"The Way It Was" Newspaper Column on Baker County, Florida History, 1982 part 3 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 pioneers 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 1982. Contents: * '81 wrapup and '82 beginning * 'Uncle Budder" Johnson * On life's greatest questions * The county's early post offices * State of the Union message....and equal time * Life's great questions * The month of February * Rare maps from period 1886-1924 * Some ready-to-quote one liners * On the approaching spring-winter * On the approaching spring - Temperature, rain and St. Pat * On approaching spring - colors and scents * On approaching spring-cleaning, purging and bleeding (the wrap-up) * Some thoughts on Easter * Centennial interest grows * Birthdates of other Baker County communities * Community name origins * Wrapup of Communities' Ages * McClenny 1883-1983 - the past in pictures (in part 2) * The old courthouse clock (in part 2) * 'Accident on the Lake City Road' (in part 2) * Genealogy / Answers and comments (in part 2) * The readers speak (in part 2) * McClenny 1883-1983 - A Brief History, Part I (in part 2) * Macclenny 1883-1983 - A brief history, part 2 (in part 2) * Macclenny 1883-1983 - a brief history, part three (in part 2) * Macclenny 1883-1983 - A brief history - part IV (in part 2) * Macclenny 1883-1983 - Photographs (in part 2) * McClenny 1883-1983 - A brief history, Part V (in part 2) * Macclenny 1883-1983 - A Brief History, Part VI (in part 2) * Macclenny 1883-1983 - The conclusion (in part 2) * Lessons from a 10 year old (in part 2) * Lessons from our readers (in part 2) * Summer doldrums and historical tidbits (in part 2) * More historical tidbits (in part 2) * Historical Potpourri (in part 2) * Sayings for all season (in part 3) * The Elder Wilson Conner (in part 3) * Confederates and the Oath of Allegiance (in part 3) * The Oath of Allegiance and some Thrifts (in part 3) * The McClenny Centennial - Preparations underway (in part 3) * Ed Fraser Hospital (in part 3) * Sheriffs 1861-1982 (in part 3) * Some Sundry Topics (in part 3) * Historical Personages - Two Parts (in part 3) * I'm thankful for........ (in part 3) * A couple of lists (in part 3) * Christmas decor from the past (in part 3) * Old Time Christmas Eating (in part 3) * "...for the poor always ye have with you" "Blessed be ye poor..' (in part 3) * "How '82 predictions fared (in part 3) _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, January 7, 1982 THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber '81 wrap-up and '82 beginning Your writer began '82 faced with an angry squirrel who seriously contended our right to use our window ledge as a writing table. Auspicious. The beginning of the year and the sassy chattering of the squirrel reminded us that we have been foisting these effusions upon Press readers for six and a half years. We figured it was time to make our annual comments about the past year and get on with the new. So here are sundry remarks, the tying of loose ends, and other stuff. The past year brought the least response of any year to our column, but the '81 comments were the heaviest in content and were oft times delivered with some semblance of concern (which strikes us as odd since we did not say anything along the lines of history-changing utterances). We were informed by some readers that our column's only purpose was to report history and that we should keep our editorial nose out of current affairs. Others averred their favorite columns were those of a current nature. "Now, that I can relate to," was their most frequent statement. Some advised us to write only on pleasant subjects and to make only positive, good-time philosophic comments worthy of Pollyanna herself. Still others said "You're not hitting hard enough." All of which brings us to the logical conclusion that we cannot please everybody, and therefore, we shall not try. We just hope that we can drop a word or two fertilizing the thoughts of some of our readers. Back in '79, we stated our policy of making more statements on current topics. Not that we've run out of local history(nowhere near so), but as a halfway thinking (is that also a halfwit?) soul, we cannot ignore a perfectly good vehicle for social commentary (doesn't do any good, but we haven't learned that yet). There have been a few complaints about our spelling and grammatical mistakes and loads of complaints regarding our strange punctuation (now, that's getting picky). Your writer lays no claim on being a writer (that didn't make a whole lot of sense did it?). We're still awaiting the replacement of the spellerator for our typewriter (we ordered it several years ago). You do understand, dear readers, that, as a human being, your writer is capable of making a mistake, and, as a human being, he is determined to live up to that particular capability? Speaking of mistakes! your columnist wishes to right a serious inadvertency. One should never assume, but last week we assumed that the year in sports would grace our pages else-where. Please add to the list of locals who are enjoying recognition the name of Ryan Fraser, the county's brightest sports star in many years. The great thing about Ryan is that, in addition to being the best at what he does on the field, he is a gentleman. Everybody else does it, so we thought, "Why not us too?" Here are this column's predictions for'82 (they'll be as right as anybody else's: Before the year is out, an expert will announce that something that most of us use or love will cause cancer in mice. Somebody in the medical profession will say either in a medical journal, a weekly magazine, or on the Johnny Carson show that, actually, jogging may be injurious to one's health, thus bringing a collective sigh of relief from all the faddists who never enjoyed it anyhow. A new physical fitness fad, certain to make money for somebody, will take hold in the spring of '82. Faddists will deny that the new fad is a fad. Movies will continue to become more explicit in matters of sex, violence, body functions, and other areas that titillate the growing peeping-tomism of the general public. Commercial TV will continue to degenerate, and there will be crusades and outcries against it. The American public will continue to watch TV. County music and redneck chic will be almost totally phased out among the trendies by the end of the year, to be replaced by jazz and pseudo-preppy. The jazz buff-preppy will, in disgust, look elsewhere for a new trend. The 4 wheel drive market will begin to slow down by the end of summer. Look for a new vehicle craze among the fall lines from Detroit. Genealogy as a fad will be all but buried. Astrologers, religious fanatics, and crazies will have a field day with the approach of Halley's Comet. The National Enquirer and its dozen imitators will give them full coverage. Some group will threaten a major strike in '82. The weather for this year will set some kind of record as being either too hot, too cold, too wet, or too dry. A scientist will inform us that mankind's pollution has caused it (he will be the same one or the same kind who informed us last year that the same cause was, responsible for the exact opposite condition). Gold will be less popular in spite of the manipulations of the market by desperate speculators because the public's basic greed, will be overridden by its basic tendency toward boredom with a fad over four years old. There will be fewer barber shops, ladies ready-to-wear, auto body repair shops, funeral parlors, etc. displaying "We Buy Gold" signs. Someone will make an admirable attempt at pushing another mineral, metal, or product as the next investment craze. We have lots more, but we think you get the idea. We hope for you a great year, and we shall return to our plodding routine of columns. Hope you stay with us. _____________________________________________________________________________ BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, January 14, 1982 THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber 'Uncle Budder' Johnson Uncle Budder Johnson was eccentric, a bachelor, terse, subject to violent temper tantrums, private, an admirable cusser, and funny. No one in his right mind who knew Uncle Budder would have ever thought to mention any of these distinguishing qualities to the old gentleman himself. "Hey, Uncle Budder, what's your horse's name?" called one of a group when Mr. Johnson drove his wagon by. "None of your g-d business. Git up, Jim." Uncle Budder had a habit of prefacing his every statement with a kind of hummed double syllable "unh" (old-timers were allowed peculiarities of speech)."Unh-h, got to where a body can't even go to the Johnny without it coming up a shower of rain." The late Clem Fraser, a walking compendium of Uncle Budderiana, said that the old fellow was the only person ever to best him in will or personality...no mean feat, since Uncle Clem was among the strongest personalities ever produced in Baker County (and, himself, a slight bit eccentric). Uncle Clem was a young mercantile entrepreneur and had begun to burgeon forth as a gentleman farmer and Uncle Budder...well, we've discussed him in the first paragraph. Clem believed a gentleman should do a certain amount of resting and contemplating on his front porch, dressed up and complete with tie. "Clem," Uncle Budder said as he passed the Fraser house, "you better git down there and fix that fence. You got a cow out." Uncle Clem went down, dressed up and complete with tie, and repaired the said fence without question. "Unh-h, Clem," said Uncle Budder on another occasion, "just got your cow out of that damned fence. Ain't going to do it again. Better fix it right this time." Clem fixed it right, dressed up and complete with tie. It was said that Uncle Budder gave the nickname "Little Bit" to another of the Fraser clan, Edwin G.