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MARTIN CROSS, WOOD AND
FUEL DEALER
(Florida)
Mr. Cross, retired wood and fuel
merchant, lives in a splendidly substantial brick home near the foot of
Goodwin Street in Jacksonville where he can hear the lapping of the waves
of the incoming and outgoing tide in St. Johns River which has figured so
prominently in his life history.
Rosa, a happy-faced colored maid, with the assurance and proprietary
manner of a well trained family servant of an old-time Southern family,
ushered me into the specious living room, with "Mr. Cross heah's the lady
you's expectin."
There he sat, a kindly man, with his eighty years resting lightly upon
him, with the exception of partial deafness and a slight stoop in his
shoulders, his hair snow-white, his skin clear, a faint pink in his
cheeks, and the twinkly blue eyes not covered with glasses.
He rises, shakes hands in a cavalier fashion, and places a rocking chair -
which from its size and comfortable cushions must be the favorite chair of
Mrs. Cross - and says:
"My memory is failing and I'm not sure I can give you the information you
wish, but I'll do my best, and perhaps when we get further along in the
interview, more will come to me.
"I came to Florida from Virginia in the early 1880's and settled with my
family on an orange grove near Picolata, a prosperous river town on the
banks of the St. Johns, about 18 miles from St. Augustine. I was then
twenty-two years of age.
"At that time, the St. Johns River valley was the center of the citrus
growing industry of Florida. Our orange grove had been well established,
and we lived in a frame house - not log - built by the former owner. The
house was large and roomy and most comfortable for that period, a
fire-place in the sitting room, but the kitchen had a fine wood-burning
range, which furnished most of the heat when necessary and on which all of
the cooking was done. There were no screens, although the beds were fitted
with a canopy overhead on which netting was hung to keep out the
mosquitoes which were numerous in the warm months and most troublesome.
"The orange trees, for the most part, were budded from the native
sour-orange trees although there were nurseries from which specially
grafted stock could be obtained. However, growers supervised their groves
carefully, attending to their own planting, budding, etc. The trees were
not sprayed. We did not know much about fighting scale, pests, etc., in
the early days. Later a popular emulsion composed of whale-oil and soap,
thinned with kerosene, was used with considerable success in combatting
scale. No, there were not any Mediterranean fruit flies to worry us -
nothing but quantities of the ever-present mosquitoes.
"When the trees were young, we planted crops of cow peas, corn, sugarcane,
beans, etc., between the rows. But, of course, when the groves of trees
grew larger, there was too much shade, and this crop rotation had to be
abandoned.
"The oranges, when matured, were packed in crates - Birchwood shipped from
Maine, curiously enough, like the material used now by cabinet makers and
builders for veneering.
"The fruit was shipped to Charleston, Baltimore, New York and other
Atlantic ports. There was daily shipping service, as water traffic on the
St. Johns was then at the height of its popularity. There were no
railroads south of Jacksonville.
"The most prominent passenger boats in that period were the John Silvester,
and the Sylvan Glen. They ran from Jacksonville to Palatka every day.
These boats carried no freight.
"Freight boats were the Water Lily which ran from Jacksonville to Crescent
City, and the City of Jacksonville, a freight and passenger boat which
went as far as Sanford, the farthest point of river shipping.
"Captain William Hallowes of Green Cove Springs, commanded the Sylvan
Glen, and perhaps could easily give the names of other boats on the St.
Johns in the early days.
"Freight was billed at so much a box to the growers, according to the
quantity of the shipment and its destination.
"In addition to cowpeas, sugarcane and corn, we raised quantities of sweet
potatoes. Strange to say, the idea was prevalent that vegetables could not
be grown in Florida, hence we were compelled to supplement our other food
requirements by orders on Jacksonville, which were promptly executed and
shipped to us at the boat landing at Picolata by daily boat.
