PART OF THE GULF COAST OF FLORIDA.

PAST AND PRESENT,

TOGETHER WITH NOTES FROM



ON THE

Manatee River, Gulf Coast
OF
SOUTH FLORIDA:

ITS CLIMATE, SOIL, AND PRODUCTIONS.

ILLUSTRATED.

JACKSONVILLE, FLA.:

1883.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883,
By SAMUEL C. UPHAM,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

To

THREE LIVING LINKS IN THE CHAIN THAT BINDS ME TO LIFE, THIS
BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY
THEIR FATHER,

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

TWO or three letters written by myself to friends at the North having found their way into print, I have been literally flooded with letters during the past six months, from all sections of the Union and British Provinces, asking for information in relation to the Manatee region of Florida. Hundreds have been replied to, and many remain unanswered for want of time. This little book has been written with the belief that it will answer the requirements of my numerous correspondents, and also prove a welcome guest to others who desire reliable information concerning this portion of the Gulf coast of South Florida. With these brief remarks I cast my little waif upon the tide of public opinion, with the hope that favorable breezes will waft it into the hands of those who will be benefited by its perusal.

Sunnyside Cottage,
Braidentown, Florida, April 1, 1881.

PREFACE

To the Enlarged Edition.

WHEN I published the little brochure—“Notes from Sunland”—two years ago, the Gulf Coast of South Florida was, comparatively speaking, a terra incognita. The favor with which that work has been received—having passed through three editions—and at the request of numerous correspondents in the United States, Canada, and Continental Europe, I have concluded to enlarge the work and make it more general in its scope—the former work being confined exclusively to the Manatee region. In reply to the question from different sections of the Union: “Are you as well pleased with the Manatee region as when you wrote ‘Notes from Sunland'?” I reply, emphatically, “Yes!” The longer I live here the more thoroughly I am convinced that it is the Sanitarium of the world. In addition to twenty-five pages of letter-press, I have added an additional illustration and a map of the Gulf coast of South Florida. I have placed the publication of the book in the hands of those well-known and reliable publishers, the Ashmead Brothers, of Jacksonville, Fla., who will supply the book to the trade and also furnish it to the public. With many thanks for the patronage bestowed upon my former book, I trust the present will be found equally acceptable.

Samuel C. Upham.

Braidentown, Fla., August, 1883.

CHAPTER I.

THIRTY years ago the word Florida was synonymous with mosquitoes, alligators, snakes, and Indians. As a part of this Union, it was at that time considered financially a worthless sand-spit, which had cost our Government fifty million dollars and many lives in the almost fruitless effort to rescue it from the hands of the wily Creeks and Seminoles, who occupied the middle and southern portions of the State. From the date of Dade’s massacre by Osceola’s band near Brooksville, in December, 1835, which sent a thrill of horror throughout the length and breadth of our land, to the surrender of Billy Bowlegs in 1858, a period of nearly twenty-five years, war was waged by our Government under the leadership of Generals Worth, Scott, Harney, Taylor, and their subordinates, with the result above stated.

In order to fully understand and appreciate the present condition of Florida, some little knowledge of her history is indispensable; for without such knowledge, the sparseness of the present population of the State is inexplicable, when taken in connection with its genial climate, its natural fertility, and the immense scope of its possible agricultural production. “If Florida possesses so great a variety and power of vegetable growth, and such a desirable climate, why is it not more densely populated?” is a question answered only by a glance at her past history.

The honor due to the first discovery of the land which now constitutes the southern extremity of the United States is generally awarded to that famous and eccentric old Spanish adventurer, Juan Ponce de Leon. Nevertheless, the validity of his claim to that honor is liable to some dispute. Several authorities of very good credit maintain that Sebastian Cabot, in the year 1497, traced the whole line of the American coast as far southward as 36° 9´ north latitude; and Peter Martyr avers that he sailed to the west of the meridian of Cuba. From this account it does not appear that Cabot proceeded further southward than the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, the latitude of which corresponds nearly with that of the Straits of Gibraltar, and the longitude with that of the eastern extremity of Cuba. It can scarcely be doubted that Ponce de Leon was the first European who landed on any part of that ground which is now occupied by the Southern States of our Republic. The purpose for which he visited this country has exposed his memory to no little ridicule; but his childish delusion is entitled to more indulgence and respect than the sordid and hypocritical motives which induced so many of his countrymen to become explorers and crusaders in America. Juan Ponce, for the purpose of discovering the location of the “Fountain of Youth,” set sail from Porto Rico, on the 3d day of March, 1512. After a short voyage he came to a country covered with flowers and verdure, and as the day of his discovery happened to be Palm Sunday, called by the Spaniards Pasqua Florida, he bestowed the name of Florida on the country in commemoration of this circumstance. Thus the first European discovery of Florida took place on the second day of April, 1512.

The next visit to Florida by Europeans was made in the year 1520, by Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, who kidnapped one hundred and thirty Indians and sailed for San Domingo, where he sold them as slaves. In the year 1524, Giovanni da Verazzano, a Florentine sea-captain in the service of the French Government, coasted from Florida as high as Cape Breton.

On the 17th day of June, 1527, Pamphilo de Narvaez left Spain with five ships and six hundred men, being authorized by the Spanish Government to explore and take possession of “all the lands between Rio de las Palmas and Cape Florida.” The fleet was much damaged by a hurricane, and was obliged to remain at Cuba for more than six months to be refitted. In February, 1528, Pamphilo again embarked; and after a short and prosperous voyage, landed his army at the bay of Santa Cruz, Florida. Having formally taken possession of the country, and proved that he was in earnest by pillaging some of the villages, Pamphilo began to interrogate the natives respecting the precise locality of that immense deposit of gold which he expected to find in Florida. In their answers to these inquiries, the Indians, wishing to hasten the departure of their unwelcome guests, directed the gold-hunters to a distant region called Apalacha, assuring them that the shining metal could there be obtained in the greatest abundance. After a wearisome march, the Spaniards reached the designated place on the 26th day of June. The ungrateful behavior of the Spaniards soon provoked the hostility of the natives, and before they had an opportunity to make any mineralogical researches Pamphilo was compelled to retreat. While endeavoring to make his escape to the seashore, he was closely pursued by the natives, who killed two hundred of his men—about one-third of the whole number.

The whole country being aroused, Pamphilo found it impossible to return to his ships, which were probably destroyed by the Indians. The Spaniards, therefore, took the shortest route to the coast, and came to the bay now known as St. Marks. The Apalachian Indians being satisfied with driving the intruders from their territory, abandoned the pursuit when that object was gained. They arrived at St. Marks in a starving condition, their only food being horse-flesh. All their ingenuity was now employed to effect some means of escape from the country. They erected a forge on the beach, and, with great toil and difficulty, converted their swords, lance-heads, stirrups, and bridle-bits into nails, saws, and hatchets. Having thus provided themselves with the proper instruments, they felled trees, shaped the timber, and finally constructed several very inelegant specimens of marine architecture. In the meanwhile all their horses were consumed for food; and when they embarked in their rude batteaux, their thin, ghastly, Tanner-like appearance might have reminded a spectator of that shadowy boat-load of “magnanimous heroes” so graphically described by Virgil in the Sixth Book of his celebrated Epic. All the boats were subsequently wrecked near the mouth of the Mississippi, and all on board perished, except Cabeca de Vaca, the treasurer of the expedition, and four common soldiers. The survivors, after enduring many toils and sufferings, finally reached Spain in August, 1537.

In the latter part of May, 1539, Hernando de Soto landed his troops on the eastern shore of Hillsborough Bay, above the mouth of the Little Manatee River, and commenced his toilsome overland march, which ended in his death and burial in the Mississippi River, on the 5th day of June, 1542, three years and one month afterward. In 1562 it is probable that a temporary settlement was formed near the mouth of the St. Johns River by Ribault, a Frenchman.

In 1564, under the protection of Admiral Coligny, a settlement of Huguenots was formed under the leadership of Lardonierre, on the south bank of the St. Johns, about six leagues from its mouth. This settlement was called Caroline, and was completely destroyed by the Spaniards under Menendez in 1565, who massacred all that escaped death in the fight, “not as Frenchmen, but as heretics.” This murderous act was fully avenged by a Frenchman—De Gourges—who, in 1659, led an expedition especially against Fort Caroline, and massacred the Spanish garrison, “not as Spaniards, but as cut-throats and murderers.” In 1565 the same Menendez founded a Spanish colony at St. Augustine, thus establishing the first European town on the continent of America.

In 1584, as the result of various expeditions, the area of Spanish occupation and conquest had become so extended that the authority of Spain was acknowledged by the natives, not only throughout Florida, but as far west as the Mississippi and as far north as the mountains of Georgia.

In 1586, St. Augustine was attacked and plundered by a party of English adventurers under Sir Francis Drake. In 1611, it was pillaged by the Indians, and in 1665 was sacked by another party of English pirates, led by the freebooter, Davis.

In 1689, Pensacola was settled by the Spanish.

In 1702, St. Augustine was unsuccessfully attacked by Governor Moore, of the English colony of South Carolina. In 1725, Colonel Palmer, of Georgia, also failed in an effort to capture the city, and in 1740, General Oglethorpe, of Georgia, was signally repulsed in a similar undertaking.

In 1763, the whole territory of Florida was ceded by Spain to Great Britain in exchange for Cuba; but the entire population of the territory at that time did not exceed six hundred.

In 1767, Dr. Trumbull, an English colonist, located at New Smyrna, “imported fifteen hundred Corsicans and Minorcans, having deluded them by unstinted promises of land and employment at high wages, and then subjected them to a system of oppression, similar and scarce less severe than slavery, till after a lapse of some ten years they escaped in a body from his servitude and betook themselves to St. Augustine, where they settled down, and ultimately became a prominent and valuable element of the population of that section.”

In 1781, the Spanish captured Pensacola, and the English again lost possession of Florida. In 1784, the territory was once more formally ceded to Spain. In 1812, Fernandina capitulated to the troops of the United States, but was, during the following year, re-delivered to the Spanish Government.

