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FLORIDA
1518-1918
PAST, PRESENT
AND
FUTURE
FOUR HUNDRED YEARS OF WARS AND
PEACE AND INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT
By GEORGE M. CHAPIN
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA
THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
1914
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INTRODUCTION
It is well that a community or a commonwealth shall make occa-
sionally an inventory of its possessions which substantiate its claims
to commercial importance and social excellence. It is quite as needful
for its own information as for the enlightenment of those whom it
invites into partnership to reach out for greater things. This story of
Florida has been prepared as such an inventory, and the quatro-cen-
tennial anniversary of its reclamation from Indian control and its
introduction to advancing civilization is an appropriate time for such
accounting.
This book is not intended primarily as a history of Florida. It
recites the story of present-day conditions, and so much of the past
has been recalled as has seemed necessary to give an understanding of
the present and to suggest the possibilities of a bright future.
Volumes might be filled with descriptions of Florida's resources
of soil and forest and mine. Much niight be written of the men and
women who have woven their lives into its making and who love the
state almost as the mother loves her child. No writer can do more than
to suggest in a work of such magnitude. It is a matter of regret that
many of Florida's most interesting features, of her past and present,
have been passed with hardly more than mention-the legends that
people her forests with the heroic leaders of earlier centuries, the
unwritten records that lie hidden in the burial mounds of a forgotten
race, which await the coming of antiquarians and scientists to be trans-
lated for the reading of the world.
Grateful acknowledgment is made for assistance in the prepara-
tion of this book to Hon. Henry H. Buckman, of Jacksonville, who
freely and generously has devoted many hours from a busy life, to a
study of the historical and educational development of the state; to
Mr. Charles Willis Ward for the story of Florida's birds and for many
and beautiful photographs to illustrate the exhaustive article; to
Mr. A. J. Mitchell, section director of the United States Weather
.Bureau, for information and data of Florida's climatological condi-
tions; to Mr. James E. Mears, for the article on Tampa; to Mr. H. A.
INTRODUCTION
B. McKenzie, for material regarding Putnam county and Palatka;
to Mr. Leland J. Henderson, for an article on Pensacola; and to
Hon. W. A. McRae, commissioner of agriculture, for a wealth of
statistical information regarding the resources of the state.
In whatever respects this book may be incomplete-and no work
covering so vast a field can be complete-if it shall serve to enlighten
concerning the boundless resources of the state and to hasten and aid
in their development, if it shall stimulate scientific study of these
resources, much will have been accomplished.
GEORGE M. CHAPIN.
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA, DECEMBER 1, 1918.
I.
I-. -
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
Historical ............................................. 1
Period of Spanish Domination, 1518-1668 ............... 8
English and French Influences in Florida, 1668-1821...... 84
Florida as Part of the United States, 1821-1912.......... 49
Civil War and Reconstruction Period, 1861-1876......... 59
Industrial Progress ..................... ............ 66
Governors of Florida .............................. 74
CHAPTER II
Geological ............................................. 77
CHAPTER III
Climate ............................................ 107
CHAPTER IV
Health ................ ....... ................... 121
CHAPTER V
Population and Growth ................................. 187
CHAPTER VI
Florida's Soils ............... ........................... 145
CHAPTER VII
Agricultural Conditions and Opportunities ................ .
CHAPTER VIII
Tle Cattle Industry .................................... 188
CHAPTER IX
Orange Culture ........................ ........... 195
v.
vi CONTENTS
CHAPTER X
Profitable Soil Products ................................. 219
CHAPTER XI
The Trees of Florida ................... ................ 248
CHAPTER XII
Florida's Wealth of Bird Life ............................. 281
CHAPTER XIII
Florida's Railroads ...................................... 325
CHAPTER XIV
Florida Phosphates ................... ................... 89
CHAPTER XV
Mineral Deposits of Florida ............................. 849
CHAPTER XVI
Naval Stores .. ................ .................... 357
CHAPTER XVII
Florida Fish ................... .. ..... .............. 369
CHAPTER XVIII
Florida Sponge Fisheries ................................ 389
CHAPTER XIX
Florida School System ................................. 407
CHAPTER XX
Florida Cities ........................................... 425
CHAPTER XXI
Jacksonville ........................... ............ 429
CHAPTER XXII
Tampa ...................................... .......... 459
CHAPTER XXIII
Pensacola .............................................. 478
CONTENTS vii
CHAPTER XXIV
Miami ................................................ 499
CHAPTER XXV
Palatka and Putnam County ............................ 517
CHAPTER XXVI
The Everglades .................. ................. 527
CHAPTER XXVII
Florida's Indian Tribe ......... ...................... 548
CHAPTER XXVIII
Convict Lease System .................. ............... 555
CHAPTER XXIX
A Land of Enchantment ................................. 571
CHAPTER XXX
Florida Counties ................................... .... 589
First Congressional District, Comprising Lee, De Soto,
Manatee, Polk, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Her-
nando, Citrus, Sumter and Lake Counties........... 592
Second Congressional District, Comprising Nassau, Baker,
Hamilton, Columbia, Suwanee, Bradford, Alachua,
Marion, Levy, La Fayette, Taylor, Madison and Jef-
ferson Counties .............................. 600
Third Congressional District, Comprising Leon, Gadsden,
Wakulla, Liberty, Franklin, Calhoun, Jackson, Holmes,
Washington, Bay, Walton, Santa Rosa and Escambia
Counties ........................................ 608
Fourth Congressional District, Comprising Moriroe, Dade,
Palm Beach, St. Lucie, Osceola, Brevard, Orainge,
Seminole, Volusia, Putnam, St. John, Clay and Duval
Counties ........................................ 616
CHAPTER I
HISTORICAL
PERIOD OF SPANISH DOMINATION- 1513-1663
LORIDA is one of the oldest names connected with
the discovery of America. From earliest times it
has had a peculiar fascination, first as a land reputed
to be rich in gold and precious stones; in later
centuries as a wilderness habited by savage tribes who
resisted the coming of European civilization; and in
more recent years as a section of wonderful natural beauty, .whose
balmy breezes and semi-tropical verdure made it the resting place for
the recuperation of a great nation.
Of its earliest occupants the world knows little or nothing.
Although they left records of their existence, archaeologists have not
yet read the full meaning of these pages written in sand and stone.
Scattered through the state, particularly along its eastern coast and
less frequently on the Gulf side, immense accumulations of oyster shell
and numerous mounds used for the burial of the dead are found.
These contain pieces of pottery, weapons of war, articles of domestic
use and occasionally human skulls and bones, suggestions, at least, of
an ancient and numerous population. These discoveries suggest also
a relationship with the peoples of Yucatan, whose civilization may
have been co-temporaneous with that of ancient Egypt. Certain it is
that the Florida of today offers to the student of prehistoric times a
field that is rich in its possibilities.
The story of Florida is rich, too, in the unwritten legends of its
past; legends of the times when Spanish treasure ships roved the seas,
when Spanish galleons were wrecked on the islands and reefs that
border its coast. Buccaneers and pirates may have used these islands
as hiding places for their ill-gotten gains, and even in this twentieth
century, these shores are being searched, foot by foot, for the lost
treasures that were hidden by Gasparilla and Captain Kidd.
Harassed by the wars of centuries it has come at last to the develop-
ment of its resources and to take an important part in the commerce
of the nations. It is-no longer merely a land of flowers, for its mines
FLORIDA
and forests and soils have given it preeminence in the products of
peace and are making it rich beyond the dreams of the avaricious
discoverers who first gave it to the world.
PONCE DE IEON'S DISCOVERIES
Four centuries have passed since Ponce de Leon landed upon the
shores of Florida. Born in the Spanish province of Leon, he served
in the wars of Ferdinand and Isabella against the Moors in Granada.
He was trained in battle and he was born with the Spanish love of
adventure. He accompanied Columbus on his second voyage of dis-
covery, but that great commander never set foot upon the mainland
of the new continent, for he reached no farther than Watling's Island,
some four hundred miles east of the Florida coast. Ponce de Leon's
travels only sharpened his appetite for adventure, and his appoint-
ment as governor of Hispaniola, the modern Hayti, gave renewed
opportunity for its gratification. Reckless and ambitious he organized
an expedition to search for gold in the Island of Porto Rico and he
had sufficient influence to have himself appointed its governor. He
had amassed considerable wealth and he was eager to enter upon
newer adventures which, he hoped, would bring him lasting fame and
fortune.
In his wanderings in the western islands he heard frequent and
repeated rumors of a Fountain of Youth in a land which abounded
in gold and precious stones. It was declared that this fabled spring
had the power to give strength to all who should bathe in its marvelous
waters and to restore the vigor of youth to those who had passed their
physical prime.
At his own-expense he equipped three vessels and found numer-
ous followers to accompany him on a voyage of discovery. He set sail
from Porto Rico in the spring of 1513, coasting the islands of His-
paniola, thence north to the Bahamas, inquiring everywhere for the
wonderful fountain. No one could tell him where it was to be found.
but in many places he had renewed reports of its existence in some dis-
tant land still further to the west. He continued his search and on
March 27, 1513, he saw the dim outlines of land on the horizon.
Eagerly crowding on all sail his little fleet coasted along the shores
of what he supposed to be an island. He dropped anchor on April 2d
and with an imposing host of followers he landed near the present site
of St. Augustine.
His landing was on Palm Sunday (Pascua Florida) and to the
FORT MATANZAS. BUILT BY SPANISH ABOUT 1740
BURIAL PLACE OF 107 VICTIMS OF DADE MASSACRE AT NATIONAL CEMETERY, ST. AUGUSTINE
The three pyramidal mounds contain the bones of these soldiers
FLORIDA 7
newly discovered territory he gave the name of Florida. With elab-
orate ceremony he planted the standards of Spain and took posses-
sion in the name of the Spanish king.
THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH
His first reception by the natives was hostile, quite in contrast to
his previous experiences with the natives of Porto Rico and others of
the western islands. But there is evidence that he succeeded in per-
suading them that he preferred peaceful relations to war, and that
they accepted his advances in the spirit in which they were made.
Believing that at last he was near the goal of his ambitions, his confi-
dence in the real existence of the remarkable fountain was strengthened
by the reports of its location somewhere in the interior of the country
whose borders he had touched. Yet none.could tell its precise situa-
tion. Guided by natives he is said to have visited many of the remark-
able springs which then, as now, gushed forth from unknown depths
and sources. Bathing in their waters he met only disappointment,
for beyond the refreshing gained from plunging into their liquid
depths, he found no banishment of the infirmities of his fast maturing
years.
It must be remembered that the development of the human intel-
lect in these early days of the sixteenth century had not advanced
beyond the ready acceptance of the mysterious and miraculous, which
now, four hundred years later, would be received with a smile or a
sneer. Therefore, it is not difficult to imagine that this brave old
adventurer who had a decidedly personal interest in the discovery
of the fountain and in the restoration of his youthful vigor and ambi-
tions, must have experienced bitter disappointment as he retraced
his difficult path-to the coast where his fleet awaited his return, when
he knew that his search had been in vain.
But he had the consciousness of having discovered a new and a
rich land which he had added to the domain of Spain, and with this
offering to his king, he set sail for Porto Rico and soon afterward
returned to Spain. His failure to find the magic fountain made him
somewhat the sport of his fellow nobles, but his splendid reputation
and the result of his successful explorations secured for him a hearty
reception at the Spanish court. He was rewarded with the title of
Adelantado, or governor of Florida and he was encouraged to secure
colonists to establish settlements in the new possessions. It does not
8 FLORIDA
appear, however, that he was offered any substantial aid in this
direction.
Ordered by the king to put down an insurrection in the Spanish
islands, he failed of success. Disheartened and discouraged by this
failure and at the approach of old age, he retired to Porto Rico, where
for several years he remained morose and unpopular. During these
years of inactivity, reports of Cortez's successes in the conquest of
Mexico aroused the Spanish love of adventure and the greed of Span-
ish noblemen, and Ponce de Leon's ambitions once more were stirred.
He dreamed, not now of the fountain of youth, but of founding a
great empire in Florida, which should bring undying fame and bound-
less fortune.
Exhausting his wealth and staking his all upon the outcome, he
fitted out two vessels, and in 1521 set sail upon his last voyage to the
country he had given to the world. After weathering a series of gales
he landed near Cape Sable, the southernmost point of Florida, in a
little bay which still bears his name. His landing was fiercely opposed
by the natives; many of his followers were killed or wounded and he
himself received injuries which hastened the retreat to the ships. A
landing was made on the island of Tortugas for supplies and the name
was given to the place from the large number of turtles which were
found there.
The old soldier, disheartened, sick and depressed, left the shores
of Florida, abandoning his high hopes of empire and power, and fled
to Cuba. His death from wounds received in battle with the Indians
followed within a few days after his arrival.
A dreamer he may have been, but in the attempt to realize his
visions he gave to the world a land which has become the realization
of prophetic foresight far more ambitious than any he could have
had. His name has been perpetuated in various sections of the South
and of Florida itself, which bears the name he bestowed.
SPANISH EXPLORATIONS
The discoveries made by Ponce de Leon had been confirmed by
other adventurers and explorers even before his death, and several voy-
ages had been made to the coast of Florida. Although the waters had
been traversed on both the Atlantic and Gulf sides, it was supposed
to be an island which sooner or later would be circumnavigated. It
must be remembered also that the name Florida was applied for many
FLORIDA 9
year, even for several centuries, to the entire region as far north as
Virginia and westward to unknown and unmeasured limits.
The new found land had been explored only, near the coast and few
of the earlier exploiters were bold enough to venture far from the
coast. A vast expanse of territory stretched away, unknown to Span-
ish invaders. It was supposed to be populated by savage tribes, whom
they called Indians, for the earlier discoverers believed they had
reached India by the westward route.
The wonderful richness of foliage and the magnificent forests and
flowers indicated a soil of surpassing productive capacity, but to these
possibilities the Spanish were blind. It is a significant fact, illustrat-
ing the character of the first European masters of this land, that
during the hundred and fifty years in which they endeavored to estab-
lish undisputed sway and to force Spanish Catholicism upon the
natives, they depended almost entirely upon the home country, three
thousand miles away, for the simplest supplies. Their attempts to
meet their needs by pillaging the native stores were a most prolific
cause of strife and war. Fish and wild fruits and game were every-
where obtainable, which often they had not the skill or the will to
gather, and they lacked the things that insignificant effort expended
upon the soil would have provided in abundance. Not infrequently
from their lack of foresight, their colonists hovered unpleasantly close
to the starvation point.
The fear of unknown but certain dangers in the interior of the
new country was, however, offset in some measure by .the persistent
rumors of gold to be had for the taking. The result was a number
of expeditions from Spain and from Cuba that returned with trinkets
of the precious metal, which had been secured in trading with the
natives along the coast. Diego Miruela in 1516, Fernando de Cordova
in 1517, and Lucas Vasquez d'Ayllon in 1520 were among the com-
manders of these expeditions.
Cordova returning to Cuba from a visit to Mexico, then called New
Spain, made a landing in Ponce de Leon Bay to fill his empty water
casks. He was set upon by hostile natives and died from wounds
received in the attack. Alaminos, who had been Cordova's pilot, per-
suaded France de Garay, the Spanish governor of Jamaica, to fit
out an expedition for exploration. In command of three ships Alami-
nos followed the coast from Cape Sable to Panuco, now Tampico,
Mexico, establishing the northerly line of the Gulf of Mexico and
proving that Florida was not an island, but an immense unexplored
mainland stretching north and west to unknown limits.
10 FLORIDA
About this time Merazzano, an Italian navigator in the French
service, explored the coast from North Carolina to Cape Cod and
returning to France aroused great interest by his reports of the coun-
try, its richness and the manners and characteristics of the natives.
NARVAEZ' TRAVELS
An exploration more ambitious than any that had preceded it, was
that undertaken by Panfilo de Narvaez. In his ignorance of geo-
graplucal conditions and distances, he believed that Panuco, Mexico,
could be reached by an overland march of a few hundred miles from
Florida. He secured from the king of Spain the appointment of gov-
ernor of Florida and at his own expense fitted out five vessels to take
him to the coast of this new found territory. With six hundred fol-
lowers he left Spain in June, 1527. He landed at Hispaniola to
refit his damaged fleet. He was detained there by the loss of two ves-
sels until the following April, when having secured other vessels he
embarked four hundred men and eighty horses. The expedition was
landed at what is now known as Clear Water Harbor, on the Gulf
side of Florida, not far from the present location of Tampa.
The standards of Spain were set up with elaborate ceremony and
the land was preempted in the name of the king of Spain. Deciding
not to establish a colony at this point, Narvaez disembarked three
hundred ilen and the forty horses that had survived the voyage, and
giving orders that the fleet should coast along toward the north, keep-
ing in touch with the landing party, he set out for his long tramp
toward, if not to, Mexico.
It was a venture of untold hardship and almost unbelievable
dangers, which it is unnecessary to follow in detail. Disease and
insufficient food rapidly diminished his forces. Unfriendly Indians
obstructed the way or opposed it by open hostilities. Nowhere did the
bold travelers find traces of the gold which they had been told existed
in abundance through the country. At no point along the march
where.they came to the coast did they discover traces of the fleet which
was to succor them. At various places they stopped to recuperate and
to collect food supplies from the Indians or from whatever source
they could. The natives hearing of their approach burned the vil-
lages and left little hope of obtaining sustenance. At or near the
present site of St. Marks they halted their forces, which had been
still further reduced by sickness and hardship. Hemmed in by hostile
tribes in an unknown land, they took council and decided that their
FLORIDA 11
only hope of escape lay in building boats and endeavoring to reach
either Cuba or Panuco by water.