"Each family made its own syrup from the sugarcane, and brown sugar was
also manufactured locally from the same source. This was the usual family
commodity. We had no means of refining the sugar, although at any time we
wished we could obtain the granulated sugar from Jacksonville. Also
powdered sugar, in large irregular sized lumps, was popular with the
ladies when serving tea.
"We enjoyed rather good health, with exceptions of occasional fevers,
especially malarial fever in the summer months and early fall. I suffered
with malaria for a period of two years, and finally overcame it with
quantities of quinine. This drug came in bottles about the size of
vaseline bottles familiar to us now, containing two or two and one-half
ounces. I carried a bottle in my pocket, and took it throughout the
day--placing a quantity in a cigarette paper and dropping it down my
throat as far back as possible, washing it down with water - taking
sometimes as much as forty or fifty grains a day. It made me deaf as a
post at the time, and turned my hair white.
"One experience I'll never forget was the case of a laborer, working for a
neighbor of mine - neighbors then were on adjoining orange groves, four
and five miles away. This young man jumped over a fence and ran a
garden-rake through his foot. It made a bad wound, and nothing was thought
of it at the time, home remedies being applied; but later in the week he
became violent and we sent for the doctor at Green Cove Springs nine miles
away. When the doctor came, he said at once it was a case of tetanus, or
lock-jaw, and there was no hope. The man had to have constant care and was
kept under the influence of chloral to allay his pain and keep him quiet.
In order to relieve my neighbor, I sat up with the patient at night, long
nights they seemed. The doctor gave me the bottle of chloral, which was
really not according to medical ethics, but he said it did not make any
difference who administered it to the patient, as he was bound to die
anyway, and to give it to him whenever he became restless.
"A week passed like this, and one night
becoming worn out with my vigil, I dozed off. I was rudely awaken by the
grip of the patient's hands on my throat, and he began shouting - 'You are
trying to kill me! You've been giving me poison!'
"I shook him off, as he was weak from having nothing to eat for seven
days, and gave him another dose of chloral!
"The young man's parents came from Palatka about this time. They were
ignorant people, and thought we were not doing all that should be done for
their son, especially in keeping him under the influence of an anaesthetic,
or rather opiate. They took him home, and the doctor at Palatka advised
giving him morphine. The parents said they did not wish their son to
acquire the morphine habit, and refused to give him the drug. The young
man again became violent, and the authorities took possession of him and
carried him off to the county jail declaring him insane.
"The authorities at Tallahassee and Chattahoochee were notified, but mails
traveled slowly and transportation, too, was limited, so that before the
proper authorities arrived a week later, the young man, from his close
confinement in jail and being kept quiet and unannoyed, had entirely
recovered.
"This is an illustration of how country people had to look after
themselves in those days.
"It took three hours to drive from Picolata to St. Augustine. The sand and
the corduroy roads made transportation tedious, and often in cold weather,
I would get out of the buggy and walk to keep warm, and in preference to
the jolting over the rough roads.
"There were no sawmills in Picolata. The nearest was at Green Cove
Springs. There was wonderful timber in that section. Nobody paid any
attention to land ownership - if one wanted timber and saw a section of
likely trees, he just moved in and started cutting.
"The cut timber was hauled away in log wagons - strongly built and with
high wheels, six or eight feet in diameter, - and taken to Jacksonville
which was a sawmill town in those days, with many large mills in constant
operation.
"Sad to say, the ruthless cutting of timber has depleted Florida's
splendid forests, the sawmill business is dying out, and the pulp mills
moving in to take advantage of the scrub pines, as it will be years before
the present reforestation plan will enable the lumber business to
recuperate and attain its former magnitude.
"I came to Jacksonville in 1893. It was then a sprawling little town,
confined mostly between what is now Hogan Street and Hogan's Creek. It
consisted of five separate municipalities - Jacksonville, East
Jacksonville, Fairfield, Lavilla and Brooklyn - the latter extending from
what is now Myrtle Avenue to the St. Johns River, and bounded on the south
by the present Forest Street.