In 1814, the English forces, under the command of Colonel Nichols, entered and manned the forts of Pensacola, although the whole territory was nominally under the control of Spain; and in 1818, General Jackson attacked and captured Pensacola in behalf of the United States.

In 1819, Florida was purchased by the United States, and was formally ceded by Spain. In 1822, a territorial government was established; in 1845, Florida was admitted into the Union, and in January, 1861, she seceded.

In the language of the talented and lamented J. S. Adams: “What a picture does this brief abstract of the leading features in the history of Florida present! Discovered by Ponce de Leon in 1512; permanently settled in 1565; ceded to Great Britain in 1763, with a population of only six hundred, after a colonial existence of two hundred years; re-ceded to Spain in 1784; sold and ceded to the United States in 1819; receiving a territorial government in 1822; admitted to the Union in 1845; seceding in 1861; and reconstructed in 1868; sacked and pillaged repeatedly by Europeans; shifting its nationality from time to time, and losing almost its entire population by each change; harassed and plundered by repeated Indian wars from 1816 to 1858, and just as prosperity began to dawn, plunged unnecessarily into the useless slaughter of a hopeless rebellion, she has suffered every evil, political and social, that does not involve absolute extinction. Is it, then, a matter of surprise that Florida is so sparsely populated?”

CHAPTER II.

FLORIDA lies between the degrees of twenty-five and thirty-one north latitude, and eighty to eighty-eight west longitude from Greenwich. The northern boundary being nearly three hundred and fifty miles from east to west, and its length from north to south, nearly four hundred miles. It is in the same latitude as Central Arabia, Northern Hindostan, the Desert of Sahara, the northern portion of Burmah, the southern part of China and Northern Mexico. The average width of the peninsula is about eighty miles, and every part is fanned by either the Trade or Gulf winds, rendering the air delightfully pleasant in midsummer. The most marked geographical feature of the State is the enormous extent of coastline—the Atlantic and Gulf exceeding eleven hundred miles, with numerous large bays, offering great facilities for commercial intercourse. The northern part of the State is hilly and rolling. Midway of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, an elevated ridge extends through Middle and South Florida to Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades, gradually sloping to the Atlantic Ocean on the east and to the waters of the Gulf of Mexico on the west. The elevated lands are mostly pine, interspersed with black-jack, post, and water-oak. At the base and along the water courses, are rich hammock lands bordered with flat and rolling prairie, with the everlasting scrub palmetto everywhere. The southern portion of the State is at this time a vast cattle range, embracing thousands of acres on which a surveyor’s chain has never fallen.

In 1860, the population of Florida was 140,000; in 1880, it was 267,000, and at this time, it is probably in round numbers 300,000. When the vast area of the State, sixty thousand square miles, comprising nearly thirty-eight million acres of land, is taken into consideration, it will be seen that we are not badly crowded. The sale by Governor Bloxham of four million acres of “swamp land” to the Disston and Anglo-German syndicates is a mere bagatelle.

The county in which I reside—Manatee—is nearly as large as the combined States of Connecticut and Rhode Island. It is truly a county of “magnificent distances,” the county seat, Pine Level, being forty miles south of the villages of Braidentown and Manatee, on its northern border. “No pent-up Utica contracts our powers.” We do things on a large scale. We raise the most luscious oranges, the largest watermelons, and the most appetizing pineapples and bananas on the face of the earth; and I do not think I elongate the truth when I say, that in point of size our alligators, mosquitoes, and grasshoppers will compare favorably with those of any other country. Our frogs are also as sprightly as Mark Twain’s “jumping frog of the Calaveras.” Our cucumbers, tomatoes, snap-beans, squashes, and cabbages reach the cities of the North and West three months in advance of any other State of the Union.

If there is one thing above all others of which we feel justly proud, it is our superb climate. The “glorious climate of California,” and the sunny clime and golden skies of Italy bear no comparison with it. It is indescribable, and must be seen and felt in order to be fully appreciated. A Baptist clergyman—Hard-shell—who visited Braidentown last winter, was so fascinated and infatuated with the climate and surroundings that he said he verily believed that he was then nearer Paradise than he ever expected to be again while in the flesh.

A timid person occasionally asks, “Are there Indians still in Florida?” A remnant of the once warlike Creeks and Seminoles—scarcely two hundred souls, including males, squaws, and papooses—still have an abiding place on the Caloosahatchee, the Kissimmee, and in the Big Cypress Swamp, south of Lake Okeechobee. They are peaceably disposed, and only mingle with the whites when they visit the country stores to dispose of their peltry and game and replenish their ammunition. Chipco and the elder Tigertail, two of their former chiefs, have been called to the “happy hunting-grounds” during the past two years. The former was a centenarian, having attained the green old age of one hundred and ten years. He participated in the Dade massacre, near Brooksville, in 1835. The latter died by the visitation of God, having been killed by lightning while crossing the Kissimmee in his canoe. The Indians have several negro slaves in their secluded camps, who have never been informed that the Emancipation Proclamation of the martyred Lincoln loosened their shackles and made them free men.

The questions are frequently asked: “What crops can you raise in Florida? What can be grown on your soil?” The agricultural, horticultural, and pomological products of Florida are more varied than those of any other State of the Union. The northern, northeastern, and northwestern parts of the State, as well as Middle Florida, are admirably adapted to the cultivation of oats, barley, corn, Irish potatoes, cotton, and tobacco. At the Atlanta Exposition, two years ago, Florida was awarded the first premium for sea island cotton, rice, and sugar. The peach, plum, Le Conte pear, several varieties of the apple and grape, and all the small fruits are indigenous to the soil and climate of those portions of the State. South Florida, composed of the counties of Hernando, Sumter, Orange, Volusia, Brevard, Polk, Hillsborough, Manatee, Monroe, and Dade, is the land of the orange and all semi-tropical fruits. The guava, pineapple, banana, cocoanut, date, sugar-apple, sapodilla, mango, alligator-pear, and other tropical fruits thrive admirably in the lower counties, south of the twenty-eighth degree of latitude. South Florida is also the natural home of the sugar-cane. There it ratoons from six to eight years and tassels. The cultivation of early vegetables for the northern and western markets is also a large and remunerative industry, which has been recently inaugurated on the hammocks bordering the Manatee Bay, on the Indian River, and on the numerous keys or islands along the Gulf coast, between Sarasota and Cape Sable. The cassava has also proved to be a remunerative crop in South Florida when properly cultivated. The introduction of jute and Sisal hemp, in the near future, will also add materially to the wealth of the southern counties of the State. The flat prairie and swamp lands, now considered almost worthless for agricultural purposes, will then blossom as the rose.

Dwelling in an almost perpetual summer, one would naturally suppose that the climate would prove enervating to the human system. Such is not the fact. In midsummer the weather is of a very pleasant temperature, the nights being uniformly cool, and sultry days, so common in the North, of very rare occurrence. So agreeable are the summers, there is little choice between them and the winters, and many of the oldest settlers prefer the former. Florida, in common with other States of the Union, is sometimes afflicted with drouths, and there is sometimes a superabundance of rain; but, as a general rule, the seasons are regular and well adapted to all the valuable staples of the country. Frequent showers occur during the spring and early summer, and about the first of July the rainy season fairly sets in and continues until the first of October. Although rain falls on nearly every day during this season, it seldom ever rains all day. These rains fall in heavy showers, generally accompanied by thunder and lightning, but are seldom of more than two hours’ duration. They generally occur early in the afternoon, leaving for the balance of the day a cloudless sky and a delightfully cool atmosphere. Paradoxical as it may seem, our winters are warmer and our summers cooler than those of the Northern and Western States. The mercury in the thermometer rarely reaches 96° Fahrenheit in midsummer, and at Braidentown, Manatee County, only on two occasions during the past four years has it fallen as low as 38°.

The general healthfulness of Florida is proverbial. That its climate is more salubrious than that of any other State of the Union is clearly established by the medical statistics of the army, as well as by the last census returns. The report of the Surgeon General of the United States Army, demonstrates the fact that diseases which result from malaria are of a much milder type in Florida than in any other part of the United States. Among the troops serving in Florida, the number of deaths to the number of cases of remittent fever has been much less than in any other portion of the Union. In the Middle Division of the United States, the proportion is one death to thirty-six cases of remittent fever; in the Northern Division, one to fifty-two; in the Southern Division, one to fifty-four; in Texas, one in seventy-eight; in California, one in one hundred and twenty-two; in New Mexico, one in one hundred and forty-eight; while in Florida, it is but one in two hundred and eighty-seven. As a health resort for invalids suffering from pulmonary complaints, Florida stands pre-eminent. Her invigorating, balsamic breezes, with healing on their wings, soon banish the hectic flush from the cheek of the invalid, and health and strength return once more to cheer and gladden the hearts of despairing friends.

A description of Florida lands published by Dr. Byrne in 1860 applies with equal truthfulness at the present time. In every State and Territory in the Union there is a large proportion of barren and poor lands, but the ratio of these lands differ greatly in the different States. Florida has a due proportion of poor lands, but compared with other States, the ratio of her barren and worthless lands is very small. With the exception of the Everglades and her irreclaimable swamp lands, there is scarcely an acre in the whole State of Florida that is entirely worthless, or which cannot be made, under her tropical climate, tributary to some agricultural production. Lands which in a more northern climate would be utterly worthless, will in Florida, owing to her tropical character, yield valuable productions. For example, the poorest pine lands of Florida will produce without fertilizing a luxuriant crop of Sisal hemp, which yields more profit to the acre than the richest land when cultivated in sugar, cotton, and tobacco. So it is with jute and numerous other valuable tropical products that are adapted to the lands that in more northern climates would yield nothing to agriculture. Besides this, there are in Florida no mountain wastes, and most of the land not under cultivation is covered with valuable timber.

The classification of lands in common use being based on their elevation and the character of their vegetable growth, does not indicate very fully the character of the soil. There are the hammock, pine, and swamp lands. Then there is the high or light hammock, and the low or heavy hammock. Of pine lands, there are the first, second, and third rate. The characteristic of hammock land as distinguished from pine is in the fact of its being covered with a growth of underbrush and vines, while the pine lands are open. Whenever, then, the land is not so low as to be called swamp, and produces an undergrowth of shrubbery, it is called hammock.

