The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-08-18
OLDEST MAIL CARRIER
EDMONDsON STEELE OF BREwTON CLAIMS HONOR.
Eighty-Six Years old and Carries Mail Three Times Weekly From Es- cambia County Site to
 Appleton.

Brewton. Aug. 17.--(Special )--Per | haps the oldest star route mail carriei 1 employed by the United States Govern.
 ment is Edmondson Steele, who carrie:
 the United States man between Brew. | ton and Appleton, a distance of clever 1 miles, regularly three times a week Mir. Steele is S6 years Of age and makes | good time and in as good condition as ( | youth of 20. Mir. Steele was born in Butler County
 and moved here with his parents wher ' years of age and took up his resi-.
 dence at Fort Crawford ,one mile eas'
 of the present site Of the town of Brew. ton. At that time Fort Crawford wal | the only settlement in this section, anG | contained a few nice houses and two l well-built, strong block houses for the l protection of the settlers from the In dians. who were numerous in the sur. rounding country. Fort Crawford is l now the site of the Girls Industrial | School, having recently been purchased
 for that purpose by Rev. J. M Shofner l pastor of the Brewton Methodist | Church.
 It is very interesting to hear Mir l Steele talk of the early days in Escam.
 bia County. long before the county was organized.
 The supplies for the settlement were brought by wagon from Floridatown. al | the mouth of the Escambia River, thirty | miles distant. and what is now known | as Ferry Pass" said MT. Steele. Later | Ploridatown was abandoned and the l town of Milton. Florida on the Black | water River, was established. which Is | thirty eight miles from Brewton There l were only two houses between Fort Crawford and Bellville, a distance of twenty-seven miles.
 The settlers raised fine crops of corn and cotton, and the woods were full of | the fattest bogs. When a boy, my brothers and had fine sport Keeping
 the squirrels out of the field, and keep. ing the hogs near home to keep the
 bears from destroying them. Deer was so plentiful that I have often seen as many as twenty-five and thirty in one drove and 1t was no trouble at all to go out and kill a deer or bear when we
 were In need of fresh meat Where the
 thriving and busy town of Brewton now
 stands, with its 5000 population. was a thick oak grove. and one of the finest squirrel grounds have ever seen, and
 I frequently hunted through 1t. I have
 seen this country develop from a wild
 wilderness into a thriving, busy, rich
 county, filled with nice towns, beautiful
 homes, farms and orchards and dotted
 here and there with saw mills and tur-
 pentine manufacturing plants, and the
 hum of industry and progress is now
 heard on every hand where in years
 gone by only Indians and wild beasts
 roamed> the woods"
 Mir. Steele has been carrying the
 Brew on Appleton mail for four years
 the 26th of the past July and his mall
 has only missed one trip during that lime. He has q nice home at Appleton
 and he and his wife. who Is now 70 years of age. live there alone. He Is hale aud hearty for one of his advanced age, and the indications the that he will continue to carry Uncle Sam's mail for some time yet to come.