Tallahassee, Florida

“ But that was not on a cotton plantation, and is part of another story.
A FLORIDA SHRINE.
All pilgrims to Tallahassee visit the Murat place. It is one of the most conveniently accessible of those "points of interest" with which guide-books so anxiously, and with so much propriety, concern themselves. What a tourist prays for is something to see. If I had ever been a tourist in Boston, no doubt I should before now have surveyed the world from the top of the Bunker Hill monument. In Tallahassee, at all events, I went to the Murat estate. ”

“ They spent Sunday in Tallahassee, and on Monday started for home before daylight, on horseback and driving a small herd of cattle, which, with two horses, Mr. Elmer had bought on Saturday. As Saturday is the regular market-day, when all the country people from miles around flock into town to sell what they have for sale, and to purchase supplies for the following week, Mark was much amused and interested by what he saw. Although in Tallahassee there are no street auctions as in Key West, there was just as much business done on the sidewalks and in the streets here as there. ”

“ The public buildings are the capitol (commenced in 1826) , a large three-story brick edifice, with pillared entrances opening east and west; the court house, a substantial two-story brick structure; and the West Florida seminary, a large two-story brick building, on a hill commanding a view of the entire city. In the vicinity are beautiful springs, the most celebrated of which is Wakulla, an immense limestone basin, 16 m. distant. The surrounding country is fertile. The city contains the car and machine shops of the railroad company, and has the only cotton factory in the state. ”

“ I arrived at Tallahassee, from Jacksonville, late in the afternoon, after a hot and dusty ride of more than eight hours. The distance is only a hundred and sixty odd miles, I believe; but with some bright exceptions. Southern railroads, like Southern men, seem to be under the climate, and schedule time is more or less a formality. ”

“ Florida as I saw it (let the qualification be noted) is no more a land of flowers than New England. In some respects, indeed, it is less so. Flowering shrubs and climbers there are in abundance. I rode in the cars through miles on miles of flowering dogwood and pink azalea. Here, on this Tallahassee road, were miles of Cherokee roses, with plenty of the climbing scarlet honeysuckle (beloved of humming-birds, although I saw none here) , and nearer the city, as already described, masses of lantana and white honeysuckle. ”

“ Robinson moved to that State in 1880, where he now holds the office of State chemist and resides in the capital, Tallahassee. Mrs. Robinson has there done the best literary work of her life. It is conceded, that by her contributions to the press and her pamphlet, "Living in Florida," she has done more to induce immigration to the State than any other agency has accomplished. ”

“ With the reins (made of rope, after a fashion much followed in Florida) lying on the forward axle of his cart, he seemed to have put himself entirely at my service. He had to the full that peculiar urbanity which I began after a while to look upon as characteristic of Tallahassee negroes,—a gentleness of speech, and a kindly, deferential air, neither forward nor servile, such as « 157 » sits well on any man, whatever the color of his skin. ”

“ We, the People of the State of Florida, by our delegates in Convention assembled, in the city of Tallahassee, on the 25th day of October, in the year of our Lord 1865, and of the Independence of the United States the 90th year, in order to secure to ourselves and our posterity the enjoyment of all the rights of life, liberty and property, and the pursuit of happiness, do mutually agree, each with the other, to form the following Constitution and form of Government in and for the said State. ”

“ They cannot appreciate the feelings of a man that loves his country.”
As Florida had but recently been erected into a territory, everything as yet was in rude and simple style. The governor, to make himself acquainted with the Indians, and to be near at hand to keep an eye upon them, fixed his residence at Tallahassee, near the Fowel towns, inhabited by the Mickasookies. His government palace for a time was a mere log house, and he lived on hunters’ fare. The village of Neamathla was but about three miles off, and thither the governor occasionally rode, to visit the old chieftain. ”