The school lands of Florida—five hundred and seventy thousand acres—are subject to entry at from one dollar and twenty-five cents to seven dollars per acre, according to quality and location. The swamp lands—eight and a half million acres—belonging to the State on the 1st of May, 1882, are graded in price according to the number of acres, varying from one dollar per acre for a tract of forty acres down to seventy-five to seventy cents per acre for tracts of six hundred and forty acres and over. The Disston Syndicate paid twenty-five cents per acre for four million acres of swamp land, in bodies of ten thousand acres each. The commutation price of United States lands is one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. Unimproved lands in the hands of private parties are selling at from five to fifteen dollars per acre; improved land at from twenty to fifty dollars per acre, the value depending on location, latitude, improvements, etc. There are also large tracts of land in Florida known as “Spanish grants,” which are chiefly owned by non-residents, and which can be purchased at reasonable prices.

SCENE IN A SOUTH FLORIDA HAMMOCK—Page 28.

Governor Bloxham recently stated that the present financial condition of Florida is a fit subject for congratulation. There is at all times money in the Treasury to pay accrued liabilities, while the amount of the bonded debt is only one and a quarter millions, and the assessed value of the property of the State is thirty-seven millions. The condition of our public schools is decidedly progressive. There are at this time over twelve hundred schools in the State, and last year a fund of $139,000 was raised to support them.

Places of worship may be found in all our settlements; not gorgeous edifices, with steeples and spires pointing heavenward, but unpretentious and comfortable structures, in which all denominations of Christians assemble to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences. The Methodists are the most numerous. Next in point of numbers, the Baptists of different grades of shell, from hard to soft, may be enumerated. Then come the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Campbellites, and Catholics, with a slight sprinkling of other denominations by way of variety. The religious status of the population of Florida, like the climate, is rather above the average of other sections of the Union. There is an indescribable element in the climate of Florida which is conducive of religious fervor. Several immigrants from the North and West, whose piety never cropped out until their arrival in Florida, have been suddenly seized with a call to preach. In some parts of South Florida, local preachers are nearly as numerous as laymen, and it is often highly amusing to hear them expound the Scriptures, and see them wrestle with theology.

The Fountain of Youth, sought for in vain by Ponce de Leon three hundred and seventy years ago, is in Florida. Time has not dried up the source of its health-giving, its life-giving, waters. They flow as of yore, and every one who thirsteth can partake of them freely. Invalids and pleasure-seekers find it in our glorious climate, in our invigorating breezes, which blow as soft and balmy as those from Ceylon’s isle; in our beautiful flowers and almost perpetual verdure, and in the total absence of the chilling winds and frosts of the North and West, which render life almost unendurable. De Soto and his followers sought our shores in quest of El Dorado. That also is in Florida. You see it in our productive soil, in our vast orange groves, in our bananas, pineapples, guavas, and pomegranates, which no other State of the Union can produce. Who then shall say that both the “Fountain of Youth” and “El Dorado” are not within the boundaries of Florida? Our climate is a perpetual summer; the husbandman tickles the soil with the plow and hoe, and it laughs with an abundant harvest; the stately magnolias and graceful palms lock hands in our hammocks and wave their evergreen foliage as a token of welcome to immigrants, and wild flowers gladden the eye and perfume the air with their fragrance.

CHAPTER III.

THE Manatee River, or, more properly speaking, bay, is one of the most picturesque sheets of water in Florida. It is fourteen miles in length, with an average width of one and a half miles. One of its tributaries—the Manatee River proper—extends still further eastward, some twenty miles; and another northward, half that distance. Its course is nearly due west to Egmont Key, where it mingles its waters with those of Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. It lies between the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth parallels of north latitude, and in longitude 5½° west from Washington. A person passing up the bay on the mail steamer for the first time, will be charmed with the tropical and semi-tropical scenery that meets his view on either side of the bay, from its mouth to Braidentown, the present terminus of steamboat navigation. Egmont Key, with its forest of cabbage palmettos nodding their evergreen plumes in the morning sun; the stately date-palms and olive trees on Snead’s Island, on the north side of the bay, and the pretty villas surrounded by young orange and banana groves on the south side, between Palmasola city and Manatee, form a landscape of rare tropical beauty, unexceled in the land of flowers, and unrivaled by the fairest scenes in Italia’s famed land.

Until quite recently, this part of Florida, the great sanitarium of the world, has, comparatively speaking, been a sealed book to the invalids and pleasure-seekers of the North and West, who spend their winters in Jacksonville, St. Augustine and the towns on the St. Johns, Halifax and Indian Rivers, and console themselves with the idea that they have seen all parts of Florida worth visiting. The principal drawback which the Gulf coast has had to contend with, and which partially exists at this time, is lack of speedy transportation and comfortable hotel accommodations. These are being remedied, and, when the Manatee region shall have become as thickly populated as the St. Johns, our facilities for transportation, etc., will equal those of the Atlantic coast.

The railroad now being built by Eastern capitalists, between Palatka on the St. Johns and Tampa at the head of the bay of that name on the Gulf coast, will be completed within two years. Then the iron horse, with bowels of fire, muscles of steel and breath of steam, with a shriek and a snort, will rush over the metallic track and annihilate time and space so rapidly, that the Atlantic and Gulf coasts will be within a few hours of each other. A narrow-gauge railroad from Tampa to the Manatee, and thence to Sarasota Bay, will soon follow, giving us direct and rapid communication with the principal cities of the North and West. The round-about route over King David’s Transit Railroad to Cedar Key, and thence by steamboat to the Manatee, will then be abandoned, and henceforth remembered only as a necessity of by-gone days. The recent completion of the Louisville, Nashville and Great Southern Railroad, with a terminus at Pensacola, will soon give us direct and speedy communication with the cities of Louisville, Nashville, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Chicago and St. Louis, and open up the best and most available markets for the fruits and vegetables of the Gulf coast. General Alexander, Vice-President of this company, recently expressed his willingness to assist in the establishment of a line of steamers between Pensacola and Manatee, touching at other points along the coast.

Our climate is far superior to that of any other part of Florida; and, I do not think I hazard much in saying, to that of any part of the habitable globe. Having, during a somewhat eventful life of sixty-two years, visited Europe, Asia, Africa, South and Central America, Mexico and California, I say, and “I say it boldly,” that in my varied travels, nowhere have I found so healthful and desirable a climate as “Sunland,” on the Manatee Bay. We are exempt from ice and the chilling blasts that sweep along the St. Johns and Halifax, and also from tornadoes and hurricanes, so destructive on the Atlantic coast.

Insects are neither numerous nor troublesome. I have been worse annoyed by mosquitoes in the City of Philadelphia than in this part of Florida. The ubiquitous flea is, I admit, rather prevalent here, but one soon becomes reconciled to his habits, and honors his drafts whenever he presents his bill. Snakes are not as numerous here as in Pennsylvania. There are, however, rattlesnakes and moccasins in Florida. The former I have never seen, and the latter but seldom. Those that came under my observation, appeared to be worse frightened than I was, and made a hasty exit. Alligators are not numerous in this section, and are comparatively harmless. Like a once noted statesman, they desire to be let alone. If closely cornered, they will fight; but they prefer to run, if a chance is offered for escape.

Braidentown, the embryo town of the Manatee, is situated on the south side of the bay, about eight miles above its entrance into Tampa Bay. Located on a bluff some fifteen feet above tidewater, it commands a fine view of the surrounding country and of the entire bay. Being constantly fanned by the breezes from the gulf “with healing on their wings,” it is in point of healthfulness all that the most fastidious pleasure-seeker or invalid could wish for. From Jack’s Creek, its eastern boundary, to its western terminus, Ware’s Creek, it contains a frontage on the bay of three-fourths of a mile, dotted with picturesque villas, surrounded by tropical fruits and flowers. Although yet in a chrysalis state, being scarcely two years old, it contains two boarding-houses, two stores, a meat-shop, post-office and a warehouse, with a wharf connecting it with the shore—the only one on the bay east of Palmasola city. Passengers for Manatee and other places on the bay are conveyed on shore in sail or row-boats. Major W. I. Turner, the projector of Braidentown, a Virginian by birth, has been a resident of Florida for forty-five years. Although on the shady side of life, he is still hale and hearty. May he live to see his bantling, now in her leading-strings, the county-seat of Manatee County. Stranger events have happened. This is an age of progress; the world moves, and Florida, after her Rip Van Winkle sleep of three hundred years, is moving with it.

Sportsmen visiting this place can be accommodated with sail-boats for fishing, or mule and ox teams for a hunting trip to the Miakka, the sportsman’s paradise. Captain Charles Miller and Billy Stowell, alias “Buffalo Bill,” both “old salts” and reliable men, can be engaged with their respective crafts, the Sancho Panza and Onkeehi, at reasonable rates. Ox and mule teams can be had of John N. Harris and Dr. S. J. Tyler.

The reader will pardon a slight digression, and allow me to state, that if any person who knows how to run a hotel, will start one in Braidentown, he will most assuredly put money in his purse, and at the same time satisfy a great public want. A hotel containing one hundred rooms, properly conducted, would be filled with guests six months of the year. We have fish, oysters, clams and game in abundance, on which boarders could fare sumptuously every day. Shall we have a hotel?