'Within six weeks they built five rude and unseaworthy boats, each
one hundred feet long, and set sail in the stormy month oi September.
Their destination was planned to be Panuco, twelve hundred miles ,
distant, which in their ignorance they supposed to be nearer than'Cuba,
which was only five hundred miles away. For thirty days the little ,
fleet, unskillfully manned, skirted the shore. .Landing occasionally
for food and water they were attacked by Indians, losing many of
their number. The boats were separated and wrecked; that occupied
by Narvaez and some of his priests was carried out to sea and was ,
never heard from again. The other boats were lost and the original
force of three hundred men was reduced to less than one hundred.
One small party of these survivors on foot and through a hostile coun-
try, forced its way westward until it reached a great river. These
men under the leadership of De Vaca made but little exploration of
the stream,-but from the description there is every reason to believe
that it was the Mississippi. Although he did not ascend the river, it is
to him and not to De Soto that probably belongs the honor of being
the first European to see and cross this mighty stream.
The three vessels which Narvaez had left at Clear Water Harbor
with orders to follow his progress along the-coast, sailed northward for
some distance. They failed to find the bay which they had been
directed to make their anchorage, and they turned back and came to
Espiritu Santo Bay, now called Tampa Bay. Two of the ships con- -
tinued their search for Narvaez and his party for nearly a year, and
then sailed to Mexico.
De Vaca and three of his companions were captured by the. In-
dians and they owed their lives to the idea that they were possessed of
healing powers. By the manifest favor of Providence they were
enabled to effect some seemingly remarkable cures, and these suc-
cesses strengthened their chances for life and for eventual escape. For
several years they wandered among the various Indian tribes, occa-
sionally making their way by trading and barter, and after almost
incredible hardships they succeeded in reaching Panuco and were
returned to Spain, more than ten years after they had left it for this t
expedition.
DE SOTO'8 EXPEDITION
De Vaca told marvelous tales of the richness of the country he had
explored, and he sought to be appointed governor of Florida in order
12 FLORIDA
that he might return with authority and means and men to colonize it.
But at this time, 1539, Hernando de Soto, one of the favorite cavaliers
at the Spanish court, was planning an expedition for the conquest of
the new and little known land. Already he had won renown and riches
by his conquest of Peru in 1586, and he had returned to Spain with a
large fortune as his share of the booty of that campaign.
As governor of Cuba and Florida and a marquis of Spain he set
out with a sple-:didly equipped fleet, a thousand men at arms, many
priests and followed s. He landed on the west coast of Florida at what
is now known as Tampa Bay, May 25, 1589. It was but a few leagues
south of the landing place of Narvaez, and to the bay he gave the name
of Espiritu Santo.
The avowed purpose of De Soto's expedition was conquest and
gold. He had come to Florida prepared, however, to a limited extent
to establish settlements and to colonize the country. Prospecting
through scouting parties, his little army started on its march through
the wilderness and into unknown and undreamed of hardships and
dangers. The route took them further into the interior and over a
longer road than had yet been undertaken by any previous Caucasian
explorers on the new continent. Their way was determined, in large
measure, by the reports of gold, always gold, in some location still
ahead of them and still to be reached by arduous toil through hostile
sections and by bloody encounters with the Indians.
From the Indian village of Hirrihigua, probably on the present
site of Tampa, the way led the expedition across the Withlacoochee
river, thence to the Indian settlement of Ocali, probably where the
city of Ocala now stands in Marion county. The difficulty of con-
necting the former names of localities with the present-day titles of
rivers and towns, makes the tracing of De Soto's path rather uncertain.
It seems probable, however, that his course from Ocali was in a north-
westerly direction. He crossed the Suwanee river near Old Town in
Lafayette county, and traversed what is now embraced in the counties
of Madison, Leon and Lafayette and Jefferson, and it is evident that
he explored quite thoroughly the territory between Monticello and
Tallahassee. It appears that he did not go west of the Apalachicola
river.
From this section his route seems to have been toward the north
and northeast. Tracing it, so far as is possible by the names of places
which have been preserved in the records of this journeyings, he crossed
the Altamaha and Savannah rivers, passed through the middle sections
of Georgia, thence into the hill country of Northern Georgia, where,
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NEW SMYRNA WATER FRONT
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*
FLORIDA 15
rumor told him, were deposits of gold and other valuable minerals.
Crossing the Etowah river, he visited the settlement of Chiapa, where
now stands the city of Rome, Georgia. From this point the course
led south and west to Mauvilla, about one hundred and fifty miles north
of Pensacola, thence in a northwesterly direction to the Mississippi
river, where he is believed to have crossed a few miles south of the
present site of Memphis.
DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI
His discovery of the Mississippi was made in April, 1541, almost
two years after his landing on the west coast of Florida. The
summer and autumn of this year were spent in exploring the country
bordering and west of the great river, and the winter was passed in
camp near the White river.
Up to this time De Soto had lost two hundred and fifty of his
men besides many horses. Evidently he longed to return to his native
land for he dispatched a scouting party to investigate the possibility
of reaching the Gulf of Mexico by way of the Mississippi river. The
report was that such a route to sea was impracticable. The gal-
lant chief, for the first time in his daring leadership, became dis-
couraged. Soon he was attacked by fever and sank into despondency.
Death came to his relief May 21, 1542, and to preserve his body from
the ravages of the Indians whom he had robbed and punished, his fol-
lowers wrapped it in his mantle and at midnight sunk it in the mid-
dle of the river, whose discovery has been credited to him by the
common consent of historians.
His march of two thousand miles from Espiritu Santo Bay had -
been marked by a series of bloody opposition by the Indians whom
he had encountered along the way. Hundreds of them had fallen
before the guns of his little army; he had robbed their stores of food
and grain; he had burned their villages and to add to his accumulations
of gold and pearls he had carried away the queen of the most prosper-
ous tribe and had robbed the graves of their dead. His path had been
one of devastation, desolation, and ruin. But from the military view-
point, it was one of the most masterly in history. He forced his way
through an unknown country fighting continuously against savage
tribes, maintaining his men and followers from the country as they
advanced, inspiring to the end a devotion on their part than which
no commander of ancient or modern times appears to have aroused
a greater faith, and when all the conditions and circumstances are
16 FLORIDA
considered, this expedition must rank high in the history of military
exploit.
When his death seemed imminent he was asked to name his suc-
cessor to lead the expedition. His choice was Luis Muscoza de
Alvarado. The new leader undertook to follow the supposed route of
De Vaca to reach Mexico by an overland march, but after wandering
through the country from June to December, he returned to the Mis-
sissippi, built boats in which in July, 1548, the party descended the
river to the Gulf and some two months later by following the coast, '
they reached Panuco, Mexico,-three hundred and eleven survivors
of the thousand men who had left Tampa almost three and a half years
before.
CATHOLIC MISSIONS
Other expeditions for conquest or for the conversion of the native
Florida tribes to Spanish Catholicism followed. Four Franciscan
brothers came from Havana in 1549. They landed in Espiritu Santo
Bay to labor for the spiritual welfare of the Indians. Three of them
were murdered almost as they touched the shore, thus early in the
history of the country staining its soil with the blood of religious
martyrdom. The last of these expeditions of conquest was that com- -
manded by Tristan de Luna, which was equipped by the Spanish
viceroy of Mexico, and sailed from Vera Cruz in August, 1559. It
landed at the present site of Pensacola, about one thousand soldiers,
sailors, priests and friars. A reconnoitering party explored the coun-
try as far north as Tennessee, finding many traces of De Soto's trav-
els. Their reports encouraged De Luna to undertake to colonize the
lands they had explored, but his men demanded that they return home
and many of them deserted on the supply ships that had come to
their relief. De Luna was soon recalled and this project for coloniz-
ing Florida was abandoned. The historical significance of De Luna's'.
expedition lies in the fact that it was the first settlement or temporary
occupation by Europeans of the present site of Pensacola, and it was
the first exploration of the Alabama and Tennessee territory.
This practically was the last of the Spanish expeditions, which
from the time of De 'S9t', almost fifty years before, had devastated
the territory known as Florida. The object of these incursions had
been the acquisition of gold and silver and pearls. Their progress
had been marked by despoliation and slaughter. The cause of Cath-
olicism had gained no lasting foothold among the Indiang. The over-
mastering passion had been to conquer and rob the natives and not to
FLORIDA 17
develop the resources of the soil. The invaders had sought, not to
create wealth but to seize and appropriate it wherever they had found
it, regardless of the suffering, misery and destruction they caused in
gaining their ends. Their efforts had proved fruitless. They had met
only with hardships and had encountered relentless and cruel foes,
whose primitive methods of warfare alone had prevented them from
sweeping their would-be masters into the sea.
The net result of the half century of aggressive oppression was
the dim knowledge of a land of unknown limits, which the invaders
pronounced "the richest country in the world." Not a single settle-
ment of white men had been planted permanently in all the vast region
and nothing had been accomplished toward introducing European
civilization into the country.
HUGUENOT SETTLEMENT
From this period, about 1562, may be dated a new epoch in the
development of Florida, for another nation had been awakened to a
realization of-its possibilities. In strange contrast to the incentives
that had brought the Spanish to these shores, the idea of liberty of
conscience and of freedom to worship God invited the first French
settlements to the American continent. Religious war was being
waged in France under Charles IX as the head of the Catholic party,
and Admiral Chastellany, better known as Coligny, as the leader of
French Protestantism. The discoveries by the Spanish on the west-
ern hemisphere had suggested to Coligny the idea of founding a colony
across the sea, which might extend French possessions and afford a
refuge for the Huguenots, if their defeat at home should demand such
a haven.
Under Captain Jean Ribaut (spelled Ribault by some writers)
two ships sailed from France in February, 1562, for Florida shores.
They had been equipped by Coligny and after a long voyage they
sighted land not far from the present site of St. Augustine. Coast-
ing along the shore for some distance, they entered'the mouth of the
river now known as the St. Johns. Landing, the venturesome Hugue-
nots erected a stone monument on which was cut the arms of France,
thus staking their claim for the French crown.
Making but a short stay the expedition reembarked and sailed
northward along the Atlantic coast to the harbor of Port Royal. Here
a little colony was established and a fort erected, which was manned
by twenty-five volunteers from Ribaut's followers. He then went
Vol. 1-2
18 FLORIDA
back to France for supplies and reinforcements, planning a speedy
return to the colony. He found civil war raging in France and the
little garrison at Charlesfort was neglected, if not forgotten. Dis-
content and mutiny disorganized the colony; the commander was brutal
and severe in his discipline and was murdered by his men. The sur-
vivors attempting to return to France in a boat of their own construc-
tion were rescued by an English captain. Charlesfort was never
reoccupied by the French and its exact location is unknown, but it is
supposed to have been on one of the islands near Beaufort, South
Carolina.
LAUDONNIERE'S EXPEDITION
Following the temporary restoration of peace in France, Coligny
sent another expedition to Florida. Three ships were dispatched
Sunder Rene de Laudonniere. The company included representatives
of some of the best families of France, besides artisans, sailors and
soldiers, but apparently few agriculturists were among the number.
They touched the coast of Florida in June, 1564, and probably in the
harbor of St. Augustine. After exploring the coast as far north as
Nassau Sound and the St. Mary's river, near where Fernandina now
stands, they entered the St. Johns river to which Ribaut two years
earlier, had given the name The River of May. Going up the stream
nearly six miles they reached what is now known as St. Johns Bluff.
This high bank of the river, commanding a splendid view of the
surrounding country, has gathered much interest during the passing
centuries of Florida's history. It has been used time and again for
war operations, offensive and defensive. It was here that two of
the bloodiest scenes in the struggle for supremacy of the country
were enacted. It was here that fortifications were erected to repel the
coming of Oglethorpe when the Georgia general was advancing to
attack St. Augustine. Here a strong battery of artillery was set up
for the defense of Jacksonville during the Civil war, and during the
Spanish-American war it was made the basing point for mining the
river and the lookout for Spanish vessels when the fleet commanded
by the wily Cervera was lost to the knowledge of the world for several
weeks, in 1898.
Laudonniere explored the river and the surrounding territory while
awaiting reinforcements and supplies from the home country. But
he, too, had to contend against discontent and mutiny, and his free
use of the death penalty as a method of discipline weakened rather
than strengthened his position. The settlement while awaiting the
ALTAR RELIC FOUND IN A
SPANISH MISSION
FLORIDA 21
coming of supplies, became reckless in the use of what it had and en-
tirely neglectful of raising anything from the rich soil to meet its
necessities. Accordingly within the year starvation menaced it. An
attempt to levy on the Indians proved fruitless but it aroused their
dormant hostility. An English fleet under Sir John Hawkins, call-
ing at the port in August, 1565, -offered to carry the garrison back to
England, from which it would have been possible to reach France.
Laudonniere refused the offer, but his men insisted on returning to
France with the English fleet unless other provision were made.for
their rescue. The French commander purchased one ship from the
Englishman and with another that had been constructed by the colo-
nists, an expedition was fitted 9ut for the return to France. Hardly
had anchor been raised when a strange fleet was -sighted on the
horizon.
It was the third Huguenot expedition sent by Cdligny and it came
as a timely reinforcement to Laudonniere's almost exhausted colony.
It was landed at Fort Caroline, which had been constructed by Lau-
donniere and his forces at or near St. Johns Bluff, and the date of this
landing-August 28, 1565--was most important -in the history of
Florida. This expedition brought six hundred and fifty persons, rep-
resentatives of French aristocracy as well as tradesmen and soldiers,
and it was under command of Jean Ribaut, who had led the previous
expedition to Charlesfort, three years before.
MENENDEZ' PERSECUTIONS
By a strange coincidence another expedition was landing the same
day at St. Augustine, thirty-six miles south on the Florida coast. It
was under the command of Pedro Menendez, and had been sent by
the Spanish government to anve the French Huguenots from Florida
soil.
Menendez, who was high in the councils of the Spanish throne,
was most bitter in his hatred of Protestantism, and, therefore, he was
deemed especially fitted to undertake this task. His landing at St.
Augustine was effected on the day devoted in the Roman calendar
to Saint Augustine, and he gave the place the name which has remained
through the centuries, making it the oldest continuous European set-
tlement on American soil.
Spain claimed by right of discovery and military occupation all
the territory known as Florida, and it resented invasion by other na-
tions. There is evidence that it was the intention of this great Catholic
22 FLORIDA
country to resist all attempts by the hated Protestantism of France to
plant its banners on Florida soil and to prevent at all hazards the
conversion of the Indians to that religion. There is also reason to
believe that the plans of Coligny had been revealed to the Spanish
court by his enemies closer than he to the French throne.
Menendez, with the authority of Philip II of Spain behind him,
had expended his entire fortune and all he could borrow from his
friends in equipping this fleet of thirty-four vessels for this expedi-
tion. He had under his command a force of twenty-six hundred per-
sons, including soldiers, sailors, priests and monks. His voyage had
been delayed by storm and adverse winds and when he reached Porto
Rico, early in August, he had less than one-third of his force with
him. Learning here of Ribaut's movements, he pushed on with his
fastest vessels and his arrival at St. Augustine and that of his hated
French rival, twelve leagues up the coast on the same day, were un-
known to each other.
A subsequent encounter of the two fleets was at too long range
to be disastrous to either, and Menendez determined to make a land
attack upon the French at Fort Caroline. Ribaut, however, believed
that his best chances for annihilating the Spanish forces were in a
naval battle, and accordingly he embarked most of the fighting men
from Fort Caroline on his vessels and sailed toward St. Augustine.
MASSACRES AT FORT CAROLINE AND MATANZAS
Menendez marching his six hundred fighting men across the forty
miles between St. Augustine and Fort Caroline, surprised and quickly
captured the little weakened garrison of less than two hundred, in-
cluding soldiers, artisans, servants, women and children. Laudon-
niere fled with other fugitives, and those who were unable to escape
met with horrible slaughter. Menendez claimed in his subsequent
report of the event, that he gave orders that all persons under fifteen
years of age and all cripples should be spared, but even this seems to
be contradicted by the facts related by other authorities. A few of
the garrison were spared for a more ignominious death, for Menen-
dez hanged them from the oaks of the surrounding forest regardless
of the usages of warfare, and over their dangling bodies he placed
this inscription: "Not as Frenchmen, but as Lutherans."
His hatred of French Protestantism was not sated with the re-
venge he had accomplished. He changed the name of the captured
fortress and called it San Mateo, and he gave the same name to the
FLORIDA 23
river that flowed below the bluffs on which the fort was built. He
garrisoned the place with three hundred men and returned with the
remainder of his forces to St. Augustine.
Ribaut with his fleet preparing to attack the Spaniards anchored
off St. Augustine, but he was overtaken by a great storm and driven
southward. Every vessel was wrecked on the coast between Matanzas
Inlet and Cape Canaveral. With two hundred of his men he escaped
to the shore not far south of Matanzas and this force was joined by
those from some of the other ships that had been wrecked further
south.
Within a few hours after his return from the bloody scenes at
Fort Caroline, Menendez was informed that a large body of the
French were south of Matanzas making their way northward. Quick-
ly gathering his armed men he made his way to the southern end of
Anastasia Island, and across the Matanzas Inlet he saw some two
hundred of the wrecked Frenchmen, preparing to cross the arm of the
sea. A parley followed, in which the Spanish commander demanded
unconditional surrender, but promised clemency. The captives were
brought across the inlet, ten at a time, and they were told that as
they numbered many more than their captors, it was necessary that
their hands be tied behind them so that they might be unable to over-
power the sixty or eighty Spanish soldiers under Menendez. When
the entire force had been brought to the north side of the inlet and
all had been bound with cords, the march toward St. Augustine was
begun. Menendez, however, had given orders that when a certain
point in the march had been reached, every captive should be killed,
and the brutal command was obeyed literally, for it is said that not
one of the French captives escaped."