-later senator and Secretary of the Florida Senate. During hard times the young Edwin and his father were struggling to keep the Southern States Nurseries alive and well, and at times employees' pay was unavoidably tardy (but not for long). Concessions in the forms of a commissary and free housing were welcomed by the help. Once when young Edwin was tending the commissary, our subject entered pushing a wheelbarrow. "Uncle Budder", the yet-to-turn-politician Edwin asked,"what are you doing?" Uncle Budder had, it was later discovered, taken it on himself to show up for work for several days without being formally hired. The straw boss had not dared argue with him. As he pushed his wheel barrow along the commissary aisles filling it with groceries and other commodities, Uncle Budder informed, "Unh-h, this is on what you owe me." The late Senator Fraser admitted that he sensed something in the old gentleman's personality that precluded protest. He also said that after people like Uncle Budder had volunteered to help them through the rough days, he was glad he didn't. Southern States and the Glen Nurseries were both subject to Uncle Budder's sudden urges and whims to work. Without announcement, he would lead old Jim up to the barn, harness him to the appropriate equipment, and head for the fields. At pay time nobody questioned the number of days Uncle Budder tendered. "If Uncle Budder says it, it's true." In the fields at Glen some of the old hands would secretly encourage the newer help to kid Uncle Budder. "Hey, Uncle Budder, how come you never married?" "You can tote the s-o-a-b for being nosey, you know," he answered and continued plowing. The new help should have been glad that Mr. Johnson's reply was quiet and succinct, for an outburst of his temper could send the young scurrying and make the old shrink back. "He was creative in his cussing," was the way Uncle Clem put it. The writer's mother recalled that as a child she once accompanied her old great uncle during his garden plowing. But after one Uncle Budder tempest, she ran home and stayed. He ripped and rared, grabbed old Jim around the neck with one arm, and brandished his pocket knife with the other. "Git to the house, young'un, I'm a'fixing to cut Jim's g-d head off." The old fellow once confided that he had almost been to the altar of matrimony but discovered that his betrothed was running around on him. "Unh-h, I told her she could go to hell, and I was going to the house." Uncle Budder was impressed with his one and only trip to the seaside, one of his few journeys outside Baker County. "Unh-h, helped Massey with the gas. Give him a quarter on it." His awe of the ocean was evident as he related its size to his spinster sisters, "Big pond. Couldn't see the trees on the other side." It was the ocean's width and not his eyesight that prevented him from seeing the other side, because his visual acuity remained remarkable even in his advanced age. "Unh-h, I can see a gnat on the moon." Uncle Budder was born John Josiah Johnson in 1855 in either the Georgia Bend or in Lowndes County, Georgia, although his South Carolina born father Josiah H. had lived in the Baker County area since the Second Seminole War. he had "a good amount of Harvey 'een' him from his mother Elizabeth daughter of John and Mary Harvey of Bullock County Georgia, and Baker County Florida. From his third year he grew up in the Cedar Creek section around his mother's family. He farmed all his live, in his early years attended the Cedar Creek Episcopal Church. Soon after 1900 he moved widowed mother and spinster sisters, Betty and Marthy to near Glen St. Mary. Uncle Budder died in McClenny on East Florida Avenue in March of 1944. His sisters, so depended on him, followed in May of the same year, an hour apart. Aunt Mahthy knew that her brothers carelessness would claim him in some way. During the great flu epidemic of 1918-19 she said "Budder's down. I told him not to sit so close to that radio with them people a'coughing and sneezing. _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, January 21, 1982 THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber 0n life's greatest questions The great thinkers of the past spent a lot of time pursuing the answers to some mighty heavy questions. Your writer does not find his name on that list of august personages, but in his research for material (and sometimes just sitting around) he does come up with a whole passel of questions. We wish to share some of those great questions over which we have pondered. - Why is it that no matter which way you turn the wrench, the pipe is always threaded for the opposite direction? - Why does washing your car or hanging clothes out to dry bring rain? Why can't we cause rain during a drought by deliberately washing our car or hanging out clothes? - How come, no matter how dry the weather, one cannot buy a bundle of furring strips that is not water logged? - Why does a mockingbird who has been eating elderberries never perch on anything but white clothes? - Why can't a Jelly doughnut be constructed with a bust-resistant opposite end? - Why does your host put a garnish on your plate and then look at you strangely if you eat it? - Why do mothers preach against wasting food but get so upset because a kid scrapes and slurps the last bits? - Why do we never have company when the house is clean? Why do we always have company when the house is filthy? - Why does coffee taste better before we brush our teeth? - Why does the wind always blow in the opposite direction from that in which we rake leaves? - How come a road map can never be refolded as it was when you got it? - Why are the cold and hot shower faucets always reversed from yours in your host's house or in the motel you're staying in? - How can a rubber-backed rug resist all efforts to be straightened with a strong-willed foot but will crawl and jump all over the place when a vacuum cleaner with less suction than your great-grandmother gets near it? - Why does the commode in your host's house never back up for anyone but you? - How can bedstead legs, stools, and chairs move themselves after the lights are out to place themselves directly in your path when you have to stir at night? - How can we park in a tight space but can never back out of it? - Why are there never experts on any subject in our home town? - Why is it that in Chinese restaurants there is always one at every table who thinks he or she has to read the menu aloud? - Why when it's your only source of heat, you can't get a fire going in your fireplace in bitterly cold weather? Why, when you want to impress your company with your fireplace, you can't get a fire going in it? Why, when you're ready to leave home, you can't extinguish the fireplace with several buckets of sand or water? - Why does no one ever say "let me look at your hands", when your nails are clean? - Why is children's behavior around company always contrary to that described by their parents? - Why do we never take issue with us to our host's house or to a restaurant when we know there is a great possibility that we will be eating hot coup or chili? Why is there no proper or easy way to take care of the problem? - Why do your britches never split in the privacy of your own home? _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS JANUARY 28, 1982 THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber The county's early post offices Francis J. Pons was an extraordinary man who settled in Sanderson before the Civil War as a merchant and naval stores producer. He later became Clerk of Courts for the county and eventually was Florida's State Treasurer. In Sanderson, his general mercantile store also served as court house and post office. On August twenty seventh, 1875, Mr. Pons completed a form for the U.S Post Office's Contract Office. In his description of its location he stated that his post office of Sanderson was located two miles north of the Saint Mary's River (writer's note: this was in reference to the South Prong of the Saint Mary's) and two miles south of Cedar Creek. Nearest post offices on the same route were Darbyville eight miles east and Olustee ten miles west. The nearest off the Sanderson route was Lake Butler eighteen miles south. In answer to a question penned in on the margin "Which side of the Rail Road is your office", Pons answered, "on:the south side." The Pons Victorian penmanship is unmistakably the same legible hand as found on the many court house books from the late nineteenth century in which he painstakingly re-copied hundreds of deeds and other records lost in the 1877 court house fire. Several years later-1904-and two miles west, Mr. John Franklin McClellen made application for a post office at McGehee, Florida. Evidently his carefully completed application was returned because of the unsuitability of the name. Undaunted, Mr. McClellen scratched out McGehee and substituted "Woodstock" which was accepted. As the site of one of the railroad's main re-fueling stops, the second choice had a precedence of several decades. Woodstock was described as being on route 123006 from Jacksonville to River Junction (far to the west in the panhandle), Florida. Mail was carried on this route fourteen times a week. Mr. McClellen said that Sanderson was two miles east, Olustee was eight miles west, and Rhoden was ten miles away in a northerly direction. The nearest river was the Saint Mary's, twelve miles east, and the nearest Creek was Cedar Creek, eight miles away. McGehee-Woodstock was much nearer to those streams, but the distance by roadways was correct as stated. McClellen's post office was served by the Seaboard Air Line Rail Road, and it was located 150 yards on the north side of the tracks. The new post office would serve 250 people, and the population of the village was 200. The application was granted, and Woodstock flourished for a few years. When the turpentine trees were gone, so was Woodstock. Its drugstore, bank, and commissary vanished, and the last of its shanties came down in the early 1950's. John P. Sapp applied for a post office at Sapp in 1902. The site was on the Jacksonville-Newberry route on which mail was carried six times a week. Raiford