you wait any longer,”.

In reply Mary said, “The people in town wash theirs every Monday.”

Elizabeth frowned, “That’s too soon. We have too much to do to be in the wash shed every week.”

Mary used the large wooden fork to lift the cleaner clothing in order to let them drain before swinging them over into the wooden tub of rinse water. There was another wooden tub for blueing and starching, both on a table along the side wall.

The smoke house was steamy though they kept a window cracked. Otherwise, it was warm and humid inside. Later, they would have to remove everything and let the fire burn down, drying the air inside.

Both of them heard it at the same time. Outside, a rider was approaching at full gallop. People didn’t do this unless there was trouble.

The recent Indian massacres had everyone on edge, so much so that upon any new attacks citizens became couriers to alert their neighbors to arm themselves as quickly as possible.

Mary and her mother both dropped everything and ran around to the front of the house, just as Mary’s father Jesse and her older brothers came running in from the woods line where they had been cutting down trees to expand one of the fields.

The rider was William Scruggs, and he was so excited and out of breath that all they could understand was the word “Indians.” “James, go get Mr. Scruggs and his horse some water”, said Mary’s dad; and her eleven-year-old brother James tore out around the back of the house.

Mr. Scruggs stepped down off his horse and leaned over trying to catch his breath. He said, “Indians hit Rev. Purifoy’s house, and…”; and he looked at all the little faces looking up at him.

Jesse realized that what he had to say shouldn’t be heard by everyone, so he said, “Sarah, take the babies and get them washed up for dinner.”

“But Daddy, it’s not time for dinner,” said Sarah.

“Sarah Jane!,” her mother said and glared. Sarah started herding the little ones toward the house.

When they were out of earshot, Mr. Scruggs began again, “The Indians hit Rev. Purifoy’s house last night while he was away on ministerial duties. They drug his family out of his burning house, killed two of his children, and shot and cut up his wife real bad.”

He continued, “Mrs. Purifoy came to sometime after they left, and she tried to crawl to her father Mr. Bird’s house, but she collapsed from exhaustion. Some soldiers found her this morning. Ya’ll need to prepare cause they hit another house near Tallahassee, too.”

He took a few more sips of water while James finished watering his horse. Then Mr. Scruggs stepped back up into his stirrups and said, “I need to ride on and keep the word spreading. Jesse, can you or one of your boys here ride and let the Lightsey’s know. I’ll double back south and ride on to the Cuthberts and Bellamys. Much obliged for the drink,” and he dug his spurs deep and the horse lurched forward, disappearing down the lane.

Jesse turned to his oldest, “Henry, go tell George Lightsey what you just heard”, and fourteen-year-old Henry ran for the barn. Then her father turned to Mary, “go fetch my gun.”

Henry came running out of the barn with his saddle, and the other boys were already catching Josie, their fastest horse. Together they saddled him; and Jesse said, “Henry, make tracks. The faster you get there and back the better,” and he handed his oldest son his gun and slapped the horse’s right flank. Henry lit out north on the Salt Road.

Mary felt a knot in her throat as she watched her oldest brother ride away. She couldn’t help thinking, “Will I ever see him again?”

​

A Book Update on “The Palmetto Pioneers”

by Filed Under: Books, Genealogy, Palmetto Pioneers

I keep plugging away at the book. Here are five things I did this week.

1. I spend two days a week working in two separate libraries. One is the Genealogy Room of the Jefferson County Library in Monticello, Florida, where most of the story takes place. The second library is the State of Florida Archives and Library in the R. A. Gray Building, Tallahassee.  

For the last several weeks I’ve been working on Civil War camp life and the building of the Pensacola and Georgia Railroad, specifically the railroad line that ran from Tallahassee to Alligator, Florida. Alligator’s name was later changed to Lake City.

