The Portland daily press., 1874-02-20
Au Alligator Fight,
A FLORIDA HISTORIANS ACCOUNT OF AN
EXTRAORDINARY BATTLE.

Here the old man sounded his pockets, and
drew up an ancient plug Of tobacco. 1t was
so moist that it appeared to have been fished
out of hogshead .f n,olasses. The captain
rylanted his two teeth in it, and ripped off
fair percentage.
"Gators," continued he, knows heap
more than niger. They've got some way
Nv talkin' with each other, an they know
what's going on in the river better than
steamboat captain. Bless my buttons, child,
they know the shiftip' Of every bar an chan
mel. l sometimes think that hey look up to
some old gator as a boss, or kind NV king.
Bees has kings. an why not gators? Tbar
must be difectin' spirit among 'em sure.
They hev their leaders, sure's you're born.
Thirty years ago KEEP a boardin' house
over there on Shell Mound. he'd forty-nine
cows givin' milk all the time, an III allow
the house wuz alway, tul. y boarders at 500
month, They went through four saddles of
venison every day. an paid two men dol
lar day to hunt dur .or the boaroers.
"LoIdy, thar use to be then any quantity
o gators in the lake. Why. you couldn't
leave fish in boat five minutes but what
gator OR Eigger would steal it. Well, long
In June first begun to notice that some
thing wuZ the matter with the gators Thar
wuz trouble among them. They seemed to
have fallen out about something. They acted
excited and oneasy like, and they groanedlmore
than usual in the night. Heaps o. men noticed
1t besides me. I'member one mornin' we went
down to the big sulphur spring run-you We
bin thar yourscf-an' we saw two gators
with their tails up agin two palmetto trees
standin' on thar heads, and more than two
dozen gators in the water loUkin' on.
Another time seen three 'gotors asleep on
their backs in the sun side by side, and new
er seen a gator sleepin' on his back before
| or since. kDowed something was the mat
ter. Why, bless you you'd a see gators whar
| you never see 'tm befere. Old cusses that
| had been in thar holes for years, left home
| and waddled around the lake, takin' hand
| in the trouble. And it wuz Jest so for forty
| OF fifty miles up and down the river. Sich
right ssaart O. crawn', an clawin', an
swimmin', an eussin beat all that wuz ever
seen in FLORIDA. We got word from Blue
Spring that the gators ,S.sd all left Palatka
and were headed up the riyc-r. ABOUT the
same time old Reddick, up at 9edoicx
Landing, nigh onto Sand Lake, said be saw
| whO.e slews O gators paddliug down the riv-
er. Reddick said thar "ar ten thousand of 'em.
Lordy, think thar wuz more of 'em.
Zone night thar wuz terrible time. Bless
your buttons, we couldn't sleep for the Loise.
| All the gators wuz turned loose an raisin'
h-n. We could hear 'em roarin' up the river
| an down the river, an in the lake In front of
| US. They shuck the air with their roarin'.
You would have thought that every gator
wuz tryin' to split his throat. Thar wuz
no use in tryin' to sleep. We wuz all up be-
fore daylight, and could hear the gators rat
| tim around in the laGe and shakiu' things
up. At ybreak we could see 'em slashing
the foam on the aar at the mouth of the river
The gators comm down the river had met
| t gators comm up, an a big fight wuz GO
ing on. We could hear their Jaws slap c,san
over to Shelf Mound-that wuz three m les
and at MellonsiIle they could see any of Gods
i ifu ~ ,rof Thas Lax, I..1x
six hundred acres of 'em. They fought all
| the forenoon. Heaps of em were lied, an
the lake wuz kivered with blood. They bit
off each others arms and legs, and made
awful noises when they wuz hurted. A man
at Mellonville told me that he seen 'em
raise light up out OF the water like two dogs,
| an stand on their tails an fight.
"Why, Lord bless your buttonsl so many
gators fioated ashore that il was nigh breed
in Of yellow tever. Indeed it was. For
months afterward you could see gators
a-paddlin' around the lake with only one
arm. Some Of 'em had their eyes bit out
and war stone blind. One liar had piece
OF his nose taken of, an a big chunck bit out
OF his back. The boys felt mighty sorry tor
wuz around the lake tor twenty year, an
growed to be a monstrous gator. You
could always tell him by the big scar on his
back, an he waggIed sideways like be wuz a
cripple. Some Yankee that didn't know him
killed him just after the wah."
| Here the Captain pulled a rope hanging
down at the side OF the pilot-house. The
boat blew her whistle and l took the hint
and left. As the Daylight steamed from the
dock the captain bent himself tn the wheel.
Since then have conyersed with several
old settlers, and they all bear witness TO the
truth OF Captain DevaePs story of the great
alligator fight. One Of them showed me
| copy of an old newspaper called the Georgian
and printed in Savannah, containing an ac-
| count OF the fight.