was seven miles southwest and Mattox (near the present US 90 overpass between McClenny and Baldwin) was twelve miles northeast. Lawtey was the other nearest post office and was ten miles east. New River was the nearest stream at three miles east. Sapp was located on the Jacksonville and Southwestern Rail Road, and its post office was located fifty feet east of the track. The proposed post office was to serve 100 people, but today, Sapp is like Woodstock...one must look hard to find where it was. _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, February 4, 1982 THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber State of the Union message ....and equal time The President's State of the Union speech contained few surprises in content or nature but fell pleasantly on the ear. It was permeated with optimism and rang with sincerity. Not unpredictably, the actor turned-politician called down images of U.S. presidents and heroes of the past to set the tone. This column was not altogether happy with some of the names President Reagan intoned, but we believe a U.S. President has certain prerogatives and privileges that go beyond the pettiness of a small town column writer. We were happy to see and hear him offer roses where roses were due when he singled out recent heroes for recognition before the joint gathering. We appreciated the frankness with which he addressed some problems most of us thinking folk were aware of all along, i.e. that graft and fraud had stained and drained every federal program, department, and agency; that most purposes of the federal government's programs, departments, and agencies have been watered down and lost midst multifarious mobs of committees and bureaucracy; that our nation has gone entirely and utterly too far in ignoring the victims of crime at the expense of protecting the rights of the criminal; and that it is time to put a screeching halt and quietus to programs that have been of little use but have become cumbersome and of spiraling expense to the public. We appreciated his candor and tact when he said the budget could be taken care of by means other than dumping still more loads onto the taxpayers. In other words, expenses could be cut and spending tended to with more intelligence. We wanted to cheer when he both reported that he did not apologize to the Third World Nations and the poor countries for America's wealth and success and that we had finally ceased mealy-mouthing, sniveling and apologizing to the greatest bully the world's history has every known, the USSR. This column has never believed our nation could accomplish much with bullstink and diplomacy. The biggest complaint we heard concerned returning some of the states' business to the states. This somewhat puts us in mind of the child who stamps his foot and refuses to be responsible for neatening up his own room. Good People, let's get these programs closer to home where we can keep a closer watch on them, where they will be more responsive to our input, where less money will be lost and trickle out into the pockets of a maze of bureaucrats. And when the President's detractors (including many around the coffee tables here at home) express fear that we will have less money when the federal government relinquishes control (after the very liberal and sensible transition period of ten years), let us ask them if they have even a smidgen of knowledge where that good ol' federal handout money comes from. The Lord doesn't drop a load down on Washington City each week. No, Sirs and Ma'ams, it starts out right in your own pockets. It is then taken out by various and devious means and transported to the federal coffers where it is then played with in a most careless manner. What is left is then doled out to thousands of specious agencies, committees, and programs whose leaders and hench-persons take their shares by means of salaries and graft. At long last, a couple of cents of every dollar you send up to D.C. comes back to your home town where fraud and small time graft finish it off. No wonder the deserving never get any of it. We wished that after the President called for freeing enterprise so that private business could get on with business and therefore get some money moving again, he would have added, "and let's stop competing with private business." Just one small and very insignificant case in point is that with some departments of municipal, and federal governments conducting art classes at cut-throat prices, an honest enterprising private art teacher has a heck of a time making it in the private sector these days. Other small examples are governmentally funded ceramics and dance classes in the same neighborhood of ceramics shops and dance instruction studios. Next, it'll be government grocery stores and auto sales rooms. Watch out, America. We'd better listen to the man even if we're not in love with him. He has the right idea. The official opposing view did not come as a surprise. In this case, the opposing (and "out")party is the Democrats. Now, this writer's traditional party, the party of his ancestors, is the Democratic Party, but he was turned a bit bilious by the equal time response of that party. Honestly, we thought the Democrats were above the tasteless, unilateral, myopic, and tired presentation foisted upon those of us who were masochistic enough to listen. They talked as if the problems of right now began the day Reagan took his oath. The protests were adolescent at the very best and hardly deserve the dignity of commentary. And as for the interviews, just think what a different story we'd have of that most ideal moment and place in history-the-Garden of Eden-if the writer of Genesis had only interviewed the area's one malcontent, the Serpent. No matter what our party, we at the grassroots have enough intelligence to choose the better way, and we must not be contentious just because it is popular or is the view of our party. America is it stake. Personally, this writer is tired of the way it's been going. _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1982 THE WAY IT WAS Gene Barber Life's great questions Some weeks, your ol' columnist, because of an effusion that seems so good to him at its inception but becomes particularly fulsome to him later, is loathe to face his editor and coffee table critics after that week's Press comes out. Then, when he dares show himself, he is sometimes pleasantly shocked to hear, "I liked your column this week", not once or a few times but many...proof that your columnist is not as smart as he thinks he is and is perhaps more entertaining than he hopes to be. This response has often caused him to push upon his readers that often unwelcome result of initial success...a sequel. Because of the several positive comments on our "Great Questions of Life", we present (what else?) another set of pithy ponderous posers. - Why is it that the most meticulously packed set of Christmas tree lights always gets tangled beyond description when it is stored and never touched throughout the year by human hands? - What makes the car that has been waiting at the intersection since you were two miles away always decide to pull out in front of you just as you get almost even with the intersection? - Why is it that the vehicle that is in such a hurry to get in front of you always decides it is really in no hurry after all and slows to a snail's pace? - Why do cats never want to lie in your lap until you are wearing dark clothes or are dressed to go out? - Why do otherwise normal, intelligent, civilized hosts serve salad at a formal dinner? - How can a screw you recently installed and never touched again develop a stripped and sloped slot before you try to remove it? - Why is refilling ice trays such an arduous chore? - Why do waitresses never inform you that iced tea is presweetened? Why do we never ask? - What makes otherwise well trained and well-disciplined pets always decide to use the bathroom on your carpet in plain view when guests are present? - Why do otherwise sincere people say, "Have a nice day?" - Why is fat easier to accumulate than to lose? - Why is it that the one page of the public phone booth directory you need has always been ripped out? Why is it that when we are at one of those dastardly little outside phone niches (Lord only knows why we can't have sensible sound-proof booths anymore),a gutted muffler or monstrous semi-trailer has to pull up and leave the motor running? Why is it that the phone niche you use has recently been visited by one who likes to pour strawberry soda all over the elbow-leaning place? - Why are laundromats always full no matter when you decide to use them? - Why is it that when you're pressed for time at a toll gate the car ahead is either always driven by an indulgent parent who is allowing his three year old kid to learn how to toss coins or by a trailer-pulling Yankee otogenarian who repeatedly questions the toll booth attendant how can he bypass Miami to get to Disney World? - Why is the slowest lane in a supermarket marked "express" or "fast"? - Why has no one developed a plastic trash bag that can be stuffed by less than two people? - Why are price stickers always stuck over the products directions? - Why is it that the word "ultimate" in a products advertising means the company is getting ready to make the product obsolete next year? - Why is it that no one ever goes to a laundromat with quarters? - Why do commuters never spill coffee on old or dark clothes? Why do commuters always spill coffee on light and white clothes? _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, February 18, 1982 THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber The month of February February is probably the most useless month of the year. It doesn't even have enough days. It is notorious for chunking in an extra day every few years that really messes up the calendar-learning poems of our youth and bargain imported calendar wristwatches (not to mention the inconveniences and indignities heaped upon the poor wretches born on