Welcome to the official blog of historian and writer Dale Cox. Articles here explore the history, archaeology, folklore, genealogy, and scenic beauty of the Southeast.
Tamathli, seen near the center of this section of the 1778
Purcell-Stuart Map was one of the early breakaway towns that
soon became known as the Seminoles of Florid
The
Native Americans who lived along the Apalachicola River in today's Jackson,
Gadsden, Liberty, and Calhoun Counties did not immediately like the English who
took control of Florida in 1763.
A
party of warriors from Tomatley or Tamathli - a town near present-day Sneads -
demonstrated this in 1771 by attacking an English settlement on the Pascagoula
River in southern Mississippi (then part of Louisiana). They killed two people
and carried away a family of slaves. It is seldom remembered that the English
often took Native Americans as slaves in the early days of their colonization
of America and in this case the slaves captured by the Lower Creek warriors
from Tamathli were American Indians.
John
Stuart, the British agent for Indian affairs, wrote to the principal chiefs of
the Lower Creeks, asking that the surviving prisoners be returned:
A
Party of the Tomautley People some time ago carried away a Family of Indians
Slaves, who belong to a planter on Pascagaula River, the Man they Killed or
Burnt, the Woman is still among them. (Y)ou have no right to keep this Woman
and Children. They were poor defenceless Slaves, could not be your Enemies
being brought from a Country far to the Westward of the Mississippi, where you
never go to War. I wish to Know if you the Chiefs of the Nation suffer such
proceedings. There is no honor in taking and Killing a poor Slave the property
of your Friends. I hope you will send your Talk that the Woman and Children may
be restored to their Master. [John Stuart, January 20, 1772]
Stuart's
assistant David Taitt carried the message to the Lower Creek chiefs, but was
unable to obtain a suitable response. He then decided to travel down the
Chattahoochee River and visit Tamathli in person.
The Chattahoochee River flows in from the left to join the
Flint River which flows in from the right to form the
Apalachicola in this 1940s photograph of the Forks. The site
is now covered by Lake Seminole.
Taitt
purchased a canoe and prepared for his journey but found the chiefs greatly
alarmed by his plans. They pleaded with him, telling him that they
"desired me not to go down the River in a Canoe as they alledged there was
some dangerous Whirlpools in the river which they said would sink the
Canoe."
More
likely the chiefs on the Chattahoochee in what is now Alabama and Georgia were
concerned that the Tamathli warriors were kill Taitt. They continued to present
reasons why he should not go and finally offered to send two of their own head
warriors to the town, but refused to let the assistant agent go,
"alledging the danger of the River and badness of the people there."
Without
saying it, the principal Lower Creek chiefs were telling Taitt that the towns
on the lower Chattahoochee and Apalachicola Rivers no longer listened to them.
Tamathi was one of the founding communities of what would become the Seminoles.
They broke away from the Muscogee or Creeks and resettled in Florida to live
independently.
The
only white person who had any real influence with them was a white trader named
James Burges. He operated a trading post or "store" in Tamathli and
another in the town of Pucknauhitla at present-day Bainbridge, Georgia. Burges
married Native American women, the daughters of chiefs, and had families in
each town.
Tamathli was on the western or right side of the
Apalachicola River downstream from today's US 90
and the Jim Woodruff Dam. The actual town was on high
ground back away from the floodplain swamps.
Taitt
sent him a letter on May 4, 1772, requesting his help in freeing the surviving
slaves along with a captive white women. The letter was given to head warriors
named Chimhuchi and Topahatkee for delivery.
On the
same day, Taitt reported back to Stuart:
…The
Eufalla people say that they have done no wrong as the house they burnt was on
their own land but this I shall talk to them about…I intended to come down the
River to Tamatley and had prepared a Canoe for that purpose by permission of
the Indians here, since they have raised many objections aledging that there is
several dangerous whirlpools in the rivers and the people there are a set of
runagadoes from every Town in the Nation…I shall send two head men from this
Town to Tomatley for the two Slaves which are alive, although the Boy is sold
to a Trader there, the Man and Girl they murdered at the place where they took
them. [David Taitt to John Stuart, May 4, 1772]
The
two emissaries made it to Tamathli without major incident and returned to the
Lower Creek towns on May 22, 1772. They brought with them the slave woman
captured on the Pascagoula, but the trader John Mealy - who operated a store at
Ocheesee Bluff - had sent him to the populated areas of Georgia, apparently for
sale. The white captive living at Tamathli did not wish to be freed. She was
married to a warrior of the town and fled into the woods to avoid being taken
back by the two messengers.