2. The reason I’ve been studying this railroad line is because Mary’s husband William listed his occupation in 1860 as railroad agent. I went into this thinking that he was probably something like the head of a depot, but I found later that these positions were called depot agents. I thought he may have run a depot in either Jefferson County’s towns of Aucilla or Drifton, which was at one time called Walker Mill. Remember that Mary’s maiden name was Walker. 

 I found, though, that former territorial Congressman Edward Cabell was president of this railroad line at the time; and according to his 1845 railroad company minutes, he asked the Board of Directors if he could hire a railroad agent. He described this person’s job as someone who would handle all of the paperwork that was mounting as they were getting closer to building the railroad. They had not begun to build this railroad yet in 1855, and they wouldn’t begin building it until 1858. They finished it in 1861.

I’m beginning to think that William might have been this railroad agent. Here’s why. 

3. I discovered that this same Edward Cable was also the census enumerator for the state of Florida in 1850. In a newspaper article in Jacksonville in 1853, he asked Congress to do a memorial commemorating his six Florida Deputy Census Enumerators. The newspaper listed one of these men as William H. Andrews, so we know that William and Edward Cable had worked together before. I’m still looking for confirmation, though.

4. Also this week I developed a Pic Collage of photographs of William and Mary’s children. I still do not have a clear enough picture of what William and Mary looked like. Here is the collage of four of their children.  They are full siblings.

  
5. I attended an Andrews Reunion in Madison, Florida last Sunday, where I received the picture of Valentine Andrews. I also recently got two more pictures from a Texas relative. One picture was Henry Andrews as a young man and Florida Andrews, who later changed her name to Mary Elizabeth, renaming herself after her mother and stepmother. So here is a collage of William’s children from both Mary and his first wife Elizabeth, including Florida mentioned above.

  
That’s all for now!

An Update on the Book: Mary Hobnobs with Some Washington Elite

by Filed Under: Books, Genealogy, Palmetto Pioneers

About the book I’m writing, I apologize that you haven’t heard from me since late January.  Problem was, though, I got myself involved in the Family History Writing Challenge, which asked me to pledge how much I would write daily.  Since I’m a fast writer, I signed up for 500 words a day.  No problem writing that many words a day, but I did struggle with acquiring the needed research for the exercise.

By the end of February, I compiled 28 different scenes for the book.  However, the research still isn’t complete; and I’m sure I’ll have to rewrite every one of those scenes.

Also, each morning I received an email with suggestions on how to proceed.  These emails were entitled, for example, “How to Find Your Focus”, “Creating Your Authentic Ancestor”, and “How to Begin Your Story:  A Checklist”.  These emails were like workbook pages, and I was unable to go through the exercises that quickly.  So this past month I’ve been going back to each of these emails and filling out the information.  This exercise has been so helpful.

One of the exercises required some thought into the process of naming the book.  It strongly encouraged picking out a name, even if I plan to change it in the future.  So I picked out a temporary name.  I chose this name because Mary came to Florida from the South Carolina low country southwest of Charleston near the Little Salkhatchee River.  South Carolina is also known as the palmetto state.  The family moved to Jefferson County in Florida and settled west of the Aucilla River, an area where palmettos grow thick, especially on the river’s flood plain.  They arrived there around 1828, so they were Florida pioneers.  From here on I will refer to the book as the “Palmetto Pioneers”.

Oak Hammock with a Palmetto Floor

Oak Hammock with a Palmetto Floor

Hopefully, I will do better at keeping everyone posted more often.

Below is another scene from the book–a first draft.  First, though, here is a little information to give a little setting.

One reason I chose Mary for my main character was because of her station in life, which changed dramatically when she married.  As mentioned earlier, she was raised the daughter of a South Carolina/Florida planter/cattleman.  Her family settled in the wilderness in eastern Jefferson County.  She had lived in Florida since she was six years old.