that weird non-day). Its colors are grey and dun. There is scarcely anybody left who knows how to pronounce it (even the smug cognoscenti among news commentors are switching to "Fete-yew-wary"). There have been proposals in the past to either outlaw the odious month or to crowd it with the holidays that are either unnecessary in nice months (April through October) or are squooshed together like fleas at other seasons. (Halloween, Election Day, Vets Day, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Years, and Old Christmas- 8 of 'em all within 10 weeks). February is traditionally the month when most folks are most upset about income tax (not when they file...just when they get upset). The weather is at its best, capricious, and at its worst, indescribably outrageous. It is to us what March is to folks up North. February's main purpose, its very raison d'etre, is to make us appreciative of the remainder of the year and to make us want to be somewhere else (and who can afford to get far enough south to escape its clutches?). Some more ribald folk claim that February isn't even a decent month for making love in spite of the fact that the holiday of love resides within it. One can survive all winter and then go to one's reward because of hypothermia during February. February is one of the two months when all self-respecting mockingbirds refuse to give out more than a striduious acknowledgement of still being in existence. But February, like fire ants, wind, radio static, unexpected company, influenza, and cat hairs, is a reality. We must endure and accept (we don't have to like it). On the plus side (and, here, we don't need much space), one sees brave and optimistic blossoms attempting to supplant recent frost. It is in February that we see the earliest hint of erupting catkins on the willows. That's when we see the leafy canopies ateem with robins as they make the weikin ring, glean our last tenacious berries, and insure a new crop of shrubs and hardwoods. February is our one month in the history books. The Battle of Ocean Pond, or Olustee, happened on the twentieth in 1864. The incident also relates us to one of America's greats, Abraham Lincoln, for it was his direct order bypassing the prescribed and customary chain-of-command that led to the bloody encounter. His other, and more consequential, relationship to Baker County was his proclamation to free the ancestors of a large portion of our population. February is also the birth season for the man everybody knows but nobody knows about George Washington. In spite of the volumes written about the first president, he remains the property of historians and is an enigma to the majority of Americans. Washington was an aristocrat...intelligent, gentlemanly, somewhat aloof, and able to assume and perform any task put upon him. Unfortunately, aristocracy's image has been obscured by the commonness of the past few decades...decades during which we have applauded mediocrity and embraced crappiness. We Baker Countians have a surprising indirect link with our first president. It was his nephew Henry Washington who surveyed in 1831 the then feral area that became Baker County, Florida. Come to think on it some more...perhaps we'll keep February. _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, February 25, 1982 THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber Rare maps from period 1886-1924 What do Newburg, Martinelli, Pendleton, Barnett, and Drake have in common? They were all communities in Baker County that no longer exist. So were Cummers, Griffin(g), McPherson, Johnsville, Eddy, Hodges, La Buena, Bessent, Steckert, Rhoden, Woodstock, Knabb, Moniac Ferry, Sapp, and Darbyville. The list of rarely known or defunct communities is much longer, but all these names showed up on various maps from the period 1886 to 1924. This column is indebted to Mr. Ward Barnes for sharing with us his research in our nation's capital. Some of the old towns and flag stops have experienced name changes .and are with us yet. Newburg, Pendleton, Drake, and Hodges are all former names of Margaretta west of Glen Saint Mary. No other county community has gone through so many names to eventually settle on its original appellation. It is the namesake of Mrs. Margaretta Gurganus who was mistress of an extensive plantation nearby in the late 1860's. The sources of the names Newburg, Pendleton, and Hodges are unknown to this column, but a Mr. Drake, late of Ogelthorpe County, Georgia, was one of the county's earliest reconstructed loyal Democrats after. the War Between the States. His farm and turpentine still was close by. Barnett, Cummers, Griffin, McPherson, La Buena, Bessent, Steckert, Manning, and. Sapp were stops. on the old Atlantic Coast Line and ranged from just west of Trail Ridge to the Union County line. This stretch, now desolate except for the Manning area, was once populated and dotted with farms, large and small. Cummers was the namesake of the gentleman whose company engaged in a large lumber milling operation in the south end of the county. Griffin, sometimes spelled Griffing, was the railway shipping point for Griffin's Interstate Nursery (predecessor of Southern States Nursery). Griffin's earlier name had been Nursery, the shipping station for the Turkey Creek Nursery. La Buena (locally pronounced Lay-Bew'-ner) Farms was once a wide agronomical spread. McPherson, Bessent, Manning, and Sapp were named for the families living near by. Barnett and Steckert remain mysteries. In the north edge of the county on the Georgia Southern and Florida tracks, there can now be found only the community of Baxter, but in the first score of years in this century there were a number of settlements and flag stops along the railway. Most of those stops were for the several lumber mills and turpentine distilleries that kept cropping up along that ridge of high land between the Okefenokee and the Pinhook system. Eddy was originally Eddy Station (so many of our towns had"Station" attached to them in fine old-days) and was named for the family of that name. This little station and its neighborhood on the Georgia Southern and Florida kept a population of over a hundred until into the 1930's. Knabb, on the Georgia Southern and Florida railroad, was the scene of that family's naval stores operation and is not to be confused with Knabb's Spur that became the present Pine Top west of Glen Saint Mary. Moniac Ferry became Baxter at the turn of the century (there was no Georgia community named Moniac until the late years of the 19th century). Rhoden the modern Cuiler between Glen Saint Mary and Taylor, was rare in that it was one of the few sites in the county that carried the name of the county's old/established families. Rhoden had a post office for a short while, but by WW-I the post office was gone, and the name had reverted to the older and original Cuiler (named for Cuiler Hilliard in the 1880's). Johnsville, one of the oldest settlements in the county (1840's), was above the present Taylor. It lent its name to Johnsville Station on the areas first railroad in 1858, and Johnsville Station became Sanderson by 1860. Johnsville eventually died out and was lost in the growth of Taylor. Darbyville, like its parent communities Barbers' Station, Williamsburg, and Jackson, was completely dead by 1888 and replaced by McClenny. The county had not only a changing face as it sprouted and lost communities, but the 1886-1924 maps also indicated that its outlines were less than stable. The eastern county line sometimes traveled. eastward to lie along Deep Creek, and at times dropped back to the crest of Trail Ridge. A portion of the southern line was aslant until the 1920's, but, by 1924 both the east and south boundaries were in their present states. Referring back to Darbyville-McClenny, it's not too early to begin considering a commemoration of McClenny's one hundredth birthday next year. In fact, a good celebration demands that its planning begin now. We don't know who'll be responsible for getting the centennial ball rolling, but we recommend the first push start immediately. _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, March 4, 1982 THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber Some ready-to-quote one liners On a recent day your ruminating columnist arrived at a conclusion that had been part and parcel of his peers knowledge for a long, longtime...that he would never amount to much. It was sobering to realize that once he had shuffled off this mortal coil, the legacy he would leave would just about equal that of his fortune. There will be no one holding up his name as exemplary. His memory will not be perpetuated in and with profound quotes. We got into high dudgeon and decided to remedy the sorry situation. We shall erect our own monuments, so to speak. Here, then, is a list of pithy ready-to- quote one-liners, uttered pearls, for our fans and readers (and surely they are legion). Read and start practicing your quotes. - I love robins except when they're in the tree I'm under. - If music be the food of love, put on another tape. - He's so rich that if he liquidated he'd flow all over the place. - Names of famous people are like disposable baby diapers...they're a great convenience when wisely used but are more often messily dropped in the wrong places. - The main difference between Yankees and damned Yankees is...heck, I can't think of one. - Life is much like a trip to Sokum...the going is often rough, there are bound to be a few bog-downs, going too fast is hazardous to your health and physical well-being, and you never know how long it'll take. And you probably won't be too happy with the destination when you get there. - I can't claim to having left footprints in the sands of time before the age of 22...Grandma was so fussy and neat she made me brushbroom them all away. - No educated fool is born out of his time. - Much of the American public is like a herd of dairy cows. They can be easily led with a bucket of sweetfeed or driven with a stick. - You know you're