The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1880-03-03
Then and NOw.-The Halifax.
Editor Of The Florida Agriculturist IT

lutll anu NONs-Iu0 IAtilAlHAs
Editor of The Florida Agriculturist
You ask for a statement OF pro-
gress in this section and of compare.
tive advantages 10 recent settlers.
Time permits to say only that,
when we first came here, fourteen
years ago, transportation of every
kind ended at Jacksonville and St.
Augustine.
TO navigate the St. Johns and
Dunn's lake, we procured govern
ment lighter and a squad of colored
soldiers, then purchased dug-out
and padded and sailed our own ca
noe.
AT St. Augustine we chartered
small row and sail boat, hired crew
of three negroes, born and raised on
the Halifax in the old time. At st.
Jo., the old Hernandes sugar planta-
ton, We got a team to take our boat
and traps across the land between
the head waters Of the Matanzas and
Halifax rivers, launching at the old
Bulow plantation, we passed south.
ward 30 miles by water to the first
habitation, on the site this shanty
now stands. The Port Orange Ho;
tel, built and occupied by the same
E. A. McDaniels, whose children,
then small, and not few, now grown,
have families comfortably housed in
framed buildings of their own con,
struction. To their hative growth
and energy as to the enterprise Of
immigra lion we owe our present Port
Orange with its wharf, stores, school
houses, variety Of dwellings, tasty
gardens and numerous orange groves
in the back ground.
Just north of Mr.. McDaniels, hid
den in dense, vine entangled thicket
OF palmetto, oak, orange and fig,
stood the old Dun Lauton mansion,
saw-mill, stables, store houses and
more humble dwellings Of servants
and overseer. From these desolate
monuments of former industry and
Social lie We passed westward, along
a'deep canal, and over an old turn
pike road, to the sugar plantation in
the rich hammock which continues
southwark hundred miles from st.
10. Here its eastern border is half
mile from the Halifax and thrice
that distance from the ocean beach.
Another halt mile over canals,
bitches and old cane beds to the CEN
ter OF the oyer-grown old field, we
reached that massive structure of
stone and wood, enclosing engine,
rollers and batteries just as they had
been lett, fifteen years previous, and
nearly as they were when the Ind1-
ans, in 1885, after burning all the nu-
merous other sugar mills, were de-
teated. Here, Wickwire of Spruce
creek was clearing up his little in
closure from which he said he had
taken 60 bushels OF corn to the acre,
and the massive stubble bore testi-
mony to the truth OF what he said
that time. ii 3iis i.''. 'ii''..-.' ..
Further on we found the Voss
"children" commencing to clear up
the torest-groye, budded and lett
twenty years earlier by DR.. Hawks,
then, spite of entangling woods,
heavy laden with delicious fruit, now,
doubled in. area and size of trees,
with more abundant truitage. Where
then a dense forest with live oaks,
some eleven. feet in diameter, kept
silent guard and stood sentinel
around the old mill, there have
sprung up numerous young groves
striding onward to rival, and even
surpass, that OF Voss.
Thence northward even to Bulow's
through this wilderness that was,
along and around those deserted
plantations and ruins of sugar mill
whereon had grown gnarled oaks and
tail palmettos, the wild orange trees
have been budded with sweet fruit,
and new groves are being planted,
forming and 10 form an unbroken
series of sweet groves, separated
only by fields of cane and corn, with
other staples and luxuries. AT the
same time, the enterprising pioneers
OF this industry have built them.
selves fine habitations and gardens
all along the Halifax to the Tomoka.
The central groups of these, with
their wharyes, stores, post. offices and
school houses constitute the towns