|
Contents
Alabama
Florida
Georgia
Indiana
Louisiana
Missouri
South Carolina
Utah
Washington
Check for
local history books about your town
or search Amazon.com
from here
|
MR. JOHN C. ENGLISH, A
PIONEER
RESIDENT OF LEE COUNTY
(Florida)
Mr. English: I came to Lee County in
January 1876... came from Georgia, near Bainbridge, six miles. Left home
in December 1875, eight of us, my mother and seven children. I was the
middle one; had three brothers and three sisters. Came in a covered wagon
drawn by steers. Came to take up a homestead near the Caloosahatchee... It
was ten years after the war, and everything was in a mess... no one can't
imagine it... my mother was a widow. We boys were farming in Georgia. Corn
was the money crop...Lots of people went west. We had some relations in
Texas who wanted us to come there....we never had planned on coming to
Florida... things went along and we didn't have any success getting ahead.
There was an old man near us and he had heard about the Caloosahatchee. He
came down here and saw the country and he wanted us to come down with him.
At first we didn't tumble to his racket, but our crops didn't yield...as
time went on we thought more about Florida. Dr. Andrews, a dentist, had a
son-in-law, Dr. Anderson, a medical doctor, who lived in Leon County, not
far from Tallahassee. Dr. Andrews and Dr. Anderson went to Cedar Keys by
railroad and chartered a sailboat and came to the Caloosahatchee River
above Olga, this side of Olga, in 1874. The country was new...it had just
been surveyed...the government was offering homesteads here. It had
possibilities...some Americans have always had a craze to pioneer...as
long as there was a frontier to go to they was always wanting to go to new
places. This old doctor came down and looked around a little and he went
back on the boat that come from Cedar Keys and he began to lay his plans
to come back in the fall. When the time come, we was ready and come along
with him.
My father died Jan. 1, 1870, and left mother with seven children. I was
14, Samson was 19...We landed here with our bare hands. I want to tell you
a story I didn't know till lately...Samson told it to me. One day he was
was walking with father, and father said to him, "Boy, I don't think I am
going to live much longer...when I'm gone I want you to keep the family
all together." We always got along and we always stayed together. There
never was any very inviting circumstances to make us scatter and make us
go each one by himself. The old doctor...we lived about 10 miles from
him...we got ready on the first day of December...it was a Monday and we
went down to his place and we stayed there till Saturday; he wasn't ready
to go. There was two families of the Andrews...there was 18 in the party
that come along. We had three covered wagons in the camp all drawn by
steers and one open wagon used to haul supplies. My sister was the
youngest; she was about 12 years old, Uncle Sandy was the oldest; he was
about 75. The old doctor was 72. We made about 20 miles in a full day. We
just travelled along. We would get up early in the morning and get
breakfast....The girls did the cooking. We started with what we could, and
all along the road we could buy things pretty cheap. Share cropping was
the order of the day...we bought things from the niggers.
We had two buggies, and mother and old Mrs. Andrews drove in one buggy and
the other buggy was used to go and get supplies. The buggies were drawn by
horse. We had three horses. We drove 23 head of cattle. They belonged to
the old doctor...his son came with the caravan...him and his wife and his
daughter came in a railroad car which he chartered...in that way we
shipped our household goods...the railroad car came to Cedar Keys. They
they chartered a boat and come down to Dr. Andrews camp, this side of
Olga, right on the river. (At this point Mr. English was interrupted by
Mrs. English, his wife.)
Mrs. English: My mother's folks moved from Georgia to Thomasville, but
that was when my mother was a little girl, when she was six years old.
They came to Tampa on the Alfia (?) River, then later moved to Polk
County. My mother moved to Ft. Myers when I was six years old...in '72. We
came in an ox wagon from Polk County. It was cattle that brought my father
down here, and Capt. Hendry...that was my mother's brother Francis Asbury
Hendry, named for the old Methodist bishop. Bury was my mother's oldest
brother. My grandfather moved his cattle down here from Georgia. Every man
that stayed in the cattle business has been well off...the ones that sold
their cattle haven't always prospered. My father was born and raised in
Florida...born near Lake City.
Mr. English: It took us six weeks to come down here. We never traveled on
Sunday and we stopped once for a couple of days in Sumter County. We had
fine weather: no rain, no breakdowns no sickness. When we got down here
and struck camp...we camped in the woods this side of Olga and the folks
they took the horses and took one of the wagons and fixed it for the
horses and went back to Gainesville and filed the homestead claim. We
camped till they got back. Took near three weeks.
The traveling wasn't bad from Georgia down here. We come by way of the
"wire road." We struck it at the little bridge at the Santa Fe River...the
road went all the way dawn to Punta Rassa...the road followed the
telegraph line. The road was a pretty good dirt road...wide enough for a
wagon (two oxen) or a cart (one ox).
May 22 was the first big rain we saw after we came here. After we settled
here on the river we saw Indians...they used to come to our camp. We first
lived about two miles above Ft. Denaud. There was a little branch come in
and the Indians would live back in the country but they would come in
there and take their boat and go down to Ft. Myers. Sometimes they would
stop at our place. I remember one day...it was the first breaking of
ground we did. We had a yoke of oxen..we cleared about an acre...we was
out there plowing...the canoe come along and stopped and the old follow he
come out and looked at what we was doing, and the old follow he said "You
good, me see um," and he took hold of the plow and plowed a piece. The
Indians were all friendly Indians. The white folks was always suspicious
of them, but we wasn't. Old Tiger Tail came to our camp like he hadn't
been there but a couple of weeks. He found his way into our place...it was
just about sundown. He put down his pack and spent the night with us and
the next morning we put him across the river. The Indians used to buy
sweet potatoes and syrup from us.
