The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1900-08-04
Fascinating Florida.


founder of ''Mental Science discoy'
erer of ''The Law Of O~pulence' lives
DE Land, clean, pretty and healthfulr
a unworthy town, where n looks
outward every way to forests Of tall
pines through whose bOughs the winds
20 singing as they gather balsams to
carry away for the healing Of human
ills. All these are fascinating, one
after the other and each unlike the
other. One night | stopped at New
Smyrna, which the people all cal
"Samyrna," putting an q IS the
second letter. 1t was dark and hot,
the mosquitoes were %activei | remem-
bered ii was on Mosquito Inlet and
thought its greatest need was a Mos
quito Outlet. There was a good bar
over the bed that secured a good rest
and the breakfast was as good as
usually found IN the south BY the
ILLNESSES who cook them. But the
mosquitoes were at breakfast and the
railroad men switching at the station
had big ~smudges to the windward to
keep them away and | went along
whipping face and neck and ankles
with my handkerchief. So it was q
bad impression | carried away. But
on the cars the State Fish Commission
or, John Y. Detweiler, invited me to
his home to spend a day and later on
| went. New Smyrna got its name
from the English governor Of Florida
wheh England owned it. (When | tell
people that the one thing needful for
us is to get Canada so that we will
not one day be as Germany Is with
Russia to the north Of her some Of the
indolent say "England never lets go of
what she ~ gets.n But she does.
She has voluntarily let 60 Of Florida,
Cuba and Helgo-land.) The English
GO 'rnor, Turnball, had married his
wife in Smyrna, Asia, and named his
new town here New Smyrna. He left
his mark in Florida as no other man
has. He imported 4 lot of people
from the Island Of Minorca, one of
the Balearic Isles and their descend
ants are here yet. They are swarthy,
with black hair and eyes, industrious,
good natured and all Catholicism as
they say Romans. He drained a lake
some miles srom his town and the
stone walls Of the canal are good yet
and the water running clear just as
when he left. Some who live on its
banks are descendants Of "Turnbulrs
people" who dug it. 1 would have
missed one Of the most interesting
and beautiful spots in Florida had not
Mr.. Detweiler, the state Ssh com.
missioner invited me TO stay owe a
train. | ended by getting board for
a week with him. He lives across the
inlet from Smyrna, near the toll bridge,
a low, wooden n with an opening
span TO let crafts through with masts
or stacks.
The Rocky Mountain country is full
Of sublimity, beauty, picturesqueness,
but 1t has little or no history. In
Europe every spot is made interesting
with human interest. Here there IL
history as well as loneliness of out
look. Yes, there is prehistoric in.
terest too. The very house l am in,
much Of New Smyrna, stands on
enormous mounds of the shells of
oysters and other shell.fish, thrown
here by a mild, weaponless type Of
savages, who must have dwelt here a
very great while. They made pottery
much like what is found at Lexington,
and as 1t is all burnt inside and not
out, they probably heated water by put.
ting the fire in the earthen vessel and
that in a skin vessel, Just as
Mandans dropped hot boulders and
cobble stones into raw hide buckets
full Of water, II Is half a mile back
to the sea and halfway there Is a huge
mound where they buried their dead.
was digging In 1t and found many
pieces Of bone, but no complete skulls,
as they break easily.
Mr.. Detweiler is an Ohioan, who
was a Kansas soldier and is q G. A.
man. After losing two children 10
.tchison County, Kansas, by dIphthe.
ria and nearly losing his wife by
consumption, he came here. She Is
rs fat and hearty and industrious
woman as Is eve seen, and they
would not leave Florida, where they
hearty children and grand.
children.
When wake LOOK out, and with.
raising my head from the pillow,
ook on q scene Of beauty the live
'aks and palmettos are draped with
graceful Spanish moss, the healtbful
water Of the inlet is ripping in
With the tidoi across it is a juttinp
leadland, high for Florida, on which
S the "Rock House." probably a mis-
ion, built in Spanish days, now de-
1t is still early, no one is awake,
'the world Is mine" for the time. And
The top Is "a cupalo, or, as | call It,
he pilot house. Going up there a
view is had. The sun rises
put OF the ocean, the clouds are beau
fully tinted, the water is Of different
'olors from time to time, now a sheet
silver, now an opal a hundred miles
ong, now as blue as the Adriatic.
at the inlet Is the light
house carrying us back In mind to the
'hoenician inventors Of them. Pines
the mainland, palmettos every.
where, pOrpolses jumping and blowing