Indian runners on the following day brought word to Menendez,
when he was resting from his arduous work of slaughter, that another
party of Frenchmen was advancing up the coast, and again gathering
his soldiers, the Spaniard went to the lower point of Anastasia
Island. The party included some three hundred and fifty of the ship-
wrecked Frenchmen under command of Ribaut himself. Ignorant
of the massacre at Fort Caroline and believing the promises made
them by Menendez, Ribaut and his followers parleyed for terms of
surrender, offering large suns for the ransom of themselves. This
was refused, but Menendez promised, verbally and in writing, that
the captives should be treated with clemency. Relying on his most
solemn oath, the Frenchmen, after a night of deliberation, surren-
dered, but not all of them, for during that night two hundred deserted
24 FLORIDA
the camp and turned their faces southward, toward dangers that they
knew not of, rather than trust the treacherous Spanish commander.
Ribaut and his companions were brought across the inlet ten at a
time, and as each squad reached the shore, the captives were tied and
rendered helpless and then were shown the bodies of the company,
scattered on the sand, where they had fallen but a few days before.
Realizing the fate that was awaiting them, they gave themselves over
to cursing their captors or to preparing themselves for death. The
same fate that had overtaken their former comrades was meted out
to them, a few artisans, who professed themselves Catholics, being
spared and taken to St. Augustine, where they were incorporated into
the Spanish colony.
Early in November word was brought to St. Augustine that the
remainder of the shipwrecked French forces, the two hundred who
had turned back from the surrender of Ribaut at Matanzas, were in-
trenching themselves near Cape Canaveral, and were endeavoring to
build a boat from the fragments of their wrecked ships. A third
time gathering his forces, Menendez made a forced march to attack
the Frenchmen. At his appearance twenty of them fled to the forest
and were lost forever to recorded history. The remainder, daring
the fate of their former companions, surrendered and were spared, for
the brutal Spaniard evidently considered their small number no men-
ace to his power. They were brought to St. Augustine and became
a part of the garrison there.
One Frenchman, who escaped the second massacre at Matanzas,
eventually reached France, and told the story of the horrible butch-
eries committed by Menendez, which had been inspired by his relent-
less cruelty and by religious fanaticism. Teewsfteatrocity
brought a feeling of horror to all urope, outside of Spain, even in
that day of bloody deeds, and it stamped with infamy the name of
Menendez, which all the centuries of time will fail to remove. Yet it
brought him the highest commendation from the Spanish king, Philip
II, and a letter of praise for his religious zeal, from Pope Pius V.
MENENDEZ' ADMINISTRATION
The Huguenots, among whom was Laudonniere, who had escaped
the attack on Fort Caroline, reached three small vessels which were
still anchored at the mouth of the St. Johns river, and in the course
of time they came to their home country. With their departure, the
efforts of the French to plant a colony in Florida were ended.
FLORIDA 25
Having driven the hated Protestants from Florida, over which the
Spanish throne claimed possession and exclusive dominion, Menen-
dez explored the Atlantic coast as far north as Chesapeake Bay and
traversed the interior, making friendly overtures to the Indian chiefs
along the coast of Carolina and Georgia. It is probable that he as-
cended the St. Johns river to its source. Within eighteen months
after his arrival in Florida, he constructed fortifications at St.
Augustine, on the site of Fort Caroline, which he named San Mateo,
at Avista, on Amelia Island near Fernandina, and at St. Helena.
He built blockhouses at several other points and at each of these he
established and maintained garrisons or missions for the spread of the
Catholic religion among the Indians.
But his administration aroused insubordination among his forces.
The garrisons at St. Augustine and San Mateo mutinied and his men
determined to abandon the country. Many who had deserted were
shipwrecked along the reefs of the lower Florida coast; others reached
Spain and spread reports that were inimical to Menendez' plans in
the new country, and dissuaded others from joining their fortunes
with his. He returned to Spain in the spring of 1567, and was wel-
comed cordially, but he found great difficulty in obtaining the sub-
stantial aid he needed to maintain his colonies and missions in Florida.
His anxiety for the safety of these settlements was not lessened by
reports that the French were planning retaliatory expeditions to
avenge the massacres at Fort Caroline and Matanzas Inlet.
DE GOURGES' REVENGE
That this was not an idle report was proved by the expedition led
by Dominic de- Gourges, a French soldier who had suffered much as
a prisoner of war from the Spaniards. His desires for revenge were
not inspired by religious fanaticism, for there is evidence that he was
himself a Romanist, but he burned to avenge the insult to the French
nation, which the king and court of France had noticed only by half-
hearted remonstrances to the Spanish throne. With a hundred soldiers
and fifty armed-sailors, he embarked from France on August 22, 1567,
ostensibly for a voyage to Africa to procure slaves. Reaching Cape
San Antonio, the eastern point of Cuba, he revealed his plans to his
little company. Quickly he enlisted their enthusiastic support, and
they proceeded to the mouth of the St. Johns river, where they were
saluted by the Spanish forts on either side of the river, and which
they answered, encouraging the idea that De Gourges and his follow-
26 FLORIDA
ers were Spaniards. Then the expedition sailed to the St. Mary's
river, the present harbor of Fernandina.
By a fortunate combination of circumstances, he was enabled to
enlist the services of two Indian chiefs, Satourioura and his nephew,
Olocatora, against their hated foes, the Spaniards. The chiefs as-
sembled their warriors, a thousand or more of them, and marched
across the country to the blockhouse on Amelia Island, thence across
Fort George Island. By a sudden attack, they annihilated the Span-
ish garrison on the north side of the St. Johns river, under the immedi-
ate command of De Gourges, who with Olocatora, led the attacking
forces. Swimming the river, the fort and garrison on the south side
were attacked and vanquished. Those who escaped, attempted to
reach Fort San Mateo, on the same side of the river, some five or six
miles further up from the mouth, but they were killed by the Indians.
Fort San Mateo was then besieged, and its capture was soon ac-
complished. The thirty survivors were brought before De Gourges.
He rehearsed to them the wrongs committed by Menendez against
the subjects of the French king, and he told them that he had come
to avenge the insults to his country. Then he hanged them from the
oaks under whose shade the Huguenots had suffered a similar fate
two years before. Paraphrasing the epitaph put up by Menendez,
he marked the place with a pine board, on which he had burned with
a hot iron the words: "I do this not as unto Spaniards nor mariners,
but as to traitors, thieves and murderers."
The Indian allies willingly destroyed the fort and urged De
Gourges to complete his work by the destruction of the Spanish garri-
son and fortifications at St. Augustine, but believing his forces inade-
quate to the task, he dismissed his allies with the promise that he would
return within a twelvemonth with a larger and sufficient force. But
the anti-Huguenot faction was in power and the temper of the French
court was not favorable to his plans.
MENENDEZ' RETURN TO FLORIDA
Menendez returning to Florida in March, 1568, learned on his ar-
rival of the swift retribution inflicted by De Gourges. He found his
garrisons demoralized and suffering from a lack of food. The In-
dians, aroused by the successful incursion of De Gourges, were every-
where in revolt against Spanish power and authority. Nevertheless,
Menendez devoted himself earnestly to restoring the military posts
along the coast. He brought with him ten Franciscan priests, and he
FLORIDA 27
began again to establish Catholic missions among the native tribes,
extending his efforts as far north as Chesapeake Bay. But his suc-
cess was doubtful, for while the natives listened attentively so long
as they were generously supplied with food, their religious zeal
promptly waned when these supplies were shortened.
The importance of Florida as a foreign possession soon declined
in public estimation. No great deposits of gold had been found within
its confines, and those who had pioneered the country had had to be
sustained by constant supplies from the home country. Finally, dele-
gating his authority to Pedro Menendez Marquis, a nephew, Menen-
dez returned to Spain, where he died in 1574.
With his departure, the aggressive policy of Spain may be said to
have been ended in the territory which Ponce de Leon had given to
his fatherland. It is true that efforts, more or less effective, were
made to maintain the dog-in-the-manger policy of holding the country
by force of arms, without developing its material resources, and re-
sisting the efforts of other nations to undertake such development.
For a hundred years after the death of Menendez, Spanish power was
employed in Florida, mainly to quiet the uprisings of hostile Indians,
to establish Catholie missions among them, and in making a futile re-
sistance to the growing power of the French and English on the new
continent.
Sir Francis Drake, in 1580, attacked the garrison at St. Augus-
tine. He destroyed the fort and sacked the treasure chest that he
found. The little settlement was rebuilt, and in 1593, twelve Fran-
ciscan brothers made it their headquarters for extending the Catholic
missions and religion throughout the peninsula.
Five years later began a series of attacks and massacres upon
the Spanish missions by the Indians, but not discouraged by these
disasters the missionaries became even more aggressive, and increas-
ing success seemed to crown their efforts. War between the Spanish
colonists and the Apalachee Indians broke out in 1638, in which the
settlers were substantially victorious.
FORTIFICATIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE
So important in the history of Florida have been the activities cen-
tering about St. Augustine, that a description of the old city and of
its fortifications is not out of place here. Its location is near the
spot where Ponce de Leon landed in 1518. The city itself was founded
by Menendez in 1565, the first permanent settlement by Europeans on
28 FLORIDA
American soil. The location is on a narrow peninsula, which in former
times could be approached by land, only from the north. The St.
Sebastian river and the swamps on the west join the Matanzas river
a short distance south of the town. Across the Matanzas, which bor-
ders the city on the east, lies Anastasia Island, separating it from the
ocean and extending about eighteen miles south to Matanzas Inlet.
Across the little peninsula, east and west, was built a line of forti-
fications, which barred easy approach. From the fort at the edge of
the Matanzas river, a deep ditch extended to the St. Sebastian river,
which was flooded at high tide. Entrance to the town was over a
drawbridge across the ditch and through a massive gate in the line of
fortifications. Earthworks extended along the St. Sebastian on the
west of the town and around to the Matanzas on the south. When
night came the drawbridge was raised, the gate was closed and the
guards took their station.
Of these fortifications, only the gate and a small portion of the
adjoining walls remain, picturesque reminders of those earlier days
when war was the vocation of every able-bodied man. The growth
of the modern St. Augustine has extended far beyond the gates and
they stand today in the midst of strangely incongruous surroundings.
Bronze Tablet on the old City Gates at St. Augustine, Florida:
THESE GATES
WERE BEGUN AS A DEFENCE
AGAINST THE ENGLISH IN 1743
DURING THE REIGN
OF KING PHILIP V OF SPAIN.
IN 1804
THEY WERE REBUILT OF COQUINA
BY ANTONIO ARRENDONDO
ROYAL ENGINEER OF SPAIN.
THIS TABLET IS ERECTED BY
THE NATIONAL SOCIETY
OF COLONIAL DAMES OF AMERICA
RESIDENT IN FLORIDA
1906.
FORT MARION
Almost from the first occupation of the place, a fort has been
located just north of the old city and outside its ancient walls. The
d r
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.*
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BRO(NZE T%1141 () CN ITY C~ATVl AT ST AC*,tiUSTTINE
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v~-~"r%
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.i
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7,-- '- -
^'-^"F^^^
OLD CITY (;ATES OF ST. AUGUSTINE'S ANCIENT FORTIFICATIONS
;rr
-cl
;;-LT.~
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FLORIDA 33
site commands the approach by land from the north and by sea from
the east. "In different forms and bearing different names it has been
established for more than three centuries. For two hundred years it
was St. Augustine and St. Augustine was Florida At first a rude
and temporary structure of pine logs, the fortifications expanded i
magnitude, until it developed into the great stone fortress as it stan
today. In the years of its building the progress of the work was slow.
Convicts from Spain and Mexico, and Indians and slaves quarri)
the coquina rock on Anastasia Island, ferried it across the Matanzas
river, and toiled at the walls. The work was considered finished in
1756.
"The story is told, that the King of Spain, counting tip the cost,
fancied that the fort must have been built of gold, and it is easy to
imagine that the successive governors-general grew rich from their
manipulations of the great work."
The fort was called San Marco, but this name was changed
to Fort Marion, in honor of the Revolutionary hero, General
Francis Marion, soon after Florida became a possession of the United
States.
This fort which is the only example of mediaeval fortification ex-
isting on this continent, is a fine sample of the science of military
engineering as it had been developed in the early part of the
eighteenth century. The inner court, one hundred and three by one
hundred and nine feet, is surrounded by casemates, which were used
for barracks, messrooms, storerooms and a chapel. An inner room
in the northeast corner of the structure, surrounded by thick walls,
and with no direct opening to the outer light and air, was used as the
magazine. Recent writers have called this the "dungeon," and have
drawn highly imaginative pictures of the tortures inflicted therein*
by Spanish brutality. There is no foundation in any recorded his
torical facts for such imaginings.
From the court a stone ascent leads to the terreplein of the ram-
parts. At the outer angle of each bastion is a sentry boa. The outer
walls of the fort are nine feet thick at the base, four and a half feet
thick at the top and rise twenty-five feet above the present level of
the moat. The entire fort is surrounded by a moat, forty feet wide,
which formerly could be flooded from the riveat high tide. Alo
the outer edge of the moat are- narrow covered waleel x
spaces, called Places-of-Arms, where artillery was mounted and troops
gathered under the protection of the outer wall or rampart.
The United States Government made some additions to the forti-
VoL 1-8
//^ 6-
34 FLORIDA
fications in 1842 and 1844. Fort Marion is one of the military reserva-
tions of the United States, and while the War Department has used
it at intervals, particularly during the Seminole war, as a military
prison, the place is now garrisoned by one non-commissioned officer,
who serves as care-taker.
ENGLISH AND FRENCH INFLUENCES IN FLORIDA
1663-1821
The settlement of Virginia by the English was undertaken in
1607, and other colonies were planted along the Atlantic seaboard
by the English and Dutch without opposition from the Spanish crown.
Charles II granted the Charter of Carolina in 1668, and these settle-
ments trenched upon the territory claimed by the Castilians. The
establishment of these colonies was the signal for war that continued
for a hundred years. England's power was augmented by the sturdy
but lawless rovers, who even in that day were establishing Britain's
power over the seas. Their frequent attacks upon vessels and their
readiness to sack towns along the coast, were a constant menace, par-
ticularly to those that did not fly the British flag. Many such incur-
sions were made upon the Spanish settlements and treasure vessels,
and the pirates found refuge in the English settlements and ports of
Carolina.
The raid of Sir Francis Drake upon St. Augustine, was that of
a privateer, and the city was again made the victim of a similar at-
tack in 1665. The Spaniards made frequent complaints to the Eng-
lish authorities of this lawlessness. The Carolinians, in turn, declared
that the Spaniards were constantly inciting the Indians to attack the
English settlements. It is entirely probable that both charges were
quite within the bounds of truth.
LA SALLE'S EXPLORATIONS
It was in the latter part of the seventeenth century-1687- that
De La Salle traversed the Mississippi river, from near its headwaters
to the Gulf of Mexico. By this comparatively insignificant but suc-
cessful expedition, which was made in a small fleet of frail canoes,
he conferred upon France the right to appropriate the finest portion
of the American continent, the great Valley of the Mississippi, and it
FLORIDA
was this that gave the name of the French monarch to the new pos-
sessions, Louisiana.
This aggressive movement aroused Spain once more to the neces-
sity of making good its claim to at least a part of the vast region which
seemed about to pass under the dominion of the hated French. Pen-
sacola was occupied in 1696, and a fortress was built upon the pres-
ent site of Fort Barancas, and this was garrisoned by Spanish forces.
Andres Arricola was appointed the first governor of the provinces.
Some three years later D'Iberville arrived with a commission from
Louis XIV of France, and established a colony on Dauphin Island,
at the entrance to Mobile Bay. This was the first French colony in
the South after the destruction of the Huguenots on the east coast of
Florida in 1565, more than one hundred and thirty years before.
SPANISH POLICIES
The conditions existing in Florida at this time are thus summar-
ized by Fairbanks in his History of Florida, (page 118): "At the
beginning of the seventeenth century no European colony existed on
the Atlantic coast of North America, except St. Augustine. In 1607,
forty-two years after the founding of St. Augustine, Jamestown in
Virginia, was settled by the English, and thirteen years later, in
1620, the Plymouth colony landed on the shores of New England.
In the course of the next fifty years, settlements were made on the
Atlantic coast by the French, English, Dutch and Swedish, and from
the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Port Royal in South Carolina, flourishing
settlements had been planted and a very considerable commerce had
grown u der the fostering care of their respective governments.
L-~iuring the seventeenth century, iSjpain possessed by right of dis-
covery and partial occupation, a claim to the most valuable portion of
the American continent; but the history of this one hundred years is
a record only of feeble and spasmodic efforts at colonization and timid
exploration of the regions adjoining the military posts. Pensacola
and St. Marks had been established as advanced and isolated posts,
and a few others, but the history of Florida during this period pre-
sents but little more than a chronicle of the changes of governors and
petty details of unimportant local events. Having the fertile valley
of the Mississippi, the rich plains of Texas, the productive valleys and
uplands of Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky within their reach, no
explorations had been made even into the gold fields of upper Georgia,
no colonies planted, no empire founded, and in this magnificent and
then vacant domain, the result of over one hundred years of Spanish
36 FLORIDA
domination was three small fortified towns and a few missions. It is,
indeed, quite probable that in the year 1700 they knew less of the
country than Menendez did within ten years after his arrival. The
mines of Mexico and the riches of the Spanish Main had drawn the
attention of the Spanish monarchy from the more enduring wealth
and power to be derived from a fertile and populous region. The
Spanish force of character, the spirit of adventure, the characteris-
tics of such men as Cortez and De Soto, had departed, and the great
Spanish monarchy, which at one time seemed to control the destiny
of America, had sensibly declined both here and elsewhere."