in a class joint when the sign says, "know gambling and know loitering". - Some people are so unsure of their talents that they not only gild the lily but they paste sequins on it. - Beware of anyone who has taken more than one selling course. - Happiness is not seeing any more stickers telling you what happiness is. - People with bad-kids and colds tend to visit more than anybody else. - Show me a man who'll kick a dog and I'll show you a man who'd kick his grandmother. - You've reached middle age on the highway of life when your mind wants to get in the fast lane but your body heads toward "slower traffic keep right." - Into each life some rain must fall. Hello, my name is Noah. - I wouldn't say her face would stop a clock, but she'd make a calendar wristwatch jump a day. - If beauty is only skin deep, why didn't you wear your hide today? - If you can't help being ugly, you could at least stay home. - Colds and unexpected company never pick convenient times to settle in on you. - Money can't buy happiness. Neither is lard greasy. - Sometimes life is like holding a frozen turkey in the courtesy lane behind a lady looking for her check-cashing card. - If I went to a singles club wearing a tee shirt that said "available" somebody would ask, "for what?" - Some people have a personality like a day-old fried egg. - Being in debt is like having gas..ain't nothing going to work right until you've gotten relief. - Stay away from people whose presence gives you the same sensation as wearing burlap underwear. - A guilty conscience fills a man's mattress ticking with corn cobs. - Some minds are like dempsey-dumpsters...some hold nothing but trash and some provide the garbage that others collect. - It's a strange paradox of American thinking...the busiest workhorse is believed to need and want the least feed. - Gluttony is its own punishment. - A greedy man is like a sponge...He'll take and receive until he's saturated, but he still has to be wrung out before he's any good. - Life is sometimes like running out of quarters at the laundromat and your clothes are still damp. - "Have a nice day" translated means, "Move on so I can collect the money from the next guy." - Avoid people who coin their own quotes and who say "Have a nice day." That's it for this week, but do not be disheartened; there are many more pearls where those came from. As advised earlier get started quoting. Have a nice day. _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, March 11, 1982 THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber On the approaching spring-winter Mark Twain observed that everyone talked about the weather but nobody did anything about it. Some alarmist scientists are now claiming that everybody is doing something to the climate but too few are yelling loudly enough about it. The column would prefer that the climatologists would call a moratorium on announcing the disastrous directions the world's climate is taking until they can get together and thrash out their contradictory warnings. In other words climate people, make up your minds...are we gradually getting warmer due to the greenhouse effect of manmade pollution or is that same pollution causing us to gradually chill down by blanketing out the sun's warming rays? Climate people, you have been quite frequently and regularly announcing both warnings, you know. We would also rather like our friends and acquaintances to cease with the "I can't remember a worse winter." We ask those who have just recently blessed our ears with that same statement regarding the winter season we are just finishing up, where were you last winter? And did you sleep through the winter of '75-'76 when the freezing line dipped to Homestead and took snow to the Bahamas? Our area has a history of vagarious climate. If the world is getting colder, we don't wish to hang around, since we recall that in the early forties one could crack the frozen ground here with a hammer (If one is prone to hammer the frozen ground). We remember how the ditches and ponds and little Turkey Creek froze over for days in the mid fifties. And how about the strange ice storm of, if we remember correctly, 1963? It entered the west end of the county at mid-morning under an overcast and misting sky. By mid-afternoon ice covered everything in the county and remained through the following day. The dirt beneath the ice was not only unfrozen but was comparatively warm. The newspapers and weather reports on TV carried several stories of explanations but none were very lucid and satisfactory. Recall the big blizzard of '80? By noon Baker County was iced over and snowed under. For our recent transplanted friends from the North who tend to giggle at our amazement over snow, a few flakes constitute a snowstorm for those unfamiliar with the stuff (and, of course, you acted much more intelligently and calmly when you saw your first orange tree). Back in 1797 to 1801, depending on which account one reads, Andrew Ellicott recorded 8 inches of snow in the Saint Mary's River region when he was trying to determine the headwaters of that river for the official boundary between Spanish Florida and the State of Georgia. But we prefer to harken back to the winter of '74-'75 when we sunbathed on Little Talbot Island in comfort. We reminisce with fondness when orange, tangerine, and especially satsuma trees lived and produced in backyards throughout the county. Those trifoliata rootstock plants survived some bitter winters, but, like everything everybody else, they just ain't made like they used to be. This columnist cannot associate anything good with cold weather, and he reacts with emotions and actions that range from quiet joy to wild-eyed fantods when he comes across the first woods violet or fulminant spray of yellow jasmine. But they, the pear, the wild plum, and even the grand old pecan can often be duped by a warm respite into believing spring is here and are often nipped by an impish Jack Frost making a surprise late visit. Of a better vernal portent is the budding of the wild grape, or bullis. But Sunday evening we heard the first whip-poor-will. Only two calls, but those two calls rang out clearly..."There might be chill, there might even be a light frost, but you can safely plant now because the freezes are gone for this winter." _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 1982 THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber On approaching spring - Temperature, rain and St. Pat Some of our adopted Baker County citizens, late of boreal or alpestrine climes, seem to feel an incumbency to severely criticize our "lack of seasons." They go on to wax almost delirious about the change of seasons where they came from as if they had been instrumental in instituting that rather regular climatic scenario(much in the same vein as when they imply we Crackers are somehow responsible for the absolutely bleak landscape and uninteresting temperature changes they ascribe to our native, and their adopted, area). This column claims an incumbency also, l.e., to remonstrate against such innocent albeit shallow attitudes. First, friend citizens-by-adoption, we must remember it takes more than purchasing a pickup truck and a pitbull to make oneself a full fledged Baker Countian; it also takes a spirit of acceptance (of the climate as well as other equally immutable circumstances). Then, we ask, "Where else but in northeast Florida can one enjoy all four seasons within one week (If, indeed, one can enjoy shocks)...or all within one day?" In vernal seasons past, we waked to cool spring, took dinner(remember you're in Cracker country on this one) during blistering summer, left work in the crispness of fall (we don't have autumns here except as very nice and pretty young ladies' names), and turned in as the coldest spell of the season settled in. If you don't think that'll keep you on your wardrobe-toes your claim to sensitivity is all but dead. The last weekend of March back in the early sixties brought us a freeze that was particularly damaging to the flora which by reason of the lateness of the season had burgeoned out.. We recall several sweatered election days when we were voting in our early May primaries. Florida's weather and her planters have never come to a completely amicable arrangement. There are yet old fashioned farmers who insist on putting seeds into Florida dirt on the fourteenth of February. Although that remains an auspicious date for old-time agriculturists, they usually wind up replanting after a severe frost...and sometimes replanting after that replanting due to another severe frost. To counteract the erratic beginnings of Florida's growing season, horticultural advances have been made in speed of seed germination and seedling growing as well as in more efficacious fertilizers. But this area's weather is still the undisputed and consistent victor in its competition with man. Today we compromise by getting seed potatoes into the ground on Saint Valentine's Day (the use of that date for planting goes back much further than ol'Val), and we will also chance some radishes and fast growing greens at the same time. The vernal freshets of March and April elicit two, and only two, attitudes from farmers-(1) joyous relief from the Florida winter's aridity, or (2) "Where the devil has my expensive-in-cash-and-time fertilizer been washed to?" Whatever the thoughts on the advent of the spring rains, one trait of them remains constant and consistent they arrive too early and quit too soon for growing garden crops. One year in the early sixties, as we recall, the rains came during the first of May at the perfect time for the growing season. They came, in fact, for four uninterrupted days and nights, washing away fertilizer, seeds, and almost mature crops for many county farmers. The rains of April '73, when the Saint Mary's and the Satilla co-mingled their floodwaters, pretty well precluded planting for many a north Florida and south Georgia farmer. Still, the scent of freshly turned dirt has a heady effect on those