Newspaper article about James Mitchell "Acrefoot" Johnson, DeSoto Co., FL File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Janine Sunman Rickner, srickner@peganet.com 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. *********************************************************************** Desoto County Times - Desoto Today Thursday, August 13, 1987 - Page 1C =========================== Submitted by: Janine Sunman Rickner ( a Great Great neice ) srickner@peganet.com ============================================================================= (HEADLINE) Yesterday's mailman took giant steps through DeSoto's history By Luke Wilson ============================ Legend says that Acrefoot Johnson could chop more wood in a day than five men could in a week, and that he could grub palmettos faster than a man could stack them. James Mitchell "Acrefoot" Johnson was as big in life as he was in legend, a strapping giant at nearly seven feet tall and 250 pounds. Stories of his feats are overshadowed by this man's occupation as a mail carrier. It is fact that he delivered the mail twice a week between Ft Ogden and Ft Meade, a round-trip distance of 154 miles on foot. Elias E. and Elizabeth Keen Johnson moved to Ft Ogden around 1866 with their teenage son, James Mitchell. Johnson had been born in Georgia in 1818 and married his wife in Columbia County in 1846. James Mitchell was born in 1850. During the Civil War, Elias served as second sergeant in the Confederate Army Reserves. Their son employed his size 14 feet and enormous stride as postman during the 1870s. His impressive stature soon earned him the nickname Acrefoot, and time weaved into lore the stories that live on even today. Tales grew, boasting that Acrefoot could outdistance horsedrawn buggies and that he had outran locomotives. It is also said that he chose not to become a rider for the pony express because he felt the horse would only slow him down. Perhaps the most popular of these claims was that he resigned his job as mailman because tha postal service refused to let him carry passengers along his treacherous route through the swampy Florida wilderness. To prove his point, it is said that he strapped a wooden chair between his broad shoulders and effortlessly carried a man for several miles. The truth stretched to match his enormous stride. One account puts Acrefoot in Ft Meade after his long route. He then walked an additional 12 miles to his sister's home in Bowling Green. There he slept for five hours before heading home. Upon his arrival at Ft Ogden, he was informed that a dance was to take place that evening. Possessing a love to dance and but a worn pair of boots, they say he walked 50 miles south to Ft Myers to purchase a new pair. According to legend, he swam the Caloosahatchee River with his new footwear in a bucket, danced all night, and headed back to Ft Meade with the mail on the following day. Told as the truth, at least one of these stories stands out to personify the man they called Acrefoot. One evening he returned from his exhausting route to find that his son had fallen seriously ill. It was then that the towering mailman tied the wooden chair between his shoulders and walked to find a doctor in Ft Myers. He swam the Caloosahatchee River twice with his son on his back reaching medical assistance in time enough to save him. The tall mailman with his piercing gaze, bushy moustache, and wide black hat was "all man." A photograph to support this fact has survived the ages, showing a calm, seated Acrefoot with a large alligator resting across his lap. Johnson and his 75 cent a day job finally parted ways when local and region postal facilities were taken over by the government. He went on to be a wood cutter, providing the timber fuel for locomotives of the day. He also ran a blacksmith shop at Nocatee and hunted snakes and alligators. His son Guy would one day earn local fame as "Rattlesnake" Johnson, reknowned snake hunter throughout this area. The mail moved on without the help of Acrefoot Johnson. Arcadia's first post office was established November 19, 1883. The turn of the century brought more changes, and more progress, as a horsedrawn cart now carried the mail to Desoto County's outskirts. Within two years, Arcadia boasted two miles of sidewalk, and the cornerstone for a new courthouse had been laid. Dr. J. A. Simmons established Simmons Sanatarium along that time, which went on to become Arcadia General Hospital and eventually Desoto Memorial Hospital. Many of now abandonded schools were also constructed during these years. When the building of a brick school at Nocatee began, to replace the older wooden structure standing near where the Methodist Church is today, an aging Acrefoot Johnson was found among the laborers. As the construction continued, he suffered a terrible fall from the auditorium scaffolding, according to Ernest "Doc" Cowart. "I was just a young boy then," recalls the octogenarian Cowart, "but as best as I can remember, he never completely recovered from the injury." Cowart was visiting at the Johnson home in Nocatee on the day that Acrefoot died in 1922, and would one day be well-known for his pharmaceutical and minor surgery abilities at the Nocatee Drugstore. The old Kabrich Cemetery at the south end of Hillsborough Avenue was chosen as the final resting place for the famous walking mailman. Large, majestic oaks stand guard over the slumbering giant and a handful of others there. Today, the mail trucks drive by within but a few yards of where James Mitchell Johnson's size 14 feet are facing the rising sun, as man and legend lie resting from his many miles of walking. Once, prominent cattle baron Judge Ziba King and friends attempted to persuade the big man to enter the New York Marathon. But being the dedicated mailman that he was, Acrefoot simply told them, "Boys, I ain't got time for that foolishness. The mail comes first." ============================================================================= This article also comes with a sketch of Acrefoot Johnson and a photo of his gravestone in Kabrich Cemetery =============================================================================