ENGLAND AND SPAIN AT WAR
Until the latter part of the eighteenth century, when by treaty
between England, Spain and France, in 1763, the peninsula of Florida
was ceded to England, the entire territory was disturbed by conflict
between the colonists and their various Indian allies. The growing
jealousy between the Spanish in Florida and the English in Caro-
lina, brought about many bloody conflicts. With the accession of
Governor Moore of Carolina, the English opposition against the
Spaniards became more aggressive. At the head of six hundred mili-
tia and as many Indian allies, he made an attack upon St. Augustine
in 1702. He was unable to capture the fort, but he burned the town.
In the same year the Spanish incited the Apalachee Indians to take
the warpath against the English settlements in Carolina. They were
opposed by the Creek tribes as the allies of the English, who defeated
them with great slaughter.
Governor Moore in 1704, with a force of fifty mounted men and a
thousand Creeks, began a campaign against the Spanish and their
Apalachee allies in southwestern Georgia. He attacked them at va-
rious points, notably at Fort San Luis, near the present location of
Tallahassee, with the result that many of the Indian settlements were
wiped out and the Indian missions destroyed.
The increasing strength of the English in Carolina prompted an
expedition by the Spanish and French combined in 1706, which re-
sulted disastrously to the invaders. The English in 1708, under
Colonel Barnwell of Carolina, made another incursion against the
settlements of west and middle Florida, penetrating as far south as
Lake Okeechobee. At the instigation of the Spanish, the Indian tribes
on the borders of Carolina combined to raid the English settlements
in 1714, but they were defeated and driven back into Florida.
FLORIDA
FRENCH AGGRESSION
It was about this time that the French settlers who had spread
along the Gulf and the banks of the lower Mississippi, became ag-
gressive. The colony at Mobile was so near the Spanish garrison
at Pensacola, that frequent collisions resulted. De Bienville, the
French commander at Dauphin Island, fitted out an expedition in
1719 against Pensacola, which captured the outpost on Santa Rosa
Island and eventually took possession of the fortifications at Pensa-
cola itself. The Spanish shortly afterward recaptured the fort and
made an aggressive campaign against the French settlements on
Dauphin Island, but this was repulsed. In turn, the French deter-
mined to retake Pensacola, which they accomplished on September
18, 1719. Feeling themselves unable to hold the position, they de-
stroyed Fort San Carlos and the public buildings and burned the
town. Thus, within a period of three months Pensacola was three
times assaulted and taken and then having been burned, the site was
abandoned, as there was nothing left to be defended.
The harbor was reoccupied by the Spaniards in 1722 and the town
was rebuilt on Santa Rosa Island. This location was occupied for
forty years. Gradually the settlers began to plant on the northern
side of the bay and in 1768 the site of Pensacola was laid out in its
present location. The city may be said to date its existence from
about the year 1750.
During this period the definition of the boundaries between Span-
ish Florida and English Carolina continued to be the cause of much
friction. An attempt at arbitration in 1725 was fruitless. The Span-
ish Indian allies continued to harass the English settlements until,
in 1727, Colonel Palmer, with a force of white volunteers and Indian
allies, made a rapid descent upon the Florida colonists. Once more
St. Augustine was attacked and burned, the inhabitants of the town
fleeing for safety to the fort. This energetic action for a time put an
end to attacks upon the English colonies and colonists.
SETTLEMENT OF GEORGIA
The English settlement of Carolina was begun at Port Royal in
1670, and at Charleston in the following year. The occupation of the
country had not been extended south of the Savannah river, excepting
for the erection of Fort George at the mouth of the Altamaha river.
But in 1780 the colonization of the country between that stream and the
38 FLORIDA
Savannah river was begun. This was not a great success, but it led in .
1732 to the issue of letters patent for the colonization of the region
under the name of Georgia. The southward movement of the Eng-
lish settlements led to further complications inspired by the Spanish.
Governor Oglethorpe of Georgia received a summons from the Span-
ish governor at St. Augustine, requiring the surrender and immediate
evacuation of all lands south of St. Helena Sound. Oglethorpe de-
clined to obey and prepared to resist Spanish invasion, which he
felt sure would follow. From England he received reinforcements
of a regiment of regulars and large financial backing. The Spanish
garrison at St. Augustine also was strengthened and both sides augu-
mented their forces by alliances with the Indians.
Negotiations for a peaceful settlement of differences failed, and in
October, 1739, Great Britain declared war upon Spain and sent a fleet
to the West Indies to cooperate with Oglethorpe. He planned an
aggressive campaign by land and sea against St. Augustine, the Span-
ish capital. Not until May of 1740, did he arrive at the mouth of the
St. Johns river, some thirty-six miles north of St. Augustine. He con-
tinued his march toward that point and encamping on Anastasia
Island, just beyond the reach of the guns at Fort San Marco, he
awaited the expected arrival of the Carolina reinforcements and of the
English frigates, which reached him in June. He planted his bat-
teries on the island across from St. Augustine and began the siege.
Shallow water over the bar prevented the ships from entering the
river and their guns at this long distance were ineffective against the
fort and town.
FRUITLESS SIEGE
The opposing forces, besiegers and besieged, were lined up
against each other for forty days without serious injury to either, the
Georgia commander hoping to force a surrender by cutting off the
supplies for the garrison in the fort. But Monteano, the Spanish
general, received word that provisions and ammunition had been landed
for him by Spanish vessels at Mosquito Inlet, two days' journey south
of Matanzas, and he managed to convoy them by a heavy guard over-
land to his 'soldiers. Oglethorpe then seeing that a hopeless task was
before him, withdrew his forces, leaving the Spaniards unharmed, and
from this time two years passed without aggressive operations on
either side, although each was watching closely for an opening.
FLORIDA 39
FORT MATANZAS
Fort Matanzas was built opposite the Matanzas Inlet, some twenty
miles south of St. Augustine, by the Spanish Governor Monteano,
whose administration extended a few years before and after 1740.
But little mention is made of it in the records of those years, but it
was constructed to oppose the invasion by sea of hostile forces during
the period when Governor Oglethorpe of Georgia was active in his
campaigns against Spanish Florida Its location is near where Menen-
dez met and massacred the French Huguenots under Ribaut in 1565.
This fortification, although its original position was opposite the
shallow inlet from the sea, is now nearly two thousand feet north of
it, showing the peculiar tendency of unprotected openings from the
ocean along the eastern coast of Florida,. to move southward during
the passage of the centuries. The action of the strong northeast
winds and tides is to cut away the sand from the southern side of
the inlet, and the northern side, less exposed to the direct influence
of these winds and tides, is gradually filled, so that in the end sub-
stantially the same width of channel is preserved. Similar action
has been noted in other localities along this coast and elsewhere.
Fort Matanzas, which is rarely visited by travelers in later times,
on account of its inaccessibility, is one of the most venerable relics
of the period of Spanish occupancy on this continent. It is slowly
crumbling to ruin, and in 1912 an unsuccessful effort was made to
secure Congressional appropriation for its restoration and main-
tenance.
The Spaniards were the first to move, and in 1742 Governor Mon-
teano, at the head of five thousand troops and with a well equipped
fleet, carried the war into the enemy's country. The campaign was
short and decisive. Oglethorpe, with three vessels and six hundred
men, but aided by a superior knowledge of the country, drove the
invaders from his territory, inflicting heavy losses and suffering little
himself.
In the following year Oglethorpe made a sudden descent upon
Florida and again drove the Spanish colonists to take refuge in the
fort at St. Augustine, but he failed to effect its capitulation. This
ended the long series of fruitless hostilities and the British colonists,
undisturbed for a time, increased in numbers and wealth: The gar-
rison at St. Augustine was reduced to a small defensive force and in
1748 a treaty was concluded by England and Spain, which ended
AIL. -
,.,.. .' -
I tLL 24It1;
OFFICIAL RESIDENCE OF THE GOVERNOR AT TALLAHASSEE
ST. JOHNS BLUFF-OF GREAT INTEREST IN FLORIDA'S HISTORY
FLORIDA 43
two named. The boundaries of East Florida were made, the Gulf
of Mexico and the Apalachicola river on the west, as far north as a
line drawn from the confluence of the Chattahoochee and the Flint
rivers, thence east to the source of the St. Mary's river and thence
with the course of that stream to the Atlantic Ocean; thence south-
ward, including all islands within six leagues of the shore. These lines
today form the boundary of all that part of Florida that lies east of
the Apalachicola river.
The Province of West Florida was bounded on the south by the
Gulf of Mexico from the Apalachicola to Lake Ponchartrain; on the
west by the same lake, Lake Maurepos and the Mississippi river; on
the north from that river to the Apalachicola along the line of thirty-
one degrees, north latitude, and on the east by the Apalachicola river.
Thus, it will be noted that the Florida of 1768 embraced all the present
territory of that name, besides all the Gulf coast of Alabama, Mis-
sissippi and a part of Louisiana.
In marked contrast to Spanish methods, the English governors
of the provinces appointed by the crown were directed to establish
representative governments, summoning general assemblies with
power to make laws for their protection and welfare, agreeable to
the laws of the mother country. They were, within certain restric-
tions, empowered to establish courts.
With the purpose of securing speedy settlement of the territory,
the English governors were given authority to make free grants of
land to military officers and soldiers who had served in the wars of
Florida, and to privates who had been disbanded in America. These
grants were to be proportioned to the rank of the applicant. A field
officer was given five thousand acres; a captain, three.thousand; a
staff officer, two thousand; every non-commissioned officer, two hun-
dred, and every private, fifty acres.
James Grant was appointed the first English governor of East
Florida in 1768. He established the capital at St. Augustine and be-
gan at once, a campaign of publicity, calling the attention of the world
to the advantages of the soil and climate of his province. He was
undoubtedly the first practical advertiser of Florida's agricultural
possibilities and resources. The result was a large influx of white
settlers and of negro slaves.
Commodore George Johnston, of the British navy, was made the
first governor of West Florida, and he came to Pensacola in 1764.
The question of good roads came up for early settlement and their
importance was quickly appreciated in the development of the country.
44 FLORIDA
The construction of a highway, which eventually connected the capitals
of the two provinces, was undertaken, and to it was given the name
of the King's Road. Its cost was met by subscription, to which Gover-
nor Grant and other wealthy citizens were liberal contributors. This
road is still in use and it is still known as the King's Road in several
of the northern Florida counties through which it passes, although
its original sand surface has been much improved by modern engineer-
ing in some localities.
TURNBULL COLONY
Among the early colonization propositions, the first of large im-
portance of which record has been kept, was that backed by English
capitalists, under the leadership of Dr. Andrew Turnbull, a Scotch-
man of some wealth. At an expense of one hundred and sixty thou-
sand dollars, he and his associates recruited from Smyrna, the islands
of the Mediterranean, Italy, and the Island of Minorca, fifteen hun-
dred people and settled them on a tract of several thousand acres near
Mosquito Inlet, on the eastern side of the state. To the settlement
they gave the name New Smyrna, and this attaches to the locality
today.
The colonists were under indentures by which in consideration of
the sums paid for their passage and support, they were to labor for
their employers without wages for a specified number of years, after
which they were to receive allotments of land in proportion to the
size of their respective families.
The location was well chosen, among natural conditions closely
resembling those from which the settlers had come. Much labor was
expended in building roads, opening canals for drainage and transpor-
tation, and for other improvements which remain and are in use today.
Special attention was given to the cultivation of indigo and sugar cane,
but various other crops were raised successfully. The colony was pros-
perous, but within a few years complaints were made of the injustice
and hardships inflicted by the managers, who appear to have reduced
the tenants to a pitiable condition. A revolt of the laborers brought
more severe restrictions and the execution of the leaders. These com-
plaints were brought to the ears of the attorney general and the gover-
nor at St.Augustine. Proceedings were begun in the English courts
there to cancel the indentures and the colonists were released from
their contract obligations.
The original colony had been reduced by death and suffering to
FLORIDA 45
about six hundred persons, men, women, and children, and the sur-
vivors were brought to St. Augustine where they were given allot-
ments for homes in that section of the city north of the fort, where
their descendants remain to the present time. These immigrants were
known as Minorcans and the name still belongs to the remnant of
the race.
The Turnbull colony was established in Florida in 1767 and it was
dissolved nine years later. It appears financially to have been a total
loss, for it was abandoned before it could have become largely profit-
able. The cause of its failure can only be conjectured, but the
uncertain and conflicting reports of history appear to relieve Dr. Turn-
bull of much of the direct blame, for it is handed down that the cruel-
ties which resulted in the disbandment of the colony were inflicted by
his overseers without his knowledge and during his absences from the
place.
Governor Grant resigned his position in 1771 and was succeeded
by Lieutenant-Governor Moultrie, and he by Patrick Tonyn in 1774.
Governor Johnston in West Florida was replaced in 1766 by
Montacute Brown, who was followed by Peter Chester in 1772.
Under the administrations of these executives the provinces flourished
and many settlers were attracted from Carolina and from Europe.
THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR
The revolt of the American colonies from British rule in 1776 and
the signing of the Declaration of Independence, marked the begin-
ning of new troubles for the Florida provinces. East Florida soon
became a rendezvous for the royalists and a base for English opera-
tions against the rebellious colonies. From Georgia and Carolina came
more than seven thousand colonists who had remained loyal to the
mother country. Military operations of greater or less magnitude
were threatened between the United States and the British posses-
sions, which were separated only by the arbitrary boundaries between
the two sections. An expected attack by American forces along the
east coast of Florida, was prepared for by the erection of fortifica-
tions on St. Johns Bluff, near the mouth of the river of that name,
on the same site that had been the scene of the Fort Caroline massacre
and of the retaliation by De Gourges. However,,no clash of arms
occurred at this point during the War for Independence.
Great Britain was too much occupied with her operations in the
North to offer or afford much aid to her colonists along the South
46 FLORIDA
Atlantic seaboard. During and previous to this period, foreign com-
merce with these southern ports grew to considerable proportions, and
the ports of St. Augustine, Fernandina and Pensacola became
important.
Taking advantage of England's preoccupation with the American
colonies, Spain improved the opportunity in 1781, to attack and cap-
ture Pensacola and with it the Province of West Florida. These
operations were begun under De Galvez, the Spanish governor of
Louisiana, who two years before had captured the English post at
Baton Rouge. The loss of these posts and of the Province of West
Florida, was in .part compensated by the capture of the Bahamas
under Colonel Devereux, with an expedition that had been outfitted
at St. Augustine.
SPAIN RE-OCCUPIES FLORIDA
At the close of the American Revolution, the English government
having acknowledged the independence of the colonies, concluded that
the Florida provinces had little value to it and it proposed to recede
these possessions and the Island of Minorca in the Mediterranean, in
exchange for the Bahamas. This was accomplished by the treaty of
September 8, 1781, between England and Spain, by which the latter
assumed control and sovereignty over the Floridas.
The change of flags was hardly less than a disaster to the English
colonists in the ceded territory. Some of them returned to England,
others went to Nova Scotia and the Bahamas. Many qf them moved
with their slaves to Jamaica and others returned to Georgia and the
Carolinas, now a part of the United States. Fine estates along the
Atlantic coast and up and down the St. Johns river, abandoned by
their English proprietors, soon fell into decay and ruin.
Only an insignificant migration of Spaniards to Florida followed
its recession to their government, although the Spanish governor
offered large inducements in the way of land grants as rewards for
civil or military service.
Negotiations between Spain and France in 1795 resulted in the
cession of all that part of West Florida lying west of the Perdido
river, thus establishing for the first time the boundaries which mark
the present limits of the Peninsular State.
LOUISIANA PURCHASE
France, in 1808, after holding possessions in North America for
two hundred and thirty years, withdrew from the last of these posses-
FLORIDA 47
sions by ceding the Territory of Louisiana to the United States for a
consideration of fifteen inillion dollars. Upon the conclusion of the
Louisiana Purchase, the United States enclosed Spanish territory on
the American continent within narrow limits.
Difficulties between the United States and England again assumed
a serious phase in 1811. The latter government was suspected of
plans to seize Florida, in order to secure a frontier along the southern
border of the United States. The matter was considered of sufficient
importance to be brought to the attention of the Continental Congress,
which in secret session directed the President to anticipate any attempt
of England by occupying the Florida territory with military forces.
The President appointed a commission to confer with the Spanish
government to secure the temporary cession of Florida to the United
States, but this the Castilians refused to make. A considerable num-
ber of persons who feared the seizure of Florida by the United States,
met at St. Mary's, Georgia, and organized as Patriots, seeking to
establish a republican government in Florida. A provisional govern-
ment was formed, on paper, and officers were elected, but while this
movement as a government never came to power, the Patriots became
an aggressive and belligerent rallying center for many years.
Fernandina had become by 1812 an important port. It was pro-
tected by a small garrison in Fort Clinch. Under the pretext of pro-
tecting American interests, a fleet of nine gunboats entered the harbor
and after a brief resistance, the American flag was raised over the
fort. Securing an alliance with the Patriots, the United States forces
marched upon St. Augustine, but were driven back toward the St.