People just bare-handed like we were on the way down here, we stopped and
talked with people. At Dade City we camped and one Sunday an old man come
and offered us all the inducement we could to stop there...Some one asked
me what sort of business we expected to follow. I told his we was just
wanting a place to live and something to do to enable us to live... Samson
was the one who got the homestead. We didn't have any cattle...We put in
little crops...near Ft. Denaud...near the big prairie. The cattle men were
living near Ft. Thompson, and we got in touch with the cattle men and they
penned in a big drove of cows and so we had milk and butter. They left us
about 25 cows and calves...we cleared the ground and built the pens...in
that way we fertilized the land...that was the only way we had of getting
fertilizer. The first crop was watermelons, sweet potatoes, sugar cane and
peanuts. Our crops grew mighty good, but we quit up there on account of
the overflow. We stayed there two years. Samson sold the place after-wards
and we bought a fellow's claim here...mother lived to be 86 years old, Dr.
Kellum lived right about the camp when we first camped down there....About
a week after we came my sister was taken with a bad cold. Dr. Kellum
homesteaded down there and he come and treated her. He didn't make a
charge for his services, but he had a little chopping for me to do in
return for his services...I did it for him. He had a little boat that he
didn't have any use for.....while Samson was gone to Gainesville...my
brother worked for a Mr. Hickey clearing the ground and I worked for Dr.
Kellum...so when Samson got back we took things in the boat and then in
the wagon to the homestead. There was a road from where the wire road
crossed the river to the government road that the government had made from
fort to fort...Dr. Kellum was a Catholic...lots of people hates
Catholics...Samson and two or three other fellows went to Ft. Myers in a
boat and he was taken with a hot fever and Dr. Kellum was in Ft. Myers and
Samson went to him. He didn't think the doctor paid him enough
attention...the fellows took Samson home....The Next day the doctor rode
from his place to our camp because he knew that Samson was sick. He always
as long as he lived...if we needed any doctoring, he did it, and he never
sent a bill...he never asked for a dollar. If he had a little chopping
that we sometimes could do and it seems that very little of that we ever
did...We have always been very fortunate in having a doctor....Dr. Jones
of Ft. Myers he never sends us a bill...we always had a good doctor that
was always just more than a friend.
The homestead was 160 acres near Ft. Denaud. Each boy got 160 acres, John
and Jimmie....There was several little patches of citrus trees in Ft.
Myers. There was fruit enough so that people had all the fruit they wanted
to eat and some to sell. Old man Townsend at Buckingham had a grove...we
got our fresh seed to plant from him. He didn't make a living at it...We
bought 500 oranges and gave him a dollar and from that we planted our
grove. He had some cattle and a farm.
Mrs. English: My father planted a 10 acre grove when I was a child.
Mr. English: The man in Buckingham had two-three acres...We never had an
exciting experience...we always had a smooth get-along. I guess the most
exciting experience I ever had was the first deer I killed. Ft. Myers was
a cow town. There was lots of cattle shipped to Key West and to
Cuba...never a boom town...a good steady growth. While the cattle business
was good the cattle men had a lot of money...Just a neighborhood
town...two stores when we first knew it. It was 15 years before the
railroad came to Punta Gorda.
We stayed on that place (the present homestead) in 1881 growing fruit...it
was several years before we shipped any fruit to amount to anything...the
early fruit was pulled and loaded in bulk in schooners. About $4 a
thousand was the ruling price for oranges.
Mrs. English: We moved to Ft. Myers in 1872 about 10-12 families there.
Manual Gonzales was a boat man. They-lived in one of the old fort
buildings...the one that was recently used for a library....My uncle
Captain Hendry probably lived in one of the old buildings too. Capt.
Hendry's dwelling then was just this side of the Royal Palm Hotel. My
uncle, Marion Hendry, built a concrete building...Major Frierson came from
Tampa. He and my uncle Marion married sisters. Uncle Marion's old house is
still standing. The house of Major Frierson is right across the street
from the new post office.
The Indians would come into Ft. Myers,
15 or 20 at a time. We always fed them...we wanted to keep on good terms
with them. Every-body else fed them too; I don't see how they could eat as
much as they did, stopping at every house to eat. No, we weren't afraid of
them; it was just the custom to feed the Indians. They would tan their
deer skins in the town...it was a regular picnic for us children.
There was an Indian boy, Billy Conapacho, who came in and lived with my
uncle Hendry. He went to school with us. He could draw anything. I
remember a picture he drew of our old wharf and the boat tied up to
it...while he was in school his uncle came and had him to go back with
him.....Oh, I remember the name of the boat: it was the Spitfire.
The great trouble of the Indian is whisky....When we first came to Ft.
Myers there was no regular mail service. The minister drove 10 miles to
preach.....Capt. Billy Collier and his brother Ben ran a boat service to
Ft. Myers from New Orleans and Mobile....The nearest railroad was at Cedar
Keys.....I went to a seminary at Orlando....We went to Tampa from Punta
Rassa and took a little boat from Ft. Myers....At Tampa we took the train
for Orlando. I attended in the winter of '84-'5.
Major James Evans came down after the war to homestead and most of the
people who came afterwards bought their land from him. This little
building (the picture of the little log schoolhouse in one of the
Christian Advocates) was owned by Capt. Evans and he let people have it
for a school and church. And the first school master was a young man by
the name of Bell. That was in '72. We walked a mile to school. Bell was an
Englishman. After he left they sent us a preacher who stayed all the time
and he taught. Than they built a school building where the Gwynne
Institute is now.
(Note: More emphasis on economic conditions must come to present and show
dev.
Interview with Mr. John
C. English
a pioneer resident of Lee County.
Jan. 20, 1939.
Interviewed by
Text from: Library of
Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers' Project Collection
|