“ Almost the entire Atlantic coast is protected from the ocean by sand bars and coral reefs. Florida is noted for the number, size, and clearness of her springs, the most famous being the Silver Spring near Ocala in Marion county, with an estimated output of 300,000,000 gallons daily. Other notable springs are the Wakulla, near Tallahassee, the Wekiva in Orange county, and the Blue in Marion county. There are numerous sulphuretted springs along the coast ”

“ These, besides the forest-products include fertilizers, cotton-seed oil, wooden boxes and barrels and cedar for lead-pencils; but the leading industry is the manufacture of tobacco and cigars. In 1910 the assessed valuation of property in the state exceeded $177,000,000.
Education. There are numerous colleges and public schools, including the University of Florida, at Gainesville, State College for Women and Agricultural College for Negroes, at Tallahassee, all having normal departments, and School for the Deaf and Blind, at St. Augustine. ”

“ The old chief is treated with care and consideration, and a homage is paid to him by the younger members of the tribe. Among the Seminoles, when a member of the tribe becomes too old for usefulness or self-help, it becomes the duty of the young men to contribute their share to his support. They are taught to do this more as an honor than as a burden.
As the years pass, more pathetic grows the life of the hereditary chieftain.
A few years ago, after numerous invitations, Tallahassee was persuaded to leave his swamp home to make a visit to the home of the writer. ”

“ Beyond these, it enters the low pine lands of Nassau county. They are unproductive, thinly inhabited, and to the traveler extremely monotonous. The first station is Callahan (27 miles) ; the next Baldwin (Florida House) , where a connection is made with the Pensacola and Georgia Railway for Tallahassee, Jacksonville, etc.
The country gradually rises and improves in quality of soil beyond this point, but houses continue sparse. The station next beyond is Trail Ridge (15 miles) . Here the mail is delivered for Middleburg on Black Creek, twelve miles east. (See Route up the St. John.) ”

“ SR 17 Road No. 17. Extending from Haines City to Clearwater, via Lakeland, Plant City, Tampa and Oldsmar.
SR 18 Road No. 18. Extending from Sarasota to Lake Annie, via Arcadia; and Road No. 18-A, extending from a point on Road No. 5, near Bradenton, via Oneco intersecting Road No. 18 at a point about thirty miles east of Sarasota.
SR 19 Road No. 19. Extending from Tallahassee to Ocala, leaving out of Tallahassee on the St. Augustine Road, thence to or near Chaires via Waukeenah, Cappe and Lamont, thence direct to Perry, Cross City, Old Town, Chiefland, Bronson and Williston. ”

“ At this same dip in the Meridian road, on a previous visit, I had experienced one of the pleasantest of my Tallahassee sensations. The morning was one of those when every bird is in tune. By the road side I had just passed Carolina wrens, house wrens, a chipper, a field sparrow, two thrashers, an abundance of chewinks, two orchard orioles, several tanagers, a flock of quail, and mocking-birds and cardinals uncounted. In a pine wood near by, a wood pewee, a pine warbler, a yellow-throated warbler, and a pine-wood sparrow were singing—a most peculiarly select and modest chorus. ”

“ The road to the capitol lay through forests and swamps. At one point near Ocklocknee Channel, posts were set up to guide the stage driver in swimming his horses where water overflowed the road. Tallahassee was made attractive by its beautiful gardens. On coming south we were impressed by the fact that the farther south we came the more intensely Calvinistic and severe was the theology which inspired the preaching. In Tallahassee we heard by far the sternest and most sulphurous discourse we listened to.
A dilapidated railway, on which a car was drawn by horses, connected the city with Newport. ”

“ The settlement of the State by emigrants has driven him from his old haunts and from every new home as fast as he has made it, and the tribe has dwindled down to a mere handful of followers and himself; the very tender mercies of the pale face are cruel to the red man.”
“But did he own no land?”
“His tribe thought they owned it all, but the white man came and wrested it from them, and although our own Government always promised to give Tallahassee a Reservation of his own, it was never done, and now the old warrior has not even land of his own sufficient to be buried in.” ”

