West Florida

“ 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. ”

“ In Florida we know that these are days for all nature to go a wooing, and the voices that come beneath the late February moon and echo along the winds of blustering March mornings prove it true.
It is a wiser man than I that knows the source of all these songs of love that thrill through the amorous, perfumed air of night. The fragile, green beauty of the long-horned grasshoppers seems to be reflected in their night songs that differ in tone from those which they sing under the searching vigor of the Southern sun. ”

“ It may be that some conscripted Spanish peasant brought with his aching heart to the far distant American garrison a fertile spore from some shady glen that he loved in Andalusia, or perhaps the seed ripened in a Devonshire lane and came thence with the besieging and conquering English, or yet again it may have been Florida born and carried thither on some soft wind of winter or in the blanket of an imprisoned Seminole. Centuries go by and bring a thousand accidents caught in the trailing garments of the years. ”

“ In November, 1764, Governor Johnstone, under instructions from the British government—which from the first seems to have taken a deep interest in the development of its late acquisitions—published a description of the province for the purpose of attracting settlers. By efforts like this, a tide of immigration soon began to flow into West Florida, which, during the British dominion of nearly twenty years, it is estimated, brought into it a population of 25,000. ”

“ By what alchemy of a subtler kind than any yet applied by man the tree draws from the gray Florida sand, from the black humus scattered through it, from the flooding rains of summer and the long glories of winter suns and the winds of space, this aromatic essence of pungency and fire no man can say. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the centre of the fortress was the council chamber of the province and the repository of its archives, where the office duties of the governor and the military commander were performed, where audience was given to Indian chiefs and delegations, and where really centered the government of West Florida, according to its English boundaries.
In that chamber on one occasion could have been seen a man in the prime of life, partly in Indian dress, in earnest conversation with Governor Chester and William Panton, the millionaire and merchant prince of the Floridas. ”

“ The road down Indian River winds sandily along the bluff always southward toward the sun. On your left hand you glimpse the blue river with the island a haze of deep blue on the horizon. It{209} is a dreamy world to the eastward, full of wild life. In the shallows schools of fishes flash their silvery sides to the sun. Herons wait, patient in the knowledge that the river will serve their dinner. The Florida great blue in all his six-foot magnificence flies with a croak of disapprobation only when you come too near. Here are the smaller blue herons, in family groups. ”

“ The military condition of West Florida was changed as the revolutionary war progressed. There were no longer seen two or more regiments at Pensacola, one or two at Mobile, and one at Fort Bute, Baton Rouge, and Panmure. The call for troops for service in the northern colonies had, by the latter part of 1778, reduced the entire effective force of the province to five hundred men. ”

“ Bird gazing on a roaring St. Johns River steamer, I had chanced upon a flock of birds of a variety that I had not before found in all Florida, the woodland ibis. They remained contentedly soaring in the heavens with their black friends as long as I could keep them in sight from the steamer, with a glass. It was a curious group, too, these long-necked, long-legged birds soaring like crazy cranes with the sedate, graceful vultures.
Nightfall catches the steamer still churning the dark waters down winding walls of forest, now and then stopping at a rough dock which represents some invisible town. ”

“ The elfin train may become a flock of kinglets and warblers quivering in and out along the limbs in search of breakfast, and Puck be but a roguish red-headed woodpecker. These December birds are as elusive and as full of vanishings and roguish tricks as any fairy train in Christendom.
Florida roads have the same elusive quality. They part and bow to one another, meet and touch hands and glide away again as if dancing a minuet, leading you in a mazy dance hither and thither to the most delightful surprises. ”

“ In the following year, Spain having declared war against Great Britain, Don Bernardo de Galvez (1756–1794) , the Spanish governor at New Orleans, seized most of the English forts in West Florida, and in 1781 captured Pensacola.
By the treaty of Paris (1783) Florida reverted to Spain, and, no religious liberty being promised, many of the English inhabitants left East and West Florida. A dispute with the United States concerning the northern boundary was settled by the treaty of 1795, the line 31° N. lat. being established. ”