The
Tamathli would improve their relations with the British over the years that
followed. The two were close allies by 1778 when warriors from the town went to
help fight against U.S. forces in Georgia during the American Revolution.
The
town was east of Sneads on the higher ground back from the Apalachicola River
just north of the now-abandoned Gulf Power plant.
You often hear about members of Congress from one party or the other holding senior citizens hostage. It is usually a rhetorical device employed in debates over Social Security or Medicare, but it actually happened in Jackson County, Florida.
A Member of Congress took an elderly man hostage at Marianna in 1870 and used him as a human shield. In fact, he was even assisted by the U.S. Assessor - or tax man - for Florida!
The incident took place during the heated campaign leading up to the election of 1870. Rep. Charles M. Hamilton, a Republican, represented Florida in Congress and claimed to live in Jackson County although he had not so much as visited the county in over one year.
The same was true of state Sen. William J. Purman, who double-dipped as U.S. Assessor for Florida. He represented Jackson County's district at the State Capitol, although he lived in Tallahassee.
Both men were Carpetbaggers - a term used by white and sometimes black Southerners to refer to Northerners who came South after the Civil War or War Between the States to seek office or establish businesses.
Hamilton and Purman arrived at Marianna in 1866 as the agent and assistant agent of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands - usually called the Freedmen's Bureau or just The Bureau.
Bureau agents did respectable work in many areas, smoothing the way for African Americans as they made the transition from slavery to freedom. They helped the former slaves - who were called Freedmen - negotiate labor contracts, opened schools for black and white children alike, and even distributed rations to starving people of all races in war-ravaged areas.
Sen. William J. Purman
Hamilton and Purman, however, engaged in a series of bitter confrontations with Jackson County residents, exceeded their legal authority by ordering armed gangs to kidnap citizens who defied them and were accused of numerous improprieties by a U.S. Army officer sent to investigate their activities.
Hamilton, in fact, went so far as to urge - in writing - the killing of white citizens by black citizens and the start of a race war of sorts in Jackson County. He was under indictment for kidnapping in the Circuit Court - which was then under the control of the Reconstruction government - when he was named as Florida's sole U.S. Congressman and left the county.
Purman, who took over as Bureau agent in Marianna after Hamilton's departure, was wounded in an assassination attempt and left Jackson County for Tallahassee, where he represented the county in the state legislature even though he no longer lived there. To his credit, he intervened and stopped the race war that Hamilton attempted to ignite.
As the election of 1870 heated up, more Democrats - many of whom were former Confederates - registered to vote and formerly untouchable politicians like Hamilton and Purman faced at least a minimal political threat. So, the two men came back to Jackson County on a campaign swing. As they did, one of Florida's leading African American officials accused them both of being little more than thieves, a sign that their popularity was falling with both races.
Marianna in the late 1800s
The Congressman and state senator conferred with Sheriff Thomas West, an appointee of Florida's Reconstruction Governor, who called for an armed posse of 500 men to escort them out of the county. There were clear signs that the population did not intend to let Hamilton and Purman leave Jackson County alive and West - who was generally liked by both sides in the growing Reconstruction era bitterness - feared for their lives.
Many citizens, however, feared that the appearance of such an armed irregular posse would lead to the violence it was intended to prevent. A delegation of Marianna's older and more-established citizens went to West, Hamilton, and Purman to try to convince them of the error of the plan:
When the older citizens found such was to be the program, they immediately came to us, and begged, for God’s sake, that we should not call out such a posse, saying that their young men would not stand it; that war would take place right away at once. They said: “Ask any means for your safety, and you shall have it.” Thereupon, we selected ten of the oldest and best citizens as hostages. - Testimony by William J. Purman, November 11, 1871.
Purman later testified about the events before a Select Subcommittee of the U.S. Congress investigating the outbreak of violence in Jackson County. The members were stunned to some degree that a sitting member of the U.S. House of Representatives (Hamilton) and a Federal official (Purman) would resort to such drastic measures:
Question. You spoke of some ten or twelve old men going with you as hostages. Do you mean by that they went out to answer with their lives for any assault on you?
Answer. No, sir; I will explain what I mean, Mr. Senator. There were fifteen of us, and ten of them, and had we been attacked, and had it become necessary to go on, spiritually speaking, into the land of Canaan, every one of those men would have gone with us.