One and a half miles east of Braidentown, on the low, sandy beach of the bay, is the irregularly constructed village of Manatee. A stranger visiting Manatee will invariably ask himself why a town was ever built here? The following will solve the problem. Adjacent to the village, in a southerly direction, are rich hammock lands, which, in consequence of their malarial surroundings, could not be domiciled by their owners. The pine land on the bay shore offering a more healthful location for building, the early settlers availed themselves of it and erected their log and palmetto cabins first, and afterward more pretentious and architectural structures. The Indian war breaking out soon after the first settlers had located at Manatee, their cabins formed the nucleus of a settlement as a protection against the savages. Thus Manatee became a village, and for many years was the only settlement on the Manatee Bay. The hospitality of her citizens is proverbial. The stranger within their gates who asks for bread is never requested to masticate a stone. Unfortunately, the citizens of Manatee are not as progressive as hospitable. A plank wharf or foot-way, connecting the steamboat warehouse with the shore, is badly needed, and should be constructed at once. There is a great deal of vitality lying dormant in the old town, which, if thoroughly aroused and properly applied, would place an entirely different aspect on the face of affairs. The village contains a Methodist church, five stores, three boarding-houses, a drug store, an academy, a meat-shop and a post-office. Dr. George Casper, an enterprising Manateean, wishing to extend his usefulness, and being impressed with the belief that it would be a good thing to mix literature with physic, has issued the prospectus of a weekly newspaper, to be called the Manatee County News. It will be the pioneer paper of the county, and its editor will have plenty of elbow-room—Manatee County being as large as the States of Connecticut and Rhode Island.

One mile east of Manatee, on a point of land formed by the junction of Braiden Creek with the bay, stands a historic structure, known as Braiden Castle. It is composed of a concrete of lime and oyster-shells, two stories high, surmounted by a cupola or observatory, constructed of wood, from which a charming view of the surrounding country can be had. South-east, Braiden Creek, winding like a silver thread among innumerable evergreen islands, presents a view worthy of a poet’s dream. Westward, as far as the eye can scan, can be traced the blue waters of the bay glinting in the sun or dancing in the moonbeams on their way to the gulf. Northward, across the bay, the eye meets hammock, pine land and prairie stretching far away toward Tampa Bay. This old relic, scarred by Indian bullets, stands a sad memento of better days. Who shall write its history?

At Fair Oaks, about one and a half miles south of the castle, on a portion of the old Braiden plantation, is the largest and most thrifty young orange grove on the gulf coast of South Florida. It comprises nearly four thousand trees; belongs to the Hon. Charles H. Foster, ex-State Treasurer, and is a living, growing, bearing monument to Yankee pluck, enterprise and industry. Mr. Foster is now erecting at Fair Oaks the handsomest private residence in South Florida. The most direct route to Fair Oaks is by the way of Manatee, and the scenery en route is unsurpassed in the land of the myrtle and ivy. Leaving Rocky Ford, you pass Glen Falls, whose pellucid waters sparkle and dance over rock and through chasm, on their course to the Manatee. Graceful palms, with their evergreen foliage; stately live oaks, draped with pendant moss, swaying to and fro in the breeze; girdled oaks, gayly festooned from base to apex with ivy, yellow jessamine and Virginia creeper, gladden the eye on either side of the road, and orange-blossoms perfume the air with their delightful fragrance, rendering the scene enchanting as fairy land.

In the village of Manatee and adjacent hammock may be seen the orange groves of Mrs. Gates, Revs. Edmund Lee, A. A. Robinson and E. Glazier, Messrs. Pelote, Curry, Harllee, Mitchell, Vanderipe, Lloyd, Clark, Warner, McNeill, Casper, Gates, Wyatt, Adams, Broberg, Reed and Wilson. Mrs. Gates, Parson Lee and Major Adams also have banana groves in bearing. The latter gentleman is engaged in erecting a large concrete mansion, with carriage-house and servants’ quarters of the same material. Situated in an eligible position on the bank of the bay, surrounded by tropical fruits, flowers and vines, whose evergreen foliage constantly waving in the breeze, renders the location highly picturesque.

Some four or five miles south of Manatee, en route to Sarasota Bay, are thrifty young orange groves, belonging to the Messrs. Helm, father and sons, Dryman, Marshall, Younglove, Dunham, Saunders, Azlin, Howell, Thompson, Williams and Whitted; and on Black-Jack Ridge, near Braidentown, may be seen the thrifty grove of Judge E. M. Graham. The groves of the Messrs. Helm are pronounced by every one who have seen them to be the most promising of their age in the State. They are only four years old, but will put to the blush many groves twice their age. They are monuments of clean and persistent culture.

On the west side of Ware’s Creek, skirting the bay, is Willemsenburg, consisting of three houses and the frame of a mammoth hotel. This grim skeleton, gray with age, has a history. Erected originally by Dr. Hunter, at one time a noted physician of New York, and Charles W. Skinner, a Boston capitalist, on Sanibel, or “Sanitarium” Island, near Punta Rassa, it was soon blown or washed down. A portion of the wreck, with additional lumber from Cedar Key, was soon afterward erected at Sarasota Bay, where another partner, Dr. Dunham, of St. Louis, joined in the enterprise. A misunderstanding between the trio resulted in the withdrawal of the two medical men before the structure was completed. Mr. Skinner subsequently razed the building to the ground, rafted it through Palmasola Bay into the Manatee, and erected it on its present site, where it has stood in an unfinished condition during the past five years. The decease of Mr. Skinner soon after its erection, caused its progress to stop as suddenly as did “my grandfather’s clock” at the death of its owner.

Westward, separated by an imaginary line, is Fogartyville, a community composed principally of boat-builders and seafaring men, with their families. It contains a store, boat-builder’s shed, half a dozen dwelling-houses, a floating dry-dock with two sections in working order, and two additional sections nearly completed. The Messrs. Fogarty and Captain Bhart are the owners of the dry-dock.

In this cozy little settlement, close down by the waters of the bay, lives Madam Julia Atzeroth, and in the garden attached to her house was cultivated with her own hands the first coffee grown in the United States. Madam Atzeroth, or Madam “Joe,” as she is called by her friends, is a character, and deserves an extended notice.

CHAPTER IV.

MADAM JULIA ATZEROTH, whose maiden name was Hunt, was born in the City of Bradford, near the River Rhine, in Bavaria, on the 25th day of December, 1807. Of a family of four children—two males and two females—she is the only survivor. The death of her mother occurring when she was eleven years of age, she was adopted by an uncle on the maternal side, with whom she resided until she attained her majority. At the age of twenty-four years she married Joseph Atzeroth, also a native of Bavaria. The young couple soon after the birth of their first child, a daughter, left the Fatherland and immigrated to America. They arrived in New York in the month of August, 1841, where they remained only a few months. In consequence of the failing health of Madam Atzeroth, they visited Philadelphia and Easton, Pa.; but deriving no benefit from change of location at the North, her physician advised her to go South. They accordingly went to New Orleans, where they remained about one year. Madam Atzeroth’s health not improving, her attending physician, a German, proposed a trip to Florida. Laying in a supply of provisions and medicines, and accompanied by the physician, they engaged passage on board the schooner Essex, a tender for the United States troops stationed at Fort Brooke, Tampa, where they arrived in the spring of 1843.

Soon after landing at Tampa, Mr. Atzeroth commenced prospecting for a desirable place to locate. After looking about for two or three weeks, he concluded to homestead one hundred and sixty acres of land on Terraceia Island, and on the 12th day of April, 1843, accompanied by his wife, little daughter, the German physician and his dog Bonaparte, landed on the east side of the island about midway of Terraceia Bay. The hammock was so dense that the men were compelled to use their axes to clear a space on which to pitch their tent. The underbrush and vines were so thick, and the progress made by the men so slow, that Madam Joe seized an axe and assisted them. This was her first attempt at chopping and grubbing in Florida. Since that time she has become an expert at the business. When the tent was erected and dinner prepared, it was eaten with a keen relish. From that time forward Madam Joe felt new life and strength. Her torpid liver began to perform its normal functions, and she forthwith discharged the physician and destroyed his medicines. The doctor went to Key West, where he died soon afterward.

Having become weary of tent-life, Madam Joe proposed to her husband the erection of a palmetto hut. Mr. Joe, as the madam always called her husband, drove the stakes for the frame and gathered the palmetto fans or branches. The madam mounted the roof and thatched it; but her work was performed so badly that the first shower of rain deluged the interior, and its inmates sought refuge under the table. The hut was subsequently re-thatched, and three of its corners made fast to trees, which prevented the wind from blowing it down. Soon after the completion of the hut, their provisions ran short, and Mr. Joe started in a canoe for Tampa to replenish them. On his return, adverse winds blew his frail craft around Shaw’s Point into Palmasola Bay, and becoming bewildered, he landed at Sarasota instead of Terraceia. After being buffeted about by the wind and waves for more than a week, he finally reached home. During his absence, Madam Joe and her child had no companion save the dog Bonaparte. The panthers, wild hogs and owls made the nights hideous with their screams, growls and hootings. One night a raid was made by an owl on the chickens roosting on the trees overhanging the hut. Madam Joe seized an old musket of the Methodist persuasion, which usually went off at half-cock, with the intention of frightening away the “wild varmints,” but it was unloaded. Never having loaded a musket, she was in a quandary whether to put in first the powder or the shot. Luckily, she put in the powder before the shot, and stepping to the door of the hut, discharged the musket into the tops of the trees. She put in too much powder, and like another gun we read about, it

The owl escaped that time in consequence of being at the wrong end of the musket. It was subsequently killed by Mr. Joe, and peace reigned once more among the chickens. Madam Joe subsequently became an expert with both the shot-gun and rifle, and if reports are reliable, her unerring aim has caused more than one red-skin to make a hasty exit to the “happy hunting-grounds.” She can also ride a horse astride or otherwise—seldom otherwise—like a Camanche.

Becoming disgusted with their frail palmetto hut, Madam and Mr. Joe felled the trees and commenced the erection of a log-pen house, consisting of two rooms, with a wide passage running between them. As there were no saw-mills in the country, boards could not be had at any price. The roof of the house was covered with split cedar planks, and the interstices between the logs filled with moss and clay. A chimney was improvised of sticks plastered with mud. Subsequently, glazed sash for the windows were imported from New Orleans. Meanwhile the axe had not been idle. The stately live oaks and graceful palms around the house had been felled and burned, the land grubbed, and a good-sized vegetable garden was in successful cultivation. Fort Brooke, some thirty miles distant, offering a good market for their surplus produce, they hired a man with a boat to transport and sell their vegetables. Although bountiful crops rewarded their labor, they were not entirely happy. Madam Joe was anxious that her only sister, residing in New York, should emigrate with her family to Florida. But how was the matter to be accomplished without money? Where there is a will, there is always a way to accomplish things which at first sight seem to be impossibilities. The matter was laid before Col. W. G. Belknap, the commander of Fort Brooke, who cheerfully advanced the required funds, and Mr. Joe left immediately in a schooner for New York, via Key West. The voyage was long and tedious, but it was accomplished, and in due course of time, Mr. Joe returned safely with his brother-in-law, wife and child.