"I established my business on East Duval Street, and right across was the
early St. Luke's Hospital, started, financed and run by the women of
Jacksonville, including Mrs. Alexander Mitchell, a wealthy railroad
executive's wife, and other prominent ladies of the town.
"My help were the ordinary Negro laborers, who became familiar figures on
the streets of Jacksonville, with the mule-drawn carts delivering wood and
other fuel to the citizens of Jacksonville. There was some coal used in
fire places in those days, but most of the fuel was native wood. I
obtained my supplies from the Black Creek section and other nearby creeks
and streams which were heavily wooded. A great deal came from near
Middleburg.
"There were no furnaces, of course, or other methods of artificial heating
them.
"People in the country built a fire in the yard, and stood around it to
keep warm.
"When I first came to Jacksonville, the streets were deep sand. The
streetcar tracks stood up a foot or so, and all vehicles had to cross the
tracks at the street corners on raised board crossing.
"But it was a delightful place to live. Everybody knew everybody else, and
all were friendly and neighborly. I miss the old contacts, so many have
passed away. But every morning, I go back to my old office for an hour or
so, so that my old friends can come to visit while we talk over the old
business days in Jacksonville.
"Now the town has become so cosmopolitan, it seems almost filled with
strangers, and if I walk along the streets there are few faces which are
familiar. However, the other day I attended the funeral of a prominent
grocer, a charitable, well liked man, and I knew nearly everyone there. So
the old-timers are still here, though they may not always be in evidence.
"The old landing at Picolata is a ghost of the past. Where our home stood
is a turpentine still. The orange groves are all gone, as citrus culture
has concentrated farther south in Florida. There are only two houses
standing, and they are in bad repair.
"Two brothers, Doctors Sollace and Neal Mitchell, were the prominent
physicians in Jacksonville when I came here in the early 1890's. They were
well educated, and had had the advantages of the best training in the
United States and abroad. Both were kept tremendously busy, and were the
first physicians I knew of that had the modern method of keeping in
constant touch with their offices by telephone. They could always be
located promptly. Each had immense practices and both died from the strain
of overwork when they had barely reached middle life. In early times, it
took hours to reach or locate a physician, death or anything might happen
in the meantime.
"One would hardly believe the immense quantities of fish and other
seafoods that were taken out of the St. Johns River in those days. The
fisherman would go out with seines and rowboats and come in loaded to the
water's edge with their catches.
"Ducks - well, ducks in season settled on the bosom of the St. Johns by
the acre.
"No, there were no hyacinths in the river, but there were quantities of
water lettuce, an aquatic growth a pale yellow in color and coarser than
the garden lettuce. The coming of the hyacinths crowded and killed out the
water lettuce, so it is not seen now. Cattle will eat hyacinths, but they
would not eat water lettuce, which is tough and rather hard and stickery
"The Seaboard Railway ran from Fernandina to Lake City, Tallahassee, Cedar
Keys; and a branch came into Jacksonville. The old tracks may now be seen
at the foot of Hogan Street, where the Logan Coal Company yards are now
located. The passenger station was there when I came to Jacksonville.
"In the old days we used kerosene lamps for lighting. They made a nice
soft light, but were lots of trouble to keep filled and in order. They
used to smoke, and the chimneys had to be washed and polished every day.
The housekeepers had to contend with a lot of disadvantages in the early
days.
"The good old days? Well probably as good as any of their kind, but I like
the present, with its modernity and improvements.
"Do I regret the passing of my business? No, we are living in a different
age, and must keep abreast of the times. Fuel oil, gas and electricity
have supplanted the old methods, and to most all are a welcome change."
February 2, 1939
Life History
Montgomery Corse,
(Wood & Fuel Dealer)
1801 Goodwin St.,
Jacksonville, Florida
Written by Rose Shepherd
Text from: Library of
Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers' Project Collection
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