Mary married, though, the son of a Washington, DC merchant.  William Andrews had joined the army with his friend Robert Gamble when they were both in their earlier 20s.  Robert Gamble and William first came to Florida to fight Indians in the 1820s, but they went back to Washington, DC/Baltimore, married and later returned to Florida with their families to settle.

William’s spouse died and left him with four children.  That is when he married Mary, whose family lived nearby.  Mary and William’s first years were spent living near her father, but by the mid 1850s they had moved into Monticello where William became a sheriff of Jefferson County.

Below is a scene from when they lived in Monticello.  We know that they lived near the Cuthbert’s house which was next door to the Episcopal church.  Today, the Cuthbert’s house is the house where the attorney Mike Reichman used to practice law.  It is still standing.

The scene is a first draft, and it is meant to reflect the differences in the ladies, including Mary and her guests.  Robert Gamble’s wife Letitia and her niece Laura come to visit Mary.  Laura’s complaints are authentically hers.  In real life she kept a diary, and this is what she thought of the area.  Here is how it goes.

 

Mary listened to Laura Randall complain and kept silent. She couldn’t quite understand why the woman was so unhappy. “Mary, I don’t know how you and your family stood it all those years. The mosquitoes scarcely retire in the morning before the yellow flies begin. This is certainly the country for studying entomology. There is an infinite variety of insects.”

Laura Randall was wearing a gown of lilac cotton trimmed in burgandy. It was beautiful, and Mary had never seen one so beautiful up so close. No one from where she lived out in the country dressed like this. She knew that Laura’s father was federal Attorney General William Wirt and that Laura’s family was from Baltimore.

All of this was so new and so very interesting. All the talk from William about these big cities and their beautiful buildings. The information spun around in her head like the setting of a fairy tale, and yet here was one of the fairy tale princesses sitting right here in her living room.

Mary looked around her and was immediately embarrassed. Her living room was sparsely appointed with four wooden chairs, a fireplace, a desk where William worked at home and a small table where she kept her sewing.  In one corner was a weave, and on the floor was a new woven rug that she had made herself.  Laura was obviously used to much better than this, and yet this was so much roomier and better than what Mary was used to having.

Laura continued “and there is not a piece of rope to be had in this place, but what we really need is a tavern. Just yesterday five men rode up to our door and gave their horses to the servant as if he were an hostler of an Inn. Then they walked right in to breakfast, which was just ready; and we had to make room at the table.”

She shook her head and added, “They had all stayed the night before at Colonel Gadsden’s, riding up at nine o’clock just when the family was going to bed. I really think our neighborhood would do well to support a tavern for these intruders.”

Letitia Gamble added, “I thought a lot of that had stopped. I guess we are too far off the main road now.” Letitia, as if she knew what was on Mary’s mind said, “I do remember though how hard it was in those early days after we first arrived. The house at Welaunee was a double log cabin, daubed with mud and surrounded by dead trees. We finally replaced it moving farther away from the road, and though this land was difficult at first, we finally learned to adapt. Robert was certainly never disappointed. He loved it from the first time he laid eyes on it.”

Then Laura said, “Well, I have to admit that it finally grew on me, too.  I do love my garden, and thank goodness we started butchering cattle and hogs and learned to share with others so the meat never spoils. This seems to always put good meat on the table.”

Mary remembered what William had told her about these families, that they were all raised high on the hog, and they didn’t seem to know what to do or how to live in such difficult surroundings. Laura added, “I even learned how to make beer, thanks to you Aunt Letitia.”

Letitia said, “I guess if there is one good thing about this country, it is that it made us all realize the importance of sharing and taking care of each another. One can afford to be an individualist when one is wealthy and live near the finer things of life, but out here with only ourselves and nature, it is an entirely different situation. One must learn to share and to rely on others.”

Laura was looking off in the distance. “Laura, a penney for your thoughts?” said Mary.

Laura looked back at her Aunt Letitia. “Do you remember when I had to nurse your Cecily.” Letitia smiled at her neice, “I sure do.”

