"The Way It Was" Newspaper Column on Baker County, Florida History, 1977 part 2 File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Gene Barber (no email address), through Carl Mobley (cmobley@magicnet.net) USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format for profit or other presentation. This file may not be removed from this server or altered in any way for placement on another server without the consent of the State and USGenWeb Project coordinators and the contributor. *********************************************************************** THE WAY IT WAS ------------------------------------------------------------ William Eugene "Gene" Barber, Artist, Instructor, Historian & Genealogist authored a series of articles for the Baker County Press entitled "The Way It Was". His articles covered all aspects of Baker County pioneer lives in a colorful, entertaining, as well as, educational manner. At an early age, Gene possessed the desire and ability to interview the 'Old Folks'. He was as talented in the use of the pen, as he is with a brush, choosing his words and expressions in a way to paint an exciting and interesting story. The following are his articles written in 1977. Contents: * An Incident Of The Seminole War (in part 1) * A Preview Of 'The Early People' (in part 1) * Notes On The Civil War (in part 1) * Some Of The Early Familys In Olustee Area (in part 1) * Another Potpourri Of Baker County History (in part 1) * A Look At Some Public Records From 1877 (in part 1) * Gleanings From 'The Standard' (in part 1) * The Baxter Rebellion (in part 1) * McClenny Versus Macclenny * A Short Tribute To Nettie Rowe * The St. George Gazette * Some Interesting Notes From Basement Of Courthouse * Notes From The Court Of Judge Mott Howard * Of Harvey And Prophecies * Early Area Roadways * The Crackers * The Will Of 'Tiger Bill' Roberts * The Roberts Family * Black Troops In Baker County * Joseph Dicks, Early Pioneer From England * The Daring Minnie Poythress * Geological Makeup Of Baker County * Mrs. Cone Tells Her Story _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday July 7, 1977 Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber McClenny Versus Macclenny - Part 1 The community was named for Carr Bowers McClenny who was born in 1840 in Virginia. Family genealogist Frank McClenny of Bellaire, Texas believes that the most likely genealogy is that C.B. was a son of H.G. who was born in 1805 in Virginia. He was a son of Hincha who was a son of James who was a son of William Mack Clenny. Schuyler Rebekah Lodge No. 22 used the spelling 'Macclenny' in its by-laws in 1911. Macclenny Chapter No. 61 Order of the Eastern Star used the same spelling in 1913. "Walter A. Dopson, Attorney - MacClenny, Baker County, Florida" was the address and spelling of a prominent lawyer on an abstract in 1934. T.M. Dorman, Notary Public, listed his address as McClenny, Florida in 1914. J.Monroe Thompson, an early resident who moved away, addressed a letter to McClenny, Florida in 1961. Jesse McClenney of Franklin, Virginia states his ancestors left Florida in 1805 for Virginia to escape a yellow fever epidemic (info from Edward B. McClenning of Granville, N.Y.). The families are related but note the two different spellings. An atlas of 1917 shows Macclenny (that's the spelling used) and environs laid out in a street and road pattern much like that to today. Timber lands maps of Eppinger and Russell in 1890 and 1912 use the spelling 'McClenny.' In McClenny's younger, lustier days the young attorney Branch Cone and John Herndon engaged in an argument which broke into a fist fight. The young Mr. Cone, reportedly with assistance, was getting the best of Mr. Herndon and also began wielding a knife. C.B. McClenny (nephew of the city's founder) interferred. He was cut in the head but stopped the fight. Bad blood began to flow between the two men and when Mr. Cone was later mayor, he deliberately changed the city's name spelling to 'Macclenny' (info from a McClenny descendant.) "It happened (the spelling change) sometime when Fred Cone was Governor" (statement by an older citizen.) Tennessee, Virginia, Alabama, and Texas are full of McClennys, MacClennys, M'Clennys, McClaneys, MacClenneys and a dozen more variations. Sometimes pronounced as McClenny are McElhaneys and Mcilhenys. The compiler of this little report remembers a McClain, whose family also used the spellings McLean and McClane, who claimed kin to the McClennys through a common ancestor named MacClain. The Florida Times-Union had settled into spelling the city's name 'Macclenny' by 1912 but is reported to have occasionally slipped back into 'McClenny. The Associate Press in 1922 and '23 used 'McClenny' for both the family and town when reporting family deaths. Some of the foregoing might have been fancied by the informants. A few typographical errors could have slipped in among the old reports. However, the majority ot these little bits of history are lying there on their records in faded black and aged white. From them we can realize that there seems to have been no one point in history when the spelling of McClenny was changed. Maybe, just maybe, the spelling has never been legally changed but has just carelessly as well as deliberately evolved into what most of us use now. More on McClenny-Macclenny next week. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday July 14, 1977, Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber McClenny Versus Macclenny - Part Two To further demonstrate that there was no one point in our history when the name change happened here are a few additional history items. In 1892, Clerk of Circuit Court James D. Chalker spelled the name 'MacClenny' on an application for accrued pension for an Indian Wars veteran. Three years later he used the spelling 'Macclenny'. B.S. Brigg and R. T. Heselton deeded land located in Macclenny (note spelling) in 1905 to Josephine Johnson. We' haven't seen them but there are deeds in the possessions of some phone callers (in regards to last weeks article) on which the spelling 'Macclenny' is used as far back as 1888. Goethe Mills used 'McClenny' on their letterheads in the early 1900's. Justice of the Peace John McIver usually wrote 'MacClenny' during his tenure. Gasgue Grocery Company spelled their headquarters name 'McClenny' about the turn of the century. THE MACCLENNY STANDARD was using its prefered spelling in 1905 through 1915. Nixon Smiley, the dean of Florida history reporters (Miami Herald, retired), uses the spelling 'Macclenny'. Various lawmakers from Baker County have spelled the name 'Macclenny' as well as 'McClenny' from time to time since the beginning of the 20th century, but the recorders almost always used 'Macclenny'. "I always heard it (the spelling change) happened when an oldtime depot agent got mad at old man McClenny and he changed the sign on the depot to get even", said the late Roe Thompson. Tate Powell, Sr., remembered the same story but added, "I don't know if there was anything to it". The young and dimimutive Miss Thelma McLeod of Live Oak came here as the town's railroad agent in the 1920's. She said she is not to be confused with that railroad agent since she did not climb up and change the sign. And, according to the old-timer's stories, it would be many, many years after the alleged spelling change before Miss Thelma would be born. The Seaboard Coast Line has been unable to provide the year when its predecessor, Seaboard Air Line adopted the present form of 'Macclenny' but RR schedules printed in newspapers in the 1890's used 'Macclenny'. The U. S. Post Office has been using 'Macclenny' since the beginning of this century, but has in the past interchanged it with 'McClenny'. The writer was taught to use the spelling 'MacClenny' in his first year or two of school. In about the 4th grade up, this precipitated some rather strong and lengthy arguments with more enlightened classmates from the city who referred to the depot sign as their material proof that it was 'Macclenny'. Webb's GUIDE TO FLORIDA referred to Darbyville in 1884 as an old sawmill site and settlements. It was, Webb stated, developed by the Florida Improvement and Colonization Society and its president Hon. C.B. McClenny. He writes regarding neighboring Glen Saint Mary that "nearly all of the surrounding country for several miles in each direction...belongs to the Hon. C.B. McClanny, who is also closely identified with the fortunes of McClenny, another town near by". Macclenny or McClenny will soon be one hundred years old. although its settlement goes back to 1829. Wouldn't it be nice to give it a birthday present of its correct name spelling. Nothing earthshattering, nothing monumental-just nice. _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday July 21, 1977 Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber The Working Woman - A Short Tribute To Nettie Rowe Of the people in our history who did much to shape present Baker, few had a tougher time than the working woman. Of those women who pioneered in employment outside the home, Miss Nettie Rowe of McClenny is among the extraordinary ones (although she strongly disagrees). Nettie Elizabeth Rowe was born on the 22nd of July, 1887 in rural south McClenny-Glen St. Mary. She was the second of the nine children of Asa and Mary L. 'Cissy' Barber Rowe. Work was not a novelty to the women in her background. A great-grandmother cleared land and fended off Indians. Another great-grandmother farmed and sold her produce in Jacksonville. A grandmother was an area doctor and her other grandmother operated a hotel. Miss Nettie learned early from her father that there was no division of labor between the girls and boys. She had an equal opportunity to follow a mule as did her brothers. At the turn of the century in Baker County, Florida, there were very few respectable means of employment for ladies, teaching and caring for the sick and invalid being about the limit. Miss Nettie, possessed of a sharp mind and not fearful of work, was approached about teaching in 1905. She accepted and taught intermittantly until 1918 in Baker County public schools and private tutor in Georgia. She returned to the farm and doubled her efforts when her father died in 1913. Glen Nurseries opened jobs to women in the early 20's, and, after a short stay in Jacksonville working at the Y.M.C.A. cafeteria, Miss Nettie came back to Baker County and took a job at the nursery. She and a sister Alma remained with the greenhouse crew for almost 18 years. An opportunity presented itself in early 1939. The McClenny fish market was up for sale. Miss Nettie bought it and it was as owner of the market that most people remember her. 