Johns river by the Spanish garrison. The Spanish minister at Wash-
ington remonstrated against this violation of treaty obligations, and
the British minister entered his protest. The president in apology
declared that the invading forces had far transcended their instructions
and he expressed his sincere regrets at the mistake. General Mat-
thews, who had commanded the invasion, was relieved and Governor
Mitchell of Georgia, was appointed in his place: The President then
finding that Congress was unwilling to undertake a war with Spain,
ordered the United States troops withdrawn from'Florida.
INDIAN AGGRESSIONS
The Indians under Chiefs Payne and Bowlegs had begun a preda-
tory warfare upon the settlements in Florida and southern Georgia in
1811. They were resisted by volunteer forces under Colonel Newnan
48 FLORIDA
of Georgia. A condition of anarchy continued for eighteen months;
plantations were destroyed, slaves were carried away and property
ruined under the immunity afforded by the flag of the United States
or by the neglect of the government to stop the outrages.
The War of 1812, between the United States and England in-
volved Florida once more. A British fleet entered the harbor of Pen-
sacola and with the consent of the Spanish governor landed troops.
The British flag was raised over the forts and the Indians of that
region were incited to carry on hostilities against the settlers in Geor-
gia. They were armed with British guns and ammunition and were
promised liberal bounties for their attacks.
General Andrew Jackson was sent by the United States Govern-
ment in 1814, to put an end to these depredations upon Americans.
With a body of regulars he marched against Pensacola and stormed
the town. He drove the British forces from Forts St. Michel and
Barancas, and occupied the city. He then marched with his forces to
New Orleans.
At the instigation of the British officers who had been dislodged
by General Jackson, runaway negroes and Indians were encouraged
to continue their depredations upon the American settlements. These
lawless forces became increasingly bold and again General Jackson
came to the rescue. His second visit to the section was in 1818. Mak-
ing a treaty with the Creek Indians to attack and repel the renegade
Seminoles, he made a vigorous campaign against them in January of
that year. Quickl? he destroyed the Miccosukee and Fowl towns.
He attacked Fort St. Marks, which promptly surrendered. The vil-
lage of Old Town, on the Suwanee river, was the next to fall before
his onward march. Here he encountered a large body of Indians whom
he scattered, besides capturing many prisoners. Among the captives
were two Englishmen, Arbuthnot and Ambrister, whom he charged
with being the chief agents in supplying the Indians with arms and
directing their expeditions against the whites. They were tried by
court martial, found guilty as charged and executed, one by hanging
and the other being shot.
Learning that the Spanish authorities at Pensacola were furnish-
ing the Indians with arms, General Jackson marched against that
place for the second time. It was quickly capitulated, the governor
and many of his troops having fled to Fort Barancas. General Jack-
son established a provisional government over West Florida, with
Colonel King as civil and military governor. This government was
FLORIDA 49
continued fourteen months, when Pensacola was restored to Spanish
authority in September, 1819.
FLORIDA AS PART OF THE UNITED STATES
1821-1912
1 treaty was negotiated between Spain and the United States
in February, 1819, whereby Florida became a territory of the Ameri-
can government. This treaty for the cession of the Floridas to the
United States, which involved a consideration of five million dollars,
was ratified February 19, 1821. The change of flags took place at
St. Augustine, July 16, 1821, and at Pensacola on the twenty-first of
the same month.,
Upon this final change of flags the administration of, Florida's
civil affairs devolved upon the military authorities until the passage
of the Act of Congress of March 8, 1822, established a territorial gov-
ernment. It was provided that this government should be adminis-
tered by a governor appointed by the president, who was also to name
all local officials, a legislative council of thirteen, to be named annually
by the same authority, and two superior courts.
General Jackson was the military governor of Florida until the
formation of the territorial government in June, 1822, when Governor
William P. Duval was appointed. The first legislative council was
convened at Pensacola and the old provincial divisions were merged
into counties. Escambia and Jackson counties were created from the
former province of West Florida, and. St. Johns and Duval from
East Florida.
General Joseph M. Hernandez was chosen the first territorial dele-
gate to Congress. He was succeeded by Colonel Joseph M. White,
who occupied the position for many years. Charles Downing followed
him until 1841, when David Levy (afterward changed to Yulee) was
selected and continued to hold the position until the admission of
Florida as a state into the Union.
BUILDING OF TALLAHASSEE
The second session of the legislative council was held at St. Augus-
tine in June, 1828. It named a commission to select a location for a
permanent seat of government. Its choice was a beautiful hill near
Vo. 1-4
50 FLORIDA
the old fields of the Tallahassees, in the center of the Fowl towns and
but two miles from the site of old Fort San Luis. Here a new city,
the present capital of the state, was laid out and received its name
from the historical associations. The first house was built in 1824 and
the capitol building was commenced in the same year, although it was
not completed for many years thereafter.
This location had the disadvantage, which has become greater with
the development of the state, of being far removed from the geographi-
cal and the later industrial center of Florida. It is probable that in
making this selection the original commission could not have foreseen
the possibility of the great industrial development that has come in
the central and southern parts of the peninsula. Although several
times the suggestion has been made that the seat of the state govern-
ment should be removed to a more central location, it has never
progressed beyond the initiative stage.
The location of the capital placed it in a section still occupied by
Indian tribes who were inclined to dispute the rights of white settlers.
The Miccosukees were regarded as the original occupants of the
country and the Seminoles were, as the name indicates, runaways from
the Creeks and other tribes living along the Apalachicola river.
Chiefs Payne and Bowlegs were the leaders of the two principal
tribal organizations. The white settlers demanded that the Indians
should be confined within narrower limits than had been allowed them,
and a treaty was negotiated by which the Indians agreed to remove
to the south of a line running east and west through what is now about
the southern border of Alachua county.
The whites were still dissatisfied and insisted that all the tribes
should be moved to some place beyond the Mississippi river, and that
Florida should be forever rid of them. A delegation of chiefs accom-
panied the Indian agent to Arkansas, in accordance with the provi-
sions of the treaty of Payne's Landing in 1882, to select a location,
with the understanding that the tribes should be removed to the chosen
location during the years 1884 and 1885. They were to receive a cash
payment of fifteen thousand dollars and an annuity of three thou-
sand dollars for the following ten years. The chiefs on their return
expressed themselves satisfied with the arrangements and with the
country they had investigated, but the younger chiefs had a strong
following in their refusal to accept the terms and conditions that had
been made. They declined to leave Florida and the infection spread
rapidly through the tribes.
pi~vvi-'svr D)AY V IE%% OF I'HE.IiI1TORIC INDIAN BURIAL MtOUND
FLORIDA
THE SEMINOLE WAR
Measures were taken under the authority of the United States
Government to enforce the removal to the West, and this led to in-
creasing troubles, which developed into the Seminole war. This cost
the government twenty millions of dollars and eight years of time.
Twelve hundred and thirty officers and soldiers died in battle or from
wounds and disease during this conflict, which for ferocity and savage
butcheries has never been surpassed in the history of the United States.
Incidental to this strife and to the inroads by the Indians which the
government could not foresee or prevent, a mass of claims was piled
up against the Federal Government which involved millions of dollars.
At the beginning of these troubles with the native tribes, the num-
ber of Indians in Florida was estimated at two thousand, including
warriors, women, and children besides the negroes who had escaped
from the plantations and had made their abode with the natives. That
this was a serious. underestimate became apparent later and led to
entirely inadequate preparations for their subjugation.
Almost countless raids were made by the unruly red men; women
and children were ruthlessly slaughtered, plantations laid waste, crops
destroyed and buildings burned, until the industrial development of
the state, from the Everglades to the northern and western boundaries
was stopped. In many encounters the regular troops, unfamiliar with
savage methods of warfare, were defeated. By ambuscade the In-
dians massacred detached commands and committed horrible indigni-
ties upon the bodies of. their dead foes. The most notable of these
treacherous slaughters was Dade's Massacre, which occurred near the
present town of Bushnell in Sumter county, December 28, 1835. It
aroused a feeling of horror in every part of the country and forced
upon the Federal Government a realization of the serious task it had
in dealing with the Florida Indians.
DADE'S MASSACRE
It was brought about when Major Francis L. Dade, Fourth Infan-
try, U. S. A., was ordered with his command from his station at Key
West to reinforce the post at Fort King. Marching from Tampa,
where he had come by boat, he had one company of infantry and two
companies of artillery, the force under his command numbering eight
officers and one hundred privates. Crossing the Hillsborough and
Withlacoochee rivers, the little force proceeded in open formation
54 FLORIDA
through several miles of prairie country, the road being bordered by
low growing palmetto scrub. Behind these lurked one hundred and
eighty Indians under Chief Micanopy. At a signal from the red war-
riors poured forth a volley of rifle fire, each selecting his particular
victim. Half of Major Dade's command fell at the first round of fire
and the slaughter was continued by the merciless savages until the
last soldier had fallen, wounded or dead. So sudden had been the
onslaught that effective resistance was impossible. The horrible work
of the Indians was completed by a band of renegade negroes, who
came upon the scene and beat to death every soldier who showed signs
of life.
From this bloody field one private escaped to Tampa and told the
story. General Duncan L. Clinch was in command of the United
States troops in Florida until 1836, when General Winfield Scott
assumed command in person. During this period the depredations
of the Indians were frequent and bold all over the state, but espe-
cially in the section west and southwest from the present location of
Jacksonville, and in western Florida along the banks of the Apalachi-
cola river.
General Scott's campaign was practically fruitless and upon Gen-
eral R. K. Call of Florida, devolved the command of the regular and
volunteer forces in the field. In November of the same year, 1836,
General Thomas Jesup relieved him in command. He had eight
thousand troops at his disposal. He organized a campaign and pushed
operations against the Indians southward toward the Everglades, then
the stronghold of the native tribes. He accomplished more by his
aggressive and relentless methods than had been done by any or all of
the preceding commanders.
MILITARY CO3OMANDERS
General Zachary Taylor succeeded him in May, 1837, and he con-
tinued the policy of keeping the Indians on the defensive. General
Taylor asked to be relieved early in 1840 and General Armistead was
assigned to the command.
Depredations and slaughter were continued by the savage warriors
and the efforts of the regular troops seemed entirely insufficient to
stop or even to check them. Some particularly horrible outrages
aroused the nation once more to a general demand that the war should
be ended promptly and at whatever cost. Congress appropriated one
million dollars and the War Department was directed to prosecute
the war without relaxation or parleying.
FLORIDA 55
Some of the more prominent of the hostile Indian chiefs who had
part in this war, were Osceola, Billy Bowlegs, Coacoochee, King
Philip, Halleck-Trustenuggee, Hospertorkee, Shiver and Shakes,
Tiger Tail and Octiarche, names that are closely allied with the history
of the state and which succeeding decades have invested with a senti-
mental heroism hardly warranted by their acts.
Colonel, afterward General, W. J. Worth was placed in command
of the forces in Florida in 1841, he being the eighth general officer sent
by the Federal War Department to end the war. His task was an un-
inviting one, for as the Indians had been reduced in numbers by cap-
ture and in battle, they had divided into small bands and leaving their
women and children in the fastnesses of the Everglades, they had
scattered and were ravaging the state from one end to the other. Life
and property were safe nowhere; agriculture and industry had been
stopped. In the face of such conditions General Worth issued the
order: "Find the enemy. Capture or exterminate."
SEMINOLE WAR ENDED
As the Indians had been captured during this war they had been
sent to the selected location m Arkansas. Chief Coacoochee was
among the captives. He had been started on the journey toward the
W est when General Worth directed that he be brought back. In irons
he appeared before the American commander on the deck of the ves-
sel that had brought him. He was told that unless his people should
come in and surrender unconditionally within forty days, he would
be hanged from the yardarm of the ship. He was not permitted to go
to them himself, but he selected his own messengers to carry the word.
Well within the appointed time some two hundred of the tribe came
in and the wily chief and his band were eliminated forever from the
history of Florida by their deportation to the West.
Others followed, but a considerable number of Indians remained
in and about the Everglades under Bowlegs and Arpeika. An expedi-
tion was sent against them which scattered the roving bands and
burned their villages and supplies. As late as December, 1841, a raid
was made by the Indians on Mandarin, a white settlement on the St.
Johns river twelve miles from Jacksonville. Five persons were killed
but the marauders escaped without harm.
After a careful survey of conditions in Florida and after having
pushed the larger part of the remaining natives still unconquered into
the Everglades, General Worth informed the War Department in
56 FLORIDA
February, 1842, that to the best of his knowledge and belief about
three hundred of the natives were left in the state, and of these, only
one hundred and twelve were fighting men. He advised that they be
allowed to remain unmolested in the section south of Peace creek, a
stream that empties into Charlotte Harbor in De Soto county, on the
lower west coast. This was ordered by President Tyler in May, 1842,
and the war was officially declared to be at an end.
Subsequent outbreaks of less importance occurred along the lower
Indian river in 1849, and in the southern part of the state in 1857, but
these were quickly quieted by state troops without severe loss of life
or property.
But the closing of this war did not bring into the territory the
influx of population that had been expected and hoped. The popula-
tion of Florida in 1830, after having been for ten years a part of the
United States, was only 84,780. It had increased in 1840 to 54,477,
notwithstanding the prevalence of the Seminole war.
FLORIDA ADMITTED TO STATEHOOD
A movement to secure the admission of Florida to the Union as
a state was begun in 1888, and a constitutional convention was assem-
bled late in that year. The continuance of the Indian wars at that
time, however, postponed further action until 1845. The policy of the
Federal Congress had been to maintain the equilibrium of political
power in the United States Senate by admitting new states, northern
and southern, together, and accordingly Florida and Iowa were ad-
mitted by concurrent acts of Congress on March 8, 1845.
A supplemental act of the same date gave to Florida a grant of
eight entire sections of land whereon to establish a seat of government;
also the sixteenth section in every township, or its equivalent, for the
support of public schools, and two townships for establishing two
seminaries of learning, one to be located east and the other west of
the Suwanee river; also five hundred thousand acres for internal
improvements, besides five per cent of the net proceeds from the sale
of public lands, the same to be applied for the purposes of education.
William D. Mosely was the first governor of Florida, chosen under
the new constitution. Tallahassee, which had been the territorial capi-
tal, was continued as the seat of the state government, and the first
Legislature was convened there in June, 1845.
Prior to the year 1855 not a mile of railroad had been built in the
stite, but encouraged by the liberal land grants by the Federal Gov-
ernment, a project of internal improvements, to be fostered by the
36 F I ORIDA
February, 1842, that to the best of his knowledge al(dl belief about
three hundred of tile natives were left in the state, and of these, only
one hundred and twelve were fighting men. Ile advised that they be
allowed to remain unmolested in the section south of Peace creek, a
stream that empties into Charlotte Harbor iln )e Soto county, on the
lower west coast. This was ordered by President Tyler in May, 1842,
and the war was officially declared to he at an end.
Subsequent outbreaks of less importance occurred along the lower
Indian river in 1841), and in tie southern part of the state in 18.57, but
these were quickly quieted by state troops without severe loss of life
or property.
But the closing of this war did not bring into the territory the
influx of population that had been expected and hIoped(. The polula-
tion of Florida in 1830, after having been for teln years a part of the
United States, was only 34,730. It had increased in 1840 to 54,477,
notwithstanding tile prevalence of the Seminole war.
FLORIDA ADMITTED TO STATEHOOD
A ovemelllnt to secure the admission of l lorida to tile Union as
a state was begun ill 1838, and a constitutional convention was assem-
bled late im that year. The continuance (o the inu(ian wars at that
time, however, postponed further action until 184.5. The policy of the
Federal Congress had been to maintain the equilibriuml of political
power in the I'nited States Senate by admitting new states, northern
and southern, together, and accordingly Florida and Iowa were ad-
mitted by concurrent acts of Congress oni March 3, 1845.
A suplelemental act of the same date gave to Florida a grant of
eight entire sections of land whereon to establish a seat of government;
also the sixteenth section in every township, or its equivalent, for the
support of public schools, and two townships for establishing two
seminaries of learning, one to be located east and the other west of
the Suwanee river: also five hundred thousand acres for internal
improvements, besides five per cent of the net proceeds from the sale
of public lands, the same to be applied for the purposes of education.
William D. Mosely was the first governor of Florida, chosen under
the new constitution. Tallahassee. which liad been the territorial capi-
tal, was continued as the seat (of the state government. and the first
Legislature was convened there in June, 1845.
Prior to the year 185. not a mile of railroad had been built in the
state, but encouraged by the liberal land grants by the Federal Gov-
ernment, a project of internal improvements, to be fostered by the
IlELIEVEI) TO BE FOI'NDATIONS OF "(CASTL OCCUPIED BY DR. ANDREW TURNBULL AT NEW SMYRNA
FLORIDA 59
construction of railroads, was set on foot largely by the foresight of
United States Senator David Yulee. The state lands were placed
under the control of an Internal Improvement Board, which was
authorized to guarantee interest on bonds that might be issued for
the construction of railroads between Fernandina and Cedar Key,
and from Jacksonville to Tallahassee. These roads and some others
were completed about 1860. They gave a great impulse to the
development of the sections through which they passed and the settle-
ment of Columbia, Alachua and Marion counties was particularly
benefited.
CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION PERIOD
1861-1876
Political unrest prevailed all through the South during the
three or four years that preceded the war between the states, and of
this Florida had its full share. The Florida Legislature in regular
session, in November, 1860, provided for a convention of the people
of the state, which met at Tallahassee in January of the following
year, and on the tenth day of that month, an ordinance of secession
was adopted by a vote of sixty-two to seven. It declared the State
of Florida to be a sovereign and independent nation, and it rescinded
all ordinances that recognized the union with the United States.