who till the earth, and when the air warms they will once again accept the gambling challenge by sewing seed. Spring is also the time for the delightful day that belongs to St. Patrick, that day when everyone discovers a bit of Irish in himself. It wasn't always so. In the north, where pedantry regarding tolerance has long been a noted habit, there were signs forbidding entrance to certain businesses and institutions to "low life and Idolatrous" Irish. Hiring crews for any but the most menial jobs often displayed the less-than tolerant "Irish need not apply." The Irish fared somewhat better in the South even If some other ethnic groups did not, and cities like Savannah and Spanish Saint Augustine were possessed of large Irish populations. Many flocked to the southern mountains and to the western frontier of the South. Some like the Dormans, Rhodens, Hogans, Thrifts, Murrays, Garretts, and a couple branches of the Thompsons settled in Baker County and environs after long, arduous adventuring in the lower southeast. They were later joined by the McClennys, McClellens, Barnes, and many others with a Gaelic background. They were not Irish in the sense that we tend to think of them, our images of them formed and colored by movies and TV, but our "Ahrsh" were from the north of "Ahrlunt". Most leaned toward Methodism, and were hard drinking, and entertained themselves with very hard fighting. Most could not, until a couple of generations ago, tell you who St. Pat was, but a thread came down through a score of generations from the Mother Church...if you looked closely, you could see a small representative number of them with just a bit of green on them on the good saint's day. _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 1982 THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber On approaching spring - colors and scents A representative number of our readers were quick to inform this column, in somewhat patronizing tones, that their lament of "...no change of seasons..." was in reference to this area's lack of color chinges rather than the equinoctial temperature flip's. We wonder how anybody can pass through the Ticky River, and Cracker Swamp springtide parade of colors and make such a statement. We fear these folks are afflicted with the rather tiresome disease of' xenophilia (sometimes called the "Can-Any-Good-Come-Out-Of-Nazareth Syndrome") This malady clouds the mind and eye to any beauty and positive attributes to be found where a person currently stands by keeping his attention dwelling on the memories of other areas. Many of the critics of our section's color changes attempt to compare northeast Florida's softly fulminating pastels of spring to the spectacular outbursts of fall color displays in cooler climes. Geographical areas, like cultures, can be compared, but they cannot be judged each according, to the other's standards. Of a certain, miles of hues from the warm side of the color wheel are breath taking, but to say they are better or more desirable to the eye is like saying the alternate thunder and sweetness of Tchaikovsky is preferable to the subtle variations of Beethoven's melodies. Would an intelligent man put the grandeur and passion of "Gone With The Wind" above the deeply probing "Moby Dick?". To claim that the gold and crimson drama of the mountains is sweeter on the beholder that our spring's diaphanous, clouds of wild plum blossoms-that, sudden flowery rime along fence rows in early spring is the same inspiration as preferring a Norman Rockwell illustration to the nuances of color and intricate compositions of ..say...a Gene Barber. Dear readers, back, up for a few weeks, nay, several weeks. In late January we enjoyed the first of the buttery yellow explosions of Jasmine, followed soon with white plum blossoms. In the woods, delicate yet temerarious, violets began to beckon us to trace their wandering paths as soon as we felt winter's first slackening. In the muted greens of our swamps, March gave us he ignescent bouquets of pink honeysuckle (wild azalea). Towering above were the most spectacular of all-scarlet maples. It was they who gave us our first hint of spring with their shimmering heralds of crimson winged seeds. All curse oak pollen, but few can deny that grand old tree's claim to being our most unusual color show - soft yellow-green blushed with pale orange and pink. Nestled about their feet and timidly reaching out into man's abandoned clearings are the light greens of willows, their yellow catkins bursting out overnight. And the scents. Hundreds of sweet quiet odors emanating from a succession of flowers native and adopted. First comes the Jasmine and honey suckle. Then comes the heady aroma of wisteria as it appears like an invading lavender-robed army. The banana shrubs, strawberry shrubs, and bays are almost intoxicating as the nights warm. Finally, there is the climax of the huge creamy white magnolia, the scent of which on a late spring nigh can arouse the most jaded senses and calm the most choleric spirit. The smell of verdure, freshly hoed dirt, and even the odor of spread dried stable compost work springtime magic, and your ol' columnist is reminded of a poet's words on the subject :"Where but weeks ago melting frost fell from lonely branches as icy tears, impatient buds now sue to tell of waking as a brisk breeze nears. I watched the fantastic miracle of green from the cold grey begin to lean. And...still...I watched." _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS Thursday, APRIL 1, 1982 THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber On approaching spring-cleaning, purging and bleeding (the wrap-up) In days past, spring house cleaning was more than an idle expression. Housepersons (these used to be "housewives" before the ERA ladies got to be so sensitive.) could hardly wait to turn the house inside out and attack it and all its contents with scalding water and lye soap. Floors were scrubbed with cornshuck scrub brushes weighted down with smoothing irons. Home made soap was often assisted by sparkling white river sand, and the result was pine or cypress flooring that was white and fuzzy to the touch. A special treat was to deliciously plant one's bare feet onto the floor once it had dried after the scrubbing treatment. The walls were similarly handled, but with a regular broom and sans sand, and not even the ceiling was spared the vengeful scouring. All windows were propped open for drying and airing away winter's mustiness. Few pleasures of the senses matched that evening's rest in a fresh smelling house and on crisp sun and air dried sheets, all enhanced with the odors from yard and woods flowers and gentle lowing of distant cattle. Window and fire screens were removed in the spring for thorough washing and repainting with a particularly spattering black paint. The fireplace was emptied and brushed until it was as free of smut and ashes as were the floors. Iron cookware went to the yard to be scoured with sand and worn brickbats. When all traces of black had long disappeared, the pots too knew the merciless power of lye soap. Then came the long process of re-greasing on or in the stove, and they were ready for another year. Grandma Chesser used to lie awake nights just to invent new (and ridiculous to us kids) ways of getting things clean and to think of new candidates for cleaning. Chicken roosts were scraped and scalded; feed boxes emptied, scrubbed, and aired; fence palings re-whitewashed, and even the chicken house, chicken yard, and under the dwelling house raked. Grandma (we called her "ol' Dutch Cleanser") believed the sun cured everything afflicted, or even remotely connected, with nastiness. Bedclothes knew the efficacy of hellotherapy almost everyday, but Grandma went sunning wild in spring. Grandma also believed in cleaning out the system every spring...purgative time. None of your "gentle action at your convenience" type of working - no, sir-but the thorough, strength sapping, oops sort of spring working. Castor oil in root beer or orange juice (your columnist has learned in recent years how to imbibe either without throwing up) and a score of patent medicines in the forms of foul-tasting gook or innocuous looking little pills Were used by the ton on cracker children in spring. Funny we don't recall seeing those who dished out the doses taking any themselves. In an earlier time, a different system-cleaning was popular - bleeding. In every community lived one who was proficient in wielding a strangely shaped wicked appearing instrument called a phlegm (locally pronounced "fleem) a large blade was for horses and cows, medium-sized blade for adult humans, and a smaller one was reserved for children and the very weak. Winters thickened blood had collected all sorts of impurities during the winter and since it could not flow easily through the body even at springs livelier juices insistence-spring fever some of it had to go. Folks traveled for many miles from all areas to bleeders, some of whom practiced in baker county until decades within memory now bleeding as once practiced by even sophisticated medical people since history's predawn is dormant until someone in the future announces that new findings support bleedings efficiency future faddists will take up the springtime habit, but for now that rite of spring is gone. Not gone is the recurring an resurrecting power of spring most folks welcome it. Your columnist adores it. It brings out the pagan in him. _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, April 8, 1982 THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber Some thoughts on Easter Folks welcome Easter for sundry reasons. The holiday is primarily religious; its origins going further back than our Christian use of it. For many it is a polychromatic period of breaking out after a long grey winter, a celebration of the resurrection of body. spirit and earth. Most northern hemisphere ancients observed the spring rite in some fashion, and it is from those varied sources that we pay particular