'The fish market without a smell' was the way the locals described it. Miss Nettie received her merchandise three times weekly and to the inevitable question of the fish being fresh she quickly answered, "only kind I've got." Another opportunity came when the local Times-Union delivery route became vacant. Believing the job would be perfect for her sister Alma, still at the nursery, she inquired for her. " No women," was the reply. Miss Nettie and a brother, John, worked to clear the way for a female to fill the position and Miss Alma began. Soon tiring of the somewhat difficult and tedious job, Miss Alma returned to the farm and John became the delivery man. For the almost 18 years Miss Nettie remained in the fish market business, she rose at 3 A.M., rolled papers until 7, took a short nap with her shoes on, and opened by 8 o'clock. "I sometimes might sleep a little at church," she said with a smile. To keep things interesting and busy while at the market (she had plenty of business during WW II since fish was considerably cheaper than meat) she cooked for her brother, took in sewing and added a line of penny candy to her wares. Miss Nettie retired in 1956 and came home to her house on Michigan Avenue to continue working. Sewing and quilting, gardening and canning, mowing and ditching, she doesn't quit. "I'm not in a wheelchair either," she quickly reminds those who comment on her working abilities. "I don't see anything so unusual about making a garden and the things I do. They've. got to be done." Miss Nettie is an individualist. She has worked, known difficult times, and laughed all her 90 years. She has been one of the pianists and officers of the First Baptist Church for almost three quarters of a century. Her hobbies and pastimes have included photography, collecting picture postcards, and jigsaw puzzles. She knows county history even to the day of the week and hour but does not live in the past. Her birthday celebration this Sunday out at the old John Rowe Place is open to the public. Miss Nettie was one of the people who made Baker County a bit better to live in. You might enjoy going by and saying thanks. See the invitation elsewhere in the Press. _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday July 28, 1977 Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber The St. George Gazette 'One man's trash is another man's treasure, is an oft-quoted bit of philosphy in these days of flea market and antique collecting crazes. When David Crews of St. George discovered a stack of ST. GEORGE GAZETTE newspapers, he realized he had come across a treasure indeed. The GAZETTE was a relatively short-lived weekly sheet edited by Mr. John Harris. The centenarian-plus Mr. Harris was born in Missouri and now lives and works in Folkston. The masthead advised 'it is not wealth, nor fame, nor fate, but git up an git that makes men great'. The GAZETTE claimed to be, "reliable, clean, enterprising, of public service, in the interest of St. George and Charlton County". The issue of Thursday, August 3rd, 1905, featured a campaign to create a new Georgia county from the Big Bend and lower section (from Cornhouse Creek, south) of Charlton. St. George was to be the seat of government for the county which was to be named for a Col. Cooper of Glynn County. Editor Harris, accompanied by Mr. Jasper 'Ceeph' Burnsed, toured the area to be affected to feel out sentiment on the creation of Cooper County and to secure names on a petition calling for same. Mr. W.E. Suggs, a turpentine farmer of note signed the petition. The GAZETTE said he had a fine corn crop on a large cultivated acreage. Uncle Bud (Dixon, Sr.) Thomas was reported to be the owner of a large plantation specializing in sea island cotton (the best form of long-fibered cotton) and corn. Uncle Bud, an amputee-veteran of the Confederate Army, was a signer. Mr. Riley 'Ryal' Thomas was in his cornfield pulling fodder when Harris and Burnsed arrived. Since it was near dinner time (in true English and old continental fashion dinner was the noon meal in the south), the touring pair joined the family at the table. The meal was highly praised as being in the best Georgia style. Mr. Thomas and his two sons of age Curtis and Spencer were proponents of good schools and roads and were eager of sign for a separate county. Mr. John C. Crawford and his two oldest sons Rube and Gid were happy to sign the petition. They lived near the St. Marys River nearly 40 miles from Folkston. Their neighbor S.M. 'Mid' Lyons was observed to have a fine farm of sea island cotton and a,"...Magnificent crop of corn." The Lyons farm was described as being agreeable dirt over good clay subsoil and on fine rolling land. Both Mr. Mid Lyons and his father Rev. Sylvester Lyons signed. Heading toward Moniac, Harris and Burnsed stopped for the night at Mr. Solomon Burnsed's (his father Edmund built the beautifully restored Farley Burnsed log house in the Bend about 7 or 8 miles northwest of McClenny). Uncle Sol grew corn and sea island cotton and was considered a man of great influence in the Bend. He was quite conservative and might not have been enthusiastic about the petition. His brother Ceeph might have been brought along as an influence as well as a guide and companion. Supper was taken with Mr. J.A. Hogan, a longtime supporter of a new county. The brothers J.R. and J.J. Hodges were contacted early the next morning. Others in the outer Moniac area, but whose sentiments were unreported were John M. Lauramore, Joseph T. Thrift, H.A. Crews, and W.C Harris. Moniac was a strong supporter of the petition. Mr. W. B. Mozo handled the petition in that area and the GAZETTE did not report his results. From Moniac-St. George north to Cornhouse Creek, the principal families belonged to the Stokes clan. Almost all members of the family were large landowners and considered wealthy. Mr. Elber Stokes, in particular, possessed extensive peach and pecan orchards. Mr. Harris wrote that the pecan seed had been brought home from upper Georgia by a returning Confederate veteran relative. Next Week: the broad avenues, literary club, and Y.M.C.A. of St. George; comments from the Macclenny Standard; and building boom prices. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday August 4, 1977 Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber The St. George Gazette Part Two A full page ad by the St. George Board of Trade in the Gazette touted, "Why not better your location? You can do better by coming south". The city was described as laid out with wide streets, having a public square, a school square, a perpetual park of 100 acres called St. Mary's Park, a cemetery called Oakland, an experimental farm, and a wide driveway around the entire city. The ad further stated, "the citizens are of a high class....We have preaching every Sunday....members of all lodges can be found among our citizens. A leterary club meets every week and occasional picnics are held by the citizens in St. Mary's Park. A graded school will be opened in the Y.M.C.A. building September 1. Wild land is cheap. Buy now for land prices will soon go skyward ". The building boom which had hit the area was already in evidence in the rising costs of construction. "Labor is fairly cheap, head carpenters getting $2 to $2.50 per day; good carpenters $1.50 to $1.75; day laborers $1.25 to $1.50". "The many inquiries from northern colony members in regard to building material has, caused us to gather the following information...Siding, flooring, and ceiling, dressed, according to grade, from $17.50 to $21.00. Dimension stuff, rough $12.00. Shingles, 1's, heart pine $3.00, 2's sap pine $2.00. Brick $10 per 1000". An artificial stone plant (concrete block) was set up in 1905 and a few houses of that construction in the area are still standing. The most impressive is the Moniac-located home of the late Mr. Lucious Knabb. Agriculture received prominent notice in the Gazette. An article on the first delivered bale of the season's cotton stated that it was raised by Justice Robert Chism and weighed 422 pounds. N.B. King, a notable cotton broker of the Florida-Georgia area was the purchaser and he announced plans for building a cotton warehouse in St. George. The article extolled the virtues of the surrounding dirt for growing sea island long staple cotton and called for construction of a combination grist mill and gin. S. E. Brown of Sanford announced his plans to establish a nursery at St. George. Home grown cabbages of 6 1/2 pounds were exhibited in town. W. C. Crews grew 4 onions weighing a total of 4 pounds. Crawford Crews bested him with 4 onions weighing 5 1/4 pounds. A spring issue of a 1905 Macclenny Standard was quoted. "Our truckers are going into the strawberry business this fall with a determination to make a good sum..From all reports there will be at least 30 acres put out here, which will enable us to ship a car load every other day or more. We think it would be a good plan for the planters to have a meeting to organize for their own protection and invite the buyers here when the crop comes in." Besides the hundreds of ads and serialized stories, there were other little items of interest. For instance, the negroes of St. George had a well organized ball team and hosted the negro ball team of Moniac for a doubleheader and picnic. St. George won one and lost one. Two black turpentine workers killed an old black bear and two cubs near the Cross Still. They exhibited the claws in St. George. "Agent Norman has received a notification letter from G.S. & F.R.R. authorities announcing the change of the name Cutler to St. George, effective August 31st. The Hon. Bert Dyal, an important personage in north Florida and south Georgia business and in the politics of both states, died in Moniac and received a glowing eulogy. Mr. Frank Drew, another big businessman of north Florida, was reported to have moved to Live Oak. The proposed route of his Suwannee and San Pedro Railroad Company was to be extended from Live Oak east to Fernandina and would cross at St. George. The Drew Grade coming through the wilds of Columbia County and some pilings in the St. Marys River near McClenny are the remains of his project. The Gazette, like so many of the turn-of-the-century small newspapers, was chatty and perhaps did belabor some subjects which were dear to the editor's heart, but, unlike so many of those same sheets, it did report current events and covered a variety of subjects. Seventy-two years later, it is yellowed and brittle, but is still a pleasure to read. _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday August 11, 1977, Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber Some Interesting Notes From Basement Of Courthouse When the Baker County Government moved into its new quarters on east US 90 a generation ago, almost a century of County and area business and a treasure of history was brought along and temporarily deposited in the basement. The basement was subject to periodic flooding and poor plumbing sometimes sending the contents of an upper lavatory and commode down into the area. Despite the fact that much of our earlier records had been lost in two fires, some valuable items (1858 century document of New River County and loose coroner's reports) had been saved and much had been painstakingly re-recorded by former Clerk Francis J. Pons. Quite a lot of that had found its way down into the dank basement. "That ol' stuff ain't no good", commented one former elected public servant (?), "it orter be th'ode away and got rid of". In view of this enlightened attitude we wonder how so many documents and records have survived this long to remain slow victims to mold and abuse. Not only are priceless volumes of a legal nature melting away to the elements, but precious bits of heritage will eventually be gone. An afternoon among the tomes in the dim crypt-like basement brought to light these interesting notes. In 1886, school was usually a three month session held during the fall. Teachers received $25 per month and boarded where they could. Teachers and other personnel for the 1886 term were J.W. Leverett, W.R. Alford, Maud Mansell, James H. Congleton, William Roy Simmons, L.A. Duncan, J.R. Groover, J.R. Plympton, George T. Swain, W.R. Groover, Rachel Johnston, Mott Howard, J.C. Moody, James L. Wolfe, W.A. Chalker, William Eugene Chalker; J.P. Madison, Mary A. Hall, M.G. Berry, Georgia Ann Berry, N.G. Roberts, J.C. Mobley, John P. Sapp, and Arthur Hardaker. James D. Chalker was Superintendent that year and W.D. Barnes was the supervisor. J.W. Burnsed received the contract to build and repair school facilities. Teachers for the summer school session were David Raulerson, Jennie E. Johnston, W.C. Cobb, and, teaching his first year in the county, Prof. George R. Blair. In 1894 school books expenditures totaled $102.04, paid to American Book Co. Believe it or not, an equal amount or more was usually spent on education during those decades than for roads and bridges. Most of the J.P. courts fines went directly to the school system. Doles to paupers ranged from $2.50 to $8.00. The recipients were mostly widows and the aged. Retarded and crippled persons were also included but received less. The main charges in 19th century County, Circuit, and J.P. courts were, in order of frequency, adultery, murder, manslaughter, bearing secret arms, assault with intent to murder, and polygamy. That every old Baker County family was represented by an accused of one of these offenses might explain why so many of the records were 'accidently' destroyed and allowed to rot away. The post Civil War Yankee fold seemed to be often the defendents in defamation of character cases. The same things Southerners called each other were not to be tolerated coming from folks of the North. It would be unfair if we closed this first part without commending some very few former and present officials who have and are making some attempt to do what they can with what they have to prevent further deterioration of old government records. _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday August 18, 1977, Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber Notes From The Court Of Judge Mott Howard Those who believe that wickedness was discovered only 20 years ago and who wonder 'what is the world coming to' might be interested in this portion of testimony taken from Justice of the Peace Mott Howard's court at Sanderson in 1886. "...and then George began to stomp around and struck at James but hit the house I do not think that he tryed to hit him but struck at the side of the house. Mary struck at him with a piece of wood she was sitting in a nother mans lap The house was often visited by rough crowds as they some times sold wiskey there" (sic). The house, by-the-way, reportedly had a wild history and still stands south of Sanderson. Judge Howard decided the evidence was contradictory and the testimonies insufficient to sustain the charges of breaking and entering at night and dismissed George's case. On the 7th of February, 1889, Judge Howard impounded a coronor's jury composed of F.B. Smith, W.H. Hicks, Noah Hicks, W. D. Mann, Henry Gibson, and John Savage to view the bodies of two men east of Sanderson. They decided the men had received close-range shotgun blasts, an undetmermined number of pistol shots, and that they were indeed dead. The suspects were soon the subjects of a Governor's proclamation offering modest sums for their arrest. The shooting incident took place at about the site where Smokey Road (the old Sanderson-Glen Saint Mary Public road) has been cut off by Interstate 10. Several old J.P. Court cases involved the selling of whiskey (Baker County was legally dry in the 19th century). The testimonies make interesting reading but propriety and censorship forbids relating them due to many certain words spicing up the yellowed brittle pages. Other J.P.'s were A.A. McLean and Charles C. Corbett. Judge Corbett himself was involved in a suit for a collection of a debt against Attorney J.D. Merritt. It was during the courthouse removal from Sanderson to McClenny, and court was held in the McClenny Red Manns Hall because the new county government and court facilities were not yet completed. The Red Man's Hall was a meeting place for a fraternal order, not where the local pick-up CB boys met to chew a popular brand of tobacco. Judge Corbett collected his $7.00. Up in old Johnsville (present Taylor), court was held in the Long Pond Schoolhouse (Johnsville J.P. District #4). In the court, in January of 1887, William R. Dawson, non Baker County native, brought a debt case ($14.23) against Baker County native David Raulerson. Witnesses were Noah, L.N., and Mrs. Sarah Raulerson, Hugh Brown; Duncan Dinkins; Mack Rewis; Henry Sweat (all native Baker Countians); and Ephraim McLendon (non County man). The jury consisted of Gordon S. Taylor, J.R. Dowling, Jr.; Lewellyn L. Williams; L.R. Taylor; and Lewis Cobb (all County men.) Guess who lost his case. The County Commissioners set a rather spooky fee in 1887. $10.00 per prisoner was allotted for his hanging. No more than $15.00 was to be spent in erecting the gallows. With that, we closed the books and came up for light and air. (We are appreciative to the gentleman who corrected us that the Amy Green barn was instead owned by Harney Davis. Research and discussion among the barn's neighbors have shown that both Mrs. Green and Mr. Davis were in fact owners and were but two of a succession of owners. It was on the advice of two present owners of the original farm that we used the title 'Amy Green' barn). _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday August 25, 1977 Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber. Of Harvey And Prophecies An enjoyable event last Sunday was the ninth annual Harvey Reunion. Descendants of most of the 14 children of John Boss Harvey (1787-c.1865) gathered at Dinkins Church and swapped tales of their ancestors. The Harvey genealogist Mrs. Willa Murphy has performed a difficult and admirable task in tracing down the ancestry of John Boss Harvey as well as compiling a list of his offspring. To Mrs. Murphy we are indebted for learning that the father of John Boss was Richard Harvey, a Virginia Revolutionary War Vet who received land in Georgia as a war bounty. Richard, born in Virginia in 1759, served in the Continental Army from 1776 to 1881. He is believed to be buried at South Black Creek near Pembroke in Bryan County, Ga., Although Richard probably never came to Florida, a contemporary of his same age named Johnn Sr., did. This John, Sr., is most likely a brother and was born in 1760 or '61 in Virginia. He and a brother Charles were living in old Richmond County, Ga., at the war's end in 1783. John, Sr., and Charles received their war service bounty land in Franklin Co., Ga., and sold their Richmond Co. land to Samuel Wilson. (His descendants reportedly came to south Georgia in the 1820's). Whether or not they moved to Franklin County has not been determined, but in 1820 John, Sr., was in Bryan County and during the 2nd Seminole War he moved with John Boss (who was probably his nephew) Harvey and Isaac (a son or nephew) Harvey into Columbia County, Florida. At fifty years plus, John Boss was a little old for active military service, but he and Isaac, a son John H., and nephew Jochim Williams were members, at various times, of both Florida and Georgia Militia units. John, Sr., of course, was well beyond military age since he was 80 years old at the time of the move, but he and his nephew John Boss served during the War of 1812, supposedly near Savannah. The Harvey settlement was on the bank of Cedar Creek on an elevation where a little branch merged with the creek. As were all the early homes, it was fortified with a tall stockade fence of sharpened pine trunks buried on end around the cabin. Besides the legends from area residents, there are a few known brief mentions of this 'fort' in military writings. The Harveys were a tough people. "You couldn't kill one with a litered knot," claimed one member of the family. Probably one of the toughest was Eliza Harvey Yelvington Dinkins. One day in late afternoon her first (and incidently, her third) husband Bologna 'Belone' Robert Dinkins, Sr., took the horse and wagon for a load of wood. He returned at sundown - seven years later. As an added dramatic touch, he had a load of wood. Eliza and her children had soon tired of waiting and went to work to feed and clothe themselves. The most valuable piece of equipment on a Florida pioneer farm was the horse, and since the horse disappeared with her husband, she and the kids broke ground and pulled it into rows with a grubbing hoe, sticks, and their hands - for seven years. Mr. Dinkins' brother Joe had returned from the Civil War with a gift of prophesy, and Belone justified his absence by having acquired that same extraordinary talent at some time during the past 7 years. He proceeded to tell of ships that would, within the century, travel under water and through the heavens. He spoke of travel among the stars, of manmade satellites. and of bombs so vast and destructive as to be beyond the comprehension of mankind. Eliza, who had made 14 crops with her hands, had wondered every day and night for 7 years if he had been killed, listened patiently and accepted him back home. A niece laughed and remarked a century later, "ain't no wonder they called him 'Baloney'." _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday September 1, 1977, Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber Early Area Roadways Based on knowledge gathered by the U.S. Army engineers, this 1865 map contains many familiar names. In the present Baker County area and environs, note the inclusion of Gum Swamp, Cedar Creek, Ocean Pond, Olustee, Baldwin, Hog Pen Branch, and New River Swamp. Different but readily recognizable are Sanderson Station, South Branch of St. Marys River, and the Big Bend of St. Mary's River. Some community names gave way to others - Rollinson's (Raulerson's) Ferry became Baxter: Newburg was replaced by Margaretta; South Prong Pond is now known as Palestine; Swift Creek Pond was later listed as Dobson Lake; Barber's became, successively, Williamsburg, Darbyville, and McClenny. Ft. Moniac simply died out and was resurrected in the 1880's across the river in Georgia. The Old Settlers' Trail from Ft. Gilmer (Council) on the southwest of the Okefenoke to Raulerson's Ferry on the St. Mary's is now Hwy 2. Ga. 185 closely follows the route of Raulerson's Ferry to Smith Bridge (about 6 miles north of McClenny). The route that ran from Baldwin to above Gum Swamp was part of the Jacksonville or Tallahassee Road (the name depended on to which you were traveling). Far to the south dipped another route known as the Lake City Road. Parts still exist and are now named Smokey Road, Glen Nursery Road, and Woodlawn Cemetery Road. The 1865 Olustee to Lake Butler Courthouse trail is presently labeled Highway 231, and was once one of the area's most heavily traveled routes. Other equally important trails, such as the military road from Raulerson's Ferry to Camp Pinkney - Centre Village - Traders Hill - (Folkston area) ceased to exist in the late 1880's. Several factors bore a direct or indirect influences on the location of the routes - dodging swamps, easily fordable sites along streams, concentrations of settlement, and the convenience of earlier Indian trading and hunting trails (in turn mostly based on animal trails). Note: Map omitted here. _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday September 8, 1977 Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber THE CRACKERS Part One Part I- They arrived in the Colonies When the great colonization of British North America began in the 1600's, the bulk of our Britith Cracker ancestry came from those English counties lying in the north, southwest, and extreme west; Wales; and north Ireland (Scots-Irish). Middle England, strongly influenced by the, Norman French, contributed little. Most Cracker ancestors were Puritan in their religion, largely uneducated, poor, distrustful of any government between them and the king, and tough. Most did not come to America with noble and pioneering spirit; most came below deck as indentured servants and as stow-away refugees from the law. Most would have gladly remained in the British Isles or returned soon had the circumstances been different. However, times were hard; a Catholic king had replaced good ol' Ollie Cromwell at the head of government and a hard-shell Puritan figured America might help keep his head and body together. The very strict Puritans who made a big thing of religious freedom (and who, incidentally, denied it to everybody else) went to New England. The middle county Norman French-English who remained with the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church, and who sat around in their drawing rooms, prissily socializing in Latin and French, settled in the middle Atlantic Colonies. The coarser calvinistic Puritan who became the Cracker ancestor joined the persecuted French Huguenots, the outcast German Reformed Church immigrants, and a scattering of the rejected of Europe to settle what was left - the Carolinas and Georgia. The times the rural Puritan Englishmen left in Britian were difficult but the times they traded for in the southern colonies often seemed, hardly less so. Although they did not share the New Englanders resentment of the Crown (the Crackers always tended to be conservative and seldom given to radical revolution), they did suffer at the hands of the colonization companies, the masters to whom they were indentured, and to the nobility to whom the kings had granted the greatest acreage of the choicest land Whereas in the north farmers could usually count on four seasons, the southern colonists could only hope that spring meant no more killing freezes. The sand and Swamp resisted the plow. Fevers killed their mates and their children. One visiting lord peevishly stated, "I wouldn't give you a shilling for all the damned mule --- smellers in those colonies (Carolinas and Georgia). But, the Cracker-ancestors stayed. They remained as a buffer between the colonies and the Spanish and French. They protected the tidewater colonists from the Indians. They brought pinders and cotton out of land that hardly grew decent sandspurs. They brought an earthiness with them that became frolics and shindiggings, nicknames, eyeball gouging, wicked liquor (and a legendary capacity for its consumption), frocking up, treeing-the-devil, neighborliness even unto self-sacrifice, swearing (unparalled in its originality and effect), and an unswerving religious faith (except when necessary). Next week: the Cracker roots that reach deeply into and beyond dragons and Valhalla. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday September 15, 1977 Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber The Crackers Part Two Part II - The Ancient Beginning Until the end of the Roman Empire, the British Isles and parts of western Europe were inhabited by a race known today as Celts. Central and northern Europe was the home of another race now labeled Teutons. These two peoples contributed strongly to the makings of the Cracker Folk. The Celts of the British Isle were a happy romantic bunch. They did a little hunting, laid around singing and playing on harps, and painted themselves blue. In the south of present England were the Celtic Britons, the remnants of which became the Welsh, Cornish, and the Bretons of France. In the north, the Celtic race was represented by the Scots and Picts (the modern Scots folk). Over on the Emerald Isle were the Celtic Gaels who are now known as the Irish. Besides being a poetry-loving and smiling assemblage of tribes the Celts could occasionally be rather fierce in the face of foreign intrusion and would eat their enemies at the victory cerebration. Very few outsiders messed with them. The Teutons, or Germannic race, were a little less polished. Like their distant Celtic cousins, they were big, hairy, and given to worshiping mistletoe, but, there most of the similarities stopped. They were less, if at all, given to the habit of cannibalism, spoke a harsher more gutteral form of the mother Indo-European tongue, and would rather fight than eat when hungry. Untold thousands of years of hard living against thin solid, ferocious animals and the attacks of superior numbers of Asian hordes had made them daredevil-wild. Looking for pastures greener than the rocky coasts of the present Danish and Scandinavian peninsulas they had early begun to raid the richer British Isles. When the Romans arrived in Britian Island about 2,000 years ago and finally conquered the blue Britons they slowed the Northmen (Teutons) raids somewhat. The Teutonic warriors retired to their inhospitable northland to guzzle beer, gouge eyeballs, and tell whopper stories all through the long winter nights. Among those tales were narratives of an ancient hero Beowulf, of which some words and passages parrallel stories told among the ancients of India; of dragons so fearsome and real that only the most skeptical, and conservative cannot believe that man existed during the days of dinosaurs; of salvation coming only through self-sacrifice in battle and the resulting reward of dining with the gods in a heavenly hall named Valhalla; and of the final predestined devouring and destruction of all, gods and mankind, by the evil spirit Loki. When the weakened Roman Empire withdrew its armies in 410 AD, the Teutons, tried again, this time in the form of the tribe of Jutes from present Denmark. They succeeded in acquiring a sizable foothold in eastern Britain. The Celts, desirous of being left along, worked out an arrangement whereby the Jutes could live peaceably on the island with them. Close cousins of the Jutes, namely a couple of tribes known as Angles and Saxons, came visiting and stayed. The poor Celts, referred to by the new invaders as 'those foreigners' were pushed into the north (Scotland), the west (Wales), and the southwest (Cornwall). Henceforth, all the neighbors referred to the area occupied by the new folks as 'Angle-land.' And, today, Crackers call the country of their ancestry by its 1,500 years old pronunciation 'Angland.' Next week: the coming of the Norman cousins and the makins of the Cracker language. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday September 22, 1977 Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber The Crackers Part 3-the Norman Cousins and the seeds they sowed to create the Cracker Ancestry For over six and a half centuries the Angles and Saxons lived a relatively uneventful life, excepting several raids on their shores by their Viking Teutonic cousins (who were also raiding and settling the coast of France across the Channel). In those six and a half centuries separation from the European continent, the Anglo Saxons lost most of their old-time ferocity; gelled into a farming, animal-raising people; and accepted the Christian religion (but secretly clinging to much from their ancient Teutonic faith). Stating reasons of heritance, a King (William by name) of the decendents of the Vikings who had settled in France, laid claim to the Angilsh crown. The holder of the crown of the Angles, Harold, to no one's surprise, did not immediately ship it over the channel to Normandy's King William. William assembled a great army of Norman-French, sailed to the land of the Angles, and conquered it at the much celebrated Battle of Hastings on the south coast. King Harold's reward was a quickly-dispatched trip to Valhalia-Heaven, and King William's was a nation full of resentful Anglish-speaking cousins. William and his Normans spoke French with a Germanic accent (and French was, then, little more than Latin murdered by Germanic Franks, Gauls, and others). William gave out the captured castles and titles, church offices, and all government posts to his Norman French officers. All Angles, Normans and Celtic remnants settled down to about six more centuries of distrust, petty and large civil wars and the forming of the English language (a rather new tongue). The conquered Anglish natives naturally held a resentment against the invaders. They were crowded into the far reaches of the kingdom by the newcomers close to the borders of the even more ancient Celtic natives of Scots, Welsh, and Cornish. Some Angles even sailed for north Ireland to join their cousins who were descended from other earlier Viking invaders. The Angles were, at first, kept on the soil as farmers and refused permission to aspire to any other vocation. The Anglish language and bits of ancient Teutonic theology were purged from the mass and doctrines by the stricter continental churchmen and replaced entirely by Latin and accepted Catholic rites and doctrines. For about two centuries after the Norman conquest of 1066, there were three languages spoken in England - Norman French, as spoken by the nobility and government, Latin, as used by the church and educators; and Anglo-Saxon, the tongue of the farmers and commoners of that same name. It is interesting to note that the old English of that time is completely unintelligable to modern English-speaking-folks & that, in Italy, Dante was writing his Divine Comedy in already established Italian. Since Norman-French was the language of the powers-that-be, everybody who wanted to be anybody learned to speak it. Angle tradesmen learned by economic necessity. Others, discovering they remained alone in a sea of French, had no recourse but to follow suit. French was spoken along with Latin in schools and the vulgar, hick-y Anglo-Saxon was absorbed, re-arranged, and slowly turned into the old English as used by Chaucer. However, in the hinterlands of the present English counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Monmouth, Hereford, Shropshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, Cumberland, Northumberland, Durham, in Wales, and in part of York there existed a people of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic bloods who had understandably become leery of outsiders, resentful of the imposed French language and downright rebellious toward the 'foreign' practices of the Church. They clung to their Anglish tongue, continued to believe in a pre-ordained settling of the ills of the world and Heaven, and evolved into prime candidates for removal to the New World, if only Columbus would get busy and discover it. Next week: some notes on the evolution of the Cracker language. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday September 29, 1977 Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber The Crackers Part 4: Cracker Speech Begins As the ancient Anglo-Saxons withdrew to the hinterlands, they also withdrew more into their old language, retaining words close to nature, agriculture, animal husbandry and intimacy. Some of the words retained from the Teutonic language were love, mother, home, fire, hound, field, kids, sing, cow, swine and certain others now considered objectionable and often found on public restroom walls. Only about thirty Cracker ancestors back, the old unreconstructed Angles were speaking something in the manner of this line from the millenia-old poem Beowulf: (spelled phonetically) "Tho, hey then faind ofercwome, gehnad 'eh hell 'eh gaste." It states: "So, he the fiend overcame, gained (defeated) hell's ghost." The little 'eh sound can still be detected one thousand years later in the added end syllables of many Crackers and Primitive Baptist preachers. At about the time of the complete absorption of the Anglo-Saxons (except the die-hards in the Hinterlands), it seems that the absorbed and reconstructed Angles among the French Normans began to apply a nickname to their rebellious backwoods cousins-"Cracks" (roughly comparable to between today's "rednecks" and "good old boys") Shakespeare used the term in his writings as applied to a youngster. Those rural Angles carried the term with them rather unhappily. Our research cannot state that the appellation "Cracker" evolved from that old nickname, but we do know that it stands better than a 20th Century explanation of southern backwoods-men driving their cows with a whip with a cracker. Most Crackers were called that before the very few who ever owned cattle owned any. And, all whip-wielding Crackers until the 20th Century "popped" their whips, and their whips were equipped with a buckskin "popper", not a cracker." Most of modern Deutsch (German) parallels ancient Anglo-Saxon more than any other living language, and one can research there to discover more about the Cracker version of the Germanic English language. In German, for instance, the word for flower is blume. Hardly any old Cracker says, "muh peas is a'fixin' to flower"; his peas bloom. "Stuhl is German for chair; Most Crackers still offer their guest a "stoolchair" or request they "pull up a stool." German youths are the yungen. Cracker youths are young'uns (as much from, the ancient Anglo-Saxon as from the construction of "young ones'). "Kids" is not, by the way, a rather late northern import. Crackers have referred to their kids (much like the German "kind") for generations. Modern Germans, like their Teutonic ancestors, use the term "rechnen" when they compute or figure. Crackers also use the term, but it has become "reckon.' German "half" and Cracker "holp" are both descended from the Anglo word for help. Germans "trug" when they carry items. Crackers have been "trucking" for hundreds of years. Germans use "froh" and "frolich" when referring to gladness and bouncy spirit. The Crackers retained the same word and they "frolic" when they are glad and when they dance. Crackers, often harden their "d" sounds into "t" sounds. pronounce "a" as "ah" or "stob" instead of "stab" interchange "v" and "b" or sound "pp" as "ff" and "riffle" rather than "ripple," and possess many other pronunciations akin to their modern German cousins. These are not mispronunciations, but are a natural and legitimate evolvement from certain old English dialects from the English hinterlands. English teachers began soon after the Civil War to destroy the "poor language habits of the ignorant southern white," but their efforts availed them little - a thousand years habit is difficult to break and replace. However, the influence of television has accomplished in only one generation what the South's best English teachers could not do in over one hundred years. It grieves some of us unreconstructed "Angles" to hear our Cracker friends mispronounce "hog jowls" (rhymes with bowls) in the manner of Jed Clampett whose jowls rhymed with " bowels." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday October 6, 1977 Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber The Crackers The Final Chapter After Columbus finally got around to discovering the Americas the colonizing companies of England began grabbing the seacoast of the upper continent. Many attempts to settle the colonies with the poor and oppressed from out of London's slums failed miserably. Two main reasons that kept them down in England followed them to America, namely sorriness and meanness. It was the companies' eventual and intelligent decision to stop recruiting the trash of London and to turn to people who were solid but currently embarrassing Catholics, Puritan 'fanatics,' foreign elements (Dutch and German), and the Anglo-Saxon rural folk of the backward northern and western countries. Sir George Calvert took his Catholics into the stronghold of Norman-English and Church of England middle colonies (it was in this free colony of Maryland that the writer's first American ancestor introduced a shipload of 'ladies' as a business venture and ran afoul of the law.) New England's harsh winters received the stolid Puritans, and the lower colonies became the home of the Anglo descendants and many of the foreign elements. It is Interesting that hardly anywhere along the frontiers did the English men of Norman descent and influence succeed as pioneers until after those areas were opened and settled by the 'embarrassments' and 'undesirables.' The Country Crackers, religious misfits, and the foreigners busted new land and held it as a buffer between the tidewaters estates and the Indians. While the pioneers moved into the mountains and back woods, the coastal gentry agitated against the crown, dumped tea into harbors, and fired shots heard 'round the world.' After the revolution the Cracker movement began in earnest. For the first time many owned land as a result of Revolutionary War bounties. They moved into the wilds of Georgia during the 1780's, began to raise a few scrub cows, and get ready to pour across the Florida line as soon as that colony could be wrested from Spain. In the 1820's, they moved into the peninsula, among the first to invade and clear that inhospitable interior. As a result of being bold and first, they ruled for a hundred years, to be replaced by the northern invasion of the 1920's. The folks from up north found the natives quaint unwilling workers, and finally, intolerable. They called us 'Crackers' and the name stuck. Today we are an endangered species. _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday October 13, 1977 Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber The Will Of 'Tiger Bill' Roberts Baker County has been the home of quite a few rough and tough characters, but few have earned the likes of the nickname worn by Stephen Roberts - 'Tiger Bill.' The tales about him are many and varied but all seem to agree on his ferocity. It was reported that he beat a man to death for no other reason than the man refused to speak to him respectfully. Born in either Liberty or Mcintosh County, Georgia, to John and Phoebe Osteen Roberts, he came to the Baker County area (Olustee-Swift Creek) in 1839. His wife was Mary Ann Boyd, known far and wide for her beauty in spite of mothering several children. It is said that Tiger Bill's deeds caught up with him one day in 1899 on the south shore of Ocean Pond. An unknown assailant allegedly dragged the aging pioneer from his buggy and shot him to death with a 38 pistol. Partly for his genealogy-searching descendants and partly for this historical interest, his will from Columbia County is reproduced (much thanks to Mrs. Chris Parker of Maxville for contributing it to this column.) Will Book "A", Page 213, Columbia County, Florida In The name of God, Amen. I, Stephen Roberts, of Baker County, Florida, being of sound mind and memory and having in my lifetime given to several of my children proper portions, I make this my Last Will and Testament, that justice be done each of my heirs, hereby revoking all other wills by me made. 1st: I appoint my son Daniel L. Roberts, my sole Executor, to carry into effect the provisions of this Will and I authorize him to sell at private sale all such lands and property as may be necessary to pay any just debts which may be owing by me at my death well as to affect the proper distribution of my property and to make deeds to such purchasers of my land, without the intervention of any Court & to set apart and deliver by deed to each heir and devisee, such portion of land and property as shall be due under the provisions of this Will after payment of the expenses of Administration. 2nd: I have already given and delivered to each of the following named children, such portions as I intended them to possess and direct that they do not take any further portion of my estate; vis: William P. Roberts, now deceased; Mary Thomas, wife of E.W. Thomas, Phoebe Cliftons Heirs; Susan Wilson, wife of Joseph Wilson; Benjamin S. Roberts; Stephen Milliard Roberts and John M. Roberts, and having thus provided for these children, my Will and wish is that they and their descendants have no further portion of my property, either real, personal or mixed. 3rd: Unto Martha Dyess, wife of George C. Dyess; Daniel L. Roberts, Eliza Henson, wife of R.J. Henson; Fannie Long, wife of N.B. Long; and R.B. Roberts, I give, devise and bequeath, share and share alike, all the property, real, personal & mixed of which I shall die seized and possessed and in case of the death of the Devisees or either or them, then his or her portion to his or her descendants. This August 25th 1891 Stephen Roberts (Seal) State of Florida County of Columbia: The foregoing Will, written on two and a half pages was read to Stephen Roberts, the Testator, in our presence, and fully explained to him and he signed the same in our presence declaring it to be his true Last Will and Testament and we, at his request, and in his presence and in the presence of each other, then and there signed hereunder as subscribing witnesses thereto; at Lake City, Fla., Aug. 25, 1891, the Will being first dated, signed and sealed. A.J. Henry, Lake City, Fla. W.A. Niblack, Lake City, Fla. W.M. Ives, Lake.City, Fla. Filed in Office, Jan. 13th, 1894 W.M. Ives, County Judge Recorded Jan. 14, 1894 _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday October 20, 1977 Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber The Roberts Family 'Tiger Bill' Roberts, the subject of last week's columnn was a member of one of the area's first and largest clans. The extremes of the south, west, and north areas of Baker County and adjoining Charlton and Union Counties were the homes of the descendants of John Roberts of South Carolina. John Roberts was born in Charleston District in the spring of 1778, very likely the son of Revolutionary soldier Lewis Roberts. The elder Roberts served in the South Carolina Militia from 1779 to 1781. In the final years of the 18th century, Lewis moved from Edisto, South Carolina to Wayne County, Georgia. The Hon. Folks Huxford's research shows Lewis Roberts to be the coroner of Wayne County in 1811 and to have died in that county in 1823 (a Lewis Roberts is also found on the 1820 Appling County census). John Roberts and a brother, James, arrived in Georgia at the same time as Lewis and were living in Mcintosh County in 1798. In 1800-03, John held office as a Justice of the Peace in Liberty County and was a juror during Liberty's 1805 session of Inferior Court. The last of his many moves within the state of Georgia was to Lowndes County (about 1829) where he became prominent in politics as a member of the Whig party. A staunch Baptist, he was frequently elected as a delegate to Georgia's Piedmont Baptist Association, (from 1819 to 1828). In 1834, Deacon John Roberts was a messenger from Union Church in Lowndes County to Providence Church in present Union County, Florida. His in-laws, the Osteens and Weeks, were already living near Providence and he determined to make the move also. After the 1838 fall crops were gathered, John Roberts, his wife, Phoebe 'Tibbie' (daughter of John and Ada Weeks Osteen), seven of his eleven children, and his brother, James, traveled to Florida. Most of the better land in upper Alachua and Columbia Countics had been squatted, so Mr. Roberts settled the sandy land between Olustee and Swift Creek (just inside the present Baker County line). Mrs. Roberts united with Providence Church in February of 1839, but Mr. Roberts retained his membership at Union Church in Gecrgia. The children, William, Reubin, Bryant, and Mary Jane, remained in Lowndes County. To Florida came John (born 1799, married Sarah Sweat), Lewis (born 1802, married Mary Knight), Nathen (born 1811, married Nancy Sweat), George (born 1812, married Mary Ann 'Polly' Mathis), Stephen 'Tiger Bill' (born 1814, married Mary Ann Boys), Phoebe (born 1815, married Isaac Carlton), and Enoch (born 1820). No further information has been found on Enoch (his name has remained popular among all who carry Roberts blood), George finally moved back to Georgia, and all the rest lived and died in the Swift Creek section. George Roberts and Polly moved often within Baker County. Having served throughout the 2nd Seminole War with honor in the Lowndes County Militia, George chose not to enlist in the Confederate Army (being almost 50 years old carried much weight in his decision). The conscripting authorities, however, had not reached the same decision and they began to press him. When he could no longer dissuade them, he moved to the wilds near Moniac beyond their convenient reach. Once the war was well under way, he had married off two of his children to heirs of an influential Confederate officer and new Baker County had been depleted of men to hold county office, Mr. Roberts returned and was elected County Commissioner in the fall of 1863. A few night riders visited his home near South Prong Cemetery soon after the election and made threats (one wonders why those gentlemen, who were so upset at someone not serving in the army, were free from that same honor and could ride the countryside intimidating others). Before he could assume office, Mr. Roberts crossed the St. Marys once again and settled permanently in the Bend where he was respected as an exemplary citizen (he later served his adopted county as State Representative). Bearers of the Roberts name are few, if any, in Baker County today. Many other families, however, are favored with Roberts blood and characteristics handsome Latin features, short-fused tempers, shrewd business minds, and Gypsy-like roaming. _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday October 27, 1977 Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber Black Troops In Baker County Part One The worst racial riot in New York City's history took place in the summer of 1863. The working class of whites, mostly Irish immigrants, rebelled against being drafted into a war to free black slaves and began to vent their wrath on the City's Negro population. A few days later, several black survivors joined many other blacks from northern states as well as Confederate States to form the 54th Massachusetts Infantry. From the writing of Capt. Luis F. Emilio comes the following paragraphs describing the North's first black unit enlisted during the Civil War. "It (Baldwin) consisted of a hotel, railroad depot, freighthouse, and a few small, unpainted dwellings. The telegraph was in working order from there to Jacksonville...Work began and continued daily on intrenchments, block houses, and a stockade. Scouting parties and foraging details went out each day, the latter bringing in beeves, poultry, and potatoes." "From beyond the St. Mary's our advance forces had been all drawn back to Barber's by the 13th. From Barber's on the 14th a detachment went to Callahan Station and destroyed the railroad and bridges there." "The distance of twelve miles (from Baldwin to Barber's) was compassed with four halts for rest. Mile after mile of pine barren was passed through, bounding the sandy road on either side, many of the trees bearing the sacrification of the axe made to secure the resinous sap. But few inhabitants were encountered, and those seen were small log or slab huts, in cleared spaces, whose only touch of beauty were the apple and peach trees in blossom." "About 6 pm the fifty-fourth arrived at Barber's, bivouacking in the woods on the left of the road near the First North Carolina. Fires were made; and