Florida's representatives in both branches of Congress withdrew from
that body. Federal judges and other United States officials in the
state resigned, excepting those at Key West.
South Carolina had passed an ordinance of secession on Decem-
ber 20, 1860. Mississippi followed on January 9, and Florida was
thus the third state to take this decisive action.
Fort Marion at St. Augustine, Fort Clinch at Fernandina and
the United States arsenal at Chattahoochee were seized by state
authority. Governor Perry ordered the seizure of the navy yard and
fort at Pensacola, but at that time Fort Pickens was held by Federal
forces. The Confederates occupied Fort Barancas and the navy yard,
and this situation continued until October. Then an artillery battle
took place between the opposing forces, but the conditions were not
changed.
Fort Clinch was held by a small Confederate force and was easily
taken by General Dupont, March 9, 1862, and from this time Fern-
andina remained in possession of the Union forces until the close of
the war.
60 FLORIDA
St. Augustine was surrendered to Commodore Rogers, March
11, 1862, and was held by Federal arms until the war ended. Pensa-
cola was evacuated by the Confederate forces in May, 1862. When
they left they removed all accumulated stores and burned the princi-
pal lumber mills in the vicinity.
Federal gunboats blockaded both coasts of the state more or less
persistently, with the result that several skirmishes took place which
brought no serious damage to either side. The Confederate battery
at Tampa was attacked, but it remained in possession of the South-
ern forces.
DEFENSE OF JACKSONVILLE
St. Johns Bluff, the scene of the Fort Caroline massacre, was
again fortified for the defense of Jacksonville. Heavy batteries were
placed by Capt. Thomas Ellwood Buckman, who was in command
of the defense of the city. The strength of the position which com-
mands the approach from the ocean, made its reduction important,
even necessary, for Federal military operations in the state. Conse-
quently, a heavy detachment of Federal war vessels and troops was
sent against it. The troops were landed below the fort and by a strong
flank movement the Confederate defense was compelled to retire.
General Brannon commanded the invading forces and occupied Jack-
sonville, but for a short time only, in October, 1862. General Joseph
Finegan was in command of the defense of Florida, having a force
of about seventeen hundred fighting men, mostly cavalry.
Early in 1863 the plan to reoccupy Jacksonville and make it the
rendezvous and asylum for negroes from this part of the South,
received the approval of President Lincoln. Colonel Higginson and
Colonel Montgomery commanding an expedition of colored troops,
took possession of the city. General Finegan with a much smaller
force, closely surrounded Jacksonville and was successful in a num-
ber of sharp skirmishes. Colonel Montgomery led a raid that sacked
the plantations along the St. Johns river as far south as Palatka,
but in attempting to land there, he was repulsed and compelled to
retire.
General Hunter ordered that Jacksonville be evacuated March
27, 1868, after an occupation of seventen days, and this, for a time
at least, set aside Lincoln's plan to recover Florida to the Union.
With the exception of the fighting at Pensacola in 1861, the
military operations in the state prior to 1864, were unimportant.
Fernandina, St. Augustine, Key West and Pensacola were occupied
60 F 1 0 it ID) A
St. Alugustine was surren(lered to Commodlore Rogers, March
11, 1862, and was held by Federal arms until the war ended. Pensa-
cola was evacuated Iby tie Confederate forces ill May, 1862. When
they left they remIoved all accumulated stores and burned the princi-
pal Ilumbelr niills in tile vicinitv.
Federal glunbolats blockadedl both coasts of the state more or less
persistently, with the result that several skirmishes took place which
brought no serious damage to either side. Thle Confederate battery
:;t Talmpa was attacked. but it remained ill possession of the South-
ern forces.
DEFENSE OF .lACKSONV1.ILE
St. Johns Bluff, the scene of the Fort Caroline massacre, was
again fortified for tile defense of Jacksonville. Heavy batteries were
placed by Capt. Thomas Ellwood Buckman, who was ill command
of the defense of the city. The strength of tile position which com-
ianlds the approach from the ocean, made its reduction important,
even necessary, for Federal military operations in the state. Conse-
lquently, a heavy detachment of Federal war vessels and troops was
sent against it. The troops were landed below the fort and by a strong
flank movement the Confederate defense was compelled to retire.
General Irannonl commanded the invading forces and occupied Jack-
solnville, but for a short time only, in October, 1862. General Joseph
Finegan was in command of the defense of Florida, having a force
of about seventeen hundred fighting men, mostly cavalry.
Early in 1863 the plan to reoccupy Jacksonville and make it the
rendezvous anl asylum for negroes from this part of the South,
received tile approval of President Lincoln. Colonel Higginson and
Colonel Montgomlery commanding all expedition of colored troops,
took possession of the city. General Finegan with a nmuch smaller
force, closely surrounded J.acksonville and was successful in a num-
bIer of sharp skirmishes. Colonel Montgonlery led a raid that sacked
tile plantations along the St. Johns river as far south as Palatka,
but in attempting to land there, lie was repulsed and compelled to
retire.
General Hunter ordered that Jacksonville be evacuated March
27. 186:l after an occupation of seventeen days. and this. for a time
:it least, set aside Lincoln's plan to recover Florida to the Unlion.
With the exception of the fighting at Pensacola in 1861, the
military operations ill the state prior to 1864, were unimportant.
Fernandina. St. Augustine. Key West and Pensacola were occupied
L ..-.
FLORIDA'S STATE CAPITOL DEOUN IN 1824. BUT NOT COMPILETID) FOR MANY YEARS
Seat of present State Governmint at Tallalihare
FLORIDA 63
continuously by Federal garrisons which, with rare exceptions, made
no offensive or aggressive movements.
CAMPAIGN AGAINST FLORIDA
But Florida was the source of a large portion of the supplies for
the Confederate armies in other fields, especially in furnishing beef
and salt. It became an important part of the Federal plans, therefore,
that this source of supplies should be cut off from the Southern fight-
ing forces. President Lincoln had been led to believe that a strong
Union sentiment existed in the state, which needed only the proper
recognition and assistance to assert itself. General Gillmore, who
commanded the Federal troops in the southeast, entertained similar
ideas. In carrying out this campaign for the reunion of Florida with
the United States, General Gillmore planned to occupy the state with
a large force, to cut off the Confederate sources of supplies, to enlist
negroes in large numbers, and finally to inaugurate measures to bring
Florida back into the Union.
Several regiments of infantry, a few of them negro troops, a
mounted brigade and several batteries were landed at Jacksonville,
February 7, 1864. From this point an advance was made toward the
west. Baldwin, Pickett's, Sanderson and other Confederate points
were taken and the Federal forces proceeded toward Lake City as
the objective point. General Finegan was in personal command of
the opposing forces which harassed in frequent skirmishes the advanc-
ing Unionists. Gainesville was taken and fortified. by the Northern
forces on March 18. For several days the two armies maneuvered
without coming into close touch, but they finally clashed in a skir-
mish which developed into the Battle of Olustee, one of the bloodiest
encounters of the entire war, when the number of troops engaged is
taken into consideration. It was important, as well, in the general
results that followed.
BATTLE OF OLUSTEE
General Finegan's force of two thousand men had been reinforced
by the timely arrival of regulars from Georgia, augmenting his com-
mand to forty-six hundred men and twelve heavy guns. General
Seymour, with nearly six thousand troops, after three hours of hard
fighting was compelled to retreat, and he retired with his command to
Jacksonville. The losses in this battle, as officially reported, were, on
the Federal side, eighteen hundred and sixty-one killed and wounded,
64 FLORIDA
and on the Confederate, nine hundred and forty killed, wounded and
missing.
The Battle of Olustee was decisive in that it put an end to any
expectation of restoring Florida to the Union at that time or of sep-
arating it from other Southern states. It was also the last important
engagement of the Civil war within the limits of the state. Federal
forces occupied Palatka for about thirty days early in 1864. Tampa
was captured and held for a short time in May of that year, and
numerous skirmishes took place between the opposing forces, espe-
cially along the St. Johns river and in the southwestern part of the
state, but in April a large portion of the Federal forces were with-
drawn from the eastern side of the state, and soon thereafter most
of the Confederate troops, which had been needed for home defense,
were sent to reinforce the armies in Virginia and Tennessee.
Capt. J. J. Dickison achieved much distinction in 1864 and early
in 1865 by his gallant defensive and aggressive operations against the
Federal forces remaining in the state.
Florida furnished, in proportion to its population, more troops
to the Confederacy than any other state; twelve regiments of infan-
try, two regiments and one battalion of cavalry, and four light bat-
teries came from the Peninsular state. They were represented in
nearly every important engagement during the war and made splen-
did records on every battle field.
Florida was also well represented in the higher ranks of the Con-
federate armies. Gen. E. Kirby Smith, Maj.-Gen. W. W. Loring,
Brig.-Gens. M. L. Smith, J. Patton Anderson, Joseph Finegan, J.
J. Finley, W. G. M. Davis, E. A. Perry and J. J. Dickison were
among the officers who achieved distinction.
FLORIDA'S RETURN TO THE UNION
The Confederate forces in Florida made formal surrender to Gen-
eral McCook May 20, 1865. President Johnson appointed Judge
William Marvin the provisional governor of the state in July, and in
August he issued a call for an election of delegates to a constitutional
convention, to be held in October. An amnesty oath was required as
a qualification to vote at this election, and this oath was taken by
seven thousand and forty-two persons in the entire state. Fifty-six
delegates were chosen; the convention repealed the Ordinance of
Secession and adopted a new constitution.
This instrument provided for the election in November of a Gov-
ernor, cabinet officers, a legislature, county officers and Congres-
FLORIDA 65
sional representatives. The entire vote cast at the election was less
than four thousand. Davis S. Walker was elected Governor and
took his office on December 20th.
The functions of the state government were resumed during the
following year, and citizens returned to their ordinary occupations.
The Legislature met in December, 1866, and refused to ratify the
Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, on the ground
that it virtually disfranchised the most intelligent classes in the south.
The Reconstruction Law of 1867, passed over the President's veto,
placed the southern states under the supreme military control of
the United States. It practically disfranchised all who had served
with the Confederate armies or who "had given aid to the enemies of
the United States."
After the registration of all who were not debarred by these regu-
lations, an election of delegates to another constitutional convention
was ordered. This registration in Florida showed 11,148 white and
15,434 negro voters, but only about 14,500 votes were cast at the elec-
tion, nearly all of them favoring the convention. Forty-five delegates
were chosen and when they met, they immediately split into two fac-
tions. Each held its own convention and went through the forms of
transacting the business for which it had been called. The two factions
were then peremptorily summoned to gather at a time and place
appointed, with General Sprague, the military commander of Florida
who had been named by the President, as the presiding officer. The
presiding officers of the two conventions were set aside and the bellig-
erent members who manifested inclinations to obstruct the progress
of the reunited convention, were unseated. The business was speedily
transacted and the constitution of 1868 was adopted. This was
ratified subsequently by popular vote with small opposition.
PERIOD OF RECONSTRUCTION
Backed by the military power of the Federal Government, the
negroes in the hands of more or less unscrupulous advisers, were in
practical control of the political situation in Florida. The Period of
Reconstruction which followed the Civil war brought to the state, as
to many other southern states, disaster almost, if not quite, as appall-
ing as those of actual conflict. The south lost more than two and a
half millions of its young men who should, and would, have been the
rebuilders of its wasted fortunes. Discouraged by the economic and
social conditions forced upon them by the mistaken policies of the
Federal Government, they left their homes and identified themselves
Vol. I
66 FLORIDA
with the growing communities of the north and west. Of the total
assessed values of property in the southern states, eighty per cent
had been wiped out by the war, and more than thirty-five years passed
before these values recovered to even approximately their former
totals. Florida bore its full share of the losses thus inflicted upon the
south.
The impartial student of history now recognizes that the policy
of the National Government following the Civil war retarded by many
years the industrial development of the south and brought a lethargy
from which it is but now arousing itself.
Harrison Reed, a republican from Wisconsin, who had come to
Florida after the war as a Federal office-holder, was elected Governor
under the new constitution. A legislature was chosen, many of its
members negroes, and strongly republican in its majorities. It
promptly ratified the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the
Federal Constitution. Following this procedure an Act of Congress,
June 25, 1868, readmitted Florida to representation on the floors of
Congress, and the new state officers were inaugurated on the Fourth
of July following.
The new constitution provided that all local officers should be
appointed by the Governor, and Governor Reed naturally made many
enemies in his own party by his selections. The supply of offices was
entirely inadequate to meet the demand. He was charged with mal-
feasance in office and three attempts were made to impeach him, but
all failed. He was a man of unswerving integrity, but he found him-
self in a position and in surroundings which only the genius of a
Napoleon could have mastered and controlled.
Ossian B. Hart was elected Governor in 1872 and the increasing
population of the state by this time entitled it to two representatives
in Congress. Governor Hart died in 1874 and was succeeded by
Lieut.-Gov. Marcus L. Stearns.
INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS
The republican party, mainly through the negro vote, was in
power in Florida from 1868 to 1876, when George F. Drew was
elected Governor by a democratic vote. He was chosen at the same
general election which was so close through the United States that
Florida's four electoral votes were necessary to decide between Samuel
J. Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes for the presidency, which was
awarded to the republican candidate by the Electoral Commission.
i; FLORID1)
with the growing communities of the north and west. Of the total
assessedt values of property in the southern states, eighty per cent
had beenl wiped out by tile war, and more than thirty-five years passed
before these values recovered to evell approximately their former
totals. Florida hore its full share of the losses thus inflicted upon the
south.
The impartial student of history now recognizes that the policy
of the National Government following the Civil war retarded by many
years the industrial development of the south and brought a lethargy
1'roin which it is but now arousing itself.
I garrison Reed. a republican from Wisconsin, who had come to
Florida after the war as a Federal office-holder, was elected Governor
iulder the new constitution. A legislature was chosen, many of its
incinhelirs negroes. and strongly republican in its majorities. It
piroimptly ratified tile Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the
Federal Constitution. Following this procedure an Act of Congress,
June 2.3. 1868, readmitted Florida to representation on the floors of
Congress, and the new state officers were inaugurated on the Fourth
of July following.
The new constitution provided that all local officers should be
appointed by the Governor, and Governor Reed naturally made many
enemies in his own party by his selections. The supply of offices was
entirely inadequate to meet the demand. He was charged with mal-
feasance in office and three attempts were made to impeach him, but
all failed. He was a man of unswerving integrity. but he found him-
self in a position and in surroundings which only tile genius of a
Napoleon could have mastered and controlled.
Ossian B. Hart was elected Governor in 1872 and the increasing
population of the state by this time entitled it to two representatives
in Congress. Governor Hart died in 1874 and was succeeded by
Lieut.-Gov. Marcus L. Stearns.
INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS
The republican party, mainly through the negro vote, was in
power in Florida from 1868 to 1876, when George F. Drew was
elected Governor by a democratic vote. He was chosen at the same
general election which was so close through the United States that
Florida's four electoral votes were necessary to decide between Samuel
J. Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes for the presidency, which was
awarded to the republican candidate by the Electoral Commission.
I'i E1S i"Tl WINS OLD SANISH MlINION ST.ANDl NI NEAlR NEAW SMYRNA. BUILT P IliIl'lHi IN THE, 161,II (ENTIlI' ly
Th'is~ was aiftenviard ii.qi'l as 8sugar mill but wits~ aluaudoniid Rt tlie ouutloruak of the Indian wars
FLORIDA 69
Governor Drew's election was welcomed by the people of Florida
as a return to home rule. The state's finances which had fallen to a
low ebb, revived and its bonds rose in the markets from the quotation
of sixty-five cents on the dollar to par; taxes were reduced and a
new era of prosperity was begun, wherein the industrial and agricul-
tural growth of the state started in earnest. The population of the
state by the census of 1880 was 269,493, of which 142,605 were whites
and 126,696 negroes. The assessed value of the taxable property in
the state was approximately thirty-one million dollars.
William D. Bloxham was elected Governor in 1880 and his admin-
istration was marked by the inception of many railroad and other
industrial enterprises. A number of charters was granted by the Leg-
islature for railroad construction, accompanied by grants of lands.
By the close of the year 1884, one thousand and forty-five miles of rail
lines had been built in the state. The sections through which they
were run were settled rapidly and the orange industry began to be
important.
CONSTITUTION OF 1885
A constitutional convention was called in 1885, and the instrument
then adopted became effective January 1, 1887. This constitution
showed an increasing socialistic tendency among the people, in that
it provided, with subsequent amendments, for the election of prac-
tically all state, county, and judicial officers by popular vote, the
judges of the Circuit Courts being still excepted, and these are ap-
pointed by the Governor. It was, in the opinion of a considerable num-
ber of the legal authorities of the state, not so effective an instrument
as the constitution of 1868, which had been adopted under the stress
of Federal military power, and which placed in the hands of the Gor-
ernor the appointment of a large majority of all officers in the execu-
tive and judicial branches of the state administration. In connection
with the state primary election law, it practically gives to the qualified
electors of the state the naming of all their officers, state and national,
with the exceptions named. The large majorities in Florida being
democratic, all the administrations since 1876 have been directed by
that political party.
By the constitution of 1885, the office of lieutenant-governor was
abolished, the duties of that position devolving upon the president
of the State Senate. The regular sessions of the State Legislature
were made biennial, beginning in April of the odd numbered years
and the sessions were limited to sixty days.
70 FLORIDA
Edward A. Perry was elected Governor in 1884 and, according to
custom, assumed his office at the beginning of the following year.
