Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1890-01-02
CAUGHT IN THE SWAMP
Experiences Of an Old Lumberman
on the Ocklawaha.

r Experiences VI oil OiSA aO44AOOA AAAeSAA
on the Ocklawaha.
He Tells OF the Trials and Triumphs of
Himself and Family While Living in
the Florida Back-Woods
Years Ago.
The pleasing picture of profits to be
made in numbering in the Ocklawaha
river region has it's offset in the hard
ships to be endured. That word hard
ships must be taken in somewhat diff
ferent sense from it's meaning as applied
to the life of settler in the far West.
Or, if the word is the same, the hard
ships are different. Cold and hunger
stare the Western settler in the face,
but severe cold and actual hunger are
never to be feared in Florida. While it
( is very unusual for people to have the
Inquiries there that most of us enjoy in
the North. it would be impossible for
them to starve, and when cold and hun
ger are abolished by the bounty of nat
ure the hardships of poverty are great
ly mitigated. / realize this myself
severely when think of my coal bill.
Still, there are hardships to be endured
even in Florida, and they make the re-
wards of labor perhaps taste all the
sweeter.
The experiences of a new settler are
always interesting, and / listened with
pleasure to the stories of an old lum ber-
man who took his family to the shores
of the Ocklawaha some years ago, after
being nearly ruined by ''boom" in
Northern Pennsylvania. 1t was not the
sort of boom that is supposed to build up
a new town, but a boom made of timber
and stretched across a river to hold back
the logs that were gathered behind it.
Ne had few thousand logs in the river
ready for sale when there came heavy
freShet, and boom and logs were swept
away together. The logs were all brand
ed, of course, but they were scattered
for untold miles along the shores of the
T1oga and the Susquehanna rivers, from
the New York line to Chesapeake Bay,
and to find and claim them would have
cost more than they were worth.
This was the beechwood straw that
broke the numbering cancels back, for
it was not the first nor the second time
that his logs had thus gone vOyaging
off without his leave; but this time they
went in such numbers and went so far
beyond recall that they settled ques-
tion which had been in dispute in the
family for some time, and few weeks
later the lumberman and his family
were off by schooner for Florida. This
was twenty years ago, before Florida
was any thing like the State it is now,
when Jacksonville was only q little
town, and Palatka still smaller. shall
tell the lumberman's story as nearly in
his own words as possible.
81 hear" said he, ''that you can get
Il
right down to Jacksonville in few
hours, but you could not do that when
came. We got passage in lumber
schooner for Jacksonville, and it took
us about five days. 1t was early in the
fall, and the weather was good, so we
had pleasant little voyage that we en-
joyed very much, for none of US had
ever seen the ocean before. There
were five of us-rny wife and myself,
two girls, and a sixteen-year-old boy
big enough to do almost a mans work.
We were bound for the Ocklawaha river
country, and you will want to know how
we came to go there. One of our neigh
bOrS in Pennsylvania had come down
here few years before, and was doing
we'll, sand we thought we might get q
little more ahead of the world here
than there. l was doing we'll enough
with hard work in the North, but there
did not seem to be much ahead for the
boy, and he was anxious to try his luck
in Florida, so we came.
when we reached Jacksonville we
found little steamboat running up the
st. Johns river as far as Palatka-n(
such fine boat as they have nowadays
but a small stern-wheeler that made
very slow time against the current
There were no boats at all then running
up the Ocklawaha river. and we had t.
get here the best way we could. l hat
made up my mind about what part o
the river l was going to settle on, al
though / had never seen it, for m,
friend had given me some points. On
place was about as good as another a.
far as the lumber went, but the neare
a man was to market the less time h
wasted rafting his logs. The neares
saw-mill then was at jacksonville, ant
/ settled to go up the Ooklawaha to jus
above where Orange creek runs in
about ten miles above that sharp turn
eve bought two boats in Palatka
One was big fiat-bottomed affair t
carry what little we had brought aloni
and the provisions, and the other fiat
bottomed skiff. These were bot
pretty we'll loaded down, for we ha
provisions for six months. The ST
John river gave US a surprise when w
first saw it, for we did not expect to Sc
a great river in Florida as big as tn
Hudson. But the Ocklawaha surprise
us more. None of US had ever seen sue
. muddy river, nor one so crooked, no
with such swampy banks But we kne'
we were going into swamp, and wer
not afraid of it. Both the girls helpe
row tho boats, for we were not cit
folks, You know, and they had Away
lived by the water, and were as stron
end useful as pair of boys.
.At last we found fine place ten 9
xweIye feet above high-water mark, an