the quartermaster having borrowed four days rations of hard bread, the men made a hasty meal, and turned in for the night. There had been no time or inclination to look about but there around Barber's house lay Seymour's little army of some five thousand men resting beside the flickering campfires." "Reveille sounded at 5 am on the eventful Feburary 20, 1864, and at seven o'clock the troops began to move....In fine spirits, the fifty-fourth...began the march, while the men sang, "We're bound for Tallahassee in the morning." The country was more open than that below. The road ran for long distances beside the railroad. Occasionally the forest widened out into Savannas yellow with grasses and dotted with hemlock patches. From a clear sky the warm sun glistened and gleamed through the tall pines bordering the pathway." "Sanderson...was reached by our advance before noon. People there stated that the enemy were in force beyond, and truly predicted our defeat; but their words were little heeded. Near an old mill beyond Sanderson, Henry's men came upon a few cavalry of the enemy who fled when fired upon." (The story of the Battle of Olustee has been so often repeated that it will not be the purpose of this column to do it still again but to give excerpts Emilio's book which gives the more human side of the Black troops). "About 2:30 pm the colored brigade was resting, - the fifty- fourth in the shade on the left of the road at a place where wood had lately been felled. Musketry firing had been heard in the distance, but after a time there came the sound of cannon. "That's homemade thunder," said one man. "I don't mind the thunder if the lightning don't strike me" was the response. "Nearing the battleground, resounding with cannon-shots and musketry, the dispiriting scene so trying to troops about to engage, of hundreds of wounded and stragglers, was encountered. All sorts of discouraging shouts met the ear as the regiment speeded onward, as "We're badly whipped," "You'll all get killed." "But through this rift and drift of conflict the tired and panting men pressed on and led by Sergeant Cezar of Company D, found breath to shout their battle-cry. "Three cheers for Massachusetts and seven dollars a month." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday November 3, 1977 Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber Black Troops In Baker County Part II (This column wishes to make an apology regarding the 20 October article on the Roberts Family. After rereading the paragraphs on his not joining the Confederate Army it sounded as if we were sort of insulting Mr. George Roberts. We had hoped to show how his age and the wear and tear of Seminole War service had influenced his decision. Mr Roberts was a loyal and active supporter of the Confederacy even though it has been said by those who knew him that he feared it was a doomed cause from the start. Two sons, Aaron and James, were members of the 26th Georgia Volunteer Infantry and both are said to have paid the supreme sacrifice in service. Sons, Niram and Jeff, both married daughters of one of the area's first militia officers, James M. Burnsed). Continuing from Luis Emilio's book A Brave Black Regiment, we read, "The Fifty-fourth formed in a grove of pine extending around on every side over ground nearly level. So open was the forest that the enemy's line and colors could be seen about four hundred yards distant." "Upon taking position the regiment received a steady but not severe musketry fire, with a flanking fire of shell from the artillery on our left front. Sharpshooters were observed perched in the trees but a few volleys bought them down. We were sustaining casualties every moment; but most of the missiles passed overhead." "Sergeant Stephens of Company B remembered distinctly that a little black fellow whose name I cannot recall would run forward beyond the line in his excitement, discharging his piece, fall back and load, and then rush out again...Shortly, this man I speak of fell, shot through the head." "The regiment had been firing very rapidly; for many of the men, by Jarring their pieces on the ground sent the loads home without using the ramrods. This spirited movement into action of the colored brigade is acknowledged to have caused the enemy's right to give way somewhat and imperilled the guns of Captain Wheaton's Chatham Artillery," "The two colored regiments had stood in the gap and saved the army. But the cost had been great particularly to the First North Carolina (49 lost). Having maintained the contest for some time, it was withdrawn. "Every organization had retired but the Fifty-fourth, and our regiment stood alone. From the position first taken up it still held back the enemy in its front. What had occured elsewhere was not known. Why the Fifty-fourth was left thus exposed is inexplicable. No orders were received to retire. No measures were taken for its safe withdrawal. It would seem either that the position of the regiment was forgotten, or its sacrifice considered necessary. "Darkness came on early amid the tall pines. It was now about 5:30 pm. The Fifty-fourth had lost heavily...Only a few cartridges remained in the boxes; more were brought, but they proved to be of the wrong calibre." "Colonel Montgomery was with the Fifty-fourth and seems to have determined to retire it in his bushwhacking way. This he did, as his staff-officer Captain Pope relates, by telling the men to save themselves. " Now, men, you have done well. I love you all. Each man take care of himself." Lieutenant-colonel Hooper....securing the co-operation of officers and reliable men near at hand...shouted, "Rally," and a line was again formed." "Lieutenant Loveridge....rode out to the right, and returning, reported the enemy following our forces without order....in line of battle faced to the rear the Fifty-fourth then marched off the field, stopping every two or three hundred yards and retiring again. The enemy did not follow closely, but some of their cavalry were on the right flank. Stray cannon-shots and musket-balls occasionally fell about." The Battle of Olustee was lost to the U.S. troops and the disorderly retreat toward Sandeson and Barber's was underway. The Black soldiers, improperly trained and armed, left many of their comrades lying on the battlefield. The lucky ones were dead or dying. Next week, the fate of some of the captured. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thurdsday November 10, 1977 Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber Black Troops In Baker County Part III Continuing from Luis Emilio's A Brave Black Regiment, we come to the disastrous end of the U.S. invasion of Florida and the army's retreat from Olustee. "Col. Hallowell had, in charge of a servant, a mule laden with his camp kit, etc., packed in two champagne baskets. Upon going to the rear some guards would not allow the servant and his mule to pass. The servant pleaded with them saying, "Gentlennen, for God's sake, let the mule go," and while doing so, the mule, taking matters into its own hands, kicked up its heels and broke through the line, strewing the path with pots, kettles and pans, tipped out of the overturned baskets. This caused great merriment; and "Let the mule go" became a saying in the regiment. Moving toward Sanderson the narrow road was choked with a flowing torrent of soldiers on foot, wounded and unwounded, vehicles of every description laden with wrecks of men. When Sanderson was reached the troops halted until the place was cleared of wounded and vehicles, when fires were set to stores previously spared, and it was abandoned. The army retired to Barbers, destroying bridges and the railroad as they proceeded. The Fifty-fourth made the night march over the littered road until at 2 am the bivouac fires of the Fifty-fifth at Barbers were reached. Companies A and E were detailed for picket across the St Mary's - the former on the line, and the latter occupying a block house. Throughout those hours the wounded and stragglers kept coming in. Barber's house and outbuildings were used to shelter the wounded. Assistant Surgeon Bridgham sheltered the wounded of the Fifty-fourth in an old house and never ceased to care for them till morning. "Provision was made for carrying the wounded from Barbers, February 21 by placing them on wagons and on cars drawn by animals over the railroad. Our army followed in three parallel columns. Passing through Darbys (the railroad crossing atop Trail Ridge), where an immense pile of barrels of turpentine was flaming and smoking the regiment arrived at Baldwin about 4 pm." Thus did Black soldiers pass into and out of Baker County. They had been pushed to the front and left flank at the battle, poorly equipped and armed. No one had thought to inform them of a retreat. They were strictly segregated and those who received pay at all received less than the white soldiers. In the 54th. Mass. Regiment eleven were killed at Olustee. One died of wounds later. Only seven were captured, three to eventually die in captivity. Forty-seven were wounded. Four were missing after the battle and one at Barbers. In spite of it all the Black troops were reported to have been good fighters. One later explained that they had rather die fighting than be taken alive. Doctor Marsh of the Sanitary Commission said, "they knew their fate if captured." Until the captured Black soldiers left Lake City and Tallahassee the treatment accorded them was humane. Confederate Captain Robert Gamble (several local Baker Countians were in his artilley outfit), who possessed a reputation for honesty, later wrote, "I have a distinct recollection of there being many wounded negroes; and the next morning my colored servant, by my order, devoted himself to caring for them, I telling him, at the time, that he was released from duty so that his time could be given to his color which he cheerfully did. Afterwards many colored wounded prisoners were brought to Tallahassee and placed in the Masonic Lodge as a hospital where they were carefully cared for." After Tallahassee things did not go so well for the captive Blacks. Some went to various prisons where they were merely used for the filthiest details. Some were forced to dig shallow holes in the ground of their prisons for warmth. Others were imprisoned at Charleston where they were abused by the mad Dr. Todd, Brother-in-law of President Lincoln. One thing is for certain, those who went to Andersonville never left it alive, the fortunate ones dying soon after arriving. The Black arrivals at Andersonville, Georgia from Tallahassee (captives at Olustee) were described as clean and well-cared for; The Andersonville officials soon took care of that. "One colored soldier laid in the swamp with a wound in his abdomen, from which his bowels protruded; he was perfectly helpless and the lice and maggots were literally devouring him." "Those colored soldiers that belonged to the 54th Mass. regiments, who were prisoners there, were detailed to carry out the dead and the dead were thrown into wagons outside and carried off." "Some of these men were wounded and the rebels refused to do anything for them; they received no medicine or medical treatment. They were compelled to load and unload the dead who died daily in the stockade." " I saw them take one of the colored soldiers and strip him and give him thirty lashes until the blood ran and his back was all cut up. This was because he was not able to go out and work as he had been in the habit of doing." The remainder of the descriptions get so bad we can't report them. _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday November 17, 1977 THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber Joseph Dicks, Early Pioneer From England An ancestor of several area residents was Joseph Dicks, born on the 22nd of January, 1818 in or near Liverpool, England. His father died in war service soon after. In the manner of all 19th century working-class families, especially those without fathers, the children were apprenticed out to learn a trade. Young Joseph's master was a brushmaker and the lad lived with the master several miles away from home. Once, after spending a weekend at home with his family, Joseph bade his sisters goodbye and enjoyed the company of his mother for a part of the way back to the brushmaker's home. When she turned for home Joseph watched for a long time - he