Francis P. Fleming was elected his successor in 1888, the vote of the
state at this election being 66,641. Henry L. Mitchell was his suc-
cessor in 1892, and William D. Bloxham was called for the second
time to the executive chair in 1896.
INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT
The census of 1890 gave Florida a population of 391,422, of which
224,949 were whites and 166,475, negroes. It was about the beginning
of this decade that the state received a tremendous impetus toward
its present industrial prosperity through the beginning of invest-
ments by Henry M. Flagler, Henry B. Plant and others. Mr. Flag-
ler's operations were along the Atlantic coast of the state, in the build-
ing of the Florida East Coast Railway, which early in 1912 was com-
pleted to Key West, a distance of five hundred and twenty-two miles
from its northern terminus at Jacksonville. He opened the east
side of the state to an immense tourist travel by the erection of the
most magnificent system of hotels along the coast that has ever been
planned for the delectation of pleasure and health seekers. Also by
providing ample transportation facilities, he developed the vegetable
and fruit production of the Indian River section and of the entire east
coast, to the value of many millions of dollars each year. His expendi-
tures in Florida to the beginning of 1912 aggregatednot far from
sixty million dollars.
Mr. Plant's efforts were directed to the development of the mid-
dle and southwestern sections of the state, through railroad construc-
tion, the building of splendid terminals and a magnificent hotel at
Tampa.
The discovery of immense deposits of phosphate in the south-
western part of the state in 1881, has developed an enormous export
trade and has added much to the wealth of the state. The timber
and naval stores products of Florida have made the state of the largest
commercial importance to the world. The development of these and
other Florida resources has made the real history of the state since
1890, and this is described more fully elsewhere in this story of
Florida.
FLORIDA'S DISASTERS
The industrial growth of the state has been interrupted by events
which seemed at the time of their coming to assume the proportions
of disasters. An epidemic of yellow fever came to Jacksonville and
Thi, I \ it-dfol ."jilii, iin st w.t of Newv Smnyrna
nn
FLORIDA 73
Fernandina in 1888, with a death loss of about ten per cent of all the
cases. Jacksonville's death list included about five hundred of her
citizens.
A breath of cold from the Northwest swept over the state January
12, 1886. It wrought much damage in the northern and middle por-
tions of Florida. The "Great Freeze" came on the night of Decem-
ber 29, 1894. The temperature went to fourteen degrees above zero
at Jacksonville and lower in some of the northern sections of the pen-
insula. Two million boxes of ungathered oranges on the trees were
frozen solid. Young trees were killed and the older and hardier trees
were seriously damaged. Not quite five weeks later, on the night of
February 7, another destructive cold came, killing practically all the
citrus trees that had survived the previous disaster in the northern and
middle portions of the state.
The losses from these two storms, directly and indirectly, amounted
to no less than fifty millions of dollars. The result was an entire revo-
lution in the orange growing industry, the groves being renewed fur-
ther south in the state. The industry has reached proportions as great
as those which were destroyed, and it is increasing in importance and
value each year.
The fire which swept Jacksonville, May 8, 1901, was one of the
great conflagrations of history. The financial loss was above fifteen
million dollars, but Jacksonville's recovery from that disaster has far
surpassed all losses and has excited the admiration of the world.
In the solution of her educational problems Florida has laid the
foundations, and has made rapid progress in the establishment of a
school system which is to give the benefits of practical training and of
higher and technical education to increasing thousands of pupils at the
minimum of cost.
The financial credit of the state is equal to the best in other states
and its finances are based upon the solid foundations of integrity in
the administration of its affairs and upon an unparalleled prosperity.
Four hundred years have passed since Ponce de Leon, the
Spanish adventurer, landed upon these shores. Almost from the day
"of his coming, Florida has been a battlefield. It has been the scene
of strife. Every section of this fair land has been bathed in the
blood of slaughter and massacre. So continuous has been this war-
fare that the intervals of peace have been like the oases in the Great
Desert.
74 FLORIDA
While the world owes to the Spaniard the discovery of Florida, his
presence in the land has been a curse. He came in search of gold and
the search was marked with blood and butchery. He came, not to
create wealth, but to take by force the wealth that had been created.
He opposed those who would have developed the natural resources
of the land. He was a destroyer, not a builder.
It was not until the English sought in the seventeenth century to
spread the industry of the Carolina Colony over the southern penin-
sula, that the first gleam of hope came to the new country, yet that
advance was opposed by a hundred years of war and retaliation. The
English occupation of Florida in 1768, brought an era of peace and
development, but it was broken by the Revolutionary war. Spain re-
occupied the land in 1784 and the dark pall of her presence again
spread over the country.
Florida became a possession of the United States in 1821, and once
more hope dawned upon the stricken land, but soon began the aggres-
sions of the native tribes, which culminated in the Seminole war.
Fifteen years of quiet preceded the outbreak of the Civil war.
The unrest of Reconstruction retarded progress until 1876, when
Florida entered at last upon an era of progress that has remained
undisturbed for nearly forty years.
Of the four centuries of her existence as a part of the civilized
world, hardly sixty years have been given to her upbuilding through
serious, concerted and continuous effort. But the fruits of the dec-
ades since peace has come, have demonstrated the richness of her re-
sources with a growth that has no parallel. Her cities, her farms and
groves, her mines and mineral wealth, her splendid climate and her
rich soils, have made The Land of Flowers a great industrial empire,
whose future is but faintly presaged by the accomplishments of the
past.
GOVERNORS OF FLORIDA
TERRITORIAL
Gen. Andrew Jackson-Military Governor...... 1819
W illiam P. Duval ......................... 1822
John W. Easton ...........................1884
Richard K. Call .......................... 1885
Robert Raymond Reid ......................1889
FLORIDA 75
Richard K. Call ......... ....................1841
John Branch ............................... 1844
STATE
William D. Mosely ..........................1845
Thomas Brown ... -. .-................... 1849
James E. Broome ........................... 1853
M adison S. Perry ........................... 1856
John Milton (Died April 1, 1865) .............. 1861
A. K. Allison (April to July) .............. 1865
William Marvin (July to December) ........... 1865
David S. Walker ............................1865
Harrison Reed ..............................1868
Ossian B. Hart.(Died in office, 1874) ........... 1872
Marcellus L. Steas ........................1874
George F. Drew ................. .........1876
William D. Bloxham ........................1880
Edward A. Perry .........................1884
Francis P. Fleming ........................ 1888
Henry L. Mitchell ..........................1892
William D. Bloxham ........................1896
William S. Jennings ........................1900
Napoleon B. Broward ......................1904
Albert W. Gilchrist ........................1908
Park Trammell ........................... 1912
CHAPTER II
GEOLOGICAL
BRIEF sketch of the geological history and forma-
tions of Florida is necessary to a clear understand-
Aing of certain conditions here, which exist in no other
section of the United States. These conditions pro-
vide, over the immense area of the state, an inex-
haustible supply of water by conserving the annual
rainfall; they provide a natural system of distribution and they have
created a diversification of soils which, with the climate, give a wider
range of vegetable products than belongs to any other state. They
have permitted in ages past the formation of mineral deposits, which
are the present source of large profit and which already have given
Florida an important place in the commerce of the world.
ATLANTIC COASTAL PLAIN
Florida is a part of the great Atlantic coastal plain of the United
States. This plain embraces a strip of varying width along the Atlan-
tic and Gulf coasts, which covers the eastern portions of New Jersey,
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina and Geor-
gia, and all of Florida, as well as much of the southern sections of
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. This formation is sedi-
mentary, containing clay, shale, limestone, and sandstone, which were
brought in prehistoric times from the mountains and high lands lying
to the north and west. In these earlier periods of creation, what is
now included in this coastal plain lay beneath the waters of the
ocean, and the materials washed from the higher lands determined in
large measure the character of the area which, with the gradual ele-
vation of the continent, has become the lands that now border -the
ocean and the gulf.
But the present area of Florida being then covered by water was
further removed than the rest of the coastal plain from this source of
sedimentary deposit, and the clear sea was more favorable to the exist-
ence of an abundant shell life, the accumulation of which formed
lime rock. Hence, with the gradual lifting of Florida above sea
79
80 FLORIDA
level, the underlying foundation rock was a massive and very thick
bed of limestone. And in this respect Florida differs much in its
geological formations from the other states included in the coastal
plain.
Formerly it was a generally accepted fact that the greater part,
if not all, of Florida was of coral formation, but this view has been
upset by recent scientific investigations.
VICKSBURG LIMESTONE
Florida deposits are all of comparatively recent date geologically.
The oldest formation known in this area is called by scientists the
Vicksburg limestone, which is classified in the Oligocene division of the
Cenozoic Period of creation. It was formed through the ages by con-
stant accretions of minute organism known as foraminifera, the shells
of these small animals with larger shells making up the limestone.
The deposit became solid or but slightly porous by the chemical
deposits and action of sea water.
This formation is a part of the extensive foundation which encircles
the gulf from Florida to Louisiana, and it is found somewhat widely
distributed in Alabama and Mississippi. In Florida it lies in a gen-
erally horizontal stratum, but in the mighty upheaval of creation it
was given an elevation in the western and northern central portions
of the peninsula, with a dip toward the gulf on the south and west,
and toward the Atlantic on the east. This elevation formed a ridge
which the topographical surveys of the state have clearly defined.
A general line of elevation of from one hundred to two hundred
feet, and in places reaching much higher, extends from the western
bounds of the state at the Perdido river, and follows closely the
Georgia state line as far east as Baker county. This elevated plateau
is marked by ranges of hills, from one hundred to more than two
hundred feet high. They are broken by the valleys of the Apalachi-
cola and the Choctawhatchee rivers.
THE BACKBONE OF FLORIDA
Extending in a generally southerly direction from the Georgia
state line, another plateau of some elevation joins, or crosses, that
already described. In its northern beginning it extends from the
Suwanee River valley in Hamilton county, to the eastern limit of
Baker county. From this width of about sixty miles its longitudinal
JuPITEr INLET
AMONG THE FLORIDA KEYS
oVL I-
FLORIDA 83
extension, becoming narrower as it is traced southward, covers Baker,
Bradford, the eastern portion of Hamilton and Suwanee counties, the
western parts of Clay and Columbia counties, the central portion of
Alachua, the eastern part of Levy and the western part of Marion,
parts of Citrus, Sumter and Hernando counties. In this area the
elevation is close to one hundred feet, with an occasional rise above two
hundred feet and breaks below the fifty-foot mark above sea level.
Pasco and Hillsborough counties have areas of elevation exceeding one
hundred feet, and Polk county has two distinct plateaus above the
one hundred and fifty-foot level and including ranges from two hun-
dred to two hundred and fifty feet high.
It will be seen that the general course of this ridge lies closer to
the gulf than to the ocean, and that east of it is a section that includes
a large portion of the total area of the state.
The contour line of fifty feet elevation above sea level, from the
western limit of the state, follows generally the line of the gulf and
from six to twenty miles distant, as far as Lafayette county. There
it sweeps further from the gulf, returning again to the lesser dis-
tances in Levy and Citrus counties, and it continues with many twists
and turns into Hillsborough county. There it takes a southerly course
into De Soto county to about the latitude of twenty-seven degrees,
when it runs east and northeast through Polk and Osceola counties
to the St. Johns river, which it follows rather closely to Duval and
Nassau counties.
This leaves the large portion of the state south of about the middle
line of De Soto county, less than fifty feet above sea level. This sec-
tion is known under the general name of The Everglades, in which, in
spite of the seemingly low levels and vast expanse, the variations in
elevation are sufficient to justify the greatest drainage project ever
undertaken by engineers.
GENERAL ELEVATIONS
This sketch of the topography of Florida will serve to contradict
the impression that the entire state is a low-lying, swampy area, only
a few feet above the surrounding ocean. It has no mountains nor high
ranges, as elevations are measured in many other states. The greatest
elevation above sea level within the state, so far authentically recorded,
is Orange hill in Washington county, which, it is claimed, reaches
five hundred and sixty feet. Florida's seaports, of course, have the
same elevation as those of the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards every-
84 FLORIDA
where. The state is bordered by a wide area less than fifty feet above
the sea, just the same as every other Atlantic state as far north as
Maine, and it is just as adaptable to industrial occupation.
This impervious Vicksburg limestone floor of the state serves also
as a natural watershed to distribute the water supply over wide areas.
It appears at the surface in limited sections, but for the most part it
is buried beneath the geological deposits of later periods, consisting of
clays, a later limestone, marls and shell beds, residual deposits, river-
formed deposits, recent rock formations, sand dunes and shell mounds
containing Indian remains.
The general line of its upheaval forms the central Florida plateau
sometimes called the "backbone" of the state. It is found in places
within forty feet of the top of this ridge. Its dip toward the east and
west is marked. It is reached almost a thousand feet below the surface
at Jacksonville. Following the Atlantic coast southward it rises, for
at Titusville, one hundred and fifty miles from Jacksonville, it is found
at a depth of about one hundred feet. From near this section it takes
another dip, and at Palm Beach, another hundred and fifty miles
south, it lies more than a thousand feet below the surface, and on the
Florida keys, borings of more than two thousand feet have failed to
reach it.
In the clay formations overlying the Vicksburg limestone, have
been found in widely scattered parts of the state, the fossil remains of
the mastodon, elephant, rhinoceros, saber-toothed tiger, horses, bison,
deer, tapirs, giant sloths and glyptodons.
FLORIDA MEASUREMENTS
The peculiar shape of Florida almost forbids description. It is an
irregularly formed peninsula whose Atlantic coast line trends almost
southeast. The state has an arm extending westward from its central
line a distance almost as great as its north and south extension. Its
length by a north and south air line, from the St. Mary's river to
Key West, the southernmost point of United States continental pos-
sessions, is approximately four hundred and twenty-five miles. The
extreme width across the northern part of the state, from the ocean to
the Perdido river, which marks the Alabama boundary, is three hun-
dred and seventy miles. The lower peninsula in its greatest width,
about the line of Tampa, measures one hundred and fifty miles.
In area Florida is the second state east of the Mississippi river,
Georgia alone being larger. It contains a surface area of 58,666
-" .. **1* A
ON THE ST. LUCIE RIVER
FLORIDA 87
square miles, of which 8,805, or a little more than 6 per cent, are fresh
water surface.
The coast line of the state measures approximately thirteen hun-
dred miles, which by the indentations of bays and sounds are increased
to almost sixteen hundred miles.
The conditions governing the geological formation of Florida led
to the creation of immense deposits of phosphate, peat and valu-
able clays, including fullers' earth and kaolin, which are considered
elsewhere
Thes/ same geological conditions existing in Florida, have made
possible ts unique water supply system, which conserves the rainfall,
purifies it by percolation through the earth as a filter, and brings it
again to the surface in many localities through inexhaustible springs,
and in other places making it available through flowing wells driven by
artificial means.
UNDERGROUND WATER SUPPLY
The average annual rainfall over the entire state is slightly more
than fifty-three inches. This amounts to more than 921,000,000 gal-
lons for every square mile. Allowing for losses by evaporation, drain-
age and all other causes, it has been estimated that at least one-half
of this amount is added each year in the central part of the state to the
underground water supply. By gravity it is carried deep into the
earth, passing through the sand, clay and upper limestone strata, until
eventually it reaches the underlying and practically impervious Vicks-
burg limestone.
The limit to which water percolates into the earth has never been
reached by borings, but it is well known that the greater the depth,
the greater is the pressure forcing it to seek an outlet to higher levels.
Something more than five hundred pounds pressure on each square
inch is necessary to bring the water to the surface through a boring
eleven hundred and fifty feet into the earth, and several artesian wells
in Florida exceed this depth.
The outlet for this pressure is found in numerous natural springs
in the middle and northern sections of the state. The dip of the
Vicksburg limestone stratum carries the water beyond the land limits
of the state and discharges it through springs beneath the ocean sur-
face. Such a spring, evidently of large size, exists a mile or more off
the Atlantic coast some distance south of St. Augustine. When the
ocean surface is quiet, the water from this spring may be seen bubbling
88 FLORIDA
tip through the salt water, covering an area of more than an acre and
perfuming the atmosphere with sulphuretted hydrogen. From this
spring, surrounded as it is by the brine of ocean, vessels have refilled
their empty tanks. A similar spring is known in the Gulf of Mexico,
and it can not be doubted that many others exist at depths too great
for observation at the ocean surface.
GREAT NATURAL SPRINGS
Of these great natural outlets within the borders of the state,
Silver Springs, in Marion county, is the largest, and typical of all. It
supplies a large portion of the flow of the famous Ocklawaha River.
Bursting forth from the face of a limestone rock through several
openings or vents, it discharges 369,000 gallons every minute of crys-
tal-clear water, forming at once a stream on which might be floated
deep draught vessels and creating a current of several miles an hour.
The refraction of light through this water, more than thirty feet deep,
gives prismatic hues to white objects on the bottom of the basin.
Other springs similar in character exist in other parts of Marion
county, and in Levy, Columbia, Suwanee, Hernando, and Hamil-
ton counties, from which the total estimated flow exceeds eight hun-
dred thousand gallons a minute.
Formerly the source of this immense flow and of the pressure by
which it was forced to its outlets, was supposed to be in the far distant
Appalachian mountains and hills of northern Georgia and North Car-
olina, but this idea has been dispelled by the observation that the flow
from these springs is increased soon after heavy rainfalls in their
respective vicinities. Other observations have established these sources
as more or less local.
