Florida Keys

“ After rather eventless days, during which they passed many bays, inlets, keys and reefs, they sighted Key Largo, one of the most fertile of the few larger Florida Keys, beat along its shore, ran along past Whaleback Key, and finally slipped to the end of what the natives call Barnes’ Sound, and through Jewfish Creek, a narrow and deceptive passage connecting the larger sheet of water with what the natives call Little Card Sound, although the Geodetic Survey charts give different names to both major and minor waters. ”

“ Toward the interior of the peninsula the surface rises very gradually to an altitude of more than 100 feet, the central ridge in places reaching nearly 300 feet. Western Florida resembles southern Alabama in its surface features and is generally hilly and well wooded. The Florida Keys, stretching in a curved line 200 miles long from Biscayne Bay southwestward into the Gulf, are remarkable examples of the work of coral organisms. ”

“ When the gale abated, the boom was taken on deck and spliced and then placed in position again. The captain was the chief carpenter.
In a short time we were in warm latitudes, and well pleased to get away from a northern winter. Passing through the Florida Keys, everything was delightful and interesting. The water was very clear. In calm weather the ocean's bottom could be plainly seen at twenty fathoms' depth. White coral was everywhere—the islands formed of it. It was the coral that made the water so transparent. On our arrival at Key West, part of the cement was landed at Fort Taylor. ”

“ Then if the sportsman is not yet satiated, or if he is suffering from consumption, and wishes to regain his health, he can make the grandest trip in the world, by either sending his yacht to Jacksonville, or to Cedar Keys, or buying one there, and spending the entire winter in the exploration of the southern part of Florida. As it is, the voyage from the Indian River is not difficult or dangerous. Numerous keys or islands make a shelter from the seas, and once on the Gulf side, the climate, the country, the water, everything is delightful. ”

“ The naval operations described in the following pages extended, on the seaboard, over the Gulf of Mexico from Key West to the mouth of the Rio Grande; and inland over the course of the Mississippi, and its affluents, from Cairo, at the southern extremity of the State of Illinois, to the mouths of the river.
Key West is one of the low coral islands, or keys, which stretch out, in a southwesterly direction, into the Gulf from the southern extremity of the Florida peninsula. It has a good harbor, and was used during, as since, the war as a naval station. ”

“ Steamers touch at Cedar Keys every day or two, providing ready communication with the principal points on the Gulf. The fares are about as follows: to Tampa, $10.00; Key West, $20.00; Havana, $30.00; St. Marks, $10.00; Apalachicola, $20.00; Pensacola, $30.00; New Orleans, $40.00; Mobile, $20.00.{97}
8. KEY WEST—THE FLORIDA KEYS AND THE GULF COAST. KEY WEST.
Hotels.—*Russell House, George Phillips, proprietor, on Duval St.; Florida House, both $2.50 per day, $40.00 to $60.00 per month.
Boarding-Houses.—John Dixon, Whitehead Street; Mrs. E. Armbrister, Duval Street; Mrs. Clarke ”

“ Augustine, Key West, Cedar Keys, Tampa and Pensacola Bay; it also has innumerable islands. There are 19 navigable rivers, the longest being the St. John's. This river is about 300 miles in length, one third of which can be navigated.
Climate. The climate is very healthful, and not intensely hot, being moderated by the sea breezes. There are 250 clear days in the year.
Natural Resources. With its extensive coast-line, Florida has a large fish-trade, the chief seat of which (in fresh fish) is Pensacola. About 8,000 men are employed in the fisheries. ”

“ The face of the country, skirting on the seaboard, from Cape Hatteras hither, is low, level, and sandy. This feature prevails southward to near Cape Florida; when the rock-bound shore, the rudiments of which begin with the coquina formation opposite the city, again is made the barrier against the encroachments of the sea, and continues until it is broken up among the keys of the Florida archipelago.
The country around the city, is a plain of sandy shell soil, termed “pine barren.” ”