would never see his mother again. The fourteen year old boy, instead of returning to his apprenticeship, made for the docks and stowed away on a ship bound for America. He landed in Ottawa, Canada where he obtained work in a quarry for about six months. The next stop for the wanderlust struck boy was New York. The United States was in the grip of a financial panic about this time and work was scarce. Lying about his age, Joseph followed the course of many other young men at the time and joined the U.S. Army. The 2nd Seminole War erupted soon after his enlistment and he was sent to south Georgia. He saw service there and in Florida. During the Christmas season of 1835 Pvt. Dicks' enlistment was up and he was released at Ft. Brooke near present Tampa. As he made his way back up the peninsula into South Georgia, his unit under Gen. Dade was almost wiped out by the combined forces of Micanopy, Alligator and Seminole Blacks. While living in south Georgia, Joseph met and married Miss Sarah Taylor. He brought his bride back into Florida near the old Seminole town of Alligator where his army outfit had seen service a few years before. There, near present Hopeful Community, Columbia County were born nine children. To his purchase of the squatter improvements of Johnny Markham, he added his army service bounty grants until he soon owned an extensive farm. Born into the Church of England, Mr. Dicks became converted to Methodism after his move to Florida in the early 1840's. He later united with Mt. Zion in present Union County. He was regarded as religious, hard working, honest, and a good manager. He was also unmoving in his conviction that slavery was immoral and he refused to own slaves. Mrs. Dicks was a Baptist, united with the Providence Church Soon after her arrival in Florida. She traveled by horseback, wagon, or foot to reach her worship services seven miles away. She became a charter member of Hopeful Church in 1887. About 1880 Mr. Dicks decided to return to England for a visit. He found his three sisters still alive but had difficulty convincing them that he was who he professed to be. His sisters believed him dead and it was only with birthmarks that Joseph made them understand that he was their brother. Despite their pleas he returned home to America and finished his life in his adopted country. Joseph Dicks died in 1899. His wife preceded him in death by three years. Both are buried at Hopeful in Columbia County. It had been a long and eventful 80 years trip from Liverpool, England to the sand of north Florida. Joseph Dicks made the trip very successfully. Surely, he was one of our most colorful pioneers. _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday November 21, 1977 Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber The Daring Minnie Pouthress Part 1 Not all pioneers came to Baker County during Territorial Days and not all who arrived after the Civil War were from the North. In December of 1926 Charles William Poythress hit town in a Ford touring car with a stack of elegantly framed oil paintings tied on top. To the rear were two carloads of Blacks including one ex-slave. In the car with him were his wife, Minnie, his mother-in-law, his children and an aunt-in-law. They had arrived from Alabama to take employment at the Griffin Nursery Company. The young wife, Minnie, was accepting another gamble and daring to take still another chance. Born in Livingston. Alabama, the daughter of David W. and Helen Gillespe Mitchell, Minnie grew up in the cultural atmosphere of Alabama Normal College (incorporated 1883, and now known as Livingston). One of her first dares was to attend college. If that was not bad enough for a respectable young lady at the turn of the century, she confounded matters by studying art - a shameless waste of ability and time in anyone, especially a woman. She studied academic oil painting and china painting, producing canvases of superior quality as well as cabinets-full of priceless decorated china. At the end of her course of studies, she graduated in 1907. When her father died, Minnie, an only childm suggested to her mother that they return to the old Gillespe Plantation Belmont in Sumpter County, Alabama, and try their hands at farming. The artist laid aside her brushes for the hoe and assisted the Blacks in tilling the soil. Next door lived and farmed the handsome Mr. Vernon Tutt. He offered to run the plantation for the women. The next thing the neighbors knew, Minnie Mitchell was not only being courted by Mr. Tuft, but she was seen kissing him on the porch in front of the Lord and everybody. And Minnie Mitchell continued to kiss her boyfriend whenever she pleased. The young couple married and traveled to New Orleans by train for their honeymoon. Within the year Minnie was pregnant and she further shocked the neighborhood by being seen in public "that way." About a week before her child was due Minnie received the jolting news that her husband had just been fatally shot. Mr. Tutt had just returned from Demopolis with a load of stores for the Belmont commissary at Hall's Creek. Witnesses reported a violent argument between Mr. Tutt and a Black man. As Mr. Tutt turned to begin stocking the shelves the Black shot him from outside a window. This time the brushes were laid aside permanently. Minnie tried to tend to her new daughter, Vernon, while helping her mother run the farm. Times were getting harder. The soil was becoming less productive. The women went into debt in order to be able to feed and clothe the remaining Blacks. Things could not have been going much tougher. But, then, another miracle happened by in the person of Virginian Charles W. Poythress. Minnie took another chance, was seen kissing her new suitor in public, and, after their marriage, was again seen pregnant in public. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday December 1, 1977 THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber The Daring Minnie Poythress Part Two Minnie Mitchell Tutt Poythress' husband, Charles, had known his share of problems also. Originally from Mecklenburg County, Virginia, Mr. Poythress had moved to Alabama to escape the ever advancing depression. Settled at Bellamy where he took employment with the Allison Lumber Company. Shortly after the Poythress' marriage in 1922, the Allison Lumber Company was literally blown away by a cyclone. Mr. Poythress next tried the railroad but that job soon went the way of most other jobs in the beginning days of the depression. A friend, Julian Boyd, had been traveling the railroad and knew most of the available opportunities along the route. Other friends of Mr. Boyd's had stopped in an unheard of place named Baker County and after working for a few years with Mr. George L. Taber's Glen Nurseries had opened their own nursery between Glen St. Mary and McClenny. They were the Griffin Family and their business was the forerunner of the present Southern States Nursery. Mr. Boyd suggested to Mr. Poythress that he try the Griffins. Minnie had to leave many of her paintings in Alabama (they were later burned) as she tackled still another dare. Things were tough in Alabama and the Poythrees couple knew the Blacks stood not a chance there. They crowded them, plus one elderly ex-slave, into two more cars and the entourage began the long trip across Florida in December of 1926. For the first year their home was the Griffin guest house. Later the Griffins built them a house and all seemed well for a while. One morning during the depths of the depression the Blacks waked to find a coffin on their porch. Some locals, resentful of imported help taking the jobs they considered to be theirs, had decided to put fear into the new people. A big stink ensued which was skillfully tended to by Baker County Sheriff Joe Jones. Once again Minnie was to know the sorrow of widowhood. Mr. Poythress died in 1931 and she was left with four children, an aged mother, no job, and no home As is the usual case, miracles happen to those who most need them and most look for them. Ms. Poythress searched out the opportunity to purchase a most unlikely home, but, never-the-less, a home - the old St. James Academy dormitory and chapel on the southern edge of McClenny. There were only two rooms - one upstairs and one downstairs. It showed the wear and tear of use, by several years of school children as well as many years of neglect. Mrs Poythress sought ways to make the old yellow building livable. Mr. L.L. Dugger, principal of the nextdoor McClenny School, suggested that she establish a boarding house for teachers. During one of the hottest summers the locals could remember the remodeling work began. The carpenters were Roscoe and Fonso Parrish, Frank Rowe, and Rev. Rogers, the Methodist minister. A.B. Hart installed the plumbing. A new roof capped it all. Minnie Mitchell Tutt Poythress never knew when to quit and she always took a dare. The writer of this column appreciates those qualities in Mrs. Poythress for it was while viewing in awe those beautiful paintings on her walls he decided he wanted to do the same thing. _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday December 8, 1977 Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber Geological Makeup Of Baker County Part One-In The Beginning After studying the scores of scientific works on the subject of the beginning of the world and finding them bewildering and incomprehensible, one is usually quite happy to return to and accept that simple but monumental sentence with which the Book of Genesis opens. Then getting the beginnings behind us we can sometimes understand the workings of the remainder of creation even though we have trouble with the "billions of years" part. "In the beginning..." might be a little too far back to start the subject of the geology of Baker County but that little bit of acreage, no matter how infinately small in the overall earthly scheme was there in some form. There is currently in geology a simple but radically different theory regarding the makeup and action of continents and oceans. The theory is called "Plate Tectonics" and it basically states: that the earth's outer forty miles or so consists almost entirely of cool rigid rock, that this shell is broken into a number of plates (imagine a pecan, Its shell considerably cracked into a number of pieces but all the pieces still clinging to the nutmeat inside), that heat and agitation from inside the earth keep the plates moving and bumping into each other, and that the continents and oceans ride atop these plates. Hardly more than a Cursory glance at a world map shows that the edges of some continents could fit together with the ease of the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. But even more important and convincing are the facts that rock structures in Scandinavia and Newfoundland are of the same structure and composition, the eastern seaboard of the United States and the Senegal coast of Africa possess the same type basement rock, Africa and South America have fossils of the same animals and plants and fossilized signs of all continents show signs of once having been in vastly different climates than those they are now in. Plate Tectonics investigators offer very strong arguments that while the continents were abuilding they traveled on their crustal plates, pushed by internal heat and pressure until they massed themselves together and rode high and dry above the flooded earth. Then the waters were, "gathered together unto one place." This supercontinent (formed, broke, jostled, and reformed perhaps many times in the space of a few billion years. During the supercontinent's last supposed gathering, named by some geologists Pangaea, the basis for Florida, then nonexistant as an entity, came into being. It began 300,000,000 years ago, give or take a few million years, when forces sent the North American and African plates toward one another. It was no fast trip nor would the continents bump surprisingly against each other. An inch or so a year, or in a thousand years, would get them together but be so gradual that all that would happen, and that not noticably to the few primitive reptiles on board, would be the crumpling up of the eastern shore of North America into the Applachian Mountains. All the continents supposedly joined them and remained together for several million years, but forces eventually began to separate them once again. Africa broke away, not rapidly, and began to travel toward her present position. Next week: Florida rises from the water and Baker County at the bottom of a bay. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday December 15, 1977 Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber Geological Makeup Of Baker County Part Two-Baker County Under The Sea (Just in case you had some difficulty with last week's article please remove the top line of the second column and place it at the bottom of the same column. and re-read.) After breaking away from the North American continent Africa left a very important legacy - the entire roster of the eastern seaboard states, torn from her western coast. There is a great possibility that she also left behind a couple of chunks of her basement rock on which the Florida peninsula and the Bahamas would later be built. Or, she uprooted some sizable pieces of the old North American continent and left them in her wake for the same purpose. Whichever happened, those volcanic rocks laid well off the coast while marine creatures built huge limestone deposits on top of them and pressures began to lift them toward the surface of the ancient sea. Geologists are convinced that all the continents have sunk and emerged from the sea several times. Collisions from floating continental plates and epochs of tremendous glaciation have sent North America under and back up many times, each time altering her outline and topography. For all but her very recent history she has made those emerging trips without the Florida peninsula. Approximately 65 million years ago there was an uplift of the ocean off the coast of what would later be known as the piedmont area of Gcorgia. Now labeled the Ocala Arch. This great dome of basement rock covered with a few million years of marine sediment (it takes but 6,000 years to build one foot of limestone) began to rise toward the surface. Perhaps the released pressure from the departing African continent or the added weight of sediment washing into the Gulf of Mexico made th Ocala Arch lift. Its lift created a sea trough in which the present Baker County site was located. Into that trough, the adjacent land mass of the Appalachians and the Georgia piedmont poured immeasurable tons of clay and sand with every interglacial period of seemingly endless torrential rain. About 50 million years ago, one of the ice ages took up so much of the world's water to form its ice caps and glaciers that the high parts of the Ocala Arch and nearby coral reefs peeped above water. Florida, but not Baker County was born. Since that time there have been at least four major inundations after four great ice ages and several minor floods between them. Each emergence of the forming Florida peninsula during each ice age probably bared more old land and each interglacial period created new land with the erosion from Georgia onto the slowly rising Florida mass. Between 30 to 15 million years ago the sea trough filled in to connect the Florida peninsula (not looking at all like its present self) with the North American continent. Baker County remained in a giant bay or lagoon on the Atlantic side of the connecting fill between Florida and Georgia. On the north of the big bay and fitted down into the present Georgia Bend was a larger finger of land. On the south another great sand bar was reaching up from the area of present Putnam and Alachua Counties. The gentle rocking waves of the shallow bay very likely layered the incoming Georgia sediments into the familiar colorful striations seen in road cuts in Baker County. Most of the yellow sand in the area was deposited at this time. The great bay, in the northeastern corner of which and fronting the open Atlantic was situated Baker County (under water), could be appropriately named Columbia since the present Columbia County's site was in its center. Columbia Bay's sand bars fed by the white sugary sand from Georgia's meandering streams, persistently crept toward one another until there was probably but a small inlet located in the vicinity of the St. Mary's present course through Trail Ridge. Next week: The birth of Mankind and of Baker County. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday December 22, 1977 Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber The Geological Makeup Of Baker County Final Part About two million years ago the last ice age, called the Great Ice Age, began. Florida emerged and submerged several times again as in past periods of glaciation. In the north many Georgia streams were bringing white sand to their mouths. Currents brought vast deposits of that sand south to the Baker County site which was sometimes several miles out under the sea. With each succeeding glaciation more land was uncovered and the islands and short peninsula which were to become Florida were first tied together. And although she was later often partially covered with water Baker County came into being. When under the sea during the interlacial periods the Baker County sands behind Trail Ridge (an off-shore sand barrier) were gently aligned into a northeast-southwest direction. During glaciation, however, and when the Baker County site lay some 150 to 175 miles inland, some of those dunes were rearranged by the strong arid winds. The present hills (some folks laugh at us for referring to them as such) and islands (which are prehistoric dunes) of the Okefenokee and other swamps are mostly in their original northeast-southwest pattern. One million years ago during an interglacial period the seas once again rose but stopped at Trail Ridge. Never again was the Atlantic to roll over the sands and clay of Baker County. Although the Great Ice Age had almost a million years to go and the ocean continued to recede and advance, the glaciations had done most of their work to shape Baker County's topography. The shallow Columbia Bay became a trapping place for the water of succeeding wet spells, creating the great Okefenokee Swamp and the other swamps to its south. The Great Ice Age gave out one last mighty effort about 20 to 10 thousand years ago. A wall of ice advanced as far south as Missouri. The desertlike peninsula of Florida became a crowded haven for animals, and they, in turn, were followed by hungry man - proto-Indian. When the ice melted about 6,000 years ago and the rains came, Baker County, as the first Cracker settlers knew it, happened. Incidentally, on the Sixth Day when Florida and Baker County were tardily created in the process begun on the Third Day, Adam Man was born. Since then he has tried his dern'dest to undo everything started before his arrival. When he hit Florida and Baker County about 8 to 6 thousands years ago, he immediately killed every elephant-looking mastodon he could come by, carelessly destroying several just for one carcass to eat. He was then killed and replaced by new peoples from the west and north. When their white brethren rolled across the St. Marys about 150 years ago, he saw what he could do about ridding the area of parakeets (the only North American parrot-like bird) and cypresses that began as seedlings at the end of the last ice age. No amount of colored lights and tinsel can cover the garbage dumps lying on once beautiful million years old Trail Ridge. Christmas carols are not loud enough to disguise the roar of equipment draining every little swamp and pond in the area, thus destroying our natural watersheds and lowering our water table. No Christmas Mass or church pageant will remove the stigma of beered up four-wheel drive sports tearing down river bluffs and river sand bars in a few years when it took thousands of years to build them up in an orderly fashion. But, then, Christmas is hope. _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday December 29, 1977 Page Two THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber Mrs. Cone Tells Her Story Part One-Klan Activities in Baker County Baker County has seemingly always suffered a bad reputation. None of the vices and follies of mankind have been omitted by her accusers and gossipers. How much of this bad reputation is based on facts and how much is imaginary we can only venture a guess, and our ventured guess would be about 50-50. We know that part is fact because the knifings, graft, theft, duels, and hanky-panky have been here for us to see. However, we strongly suspect that much lies in the minds of many citizens that is imagination because far too many come here, unsolicited, remain here for the remainder of their lives, and continually harp on "this bad place" while making a fistful of Baker County money. We wish to remind these good folks that although they are not living in the best of all possible worlds, they have "got it made." Take the case of the unfortunate Mrs. Florida Damula (nee Williams) Cone who appeared before Congressional Investigating Committee in 1871. Now, there was a lady who could legitimately complain about her Baker County neighbors. From the Committee's report to the Senate of the United States of the Second Session of the Fourty second Congress, 1871-1872, comes the sad tale of the Cone Family of Baker County. "Q. What is your age, where were you born, and where do you now reside? A. I was twenty-seven years old last May - the 25th of May; I was born in Darien, McIntosh County, Georgia, and I now reside in Jacksonville. Q. Are you the wife of Mr. R.W. Cone? A. Yes, sir....Well, sir, it was between 10 and 11 o'clock at night; we had gone to bed and were asleep. The noise woke me up, and the first I knew there was a crowd of men in there. They knocked me down, gave me a kick on my head and one on my shouler, and pulled my hair and tore it a great deal. Mr. Cone was begging them to let me alone, but they would not do it, but kept, knocking me. They took me by both hands - I was then on my knees - and dragged me, I guess, a great deal further than the length of this table - dragged me by both hands. There were three or four who had hold of me, and they dragged me to the room door and then let me loose and took hold of him. He had his nightshirt on, and they took that and turned it up over his head, and then carried him into the woods. That was the last I saw of him until they turned him loose and he got back to the house. After they had let me loose and had taken him to the door and started off with him, one of them turned around and came back, and told me that if I followed them he would blow my damned brains out. I happened to know him. Q. Who was he? A. William Tyson....I think he lived down on New River about twelve or fifteen miles from where we were living. I knew the one who had hold of me and dragging me; he lives about seven or eight miles from where we lived (the Cones lived at the then un-named Darby's Station which was near the present McClenny).... Kindred Griffis. They never got hold of him yet; they have had the others up. Before the Civil War Mr. and Mrs. Cone's Unionist sympathies were not only tolerated but were not considered even slightly radical in the Baker County area since so many were completely unconcerned with the impending split or were against breaking up the old Union. However, as the war got hot and later when Mr. Cone's campaign to register black voters incensed some of the locals, the KKK singled them out for harrassment. Q. What kind of men are those that you recognized; what position do they hold in society? A. Well, the whole county there is not much; the people out there are not any very great people, sort of low-down characters....They are a mighty cruel set of people to treat anybody as they did me and Mr. Cone for nothing. Q. Were any of them drinking men that you knew? A. I do not know of any that drank but one....Mr. Swett. Q. What did he do for a living? A. Anything he could get to do. Q. You say they were low-down people? A. I suppose they would be what people up there would consider respectable people, but I do not think so. Q. Are they all of that class? A. As a general thing; some of the people living up there are very respectable (unfortunately, Mrs. Cone did not list those people).... They are a cruel set of people there. Next week: some notes on a bawdy house and the one who got away from the Klan (isn't it surprising to discover that, in spite of the propaganda of TV, novels, and movies, the Klan's activities were not all directed toward the poor blacks).