She turned to Mary, “That was something unheard of where we’re from, but now we know that it is a commonplace thing down here.” I was depending on a milch cow to feed Cicily, and Laura was visiting. Well, anyway, that afternoon we discovered that the milk supply had spoiled, and Cicily was screaming and wouldn’t stop. Laura, here, just said, ‘Give me Cicily’, and she disappeared. The crying stopped. I knew right then that this country was going to be totally different from anything we had ever witnessed.”

Laura added, “The last time I went to visit mama in Baltimore, we had to take along two milk goats to help me nurse Jonathan. Those goats sure didn’t like that ship and the bleating was horrible.”

 

So there you have a brief scene from the book.  It will change a lot over the next few weeks.  The transitions from one person to the other need a lot of rewriting, which will help the reader follow who is talking.  Each of these characters will be fleshed out so one gets a better picture of what they look like and how they are expected to act.

 

 

There’s Something About Mary

by Filed Under: Genealogy, Palmetto Pioneers

My main character’s name for the book I’m writing is Mary.  As you may remember, she is Mary Adeline Walker; and she is also my great-great-great grandmother.  Using what I learned from the workbook, “Authentic Ancestors” by Lynn Palermo, “The Armchair Genealogist”, it was time to develop my protagonist, my central character.

Since Mary is the one individual who ties all my family’s lineages together, she is central to my story. Here’s the rub, though.  How do I describe her physical characteristics?  I have no pictures of her, and there are no written descriptions, either.  What’s a girl to do?

Turns out my mentor had a good suggestion.  She suggested an “Authentic Ancestor Collage” board, a tool to bring all the physical details together to create a visual for further reference while writing.  I have done storyboards before, so that is what I quickly thought of, until she suggested that Pinterest might be a good place to pin any evidence found.  So I placed what evidence I had in a new public Pinterest board entitled, “Something About Mary”.   You can find it here.

It turns out that I do have pictures of others in Mary’s family.  For example, I have a picture of one of her brothers, three of her children including a daughter, a granddaughter, a great-granddaughter and a great-great-great granddaughter.  I pinned all of them on the board.  Then I also pinned a picture of a flowering bush that I will use in my first story about her.

I wrote the story using some of the facts that I do know, such as the birth dates of her children.  Like most women in her time, she was pregnant a lot.  Also, I know that she lived in Monticello; and that at the time of this child, her parents lived out in the country north of where Elizabeth Church sits today near the Old Salt Road.  I believe the Yauns own that property now.

Another fact is that her husband was constable during this time and that the first Governor of Florida was from Jefferson County.  I wove them into the story as well.

I also used a story about a black snake that actually happened to me personally.  I was trying portray her as a strong woman, but also a loving mother.

Last, please don’t hesitate to let me know if you find something that you believe is inaccurate.   The point here is to be as factual as possible, and for that I certainly could use your help.

Enjoy!  The story is below.

 

Mary knew what this feeling meant. She had had it four times before, but this time it was too soon. She looked down at the baby suckling at her breast and their eyes locked. She always loved this time, when the little feller could stare and grin. He smiled his toothless grin and drooled milk out the corner of his mouth. She smiled at him, but thought that it was too soon for another to come.

Until now every baby except James had come an easy two years apart. Even little Jesse here came an easy two years after his brother Zach, and Zach came two years after Val, and Val after James. Six year old Sarah wanted to help, and she was already doing what she could. The real help, though, came from Mary’s step-daughters Ellen and Florry, who were twelve and eleven respectively.

Mary found it hard to believe that she was only one year older than Sarah when her family came to Monticello. Much had changed in those two decades since. Just in the last seven years she met William, married, became a mother to three motherless children and had five more babies . She looked back down at Jesse.  Poor thing. He would be booted out of the cradle long before the others had.