In their study of the phenomena governing this distribution of
Florida's water supply, scientists have agreed that the Vicksburg lime-
stone floor, underlying the state, makes it possible. The rainfall
percolates through the upper strata, eventually reaching this lower
layer of rock. With its dip toward the ocean it serves as a water-
shed carrying the water down its eastern and western slopes, toward
and under the areas that are prolific of natural springs or other out-
lets for this water. The water having reached this underlying stratum
of rock, is confined between it and the overlying strata, and as it
flows to the lower depths the pressure from behind and above forces
it to seek outlets through whatever openings or breaks in the overly-
Iii. 1LU,\ JAKsONVII.1: FIA~s2.000.000 (AL. Nsi EVERY TWE NTY-FU I 1f 11URS FROM- A DEIPT!
]'(INK KY COAST O(N AlE RUITT's ISL.AND- LO4 WER E:AST (0ANIT
FLORIDA 91
ing rocks it may chance to reach. It is simply an illustration of the
familiar principle that water seeks its level.
FLORIDAS ARTESIAN WELLS
When, therefore, an artificial opening is made through the over-
lying burden of rock strata, an outlet is made through which the im-
prisoned water rushes with a force proportionate to the pressure that
impels it from behind or above. Such an outlet is the artesian well
of Florida. These wells are of two classes, determined by the height
to which water rises in the bore by the natural pressure behind it.
The flowing well is one in which this pressure is sufficient to force the
water to or above the surface of the earth at the point of discharge.
Non-flowing wells are those in which the water does not reach the
surface but in which it has to be raised by artificial means.
A characteristic common to all artesian water supply in the state
is its impregnation with various chemical compounds in solution. Chief
and most common is sulphuretted hydrogen. This, however, is quickly
evaporated on exposure to the air, removing both the taste and the
rather disagreeable odor. Some chemicals remain in solution, giving
valuable medicinal properties which in some localities have made the
springs famous as health resorts and restorers.
The area of flowing wells, so far as has been determined by the
Florida State Geological Survey, is limited to a section along the east
coast of the state, bordering the St. Mary's river, following the course
of the St. Johns river and along the coast as far south as Palm Beach;
also along the Gulf coast south from Hillsborough bay and covering
large portions of Hillsborough, Lee and De Soto counties; following
also the courses of Peace creek and the Kissimmee river in De Soto,
Polk and Osceola counties; also along the line of the Gulf coast from
the western border of the state to Franklin county. These wells are
successfully driven in other isolated sections, notably in Marion and
Osceola counties. That the area will be developed beyond its present
limitations by later discoveries is not beyond the range of probability.
CHARACTERISTICS OF ARTESIAN WEL"S
The conditions that determine the area of flowing wells are prob-
ably the depth of the Vicksburg limestone stratum beneath the surface
and its dip or variation from a generally horizontal position and by
local causes. Theoretically a flowing well can not be secured at or
92 FLORIDA
near the top of the higher plateaus in the state, and the facts bear out
the theory.
The depth to which these wells must be bored to secure a satis-
factory supply and quality of water, varies also in different locali-
ties, from less than one hundred feet to twelve hundred and fifty feet,
which is the depth of the city well of Ocala, and fourteen hundred
and forty feet in the well that was sunk to supply the Ponce de Leon
Hotel at St. Augustine. This depth is determined probably by the
distance of the Vicksburg limestone from the surface.
In driving an artesian well, an uncertain flow of water is usually
reached at a depth between two hundred and three hundred and fifty
feet, but experience has taught that a larger, steadier and more perma-
nent flow of purer water comes when the Vicksburg limestone stratum
is reached. Therefore, to secure the flow from the deeper lying
stratum, the wells are driven through the upper strata and are cased
with iron piping, to exclude the flow from the upper layers of rock and
clay. The casing is driven down as the boring of the well proceeds.
Naturally the discharge of the flowing wells has no relation to the sea
level, for while some of them are but a few feet above that level, others
are more than fifty feet above it.
The city of Jacksonville derives its entire water supply for
domestic purposes from eleven flowing wells, with an average daily
discharge of five and a quarter million gallons, at a temperature of
seventy-four degrees, Fahrenheit. These wells are cased to an average
depth of nine hundred and eighty feet. They vary in diameter from
six inches to twelve. The flow of the largest well of this municipally
owned system, is about two thousand gallons every minute.
The sub-irrigation system of the famous Sanford celery section,
in Seminole county, is fed by cased flowing wells, two or two and a
half inches in diameter and from one hundred to one hundred and
forty feet deep, from which an average flow of ten thousand gallons
an hour is obtained. These figures vary considerably in various locali-
ties of the state, by reason of different depths of the underlying lime-
stone formations and for local causes.
The cost of drilling a flowing well varies according to the diame-
ter and the depth at which a satisfactory flow is obtained. Owing to
the uncertainty of the latter element in the problem, the contractor
usually makes his charge by the foot of depth, which charge includes
the necessary casing. These prices vary from one dollar a foot for a
two-inch well, to three and a half dollars per foot for a well ten inches
in diameter.
'
Jtl .
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E
LIGHT-HOUSE AND WIRELESS STATION OF UNITED STATES GOVERN-
MENT AT JUPITER INLET
II.
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FLORIDA 95
In the great area covering the southern one-third of the state,
the northern limit of which seems to be determined by the dip of the
Vicksburg limestone stratum, flowing wells have been driven as far
down the coast as Palm Beach. It is the opinion of scientific men
that in this area the pressure forcing the flow through these wells
comes largely from Lake Okeechobee. It has been noted that the
static head from such wells is much less than from those in the area
in which the pressure comes from the higher plateaus of the state.
A marked difference also is noted in the chemical contents of the dis-
charge from these wells.
FLORIDA'S LAKES AND RIVERS
Florida's unique geological conditions are manifested also in the
peculiarity of her lakes and streams. A great number of these lakes
have no visible supply beyond the natural drainage of their
basins, and no discharge excepting by evaporation. Their levels are
maintained by natural springs and by seepage into the soil, similar to
the absorption of rainfall, yet their waters are clear and often support
a dense fish population. These lakes occur usually not along the coast
nor in the low-lying parts of the state, but in the uplands and in sec-
tions having a rolling topography and a considerable elevation above
sea level
The formation of many of them originated in what are popularly
called "sink holes." Through the natural erosion of the soil and of the
underlying rock by water seeping from the surface or from the flow
from springs, an underground outlet is formed through the upper
limestone formation, and through this vent the water escapes to lower
levels. The overlying burden of earth caves in, leaving a water-filled
cavity. Gradually the opening is enlarged by the wash of rainfall and
the cavity becomes large enough to be considered a lake. Eventually
this process of enlargement is aided by the union of two or more sink
holes until still larger bodies of water are formed. Several of these
lakes occur in the western counties of the state, each of which covers
from two thousand to five thousand acres. Occasionally the under-
ground outlet is clogged through natural causes, the water is evap-
orated and the sink hole in course of time is filled and disappears.
With few exceptions the rivers of Florida have no rapid currents.
From the general topography of the state there is insufficient fall to
make them available for water power. The St. Johns river is the most
important of these streams,, and while it has the title of a river, it has
96 FLORIDA
more of the characteristics of a chain of lakes through which a slug-
gish current continuously moves in one direction. It has its source in
Saw Grass lake, in the southern part of Brevard county, and unlike
any other navigable stream under the jurisdiction of the Federal Gov-
ernment, it takes a northerly course, and paralleling the eastern coast
of the state it reaches the Atlantic ocean near Jacksonville, three hun-
dred miles from its source.
For more than one-half this distance it is navigable for steam
vessels, and ocean-going ships come to Jacksonville, twenty-seven
miles from the ocean, by a channel thirty feet deep. The normal tide
variation at the city docks is eighteen inches, and tidal movement is
clearly discernible seventy miles from the Atlantic.
THE EVERGIADES
The southern one-third of the state is a vast plain, varying in its
elevation from sea level to less than fifty feet above. Vast areas of
pine timber, hardwood hammock, open prairie, some of it covered at
certain seasons of the year with water, swamp lands and low sections
stretch over these southern counties. Beneath much of this territory
the underlying Vicksburg limestone stratum lies very deep and in
many sections it has never been reached by borings of two thousand
feet.
Geologically this part of Florida was the last to emerge from the
sea with the movement of the continent. Its soil is rich with the
accumulations of vegetable matter deposited through uncounted cen-
turies. It has a fertility and a productive capacity that is nowhere
surpassed. It is known as The Everglades, whose reclamation for
agricultural purposes has been attempted under the general super-
vision of the State of Florida.
Within this section, nearer the Atlantic than the Gulf side of the
state, lies Lake Okeechobee, the largest body of water entirely within
the limits of any single state, and, next to Lake Michigan, the largest
body of water wholly within the United States. It has a surface
area exceeding nine hundred square miles. It is shallow, generally
circular in outline and has a surface elevation of twenty-seven feet
above the ocean level. It is contained in a great, saucer-shaped lime-
stone basin, which by the ingress of the Kissimmee river and of other
feeding streams, by the sudden and heavy rainfall in certain months,
and by the absence of natural outlets is overflowed, flooding the sur-
rounding saw-grass prairie.
LAND DEVELOPMENT IN KISSIMMEE VALLEY
DRAINING ST. JOHNS VALLEY LANDS
TY I--
FLORIDA 99
The plan of engineers to lower the level of this lake and thereby to
prevent its overflow into the adjacent territory, has been undertaken
in the construction of five canals draining into the ocean at various
points in Palm Beach and Dade counties. These canals are planned
to be completed in 1914.
Another canal already connects Lake Okeechobee with the Caloosa-
hatchee river and reaches the Gulf of Mexico through San Carlos Bay,
near Fort Myers. The successful drainage of the lower portions of
this great area would open about twelve million acres of land, much
of which, it is claimed, would be suitable for settlement and cultivation.
FLORIDA SWAMPS
Florida has large areas of swamp land in which are not included the
great stretches of salt marshes that border the Gulf and Atlantic
coasts. Strangely enough, a large proportion of this swamp area is
located at considerable elevations above the sea level. Much of it is
immensely profitable from its product of cypress timber, of which
Florida has a larger supply than any other southern state. With few
exceptions, these swamps might be drained at comparatively small
cost by opening natural waterways that have been stopped or that have
been interrupted by unimportant natural barriers which inexpensive
dredging would remove. When unoccupied lands in the Peninsular
State shall become more valuable, because scarcer by a more dense
settlement, it is probable that thousands of rich acres will be thus
reclaimed and added to the arable lands of the state.
From the vicinity of Titusville, in Brevard county, a ridge of rock
formation extends southward almost to Lake Worth, following closely
the line of the east coast of the state and from a few yards to as many
miles from it. It is broken by occasional gaps through which the
natural drainage of the sections behind reaches the Indian river and
the ocean. For a large part of its length it separates the valleys of the
St. Johns and Kissimmee rivers from the coast, and for uncounted
ages it has retained on these plateaus the rainfall and the outflow of
natural springs.
The result has been the gradual accretion of vegetable mould which
has been changed into deep deposits of rich muck lands. It is covered
with a rank growth of wild grasses and it bears few trees, excepting
an occasional palm and some palm hammocks of considerable area.
Although the floor levels of these plateaus are from ten to eighteen
100 FLORIDA
feet above the sea, there has been no drainage aside from the slow
seeping of the natural moisture to these two great rivers.
Within recent years some of the most important land develop-
ments in the south have been undertaken in the drainage of these
vast areas to the Indian river and the ocean. To accomplish this,
canals have been cut through this ridge which since history began
has barred these waters from their natural levels. By this method,
thousands of acres of the richest black muck lands to be found in the
state, have been opened for agriculture and already they have added
materially to the assets of Florida. These lands are particularly
adapted to citrus culture and to vegetable growing, and their area
is sufficient to support a population of a million people.
THE FLORIDA KEYS
A careful study of the map of Florida shows a border or fringe
of islands extending along the entire eastern coast and well up along
the western side of the state. In some places these islands have become
a part of the mainland by their slow and gradual upheaval from the
waters of the ocean.
This formation extends along the east side of the state from
Georgia on the north and forms an inland waterway, affording pro-
tected navigation, with few interruptions, for small craft from
Charleston, South Carolina, to Key West. This natural waterway is
known by various names along the east coast-Nassau Sound at Fer-
nandina; Pablo creek south of the St. Johns river; North river, Matan-
zas river at St. Augustine; Halifax river at Ormond and Daytona;
Mosquito lagoon, Banana river, Indian river, St. Lucie sound, Jupiter
river, Lake Worth, and Biscayne Bay are among the more important
of these waters.
Cutting away and dredging the natural barriers along the route
where it was necessary, has opened a way the length of the state for
light draft vessels, and plans have been put under contract, with the
sanction of the state, to make the course available for commerce
through its entire length, as it is already for a large share of it.
South from Biscayne Bay these islands are known as The Florida
Keys. Their geological formation differs from that of the islands
lying further to the north and from that of any other islands on the
earth. They follow at increasingly greater distances from the main-
land of the state its general contour as they extend southwest and west
around the southern end of the state to Key West.
TK WIiCAL I. I WTI A LONG LOW ER INDI AN RI VER
N AllEAL G(ROWTH f01' COCOANUT IPALMS OX LOWER E.AST COAST
MANGROVE .UNGLE ON FLORIDA KEYS
" BLOWING ROCKS" ON LOWER EAST COAS
~~ --
~-~L,
---. ,U~..
FLORIDA 105
Outside the line of keys are some of the most dangerous reefs and
shoals that border the entire coast line of the United States. They
were for centuries a fearful menace to the navigation of these ocean
waters, until the Federal Government established a chain of lights for
the protection of mariners.
The keys themselves extend as a long line of narrow reefs, hun-
dreds of them, varying in size from Key Largo to the little islands
rising a few inches or feet above the waters and but a few acres in
extent. Beginning with Bahia Honda Key on the route to the south
and west, the islands depart from the long and narrow form and take
more irregular and varied contours.
In the main, they are of coraline formation, rocky and bleak, but
supporting on their comparatively poor soils a rank growth of tropical
vegetation and air plants. They are. capable of supporting but a
scant human population, for on many of the keys there is no natural
source of potable water, and the supply is secured by conserving the
rainfall or by evaporating salt water. The sea abounds in a rich pro-
fusion of fish life.
Among the more important of these islands are: Elliott's Key, Old
Rhodes Key, Angelfish Key, Key Largo, Islamorada, Upper Mate-
cumbe, Tea Table, Indian Key, Long Key, Conch Key, Duck Key,
Grassy Key, Crawl Keys, Fat Deer. Keys, Bamboo Key, Stirrup Key,
Key Vaca, Boot Key, Knight's Key, Pigeon Key, Bahia Honda,
Summerland Keys, Big Pine Key, Cudjore Key, Sugar Loaf, No
Name Key, Saddle Bunch, Big Coppitt, Rockland Key, Boca Chica,
Raccoon Key, Spanish Keys, Eagle Key, Mullett Key, Key West and
Dry Tortugas.
THE GULF COAST
The west or Gulf coast of Florida differs much from the east side
of the state in its lack of this continuous border of islands and in the
consequent absence of an uninterrupted inland waterway closely fol-
lowing the outline of the coast. Lying off the southwestern coast of
the state is a large area of islands known as the Ten Thousand Islands.
They rise from the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico and vary in
size from small patches of green on the surface of the gulf, to islands
of many acres. A number of them has been put under profitable cul-
tivation in the production of pineapples, bananas and tropical fruits.
Many of them are covered with rich soils and but for their isolation
106 FLORIDA
and inaccessibility, as at present, might be made of large agricultural
value.
The west coast of Florida is bountifully supplied and indented
with splendid harbors of Nature's own building. That at Pensacola
has room for the assembled navies of the world, with a natural channel
of forty feet or more to the ocean highways. Tampa Bay brings to
Tampa's wharves a deep-water commerce of immense value, and Char-
lotte Harbor is one of the finest land-locked anchorages on the coast
of the United States. It needs but little deepening to make it equal
to the best for the purposes of shipping, and already it has a heavy
tonnage. Apalachicola, at the mouth of the river of the same name,
has also a fine harbor, and besides these the Gulf coast of Florida has
many deep-water protected bays that will be known to the world when
the commerce of the south and through the south shall be further
developed.
Sw
CHAPTER III
CLIMATE'
M LIMATE and industrial accomplishment have an inti-
mate relation, particularly where occupation is
C largely agricultural. In no part of the United States
has this statement more pertinent proof than in Flor-
ida, and it is probable that in no respect has the Pen-
insular State been more misunderstood than in the
characteristics of its climate.
Some facts may be given which distinguish the state in this respect,
and however much they may contradict general impressions, they are
based upon actual observations covering from twenty to eighty-five
years.
Florida's annual variations of temperature, between the extremes
of summer and winter, are less than those of any other state in the
Union.
The highest temperatures ever recorded by the United States
Weather Bureau observers in Florida, are lower than the official rec-
ords at Chicago, St. Louis, and a score of inland cities in the north
and west.
Florida's normal annual rainfall varies by only small percentages
from those of northern inland states.
Florida's changes of temperature and other weather conditions
are not abrupt, a fact which makes the climate in many northern lati-
tudes most trying and severe.
Sunstroke is practically unknown in Florida, due to the prevailing
high percentage of humidity in the atmosphere. Heat prostrations
occur occasionally, but they are rarely fatal and recovery follows
speedily with rest and with little or no medical treatment.
These facts and many others of like import are explained by the
peculiar geographical location of the state. It is peninsular in form,
stretching from the general southerly line of continental United States
more than four hundred miles into the southern seas and in no part
exceeding one hundred and fifty miles in width. No section of the
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