Voyage of The Paper Canoe [114]
this great wilderness of the Suwanee.
We passed Mrs. Goodman's farm and log buildings on the left bank, just below Island No. 8, before noon, and about this time Major Purviance shot at a large wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), knocking it off a bank into the water. The gobbler got back to land, and led us a fruitless chase into the thicket of saw-palmetto. He knew his ground better than we, for, though wounded, he made good his escape. We stopped a few moments at Troy, which, though dignified in name, consists only of a store and some half dozen buildings.
A few miles below this place, on the left bank of the river, is an uninhabited elevation called Rolins' Bluff, from which a line running north 220 east, twenty-three miles and a half in length, will strike Live Oak. A charter to connect Live Oak with this region of the Suwanee by means of a railroad had just passed the Florida legislature, but had been killed by the veto of the governor. After sunset the boats were secured in safe positions in front of a deserted cabin, round which a luxuriant growth of bitter-orange trees showed what nature could do for this neglected grove. The night air was balmy, and tremulous with insect life, while the alligators in the swamps kept up their bellowings till morning.
After breakfast we descended to the mouth of the Santa Fe River, which was on the left bank of the Suwanee. The piny-woods people called it the Santaffy. The wilderness below the Santa Fe is rich in associations of the Seminole Indian war. Many relics have been found, and, among others, on the site of an old Indian town, entombed in a hollow tree, the skeletons of an Indian adult and child, decked with beads, were discovered. Fort Fanning is on the left bank, and Old Town Hammock on the right bank of the Suwanee.
During the Seminole war, the hammock and the neighboring fastnesses became the hiding-places of the persecuted Indians, and so wild and undisturbed is this region, even at this time, that the bear, lynx, and panther take refuge from man in its jungles.
Colonel J. L. F. Cottrell left his native Virginia in 1854, and commenced the cultivation of the virgin soil of Old Town Hammock. Each state has its peculiar mode of dividing its land, and here in Florida this old plantation was in township 10, section 24, range 13. The estate included about two thousand acres of land, of which nearly eleven hundred were under cultivation. The slaves whom the colonel brought from Virginia were now his tenants, and he leased them portions of his arable acres. He considered this locality as healthy as any in the Suwanee country. The old planter's home, with its hospitable doors ever open to the stranger, was embowered in live-oaks and other trees, from the branches of which the graceful festoons of Spanish moss waved in the soft air, telling of a warm, moist atmosphere.
A large screw cotton-press and corn-cribs, with smoke-house and other plantation buildings, were conveniently grouped under the spreading branches of the protecting oaks. The estate produced cotton, corn, sweet potatoes, cattle, hogs, and poultry. Deer sometimes approached the enclosed fields, while the early morning call of the wild turkey came from the thickets of the hammock. In this retired part of Florida, cheered by the society of a devoted wife and four lovely daughters, lived the kind-hearted gentleman who not only pressed on us the comforts of his well-ordered house, but also insisted upon accompanying the paper canoe from his forest home to the sea.
When gathered around the firesides of the backwoods people, the conversation generally runs into hunting stories, Indian reminiscences, and wild tales of what the pioneers suffered while establishing themselves in their forest homes. One event of startling interest had occurred in the Suwanee country a few weeks before the paper canoe entered its confines. Two hunters went by night to the woods to shoot deer by firelight. As they stalked about, with light-wood torches held above their heads, they came upon
We passed Mrs. Goodman's farm and log buildings on the left bank, just below Island No. 8, before noon, and about this time Major Purviance shot at a large wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), knocking it off a bank into the water. The gobbler got back to land, and led us a fruitless chase into the thicket of saw-palmetto. He knew his ground better than we, for, though wounded, he made good his escape. We stopped a few moments at Troy, which, though dignified in name, consists only of a store and some half dozen buildings.
A few miles below this place, on the left bank of the river, is an uninhabited elevation called Rolins' Bluff, from which a line running north 220 east, twenty-three miles and a half in length, will strike Live Oak. A charter to connect Live Oak with this region of the Suwanee by means of a railroad had just passed the Florida legislature, but had been killed by the veto of the governor. After sunset the boats were secured in safe positions in front of a deserted cabin, round which a luxuriant growth of bitter-orange trees showed what nature could do for this neglected grove. The night air was balmy, and tremulous with insect life, while the alligators in the swamps kept up their bellowings till morning.
After breakfast we descended to the mouth of the Santa Fe River, which was on the left bank of the Suwanee. The piny-woods people called it the Santaffy. The wilderness below the Santa Fe is rich in associations of the Seminole Indian war. Many relics have been found, and, among others, on the site of an old Indian town, entombed in a hollow tree, the skeletons of an Indian adult and child, decked with beads, were discovered. Fort Fanning is on the left bank, and Old Town Hammock on the right bank of the Suwanee.
During the Seminole war, the hammock and the neighboring fastnesses became the hiding-places of the persecuted Indians, and so wild and undisturbed is this region, even at this time, that the bear, lynx, and panther take refuge from man in its jungles.
Colonel J. L. F. Cottrell left his native Virginia in 1854, and commenced the cultivation of the virgin soil of Old Town Hammock. Each state has its peculiar mode of dividing its land, and here in Florida this old plantation was in township 10, section 24, range 13. The estate included about two thousand acres of land, of which nearly eleven hundred were under cultivation. The slaves whom the colonel brought from Virginia were now his tenants, and he leased them portions of his arable acres. He considered this locality as healthy as any in the Suwanee country. The old planter's home, with its hospitable doors ever open to the stranger, was embowered in live-oaks and other trees, from the branches of which the graceful festoons of Spanish moss waved in the soft air, telling of a warm, moist atmosphere.
A large screw cotton-press and corn-cribs, with smoke-house and other plantation buildings, were conveniently grouped under the spreading branches of the protecting oaks. The estate produced cotton, corn, sweet potatoes, cattle, hogs, and poultry. Deer sometimes approached the enclosed fields, while the early morning call of the wild turkey came from the thickets of the hammock. In this retired part of Florida, cheered by the society of a devoted wife and four lovely daughters, lived the kind-hearted gentleman who not only pressed on us the comforts of his well-ordered house, but also insisted upon accompanying the paper canoe from his forest home to the sea.
When gathered around the firesides of the backwoods people, the conversation generally runs into hunting stories, Indian reminiscences, and wild tales of what the pioneers suffered while establishing themselves in their forest homes. One event of startling interest had occurred in the Suwanee country a few weeks before the paper canoe entered its confines. Two hunters went by night to the woods to shoot deer by firelight. As they stalked about, with light-wood torches held above their heads, they came upon