It was a warm day. Winter had lingered too long, but outside her window a wild azalea was already blooming. The delicate pinkish blossoms stuck up like someone had picked a little bouquet of flowers and attached it to one single long stem sticking up from a bush of green. Each little star shaped flower looked as if it were poking out its delicate whiskered tongue.

What a blessing to have this here. Where she grew up out in the woods, these azaleas were everywhere, especially in the areas near the swamps. She missed living there with her parents, so two winters ago her dad dug one up and transplanted it by her back window. Every spring she waited for its blooms and subsequently missed home all the more when they quickly faded.

Her parents didn’t live far away, and she saw them and her brothers and sisters anytime they came to town. The home place was only a little more than a half days ride to the east by wagon or carriage and even less by horseback. Between town and her parents’ home was a wilderness of cypress swamps, towering pine forests, palmettos so thick that it was almost impassable and always the moss floating down from the massive oak limbs. In the pines she knew there would be wild dogwoods blooming, and she wished she could make the trip this warm day to see their blossoms peeking around the trunks like white lace. The silence was what she missed most. It would be deeply silent except for an occasional wind whispering through the pine boughs.

The road there was barely more than two ruts, and traveling by horseback was easier. Wagon wheels either bogged down into the shifting sand when dry or slid off the slick red clay when not. The rains here came suddenly and frequently often with little warning. Horses and mules were the transportation of choice, but women were seldom seen straddling either.

Outside her window here, though, there was always chattering and yelling, constant clanging of metal harnesses, and the dull thud of horse hooves on dirt. Monticello’s streets were dusty when it was dry and muddy when it wasn’t. Her house was an easy distance from the center of town, and nothing much happened that she didn’t see.

Jesse was much more interested in the noises outside, and she realized that he was done so she pulled down the soft fabrics of her chemise and bodice and handed him to Florry who had just walked into the room. Mary noticed that Florry always seemed to know when she was done.

Florry was born Florida Mae, though she didn’t much like the name. Mary didn’t think it was a bad name. Florida seemed pretty, enough. After all, it was Spanish for flowers; but Florry knew that she was named after the Territory, not flowers. Born in 1840, Florry’s father along with some of the other men in town, worked hard to achieve statehood, which finally happened five years later when Florry was only five.

Mary stepped out into the warm sunshine on the front porch just as Governor Moseley and another man walked by leading their horses and wearing buckskin leggings and homespun blouses. Moseley tipped his hat and continued talking to the stranger as they made their way toward the center of town. Mary arched her back with her hands at the small of her backside and stretched her shoulders as she wondered when William would be home for dinner or if his business would keep him away again tonight. There were no set hours for a Constable, so she never knew.

She stepped back inside just as Ellen started screaming from the kitchen. Running into the room, Mary saw a black snake halfway up the back steps with his head held up about a half foot off the floor just inside the door. He was a nice one, all black and shiny, almost blue. He quickly turned his head from Ellen to Mary with his half-lided gaze.

She knew he wasn’t poisonous, but she also knew that a bite from him would hurt bad. Ellen slowly began backing up, never taking her eyes off the snake, while Mary picked up the broom which was sitting by the door she had just entered. She slowly moved toward the snake stomping her feet, but it didn’t back down. Mary said, “Oh, you’re a fearless one. You just need to go back where you came from.” She began to push the broom toward him , but he lunged at the broom. That’s when she gave a big shove, and his body tumbled down between the steps.

When Mary looked back over her shoulder, she saw all the kids standing in the door and hall. John, who was twelve, said, “I’ll go kill ‘em.”, but Mary said, “no, he’s a good ‘un. Let him be.” She knew that the black snake would protect their door from other less desirables. He was territorial and wouldn’t let another snake take residence. Like most of everything else in the Territory of Florida, she knew you often had to take the lesser of two evils.

Mary's daughter Laura, who was born seven years after Jesse in 1857.

Mary’s daughter Laura, who was born seven years after Jesse in 1857.

 

 

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