Another trouble now presented itself. The Armed Occupation Act having expired previous to locating their land on Terraceia, they were compelled to go to the United States Land Office, at Newnansville, one hundred and sixty miles distant, to file the requisite papers. The country being wild and sparsely settled, Mr. Joe and Mr. Nichols, his brother-in-law, were compelled to pack their provisions on their backs, which rendered their journey wearisome and slow. On the third day they reached a cabin, where they remained over night. While at breakfast on the following morning, most of their provisions were stolen by some thieving negroes. The theft not being discovered until they stopped at mid-day to lunch, they were in a sad plight. They pushed on as fast as possible, and late in the evening came to a cabin inhabited by very poor people. A scanty supper was set before them, which they ate and retired for the night. The breakfast-table on the following morning was bountifully supplied with hog, hominy and corn-dodgers. Mr. Nichols having never before seen a corn-dodger, took a large mouthful of one, and then walking deliberately to the door, spat it out. On resuming his seat at the table, he requested Mr. Joe, in German, not to eat those saw-dust cakes. Mr. Joe, knowing the difference between saw-dust and corn-meal, continued to put away the dodgers, to the great disgust of his brother-in-law, who finished his breakfast on hog and hominy. They finally reached Newnansville, transacted their business and returned safely home, after an absence of about two weeks.

Soon after the return of her husband from Newnansville, Mrs. Nichols gave birth to a child. It lived only two hours, and in less than one week from its birth its mother followed the little angel to

The surviving child, a little girl two years old, was adopted by Madam Joe, who reared and educated her. She is at this time the wife of Mr. William O’Neil, who resides at Palmetto, on the north side of the Manatee Bay.

The money borrowed from Colonel Belknap still remained unpaid, which was a source of great trouble to Madam Joe. She had the inclination, but not the means to cancel the debt. The colonel proposed to send for his family at the North, and install Madam Joe as housekeeper. The proposition was cheerfully acquiesced in; and early in the year 1845, Madam Joe, accompanied by her husband, daughter and niece, went to Tampa and resided in the house of Colonel Belknap, at Fort Brooke. The Terraceia homestead was left in charge of Mr. Nichols and a hired man. The colonel’s family at that time consisted of his wife, two daughters and a son. That son, General W. W. Belknap, at present a resident of Keokuk, Iowa, made an honorable and enviable record during the war of the Rebellion, and was afterward Secretary of War during a part of President Grant’s administration.

During the eight months Madam Joe resided with the family of Colonel Belknap, she frequently saw the wily chief, Billy Bowlegs, and other noted Seminoles, for whom, to use her own words, she “cooked many a meal.” Close confinement caused a recurrence of her old disease—liver complaint—and she reluctantly left the hospitable house of Colonel Belknap for her homestead on Terraceia, where by constant out-door exercise, she soon regained her usual health. Even at the present day, Madam Joe’s universal panacea is “the grubbing-hoe and elbow-grease.” She practices what she preaches, and unlike the medical profession, takes her own medicine. Soon after the return of Madam Joe and family to Terraceia, Mr. Nichols concluded to go to New Orleans. During that year—1846—the yellow fever nearly depopulated the city, and Mr. Nichols was probably one of its victims, as he has never been heard from by his friends since he left Terraceia.

In the fall of 1846, one of the severest gales that ever visited this section of the country passed over Tampa, Terraceia, Palmetto and Manatee. Madam Joe’s house was blown down and all her furniture destroyed. The hen-house was the only structure that survived the storm. The fowls were dispossessed of their domicile, and the family occupied it until another house was built.

In 1848, a government official visited this part of Florida to examine proofs of claimants to land under the Armed Occupation and Homestead Acts. On examining Madam Joe’s papers, it was discovered that two permits had been issued for the same number. This error could only be rectified at the General Land Office in Washington. It was deemed advisable by Madam Joe and her husband to return to Tampa and remain there until the mistake in relation to their homestead could be rectified. Mr. Joe hired a man to assist him in building a house at Tampa, and they went up the Hillsborough River to cut logs and make shingles for the structure. In the month of September the logs for the house were formed into a raft and the shingles placed on it. Everything being in readiness for a start, a furious gale set in, which destroyed the raft and scattered the logs and shingles for miles along the banks of the river. Having gathered the logs and shingles together and rafted them down to Tampa, Mr. Joe visited his family at Terraceia, where he learned that during the late storm his wife, child and niece had taken refuge in the house of a friend on another part of the island. He returned to Tampa, and his family followed soon after. When Madam Joe arrived, she did not admire the location her husband had selected for the house. The frame was taken down and erected on a lot on the town-side of the river, and was soon occupied by the family. The property is still owned by Madam Joe.

Misfortunes, it is said, never come single-handed. In the early part of 1849, Mr. Joe injured one of his feet, and soon after was attacked with chills and fever, which, despite medical treatment, continued nine months. At this time Madam Joe’s finances were at a fearfully low ebb; but being equal to the emergency, she cast about for something to do whereby she could earn an honest penny. She accordingly started a home-made beer and cake shop, which being liberally patronized by the soldiers, soon placed her in easy financial circumstances. Her husband at the same time kept a sutler’s store at Fort Chiconicla.

About this time a partly-finished house, built by a friend—Mr. Reece—in Palmetto, was sold by the sheriff, and Madam Joe became the purchaser, with the hope that Mr. Reece would be able to redeem the property. Failing to do so, Madam Joe and family left Tampa and located in Palmetto in the year 1851. Here they opened a small store, in which they did a thriving business. They also cultivated their farm on Terraceia Island, and by degrees, as their means permitted, stocked it with cattle, horses and hogs. Additions were also made to their stock of goods, and finally they purchased a colored man, who was an excellent farm hand, and proved of great service to his owners.

In 1855 another Indian war broke out. Volunteer companies, home-guards and boat companies were organized for protection against Indian incursions. Many plantations were abandoned and homes broken up. Mr. Joe belonged to one of the boat companies, and a ten days’ scout being prolonged to twenty days, it was reported that the entire party had been massacred by the Indians. During the scout they visited the Indian camps in the Everglades, from whence Mr. Joe brought away as trophies a silver cup and a spoon belonging to Billy Bowlegs. The cup was subsequently sold to Colonel Jewett, U. S. A. The country was in a state of commotion and fever of excitement until the close of the war, in 1858. During these eventful years, Madam Joe stood guard with her musket or rifle whenever her services were required. She never showed the white feather.

Peace had scarcely been restored, when the civil war of 1861 broke out, and Florida was again in a state of anarchy. Mr. Joe enlisted in the Confederate service, and served in Tennessee and Kentucky. At the close of the war, Madam Joe sold her place at Palmetto, with the intention of returning to Europe, but her physician informed her that she could not survive a change of climate, which induced her to abandon the idea of visiting the Fatherland. The family again took up their residence on Terraceia, where Mr. Joe died on the 29th of October, 1871. Madam Joe sold part of her Terraceia plantation and moved to Fogartyville, her present location, in the year 1873. Her garden at this place comprises only four acres, but nowhere else in Florida can be found so many different varieties of trees, plants, vegetables, vines, shrubs and flowers. Mrs. William Fogarty, the daughter of Madam Joe, with her husband and son, reside with the madam. Here, in the year 1876, was planted a few grains of Mexican coffee, received from a neighbor, Mrs. E. S. Warner. On the 20th of February, 1880, Madam Joe sent to the Commissioner of Agriculture, at Washington, the first pound of coffee grown in the United States, for which she received ten dollars. This spring she has sent to the Agricultural Department, at Washington, four pounds of coffee, the product of two trees. Next year she will have eight coffee trees in bearing, and at least one hundred young trees in her nursery. As quite a diversity of opinion exists in relation to the origin of the seed from which the first coffee was grown in the United States, I append the following communications from Mrs. E. S. Warner, of Manatee, Fla., and Dr. A. A. Russell, of Cordova, Mexico, published in the Tampa Tribune, of September 26th, 1880:

MADAM JULIA ATZEROTH.
The lady who raised the first coffee grown in the United States.
From a photograph by F. Pinard, Manatee and Tampa.

The portrait of Madam Joe is a truthful likeness. Above the medium height of her sex, with features bronzed by a tropical sun and the exposure and hardships of a pioneer life, she is nevertheless a well-preserved matron of seventy-four years, with as noble and generous a heart as ever pulsated within the breast of a human being. She is passionately fond of music and waltzing, and can

as gracefully as a miss of sixteen. May her days in the land be prolonged beyond fourscore years and ten.

CHAPTER V.

WESTWARD of Fogartyville, on the south side of the bay, among the most prominent residences, are those of the Warners, mother and sons. Thence westward, across a bayou, on a sand-spit projecting into the bay, stands the steam saw and planing-mill of Messrs. W. S. Warner & Co., just completed. This mill, wharf and warehouse are the nuclei of Palmasola City, which is soon to skirt the adjacent sand hills, and cause the surrounding “wilderness to blossom as the rose.” Mr. Warner is a Bay State Yankee of indomitable pluck, and his partner, Mr. J. S. Beach, who resides at Terre Haute, Ind., controls the money bags of a national bank. If capital and pluck wean build a city, the success of Palmasola may be set down as assured. Along the bay, west of the Warners, are the ranches of Messrs. Sweetzer, Burgess, Sykes and Bishop. A few miles further west is Shaw’s Point, at the mouth of the bay. Here, on an immense shell-mound, surrounded by hammock and pine land, Mr. Sam Nichols, a native of Alabama, has entered a homestead of 160 acres of land. Although severely wounded during our late “unpleasantness,” Mr. Nichols has beaten his musket into a plowshare, his sword into a pruning-hook, and, like a good citizen, is earning his bread by the sweat of his brow.