attention to the egg (new life), bonnets (spring garlands about the head), rabbits (fertility), fillies (purged spirit and renewed life from dormancy), and sunrise services (greeting the first day of spring and observing release from winter). In olden times, and speaking just for McClenny (sorry to be so parochial but your columnist, as a youth, was unfamiliar with the other county communities at this season), the annual Easter parade was often no more than parking the family car on the main drag and walking to and from church. Those living in town (and "town" was much, much smaller then) usually walked to services anyway. After church, a special treat was to have dinner at the sumptuous tables at either the Morris House or the Hotel Annie (both still enjoying fading vestiges of national reputation). At the former, sprightly Mr. Morris, a most amiable and accommodating gentleman, never allowed the tea glasses of the scores of diners to drop below the one sip level. He insisted that everybody have a hot biscuit sometimes exchanging one's biscuit so often and with such celerity the one had to indeed be quick to get a bite of one either hot or cold. How that lovely old fellow managed to greet us all at the First Baptist Church door at the end of service and still be at the Morris House in time to greet us at the front door for dinner, we'll never know; the secret died with him. At the Hotel Annie, operated by the Powers family, the diners were hailed with a sincere and cheery "Hey, Honey", by the one and only, the unforgettable, personable Minnie Ruth Milton. If Easter had been anything but happy for the clientele, Ruth could remedy that. It was more pleasing to look at Minnie Ruth then at a basketful of dyed eggs. When your columnist was in the first grade (somewhere this side of the Spanish-American War), his teacher, the beautiful Miss Willa Mae Walker introduced him to what he thought was the grandest treat imaginable-punch with fruit cocktail in it served in tiny decorated cups. We searched for eggs that year among the towering pines overlooking Brickyard Branch where Powell Bluff was later developed. In the halcyon days of our youth, eggs were dyed with food coloring or crepe paper soaked in boiling water and the tint set with salt or vinegar (the color still rubbed off). The more affluent used a commercial dye bought from the grocery store or dime store, and Paas was the only one we knew Egg dye was not stocked by every type of business beginning the day after Valentine's Day. We tried our hands at creativity in dying by dipping parts of the eggs for a banded effect. A spin of the egg in a shallow saucer of dye with a spoonful of oil on top produced some mighty smart looking marbled beauties. Every year we tried it-mixing all the dyes together to see what would happen and every year we got the same result-ugly, ridiculous, nasty greyish brown but we'd still do it every year. Transfers were either blue or pink or a combination of the two. They were messy, usually unattractive, and never permanent. We were mystified and ecstatic with the introduction of the magic crayon in the little packets of dye until some of the wiser kids discovered it was no more than a common wax crayon. They continued to disillusion those of us who were less bright by demonstrating that not only wouid our regular ol' crayolas do the same thing, they'd do it in color. Our Easter baskets were often genuine egg baskets (the kind you gathered eggs in from the hen house) or mothers's sewing baskets. A few kids sported the real Japanese made item from pre-world war 2. The bought jobbies came complete with a wad of billious green shredded cellophane, and the im;provised baskets nestled their eggs in Spanish moss. We made do, and we enjoyed it. Easter was not the near Christmas affair into which has evolved... Happy Easter, or may your Passover be blessed with memorie of the Almighty's mercy, or, if you're pagan may your spring rites be joyous. _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, April 15, 1982 THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber Centennial interest grows There seems to be some growing interest in a commemoration of McClenny's centenary next year. The interest is not dramatic, but it does appear to be happening. It has taken on strange forms including envy that Glen Saint Mary is a year older. We have nothing to do with the founding dates, and none of us can take credit, or be blamed, for anything that happened before the day we were born. We might as well be happy that both communities were established and get on with the business of celebrating the second of those blessed events. "Well, I don't agree with your dates", challenged an acquaintance of this column. "I think McClenny is older." To which we can readily and honestly answer that we don't always agree with our dates either and that he is correct in assuming that McClenny, as a community, is older than Glen. Let us take dates and their sources first. It is difficult, if not impossible, to unequivocally establish a date for anything that happened before our own existence and beyond our knowledge. We can only take the word of others who were contemporary with the events in question. For instance, a Mr. Webb published a Florida guidebook in 1885, written mostly in 1883, in which he mentions Glen Saint Mary as being in existence since 1882, and that date was based on his research into the establishment of postal services there by Miss Martha Tilton. Mr. George Taber, Sr., in biographical material sent to a who's who type publication, mentions that he first came to the area in 1881 to begin his nursery business (there is a discrepancy here as his son informs us that the date was in reality 1882). According to the census of 1880 there was a congestion of families there at that time. Putting all the data together, we can do naught but come up with the date of 1881 for Glen's beginning. In the same book by Mr. Webb, he referred in 1883 to the village a short distance to the east as Darbyville. In the biographies of a couple of gentlemen-Coloney and Talbot-late from the north, the platting out of a town in 1883 named McClenny is mentioned. Your columnist has a few books in which the address of Darbyville is penned in on the fly leaves with the dates running as late as 1886 and perhaps 1888 (illegible). A couple of other books contain McClenny addresses as early as 1883. We were privileged many years ago (before our interest in such matters was aroused) to view a map of McClenny dated 1883, and we would almost trade our eye teeth for that map today. But is Glen older than McClenny? Our research says probably not. As a community, McClenny has been continuous since the summer of 1829 when it was settled by a wagon and cart train of Georgians. They claimed that there were signs of habitation there when they arrived, and archaeological work has provided evidence of circa First Seminole Indian War camping. Many pre history points and tools evince an extremely ancient habitation, perhaps six to eight thousand years back. With the once plentiful springs and well drained lands nearby there is little reason to believe that the McClenny site has not been continuously inhabited since the earliest proto-Indian emergence onto the Florida scene. Perhaps the only break in a community condition at the McClenny site was between the First Seminole War and the 1829 arrival of white settlers and in the early 1700's when Col. Moore of South Carolina destroyed the aboriginal Utina residents. The community has had a succession of names - Barber's Station, Williamsburg, Jackson, and Darbyville, but using available historical information, we believe we must settle on the name of McClenny and its founding date of 1883. _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, April 22, 1982 THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber Birthdates of other Baker County communities Since last week's column on the ages of Glen Saint Mary and McClenny elicited some interest among one or two of our readers, we thought it might be prudent to continue with the birthdates of other county communities. (why quit when you're on a winning streak). Taking them in no particular order, we begin with Sanderson, Baker County's first county seat of government (referred to as" county site" in the 19th century). Sanderson will be 125 years old in 1983 if we accept the year of its birth as given by a writer in 1883. Sanderson started as an entity about 3 1/2 miles north of its present location and was on the old plank Jacksonville-Tallahassee Road. Its name was Cedar Creek, and a congestion of residents was known to be there prior to 1840, a result of settlers keeping close to a fortified site near the present Cedar Creek Cemetery. Anticipating the coming of the railroad (it became a reality in 1859), a lumber mill was erected in 1858 by, it is believed, John F. Pons (Ponce) at the present Sanderson near a little marshy area known as Long Pond. The few new residents knew their village as Long Pond School house, but the rail company listed it as Johnsville Station. Although the station was several miles from Jacksonville (the present Taylor), the little stop was, nonetheless, that community's official railway facility. Renamed in 1860 for Colonel John P. Sanderson, a most vocal evangelizer for the railroad and an area resident for a short while, Sanderson was also the new county site, first for New River and then for Baker. In the former, there was much legitimate dissension from the southerly and much more numerous residents of the present Bradford and Union Counties. Cedar Creek continued as a lively spot until the disastrous malaria epidemic of 1888, and it still possessed a few residents until into the first years of the 20th century. Most of its leading citizens such as the Pons, Oglesbys, Chalkers, and Herndons, had already moved into Sanderson by the early. 