“ H. E. Hill of Fort Pierce, Florida, and to Mr. J. D. Rahner of St. Augustine, Florida, for permission to use certain photographs which so ably supplement his own; and to very many Florida people, through whose unfailing hospitality and friendly guidance he was able to see and know many things which otherwise he would have been unable to find or understand. This spirit of courtly hospitality and neighborly good will seems to be as unfailing as the Florida sunshine, and is characteristic alike of the native and the adopted citizen. ”

“ From the Atlantic to the extreme west the distance is about 400 miles, and from north to south the distance is slightly greater. The peninsula itself averages rather less than 100 miles in width throughout. Florida naturally possesses an enormous coast line. Of this nearly 500 miles is on the Atlantic seaboard, with some 700 miles on the Gulf of Mexico. Harbors abound on every side, and when Florida becomes a manufacturing State as well as a fruit-growing one, its resources for exporting will be an immense advantage to it in overcoming competition and opposition. ”

“ The strong argument against Florida not having been the first location of the inhabitants who built these earth-works, is their tendency toward the West, not being found on the Atlantic coast, showing the course of emigration to have been from the West to the South. These structures also indicate strength, and not the hasty work of a nomadic tribe, having once been the site of a vast population. ”

“ 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 British, after that cession, in creating the province of West-Florida, extended it from the Chattahoochee to the Mississippi. Spain, on the other hand, after the treaty of Versailles, restricted West-Florida to the Perdido, she being at that time the owner of the whole of Louisiana. When, therefore, she ceded Louisiana to France, it was, as claimed 204by the United States, Louisiana beginning westward of the Perdido ”

“ Indeed, it is unquestionable, that without those influences, the Spanish government could not have been maintained in West Florida. But it would have been idle to hope that a man who 153had been loyal to an earthly monarch, under pain of confiscation and banishment, would incur the guilt of apostasy from a faith that was to him, at least, the symbol of allegiance to the King of Kings. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On account of its sand reefs, the east coast has not so many harbours as the west coast. The most important harbours are at Fernandina, St Augustine, and Miami on the E. coast, and at Tampa, Key West and Pensacola on the W. coast.
The soils of Florida have sand as a common ingredient. [1] They may be divided into three classes: the pine lands, which often have a surface of dark vegetable mould, under which is a sandy loam resting on a substratum of clay, marl or limestone—areas of such soil are found throughout the state ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thus aided, the commercial development of the State advanced very rapidly during the last years of the nineteenth century. In 1899, 2840 vessels, aggregating 2,464,026 tons, cleared the ports of Florida. The places having the largest export trade were Pensacola, Tampa, and Jacksonville; other export centres are Fernandina, Key West, Punta Gorda, Carrabelle, Apalachicola, and Saint Augustine. Most of these export forest products and phosphate for both foreign and home markets. Pensacola has large foreign shipments of grain, cotton, and tobacco. Tampa and Key West have a large trade in cigars. ”

“ The British divided the territory into two provinces—East Florida, with St. Augustine as its capital, and West Florida, with Pensacola as its capital.
New Orleans Mississippi River GEORGIA 1764 BOUNDARY 1763 BOUNDARY WEST FLORIDA ★Pensacola Mobile Apalachicola River EAST FLORIDA Chattahoochee ★St. Augustine New Smyrna
Records show that St. Augustine at the time of the Spanish evacuation had a population of 3,096—961 men, chiefly soldiers and officials; 798 women, and 1,337 children. The majority went to Cuba and the West Indies to find new homes. The English flag with its cross of St. ”

“ The future development and prosperity of this industry must rest upon a thorough knowledge and proper utilization of the forage crops adapted to the region. In very large measure these forages are quite different from those used in the portions of the United States where animal husbandry is most developed. From a practical standpoint we cannot use in the South the forages of the North and West, with the important exception of corn. The other great forages—timothy, red clover, alfalfa, blue grass and white clover—can never become important in Florida. ”

“ After 1882 the reclamation of swamp lands in the south of the peninsula was carried on on a large scale, and led to the development of the sugar industry. The discovery of rich phosphate deposits in 1889 improved economic conditions greatly, and the growing popularity of eastern Florida as a winter resort has further enhanced its prosperity. The present Constitution was adopted in 1886. In politics, both State and National, Florida since 1876 has been invariably Democratic. ”

“ 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. ”