Along the Gulf coast, southward, skirting Palmasola and Sarasota Bays, may be found the hospitable homes of Messrs. Farrar, Adams, Moore, Buckner, Harp, Stephonse, Tyler, Spang, Crowley, Dorch, Callan, Riggin, Dunham, Smith, Helveston, Whitaker, Willard, Bidwell, Edmondson, C. E. and M. R. Abbe, Liddell, Greer, Yonge, Boardman, Young, Lancaster, Cunliff, Woodworth, Jones, Anderson, Crocker, Hansen, Bronson Bros., Clower, Lowe, Webb, Griffith, Bacon, Knight, Guptrel and Roberts.

On the north side of Manatee Bay, at its entrance into Tampa Bay, is Snead’s Island, separated from the mainland by a narrow and shallow “cut-off” leading into Terraceia Bay, and also by a wider and deeper channel opening into Tampa Bay, and separating it from Terraceia Island. Midway of the island, fronting on Manatee Bay, is a curiosity in the shape of a shell-mound or earth-work, crescent-shaped, and some forty feet in height. The distance between the points of the crescent on the bank of the bay, is five hundred feet. On the highest point of the mound, and nearly in the centre, stands a frame dwelling, somewhat dilapidated, erected by a former owner of the place. On the eastern angle are two date-palm and two olive trees. The former are fifteen inches in diameter and forty feet in height. The latter are eighteen inches in diameter two feet above the ground, and fifty feet in height. Both the olive and date-palms bear fruit; the former in large quantities. On the mound in the centre of the crescent, and near the house, are two olibanum trees, eighteen inches in diameter and fifty feet in height. Was this mound an Indian burial place, or was it thrown up by the early Spanish invaders as a defense against the Natchez, a warlike and semi-civilized tribe of Indians, who, at the time of the Spanish conquest, inhabited this part of Florida? Quien sabe?

The only human occupants of the island at this time are uncle Joe Franklin and his wife, an aged couple. Uncle Joe lives in a palmetto hut with a shell floor, and with the old ’oman and two glasseyed dogs as companions,

Uncle Joe is a character, and all visitors to the Manatee should call on him, examine his mammoth wild fig tree and hedge of century plants. Mem. Ask him to chain his dogs before you go ashore, otherwise the seat of your inexpressibles will require repairs. I have been there.

Eastward, above the Terraceia cut-off, is Sapp’s Point. Further along, and directly opposite Braidentown, is Palmetto, a young town containing two stores and a post-office. The reader will perceive that Uncle Sam distributes post-offices in Florida with a lavish hand. We have three of these convenient institutions within a radius of one and a half miles—Braidentown, Manatee, Palmetto—and Palmasola City, only three miles distant, will have one as soon as Postmaster Warner shall build an office to protect the mail matter of that growing city.

Immediately in the rear of Palmetto is a prairie of several miles in extent. North-east of the town, about one mile distant in the hammock, Mr. Hendricks, of Palmetto, has a promising six-years-old orange grove, grown from seeds planted with his own hands. Mr. Hendricks cultivates vegetables between the rows of his orange trees, and last year he realized several hundred dollars by shipping his early tomatoes, cucumbers and snap-beans to New York and other Northern markets. To Mr. Hendricks belongs the credit of starting the early vegetable boom in the Manatee region.

Mr. David Zehner, from Louisiana, has recently purchased a strip of scrub hammock, east of the town, where he intends to make the cultivation of grapes and strawberries a specialty. He has already received several thousand cuttings and plants of the choicest varieties. A few miles further eastward, you reach the plantation of Major W. I. Turner, the god-father of Braidentown, who has forty acres in tomatoes, cucumbers, squashes and beans. He has already commenced shipping his vegetables to the Northern markets.

Half a mile east of Major Turner’s is the extensive plantation of Major George Patten. General Hiram W. Leffingwell, ex-United States Marshal for the Eastern District of Missouri, has recently purchased 200 acres of this land, and is negotiating for more. Two of the general’s sons, with their families and an unmarried nephew, are now encamped on the land, and are busily engaged in erecting dwelling-houses and the necessary out-buildings. The general and his wife will arrive later in the season. In addition to the cultivation of the various fruits of the citrus family, the general will devote his attention to general farm crops and the growing of early vegetables for the Northern and Western markets. Another St. Louis gentleman, Mr. C. G. B. Drummond, Assistant U. S. District Attorney, has purchased 120 acres of land on the Rogers’ hammock near Oak Hill, on which he will set out an orange grove this summer.

Mr. H. O. Cannon, a California Argonaut, and late resident of New Albany, Ind., after having spent several winters prospecting Florida, has, like a sensible man, concluded to pitch his tent on the Patten plantation. With this view, he has purchased twenty acres of land, which he has commenced grubbing and fencing, preparatory to planting an orange and lemon grove. Mr. C. H. Walworth, of Milwaukee, has purchased twenty acres of land adjoining Mr. Cannon, which he will have cleared, grubbed and planted in orange and lemon trees this year.

In ante bellum times, the present Patten plantation was known first as the Gamble, and afterward as the Cofield and Davis plantation, and was the largest and most thoroughly equipped sugar plantation in the State of Florida. The owners worked 200 hands, and had 1,400 acres of sugar-cane in one field. Their sugar-mill and refinery contained all the modern appliances, and, at the commencement of the war, was worth half a million dollars. Soon after the breaking out of hostilities, most of the slaves were sent to Louisiana, and work on the plantation was abandoned. During the last year of the war, a Federal gunboat entered the Manatee Bay, and a boat’s crew, commanded by an officer, blew up the sugar-house and set fire to the refinery. The destruction was complete; and to-day may be seen the ponderous fly-wheel of the engine, broken shafts and crumbling walls—sad mementos of the event. The family mansion, a large two-story brick structure, with galleries around three sides of both stories, escaped the hand of the destroyer. Although bearing the finger-marks of time, it is at this day, a substantial structure, and, with slight repairs, would weather the storms of another century. Connected with this old mansion is a history, now for the first time published.

Within these walls during the last days of the Southern Confederacy, when that fabric (on paper) was fast crumbling to pieces, Judah P. Benjamin, a fugitive from justice, and flying for his life under the assumed name of Charles Howard, was the guest for nearly two months of Captain Archibald McNeill, its then occupant. When on that memorable Sunday, in the spring of 1865, Jeff. Davis and his cabinet hastily fled from Richmond, Benjamin and Breckinridge struck out for the wilds of Florida, which seemed to offer a secure retreat. Arrived at Gainsville, Breckinridge sought refuge on the Atlantic coast, and Benjamin, under the guidance of Captain L. G. Leslie, started for the Gulf coast, via Tampa, and arrived safely at the mansion of Captain McNeill. After remaining nearly two months at Captain McNeill’s, Benjamin was conveyed in a boat to Manatee, and from thence to Sarasoto Bay in a horse-cart, by Rev. E. Glazier, of Manatee; from thence to Cape Florida in a small sail-boat, commanded by Captain Fred. Tresca, also a resident of Manatee. At Cape Florida a larger boat was procured, and after several hair-breadth escapes from Federal gunboats and the perils of the sea, Captain Tresca landed his charge safely on one of the islands of the Bahama group, and returned to Manatee $1,500 richer than when he left home. Benjamin reached England safely, where he has acquired fame and fortune. Should this page by chance meet his eye, he will no doubt be pleased to learn that Captain McNeill, past threescore and ten, has retired from active life and settled in Manatee, surrounded by a large family. Captain Tresca, or Captain “Fred.,” as he is called by his friends, lives with his wife and two children on a small plantation near Braidentown. Although he counts his years away up among the nineties, he is still a well-preserved “old salt.” Rev. E. Glazier is still a resident of Manatee, and looks as though he had renewed his lease of life for another half century. Judas betrayed his Master for the paltry sum of thirty pieces of silver. Twenty-five thousand dollars was the price offered by the United States Government for the corpus of the fugitive. The example of Judas was not followed by those who assisted Benjamin to escape.

There are more than a thousand acres of the rich hammock land belonging to this plantation for sale at from $15 to $25 per acre, according to location. When the fact that it cost originally $75 per acre to clear this land, is taken into consideration, it will be seen that the price at which it is now offered is very low, and places it within the reach of persons of small means. The land will be sold in lots to suit purchasers.

Adjoining the grounds of the Patten mansion is the residence of Hamet J. Craig, who has a young orange grove of three hundred trees and ten acres of hammock land under cultivation. Five miles further on, in a north-easterly direction, is Oak Hill, the former residence of Major W. I. Turner. At this place the major has a bearing orange grove of several hundred trees, and also one of the most promising six-years-old groves of six hundred trees to be found in the Manatee region. Adjoining Major Turner is the grove of Walter Tresca, just coming into bearing, and near by is the young grove of Mr. William Gillett.

Terraceia Island, separated from Snead’s Island by a narrow channel, is bounded on the west by Tampa Bay, on the north by Frog Creek, and on the east by Terraceia Bay. This island contains several tracts of excellent hammock land, most of which is under improvement. On this island are located the bearing orange groves of Messrs. Hallock, Lennard and Williams; Messrs. Kennedy, Howard, Gifford, Watkins, Hobart, Patten and Wyatt are also located on this island. Judge Cessna, of Gainesville, has recently purchased a plantation on the island, and will soon locate there. Other persons on the line of the Transit Railroad having become disgusted with frost and ice, are seeking homes in the Manatee region. On the mainland, on the east side, and about midway of Terraceia Bay, is the plantation of Mr. John Craig. Mr. Craig raises the finest cane and has the reputation of making the best sugar in Manatee County.

A short distance north of Terraceia Island, on the mainland, Hernando De Soto, fresh from the conquest of Peru, where he was associated with Francisco Pizarro, landed his troops in the latter part of May, 1539. He sailed from Havana on Sunday, May 18th, 1539, with his troops embarked in five large ships, two caravels and two brigantines. The disastrous fate of his predecessors in Florida cast no gloom on the mind of De Soto, and his assurances of success imparted confidence to those who accompanied him. He had never been defeated in battle, and was believed by his soldiers to be invincible. His officers were men of valor and ripe experience, and his troops were well disciplined, a majority of them having served in many campaigns, and all were well acquainted with Indian warfare.