Question. You would have murdered those old men?
Answer. We would not have gone alone ; we would have done what it is said Indians have done under certain circumstances. We have heard of Indians, who, when pursued, would interpose the women and children they may have kidnapped between the guns of their enemies and themselves. Had we been pursued in that way, we would have made a bulwark of those hostages.
No censure or other action was taken against Hamilton or Purman for their role in the episode, but fortunately, no violence occurred as the party made its way from Marianna to Tallahassee by way of Bainbridge, Georgia.
At least one modern writer has justified the taking of elderly peacemakers as hostages and using them as human shields by a U.S. Congressman and the equivalent of an IRS agent. In truth, it is difficult to justify such actions in any circumstance.
The violence in Jackson County continued in spells from 1865 to 1876 and occasionally after that. As is often the case, events that were domestic or personal in nature have been included in tabulations of political assassinations created by modern historians, but there can be no disputing that it was a bitter and stressful time.
The use of American citizens as human shields by two Federal authorities in Jackson County worked in that both escaped with their lives. They never faced legal consequences for their roles in the episode.
Neal's Landing - One of the greatest tragedies in the history of Jackson County was the sinking of the steamboat Eagle in less than fifteen minutes on January 29, 1854.
The massive 150-foot boat was a true "floating palace" that rivaled the finest Mississippi riverboats of her day. Propelled by a big paddlewheel at her stern, she carried 200 tons of cargo plus her cargo and crew and was less than two years old when she left Columbus on January 28, 1854, in route down the Chattahoochee and Apalachicola Rivers to Apalachicola, Florida.
The Eagle carried 1,303 bales of cotton on that ill-fated trip and her cabins were filled with passengers, many of them children. She had just reduced speed as she approached Neal's Landing (spelled Neals Landing today) in the northeast corner of Jackson County, Florida, when the smell of smoke suddenly filled her decks.
The cause was never determined, but fire broke out on the boat that day. The flames were first discovered in an area behind the engine room and directly below the "Ladies' Cabin." The gleaming decks burst into flame and fire engulfed the Eagle so fast that crew and passengers alike were surrounded by walls of flame.
The pilot stayed at his post even as fire consumed his vessel. The engines were still running and he steered the bow of the Eagle for the Florida shore to help the crew and passengers get ashore.
"The children and ladies had either to come down with ropes or be let fall from a height of 13 tiers of cotton bales into the arms of those below on the main deck," wrote one survivor, "then jump to shore."
The same eyewitness continued with a remarkable story of heroism:
...All speak in the highest praise of the conduct of my daughter, not 10 years old. She neither cried nor screamed, but stood upon a pile of cotton, holding one of her little cousins (boys) by each hand, exhorting them not to cry or jump, nor would she leave the burning wreck until she saw them safely landed; she then, in the most self-possessed manner, asked if there was any person that would save her?
One member of the crew yelled out "I will" and, at the risk of his own life, climbed the burning decks and "snatched her from the very jaws of death."
The mighty steamboat Eagle disappeared into the waters of the Chattahoochee within fifteen minutes. Nothing remained to be seen, according to eyewitnesses, but "a few blackened particles of cotton."
All of the people who could be saved were rescued within the first five minutes after the discovery of the fire. Four people - three men and one woman - died. All were members of the crew who remained aboard helping passengers escape until it was too late for them to save themselves.
The loss of the Eagle in financial terms was estimated at $100,000, a remarkable sum for the time. In fact, $100,000 in 1854 was the equivalent of $3,048,714.29 in 2019 dollars.
The estimate did not include a huge shipment of gold and silver being sent to Apalachicola by the banks of Columbus on behalf of the cotton merchants in that city. The season had been extremely profitable and the specie was on its way to be placed aboard an ocean-going vessel for shipment to New York.
Some of the money was recovered, but the banks never revealed how much was lost with the Eagle and remains buried in the mud on the bottom of the Chattahoochee River at Neal's Landing.
Blue Springs Recreational Area near Marianna, Florida, will open for the summer season on Thursday, June 20.
Rett Daniels with Jackson County confirmed this morning that the park will open at 9:30 a.m.
Hurricane Michael and a shortage of trained lifeguards had caused a delay in opening the park this year and county officials had early expressed hope they would have it ready to open by the Fourth of July.