“ Being driven from their original retreat on the island of Tortuga, the Bucaniers retired to the Keys. No doubt the inlets and islands of the southern peninsula of Florida attracted their bands. Not only the towns and settlements on the Spanish islands and on the Main became objects of plunder, but the commerce of every nation also.
It is not till within a few years, that the remnants of this desperate class of men, who have long infested the waters in the neighborhood of the West India islands, have been driven from their haunts, and hunted down, by the American Navy. ”

“ They had passed from Cards Sound into Barnes Sound, and marveled at the wonderful construction of the concrete railway arches, by means of which the East Coast Line expected in the near future to reach far distant Key West, passing from key to key the entire distance, often over wide stretches of open sea.
Cape Sable lay not a great distance ahead. Once the little flotilla had rounded this tip end of the peninsula, they would begin their northward voyage. ”

“ There are bluffs forty feet high and more, on Indian river, beautiful localities along Key Biscayne Bay, in a glorious climate, healthy beyond any in our country, very easy of access from Key West, near the best hunting grounds of Florida, where an abundance of the most delicious tropical fruits could be raised, where fish, sea turtles and oysters abound; all that is needed is a weekly steamer from Key West, and a few plain, well kept, moderate priced hotels, to make it the most eligible spot in the South for the invalid or the tourist. ”

“ The cleansing tides and the east winds which surge perpetually over the island keep the city of twenty thousand inhabitants serenely healthy on Key West, without wells or sewers, paving or street cleaning. Walking along the dusty streets where shack-like wooden houses are piled together in that good-natured confusion which marks the usual West Indian town, one does not go far without having a sudden impulse to shout with delight, for soon all roads lead to the verge of the island, the rich, soothing breath of the trade winds and a glimpse of the miraculous sea. ”

“ At one time the yellow fever carried{102} off great numbers of them. Sand Key, a barren sand bank of twenty-five acres, is used as a cemetery. Loggerhead Key, some miles west, has a tall and symmetrical lighthouse. Bird Key is a favorite resort of turtles.
MIAMI AND KEY BISCAYNE BAY.
Mail Schooner on the 1st and 15th of every month from Key West. Accommodations poor and insufficient. No public house, and few settlers at Miami.
Undoubtedly the finest winter climate in the United States, both in point of temperature and health, is to be found on the south-eastern coast of Florida. ”

“ In time, coral sand-spit and mangrove swamp were cleared for a wonderland playground, of divine climate whither winter tourists throng by the hundred thousand. In time, too, these sand-spits and swamps and older formations of the sunny peninsula furnished homes and sources of livelihood or of wealth to many thousands more, people, these, to whom Florida is a Career, not a Resort. ”

“ When it is remembered that the greater portion of the vessels that enter the Gulf of Mexico stand close along this reef, before the trades, for a distance varying from one to two hundred miles, and that nearly everything which quits it, is obliged to beat down its rocky coast in the Gulf Stream for the same distance, one is not to be surprised that the wrecks, which so constantly occur, can supply the wants of a considerable population. To live at Key West is the next thing to being at sea. ”

“ The largest of the latter—the Saint John River—rises far away in the south, frequently expanding during the early part of its course into broad lakes, and in some places closely approaching the Atlantic coast. The southern point of Florida reaches to within twenty-five degrees of the equator, so that the vegetation is of a tropical character. Alligators swarm in the streams and pools; flowering shrubs of rare beauty clothe the banks of every river; and birds innumerable inhabit the forests, lakes, islets sand-banks, and sea-coast. ”

“ Once Cuba, regarded as the shore of India, had been the center of the West, and Florida no more than a chimera: how ironic such errors and reversals were! Now it was Juana that was legendary, and Florida resembled the significant hooked finger of an imponderable power. The day slid rapidly into water that had lost its blueness for expanses of chalky shallow green, and the flat roofs of Key West and masoned arches became slowly visible across the sea, and a stir of departure filled the decks. ”