1870's, and the other old-line families Harveys, Davises, Johnsons, Yelvingtons-either went to Glen or Sanderson. In other words, Cedar Creek just moved away, and most of it went into creating Sanderson. Olustee was also a traveling community, but its origins are lost in antiquity. Olustee is a Hitchiti (a Creek Amerindian group originally from either upper west Georgia or middle to northeast Georgia depending on what history one reads) word meaning, roughly, dark water or muddy creek. Some historians think the word as applied to our town goes back to the 18th century, but this writer (and what does he know) hasn't seen it used beyond 1832 when the Providence Baptist Church minutes mentioned it (the late and lovely, Mrs. Cecil Powell was in possession of the original minutes dating from 1832 to the late 19th century, and this writer was privileged to peruse them long before they were borrowed and printed much to the delight of Florida historians and genealogists). Signs of prehistoric habitation have been uncovered along the length of Olustee Creek and around the entire circumference of Ocean Pond (old Lake Randolph or Spaulding, depending on which map one uses). There was a sizeable community on the northeast shore in the 1840's by the name of Ocean Pond. It was probably descended from a very early territorial or Spanish period trading post or Second Seminole War fort (there is no known official fort listed for the site, but military reports then were as unreliable as they are now). In any event, the Methodists established a charge there in 1844 on a circuit out of Newnansville (a dead community in the Gainesville area that was once among Florida's foremost)towns). _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, April 29, 1982 THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber Community name-origins Taylor owes its beginning to a Georgia Confederate veteran, Gordon Stewart Taylor. He arrived in the county in 1870 and established his plantation and a Methodist church on the Middle Prong of the Saint Mary's River. By that time the tiny settlement of Johnsville, which dated from the mid 1830's when several pioneers by that name set up housekeeping there, had all but died out. It was located just a few miles north of the present Taylor and can be considered a parent community of Taylor. Baxter is young in name but very old in length of habitation. The Indians and Spaniards knew it in the early 19th century as Pine Log Crossing Place. Several years later it was the home of Arch Hogans, and it became Hogan's Ferry. One map from the mid 1830's designated it as Hogan's Bridge. In 1838 this ancient site became Fort Moniac, and through the remainder of the century that name alternated with Raulerson's Ferry. The latter appellation was due to Ferry Bill Raulerson setting up business there. When the county's northernmost railroad came through, a sawmill and turpentine distillery was established on the Georgia side of the river and was called Moniac Station. The name Moniac was thus lost forever to Florida, and the original Moniac in Florida slept quietly until George S. Baxter of Olustee brought a giant lumbering operation there around the turn of the century. Cuiler began life as Daugherty's (also called locally "Daughtry's" and "Darty's") in the 1840's when several families by that name settled at a pioneer crossroads between Fort Moniac and Cedar Creek. The Daughertys moved away to the south, leaving a small cemetery and a namesake branch. The many Rhodens who filled the void in that section after the War Between the States gave rise to another short lived name Rhoden. Rhoden boasted a post office, but it did not last long. Even the memory of the town of Rhoden was soon lost when Cuiler Hilliard of Waycross turned the area into an extensive sawmill near the end of the last century. When his company left the town, renamed Cuiler, died. Today it has taken on new life and even has a lively church. This column was once informed that the name of Cuiler came from the late Mr. Kyle Harvey. We won't argue the point, but we will point out that the community's name appeared on maps prior to Mr. Kyle Harvey's birth, and that the little settlement gained its name soon after the Cuiler Hilliard mill was set up (incidentally, the town of Hilliard in Nassau County and our Cuiler were established contemporaneously). Margaretta and its environs have known several names. Mt. Zion, Turner, Newburg, Drake's Station, and Pendleton. Mt. Zion was a viable Baptist Church at that location when Charles Turner of New York and Mississippi bought the Barnett Farm near there in 1866. Mr. Turner, a staunch Methodist, provided that the church should be cut out of his land and receive its own deed to its site and cemetery. Although he attended Mr. Mann's Church (Manntown Mt. Olive Methodist near the present Glen St. Mary), he took a fatherly interest in Mt. Zion and its Cracker Baptists. When he moved away the little church faltered and then died. Close by was Newburg. Its name is an enigma, and it did not last far into the seventh decade of the 19th century. Drake's Station was the namesake of Walter Drake, one of the county's major political forces after the Civil War. The Oglethorpe County, Georgia, planter was owner of an extensive estate and huge turpentine distillery. His plantation joined that of Ben Gurganus, late of North Carolina, and they shared the same interests in holding the county for the regular Democrats (read "reconstructed") as opposed to the Bourbons (unreconstructed local Democrats) and Radical Republicans (Mr. Drake was more prone to cooperate with the conservative Republican faction that was Mr. Gurganus). Like most other mill men and distillers, Drake and Gurganus brought their own workers out of Georgia and North Carolina, respectively. By cooperating with the Freedmen Bureau (an agency created to assist newly freed blacks to adjust and to find employment), the gentlemen were also able to acquire very cheap labor from other areas. It should be remembered that Baker County, never a slave county prior to emancipation, had almost no blacks of its own after the war. Most of the whites died in the yellow fever epidemic of 1888, and Miss Carrie Gurganus was the last of the Drake-Gurganus family to leave Margaretta sometime prior to World War I. The majority of the blacks remained and kept the name of the Gurganus plantation - Margaretta (after Mr. Gurganus' wife Margaret) for their community. _____________________________________________________________________________ THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, May 6, 1982 THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber Wrapup of Communities, Ages Possom Trot, now being repopulated, was a thriving section until the 1920's and was one of the county's oldest residential areas. Research shows it to have been continuously inhabited since the 1830's with its peak during the War Between the States period. When the appellative Possom Trot was first applied, we do not know. Blackbottom, renamed the more euphonious Deerfield by some of its newer residents (it will remain the historically precedented Blackbottom among old-timers for many a year yet) was listed on a map of the 1850's as Wilkerson and was once referred to as "Sog's" around the turn of the century (probably in reference to the Mr. Joseph "Sog" Griffis who once lived in that area). Trail Ridge as a community has moved up and down the length of those prehistoric sand dunes which traverse the eastern part of the county. It has shared its name with a separate community much farther down the ridge and has known several other names. Trail Ridge's residential site sat on the edge of the Saint Mary's River during the years of the American Revolution; it was called Anderson's. In Spanish times, It was home to several families whose names are still familiar to us today (Barber, Green, Hicks, Hogans, Norton) and was becoming known as Trail Ridge. After 1841, when its chief defender William Barber was killed in an Indian attack, most of the residents drifted to other nearby communities (Brandy Branch; Big Creek, now known as Deep Creek and Thigpen's). Some went to the Georgia Bend and others traveled south to settle along the Alachua Trail. With the advent of the railroad, the ridge became the site of a large turpentine distillery named Johnson's. Johnson's was invaded and destroyed by Federal troops in 1864. In 1866 or soon after, the ridge and railroad crossing was called Darby's Old Still. After Colonel Darby moved his operations several miles west (now McClenny), the site's name reverted to Trail Ridge and has remained so since. Should Baker County need anniversaries to celebrate, there is an adequate number of opportunities coming up: Olustee, 150 years old in 1988; Taylor, 125 years old in 1995; Baxter, 100 years old in 2000; Cuiler, 100 years old in 1985; Margaretta, 125 years old in 1991; Trail Ridge, 225 years old in 2,001; Possom Trot, 125 years old in 1985; The Battle of Ocean Pond (or Olustee), 125 years old in 1989; Sanderson, 125 years old in 1983; and McClenny, 100 years old in 1983. This column urges a session very soon composed of the powers-that-be and all other interested persons to get the McClenny Centennial Celebration into the planning stage. There will be no better or more convenient time than now. If you wait until, say, school's out, it'll be Fourth of July time. If you wait until after the Fourth, everybody's on vacation. If you wait until everybody's back from vacation, it'll be football season. If you wait until football season is over, it's the holidays. If you wait to begin after the holidays, it's 1983. If you wait until 1983, hang it up...it'll be too late for anything but an embarrassing fiasco. It doesn't get done by sitting around saying, "we ought to do something." All it takes is a few folks getting on the phone and dropping cards into the mail saying, "let's get together at the (pick one)community center, Ag Center, City Hall, Chamber office, Sands Parking lot, etc. on such-and such a night." Take the word of one who has been there; it ain't done in a few weeks time.