“ The vicinity is especially adapted to the production of cotton, tobacco, and sugarcane, and also has important dairying and stock-raising interests. Cottonseed oil and cigars constitute the principal manufactures. The government, under the revised charter of 1869, is vested in a mayor, chosen annually, and a unicameral council. Tallahassee was laid out in 1824 on a site selected two years earlier as the seat of the Territorial Government, and was incorporated as a city in 1827. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We finally reached Tallahassee, where we found the most cordial welcome awaiting us. Mrs. Winthrop lived in the very heart of the city but our surroundings were much more beautiful than I can describe, for the orange trees and hyacinths and jessamine in full bloom and other [337] wealth of semi-tropical vegetation were suggestive of an earthly Paradise. Since we last met my hostess had become a widow, but fortunately she and her only son, who was then just emerging into manhood, had not felt the personal vicissitudes of the struggle, as they had taken refuge in the mountains of North Carolina. ”

“ In 1820 the constitutional convention of Alabama, in anticipation of the ratification of the Spanish treaty, memorialized congress to embrace West Florida within the boundaries of that state. The memorial enforced the measure with all those obvious arguments which come to the mind when it turns to the subject. But they were silenced, as if by the imperious decree of fate that the Perdido boundary should be, and forever remain, a monument of d’ Arriola’s diligence in reaching the Gulf coast three years before d’ Iberville. ”

“ Favored indeed is Florida, not only in climate, scenery, and fruit, but with the munificence of these mighty-hearted millionaires, who have Alladin-like metamorphosed the sunny peninsula into a veritable fairyland. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. H. B. Plant, who has transmogrified Tampa, and ribboned Florida with his railroad system. As usual with men of great minds and means, he is wholly unpretentious, as much so as his humblest employee. ”

“ He does not lend himself naturally to such imaginary endearments. But it is pleasant to have him on one's daily beat. I should count it one compensation for having to live in Florida instead of in Massachusetts (but I might require a good many others) that I should see him a hundred times as often. In walking down the river road I seldom saw less than half a dozen; not together (the major, like fishermen in general, is of an unsocial turn) , but here one and there one,—on a sand-bar far out in the river, or in some shallow bay, or on the submerged edge of an oyster-flat. ”

“ One cannot do everything.
Now, alas, Florida seems very far off. I am never likely to walk again under those New Smyrna live-oaks, nor to see again all that beauty of the Hillsborough. And yet, in a truer and better sense of the word, I do see it, and shall. What a heavenly light falls at this moment on the river and the island woods! Perhaps we must come back to Wordsworth, after all,—
“The light that never was, on sea or land.” ”

“ A writer who has himself done more to rescue from oblivion the historical romance of the South than any other, [8] has well said, "It will be an employment of curious interest, whenever the people of Florida shall happen upon the true site of the settlement and structure of Laudonnière, to trace out in detail these several localities, and fix them for the benefit of posterity. ”

“ Along the coast the tawny beaches, the mangrove-swamps, the rich farms, the groves, the towns, the villages, the estates, snow-white Miami, the nation's southernmost big city.
Back of this foreshore, countless miles of waving grass, rooted in water, and with a stray clump of low trees, dotted here and there, the Everglades, a vast marsh that runs north to the inland sea known as Lake Okeechobee. Then the solid sandy ground of the main State.
Along the foreshore, and running inland, miles of sand-barren scattered with gaunt pines and floored with harsh palmetto-scrub. ”

“ Great sand dunes rose on both sides of the river.
Upon reaching Fort George, the Davenport party drove in the 'bus to the hotel, over the hardest of shell roads. Magnificent palms lined the way on both sides. All the foliage, in fact, was extremely luxuriant. The island was more tropical than anything that the Davenports had seen, so far, in Florida.
A gentleman in the 'bus proffered the information to Mr. Davenport that the island had once been visited by Talleyrand. He said it had been owned by French grandees who carried on an extensive slave trade from the island. ”