His wife, Dona Isabella, did not share his enthusiasm, and desired to accompany him and share the dangers she believed he was about to encounter; but De Soto strenuously opposed her wishes, and encouraged her to believe that the time of reunion was not far distant. The conquest of Florida appeared to De Soto to be an easy task, from which he could soon return with large accessions of wealth and glory.

Contrary and baffling winds kept the squadron tossing about in the Gulf of Mexico for several days. De Soto and his troops obtained their first view of the Land of Flowers on the morning of the 25th day of May, and in the afternoon of the same day they came to anchor about two leagues from the shore. The shoals which extended along the coast prevented the ships from coming nearer. They had, in the meantime, been discovered by the natives, who had kindled beacon-fires along the beach, now known as Pinellas, as signals to collect their forces and be in readiness to repel their enemies. De Soto’s vessels were anchored off the mouth of Tampa Bay, called by the Spaniards the Bay of Espiritu Santo.

The Natchez, who inhabited the neighboring country, were governed by a chief named Ucita, whose hatred of the Spaniards is easily explained. When Pamphilo de Narvaez visited this region in 1528, he was kindly received and hospitably entertained by the Chief Ucita, and a treaty of peace between them was formed; yet, on a very slight pretense, the wily and bloodthirsty Pamphilo caused the chief’s nose to be cut off, and his aged mother to be torn to pieces by dogs! Hence, the reason why Ucita displayed implacable resentment in his behavior to De Soto and his companions in arms.

Thus, it will be seen that from the earliest history of our country, the aborigines have been treated with the most impolitic and unchristian-like barbarity; and it is highly probable that much of that ferocity which characterizes the Indians of the far West at this time, may be ascribed to the harsh and merciless treatment which their ancestors received from the early Spanish explorers, who acted on the principle that the Indians had no rights that a white man was bound to respect.

Wishing to avoid a collision with the Indians at that time, De Soto weighed anchor, and proceeded with his fleet two leagues further up the bay, where he disembarked his troops in boats. The place where he landed was on the eastern shore of Hillsborough Bay, above the mouth of the Little Manatee River, and near the line which separates Hillsborough and Manatee Counties.

The Indians being anxious to get rid of De Soto and his followers, informed them that El Dorado, for which they were seeking, was further northward. De Soto sent his ships back to Havana, and commenced his toilsome march overland, which ended with his death and burial in the Mississippi River, on the 5th day of June, 1542, three years and one month after the date of his arrival in Tampa Bay.

SUNNYSIDE COTTAGE.
The Residence of Samuel C. Upham, Braidentown, Florida.

CHAPTER VI.

HAVING given the reader a hasty outline of the Manatee region, I will add a brief resume of my personal experience at “Sunnyside” during the past eighteen months. On my arrival in Braidentown, in the fall of 1879, my land was a “howling wilderness.” At this time I have a young orange grove of six hundred trees, sixty lemon, fifteen lime, ten guava, half a dozen olive, two soft-shell almond, twenty coffee, four each Japan plum and persimmon, two pomegranate, two cocoa-nut and four Le Conte pear trees, all of which are growing luxuriantly. I also have one acre in bananas and sixty pine-apple plants, both of which will bear fruit next year. Around the fence inclosing my house lot, I have sixty California grape-vines of the choicest varieties, viz.: Flaming Tokay, White Muscat of Alexandria, Mission and Rose of Peru. The vines are looking well, and will bear fruit next year.

The land on which I am located is spruce-pine, interspersed with water-oak and scrub palmetto, which would be pronounced by the average Floridian worthless. I had at the commencement, and still have, abiding faith in the white sand of Florida with a mulatto sub-soil. No matter how white the surface, if underlaid by a mulatto or yellow sub-soil, the citrus family will thrive. The foliage of my young trees is dark green, and their vigorous growth astonishes the “crackers,” who predicted a failure. Owing to the mildness of the climate—my location being exempt from frost—my trees grew all last winter. My orange trees are set in parallel rows, thirty feet apart each way; the lemon and lime trees twenty-five feet apart; the bananas twelve feet, and the pineapples two feet apart. I hoe my grove every two months, and plow it four times a year. Thus, by keeping the soil constantly tickled with the hoe, my trees laugh with a bountiful foliage. What I have done, can be performed by others. There is no secret about the matter. We welcome immigrants from the frigid North, from the prairies of the West, and from the lands beyond the sea. To all we say, come and tarry with us.

Florida, the first State belonging to the Union, discovered and settled by Europeans, has, during the past 350 years, been hustled about from pillar to post like a shuttle-cock. The repeated Indian wars from 1816 to 1858, rendered life so insecure, that the early settlers literally carried their lives in their hands. Is it then a matter of surprise that Florida is so sparsely populated? Mr. J. S. Adams, former Commissioner of Immigration, truthfully remarks: “The wonder truly is, not that she has not attained a more flourishing condition, but that she exists at all, and that her boundless forests, her lovely rivers and her beautiful lakes are not fast locked in the silent embrace of a moveless desolation.” Since slavery, which rested like an incubus of original sin on the soil of Florida, has been removed, immigration has been pouring in from the North and the West, and from the isles of the ocean. Germany, Italy, France and England have each furnished their quota, and the forests along the line of the railroads, as well as those accessible by steamboats, are beginning to show the effects of an advanced civilization. The gigantic undertaking of draining Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades, together with the construction of a ship canal, connecting the Atlantic Ocean with the Gulf of Mexico, by Mr. Hamilton Disston, of Philadelphia, and his coadjutors, is proof positive that a new era is beginning to dawn on the Land of Flowers, and, ere many years, the southern portion of the State will be one vast orange grove, interspersed with the guava, lemon, lime, pine-apple and banana. I hear the skeptic say: “You will overstock the market, and your fruit will not pay the cost of transportation.” The orange par excellence can be grown only in the soil of Florida, therefore competition with foreign countries need not be feared. Florida will soon be able to supply the cities of the Mediterranean with a superior fruit to that grown on their own shores, and more cheaply. Increased production and transportation will cause a corresponding reduction in freight, and also insure greater and better facilities in the modes of transportation. There will also be a large reduction in price to the consumer, which will enable the man of limited means—in other words, the poor man—to indulge with the millionaire in the daily luxury of the golden apple of the Hesperides—the Florida orange. The above may be deemed by some persons chimerical, but time, the great arbiter of events, will solve the problem.

By every mail I am in receipt of letters asking all manner of questions in relation to the climate, soil, productions, etc., of this part of Florida. At first I cheerfully complied with the requests of my numerous correspondents, but the novelty has worn off, and the task has become slightly monotonous. Recently, I received a four-page capsheet letter from a gentleman in Utah Territory, to which was appended seventeen interrogatories in relation to the Gulf Coast of South Florida. That straw broke the camel’s back, and, in reply to the following question: “I see by the last census that Manatee County has a population of over 4,000, and not a death recorded for 1880. Do people ever die there?” I wrote immediately, “Hardly ever. When we want to start a graveyard, we kill a man.” I am firmly impressed with the belief that my Mormon correspondent, with a “family of ten persons,” will not immigrate to the Land of Flowers. Below will be found twenty-five questions in relation to Florida, from correspondents the “wide world over,” with answers appended:

1st. “At any time of the year do you have severe storms of thunder and lightning?”

During the rainy season, thunder showers, accompanied by lightning, frequently occur, but they are not more severe than in the Northern and Western States.

2d. “Are venomous reptiles numerous?”

During my residence and travels in Florida, I have never seen a rattlesnake; I have seen a few moccasin, garter, coachwhip and blacksnakes. The two latter are harmless, and are seldom killed by the natives. Alligators are not numerous in this vicinity, and are comparatively harmless. Scorpions and centipedes are seldom met with. Their sting is no more severe than that of a bee.

3d. “Is the land about Braidentown sandy or clayey?”

The land on the margin of the bay is sandy; further back in the hammock, the soil is dark gray and chocolate color, underlaid with clay and limestone.

4th. “Are the people mostly Northern?”

Like an Englishman’s favorite beverage, they are ’alf-and-’alf.

5th. “What is the name of your nearest town of any importance?”

Have no towns of “importance” in this section of the country; they are in the womb of time—not hatched yet.

6th. “What is the character of your society?”

Mixed.

7th. “Do you consider Florida as healthy as California?”

I consider this Manatee region the sanitarium of the world. A more healthful spot cannot be found on God’s footstool.

8th. “Do malarial fevers prevail in your section any time during the year?”

In the rich, low hammock lands, where vegetation is rank, malarial fevers exist in the fall of the year. Chills and fever here yield more readily to proper medical treatment than in the West. Pine land is exempt from malaria.

9th. “Does the summer heat prove enervating?”

That depends on a man’s constitution. If born tired, yes.

10th. “Is it true that the summer weather with you is more pleasant—less oppressive—than at the North?”

Yes; the thermometer rarely registers more than 96°. It reached that point only twice last summer.

11th. “Are the nights in summer always cool?”

Generally; sometimes cooler than in the winter.

12th. “Can you work out of doors during the day in summer time?”

Yes, when it does not rain. I have not seen a day too hot to work out of doors since my arrival in Florida.

13th. “Do the crops of vegetables and grass burn under the summer sun?”

We don’t raise vegetables in the summer. Our vegetables are grown in the winter and spring, when the land at the North is locked fast in the embrace of frost and ice. The grass here is very nutritious, and large herds of cattle fatten on it. This section of country supplies Cuba with beef.

14th. “Are insects—fleas and mosquitoes—more troublesome than at the North?”

Fleas sometimes make it lively with us; but there are fewer mosquitoes in this locality than in a majority of the Northern States.

15th. “Do you consider Manatee County one of the best to settle in?”

It suits me better than any other part of Florida. You might go further and fare worse.