“ As a coaling station at the entrance of the Gulf, and the location of the United States civil officers for the Southern District of Florida, Key West had attained such importance before the war as to have attracted, according to the census of 1860, a population of two thousand eight hundred and thirty-two. Notwithstanding the departure of many rebels, the town has increased during the war to a population of about three thousand five hundred. It is neatly built, and better paved than most Southern places of like size. There is a street of good-looking frame business houses ”

“ Westward from Jacksonville, a railway runs through the pine forests until it reaches the rushing Suwanee River, draining the Okifenokee swamp out to the Gulf, just north of Cedar Key. This stream is best known from the minstrel song, long so popular, of the Old Folks at Home. Beyond it the land rises into the rolling country of Middle Florida, the undulating surface sometimes reaching four hundred feet elevation, and presenting fertile soil and pleasant scenery, with a less tropical vegetation than the Peninsula of Florida. ”

“ John’s River complain because visitors resort there in preference to all other parts of the State. If the facilities and inducements were the same elsewhere, the desire to go would be equal; but it requires the fortitude of a Livingstone to commence a trip into many of the most attractive parts of Florida, with the indistinct prospect how they are to get away when inclined to make a change. The Americans are a restless, roving people, fond of varied scenery, and when confined where they cannot get away, manifest very much the disposition of caged captives. ”

“ The greatest river in the world, then, begins in the vicinity of Key West, Florida. There is on the globe no such stupendous flow of waters. It defies the severest droughts; in the mightiest floods it never overflows. Its current sweeps onward more rapidly than the Mississippi or the Amazon and its volume is a thousand times greater. Let us rid our mind of the idea of land. The banks and the bottom of this stupendous river are of cold, whilst its current is of warm, water. The name of it is the Gulf Stream. ”

“ Here you embark on an amber-watered lake which is but the river, grown wide and lazy for a time. If you were to ask me for Florida’s most astounding characteristic I might hesitate, but I should eventually decide that it was the great number of fish which frequent its shallow waters. Looking from the Sanford dock as you go down to embark you see the sunny shallows full of schools of bream and in the deeper places, much bigger and a little more wary, other schools of “trout,” as the Floridians insist on calling the big-mouthed bass which swarm in all fresh waters. ”

“ Upon the farthest one, Loggerhead Key, stands the great guiding light for the Florida Reef, of which this is the western extremity, the tower rising one hundred and fifty feet. Fort Jefferson is on Garden Key, where there is a harbor, and in it were confined various political prisoners during the Civil War, among them some who were concerned in the conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln. ”

“ As long as Sampson blockaded Havana and the army beat time back of the Tampa Bay Hotel, the central office for news was at Key West, but when Cervera slipped into Santiago Harbor and Sampson stationed his battle-ships at its mouth, Key West lost her only excuse for existence, and the press-boats burled their bows in the waters of the Florida Straits and raced for the cable-station at Port Antonio. ”

“ The water gets black{262} and the wilderness ahead blends with it, while the goblin-like voices of Florida frogs sound from the swamps. I would hate to be lost in a Florida swamp over night. There are more strange voices there that gasp and gurgle and screech and choke than anywhere else in the world. By and by the sudden shaft of the searchlight leaps ahead, transforming a single ever-changing circle into fairyland walled within impenetrable murk.
Never before was a forest so green as that which this light penetrates till trunks and foliage bar it off. ”

“ The bank swallows are of the ten that take up this route, and the air is often full of their whirling flocks.
Here at White City we are about two-thirds the way down the Florida peninsula, about east of the northern end of Lake Okeechobee, which sits at the northern end of the Everglades. The southeast trade winds, blowing across the Gulf Stream and over the Bahamas, bringing fresh sea odors to Florida, here pass a long line of the islands which bar off the Indian River from the ocean. ”