16th. “Do you think the Gulf Coast equal to the Atlantic Coast for climate, health, etc.?”

Yes; far superior.

17th. “What is the price of land in your section?”

That depends upon quality and location. Here, in the settlement of Braidentown, land is selling at from $25 to $100 per acre. A short distance back of the town, pine land can be purchased at from $1.50 to $5 per acre; and hammock land at $10 per acre. Across the bay, nearly opposite Manatee, on the Patten plantation, good hammock land, once under cultivation, can be purchased at from $15 to $25 per acre, according to location. This land is being rapidly metamorphosed into vegetable gardens, whose products—tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, peas, etc.—reach the Northern markets during the month of March.

18th. “What are the business prospects for a new-comer?”

That will depend a great deal on the “new-comer.” Come, investigate and judge for yourself.

19. “Can sugar-cane be grown to advantage in your neighborhood? and what amount of sugar can be made to the acre?”

The Manatee region is the natural home of the sugar-cane. Here it tassels, and consequently fully matures. Florida is the only State of the Union in which the cane tassels. When the Cofield and Davis, now Patten plantation, was in full operation, the average product was two hogsheads of sugar to the acre. The cane here ratoons from six to eight years.

20th. “What is the cost of clearing land?”

That depends on the quality of the land. The average pine land can be cleared and grubbed at from $10 to $20 per acre. Hammock land will cost double that price.

21st. “Can lumber be had on the Manatee, and if so, at what price?”

Heart-pine lumber, suitable for fencing or building purposes, can be had here at $15 per M. Light wood posts can be purchased at $10 per hundred.

22d. “What is the price of labor in your vicinity?”

Colored laborers can be hired at from $15 to $20 per month, with board or rations. The price is $1 per day when the laborer boards himself.

23d. “Are fish, oysters and game plentiful?”

Our rivers and bayous are literally alive with mullet—the mackerel of the South. Sea-trout (black bass), jack-fish, sheepshead, red-fish, angel-fish, drum and pompino can also be had in abundance in the water around Palm Key, at the mouth of the bay. Oysters and clams of a superior quality can be had in Terraceia and Sarasoto Bays. Deer, squirrels, quail and wild turkeys abound in the adjoining hammocks.

24th. “Can you refer me to any person in your vicinity whose health has been benefited by the climate?”

Yes; several. Rev. Edmund Lee, of Manatee, arrived here forty-five years ago, a confirmed invalid; in fact, nearly gone with pulmonary consumption. On his first arrival he was so weak that it required considerable effort to pull a mullet off a grid-iron. The healthfulness of the climate, together with out-door exercise and a clear conscience, have enabled him to fight the flesh and the devil successfully to the present time. He is at this time a well-preserved patriarch of seventy-two years; has outlived two wives, and bids fair to remain many years longer on this side of Jordan.

Mr. John M. Helm, residing some three miles south-east of Braidentown, arrived from Windsor, Ind., about four years since. He also was nearly gone with consumption. One lung was hepatized, and on the other a tubercle formed, and discharged after his arrival here. Physicians at the West pronounced his case hopeless—beyond the reach of medicine—and recommended the climate of Florida as a last resort. He is now a well man, and can hoe more orange trees in a day, and hoe them better, than any man I know in Florida.

Two years ago I arrived here, clad in porous-plasters, suffering with chronic rheumatism. Two months later I was as frisky as a lamb in spring time. I am convinced that my old complaint has left me never to return, so long as I remain here. I could record other cases, but the above must suffice for the present.

25th. “State the most direct route to Braidentown.”

By rail to Cedar Key, the terminus of railroad communication, thence by the boats of the Tampa Steamship Company to this place. A boat leaves Cedar Key on Monday and Friday afternoon of each week, and arrives at Braidentown early on the following morning. Fare, $8. The above is the advertised programme, but it is sometimes changed to suit wind and weather. Captains Jackson and Doane are thorough seamen, and do everything in their power to render passengers comfortable. Whatever may be the opinion of travelers in regard to the speed and accommodations of the boats, they will unanimously agree that the fare—$8 for a distance of less than 100 miles—is first-class. A line of light draught, modern-built and comfortably fitted-up steamboats, between Cedar Key and Braidentown, would be liberally patronized. Shall we have the boats? Echo repeats the question.

CHAPTER VII.

AS the following letters and communications have a direct bearing on the Manatee region, the reader will pardon their republication. Among the chaff perchance may be found a few grains of information that will pay for the perusal. The first letter was written to a personal friend in the city of New York, who forwarded it to the San Francisco Examiner. It was first published in that paper with the following editorial remarks;

The following letter was published originally in Taggart’s Philadelphia Sunday Times, under the following caption: “Life in Florida. Interesting letter from Samuel C. Upham, formerly of Philadelphia, but now located in Florida, addressed to our lady editress. Hints to those who may wish to visit the Flowery Land.”

The following communication was published in the Florida Agriculturist in January last, under the caption of the “Climate of the Gulf Coast of South Florida.”

BRAIDENTOWN, SOUTH FLORIDA.

Editor of the Florida Agriculturist:

Several of your Northern and Western subscribers who read the communication I published in the Agriculturist in January last, giving a synopsis of the climate of the Manatee region during the year 1880, and which was reproduced in my recently published book, “Notes from Sunland,” have requested me to publish in your journal a statement of the thermometer, rainfall etc., in Braidentown for the year 1881. I have furnished the desired information as briefly as possible:

TEMPERATURE.

When the difference of rainfall for the years 1880 and ‘81 is taken into consideration, the equability of the temperature for the two years is a surprising and strange coincidence, there being less than one degree Fahrenheit in the average temperature of the two years. The rainfall for the year 1881 was 18 inches below the average on the Gulf coast, which is 60 inches, the difference between the years 1880 and ‘81 being 27½ inches; that of 1880 being 9½ inches in excess of the average rainfall. Although we had, comparatively speaking, no “rainy season” last year, vegetation and crops have not suffered from drouth. The vegetable gardeners hereabout were never more sanguine of large crops. Cucumbers, squashes, and turnips have already been shipped by them to New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and tomatoes in abundance will follow next month. Several truckmen from Fairbanks and other places on the Transit Railroad are this year engaged in raising early vegetables in the hammocks bordering the Manatee.

The mercury in the thermometer reached 96 degrees only twice the past year; and the lowest point indicated was 44 degrees on the morning of the 26th of January and 25th of November—12 degrees above the freezing point. We had no frost during the year. My alligator pears, cherimoyas, custard apples, sapodillas, sour sops, pine-apples, cocoanut trees, and other tropical fruits are growing luxuriantly; and my wife’s camelia japonicas, hibiscus, and rose bushes in the open air, are in full bloom. In conclusion, allow me to reiterate what I said last year: “If any locality north of latitude 27½ degrees can present a more favorable record, Braidentown will yield the palm.”

S. C. Upham.

January 2d, 1882.

SYNOPSIS OF THE WEATHER RECORD AT BRAIDENTOWN FOR THE YEAR 1882.

During a three years’ residence in Braidentown, I have kept a thermometrical record of the weather, also a register of the rainfall. A synopsis of my observations for the years 1880 and ‘81 was published in the Florida Agriculturist, in the months of January, 1881 and ‘82. In my “Notes from Sunland,” published in the fall of 1881, I gave meteorological tables of the temperature and rainfall at Braidentown, commencing with the month of January, 1880, and ending with March, 1881—fifteen months. In those tables I gave the record of the thermometer at 6 o’clock A. M., 12 o’clock M., and 6 o’clock P. M. For the information of my readers, and also of numerous correspondents at the North and West, I publish the following summary of the temperature and rainfall for the year 1882:

TEMPERATURE.

Although the difference in the rainfall between the year 1880 and the years 1881 and ‘82, was 27½ inches in the former and 26½ inches in the latter year, there was not a change of one degree Fahrenheit in the mean temperature of the three years, which indicates a remarkable equability of temperature. From the above it would seem that the temperature is not governed by the rainfall. In 1880, rain fell on 104 days; in 1881, on 95 days, and on 101 days in 1882.

In 1880 there were 177 cloudy and partially cloudy days; 156 in 1881, and 171 in 1882. In 1880 there were 188 clear days; 209 in ‘81, and 194 in ‘82. The days on which rain fell were seldom rainy days, in the common acceptation of the term. Showers from one-half to one hour’s duration were the rule, and an occasional rainy day the exception.

The highest temperature recorded during the three years was 96° at 12 o’clock M., on the 1st of July and 26th of August, 1880; July 7th and August 4th, 1881, and on July 19th, 1882. The lowest temperature during the three years, was 38° at 6 o’clock A. M., on December 31st, 1880; 44° on January 26th and November 25th, 1881, and 38° on December 17th, 1882. Braidentown being surrounded on three sides by water, has, during the past three years, escaped damage by frost, although we do not claim to be below the mythical “frost line.” The hammocks on the opposite side of the Manatee River, and on Orange and Bee Ridges, south of Braidentown, have been visited by frost, and vegetation and tropical fruits have been injured.

From the ravages of hurricanes, tornadoes, and cyclones which occasionally visit the Atlantic coast, and sweep across the northern and extreme southern portions of our State, we are comparatively free. That portion of the Gulf coast of South Florida, lying between Clear Water and Charlotte Harbor, has, for some unexplained reason—probably the piety of its inhabitants—been exempt from hurricanes and tornadoes during the past forty years. I do not believe that the Manatee region is fully entitled to the appellation of Paradise; but I do believe that our citizens are as near that beatific place as they ever will be while in the flesh. If any one knows of a more desirable location on earth, or in the waters under the earth, I shall be pleased to record the fact.

S. C. Upham.

January 3d, 1883.

METEOROLOGICAL.

METEOROLOGICAL.

METEOROLOGICAL.

METEOROLOGICAL.

METEOROLOGICAL.

METEOROLOGICAL.

METEOROLOGICAL.

METEOROLOGICAL.

METEOROLOGICAL.

METEOROLOGICAL.

METEOROLOGICAL.

METEOROLOGICAL.

METEOROLOGICAL.

METEOROLOGICAL.

METEOROLOGICAL.