Work was completed earlier than expected, though, so residents and visitors can start enjoying the beautiful park later this week!
Blue Springs (also called Jackson Blue Springs) osnon Blue Springs Road near Marianna, Florida. Admission is $4 per person.
Marianna – The traditional story often told in books and articles about Jackson County - and repeated on many websites - is that the word “Chipola” originates from the Choctaw language and means something akin to “sweet water.” The interesting tale dates back many decades, but unfortunately, it probably is not true. The Choctaw never lived in Jackson County and there is no evidence that they named the Chipola River.
Early writers probably confused the little-known Chacato with the Choctaw. The names are similar and the Chacato were living in what is now Jackson County when the Spanish arrived in 1674. Their primary homeland was in the rich lands between the Chipola River and Holmes Creek.
Spanish missionaries settled among the Chacato and established the missions or churches of San Nicolas and San Carlos. A third visita or part-time station was built at a place called San Antonio. San Nicolas was a few miles northwest of Marianna, San Antonio was near Campbellton, likely in the Daniel Springs area, and San Carlos was probably near Orange Hill in what is now Washington County.
Blue Springs (or Jackson blue Spring) was called "Calutoble"
by the Spanish. It is mentioned in the 1677 report that also
includes the first use of the word "Chipola."
In 1675, however, the Chacato warriors rebelled and drove out the missionaries. Spanish soldiers retaliated by burning San Nicolas and San Antonio. Most of the Chacato survivors fled to the Coushatta (or Coosada) towns in Alabama, although some who had converted to the Christian faith moved closer to the Spanish capital at Mission San Luis in today's Tallahassee.
The war against the Chacato soon expanded to include the Chisca (possibly the Yuchi?) who lived in what is now Walton County. Chisca warriors raided Spanish settlements around Mission San Luis from a fortified village somewhere in southern Walton or Okaloosa Counties.
Apalachee Christian militia responded in 1677 with a raid that located and destroyed the Chisca stronghold. The soldiers passed through Jackson County and the report of the expedition’s commander includes the first known written use of the word “Chipola.”
Crossing the Chattahoochee River at a site now covered by Lake Seminole, Captain Juan Fernandez de Florencia reported that the Apalachee commander and his 197 men marched west into Jackson County in September of 1677. After camping at a pond somewhere north of Grand Ridge, the force continued Blue Springs (Jackson Blue Spring) which the captain described as “a spring which is named Calutoble, whence a river runs toward the south.”
Paddlers enjoy the headwaters of the Chipola River at
Lily Pad Adventures near Campbellton, Florida
The route of the expedition then angled to the northwest across today’s Dogwood Heights area to the natural bridge of the Chipola River at Florida Caverns State Park. There, the Apalachee commander told the captain, his men camped “in a great forest called Chipole; and the next day knelt to pray.”
The 1677 account was the first documented use of the word “Chipola” and it applied to the vast floodplain swamps and not the river itself. This puts the assumption that that the word meant "sweet water" into doubt.
The expedition was guided by friendly Chacato warriors and the word is undoubtedly Native American in origin, so it is logical to conclude that it was from the Chacato language. The exact meaning, however, has been lost to time.
The Alabama-Coushatta of Texas are descendants of the Chacato but report that "Chipola" has no meaning in their language today.
Based on its usage, "Chipola" - which today provides the name for a river, a college, and numerous businesses and nonprofit agencies - probably means something like "big swamp" or "big forest." Learn more about the Spanish and Native American history of Jackson County in Dale Cox's book:
Florida’s First American-Built Road Passed Through Jackson County
By Dale Cox
Compass Lake – When the United States acquired Florida from Spain in 1821, few people had any idea of the dramatic size of the territory. More than 400 miles of wilderness separated Pensacola and St. Augustine, the only two cities in Florida and little more than a rugged footpath that took six weeks to travel connected the two places.
As settlers flooded into the new American territory, the complete lack of a transportation network proved astounding. A call went up to the U.S. Congress for help and on February 28, 1824, an act was passed approving the construction of a “Federal Road” linking Pensacola and St. Augustine.
The task for building this road fell on the shoulders of Captain Daniel Burch, an army officer that had participated in Andrew Jackson’s 1818 campaign. Anticipating the project, he started working in 1823 to consider possible routes and develop cost estimates.
Burch quickly found that the available maps of Florida were extremely inaccurate. In one report, for example, he noted that he had added the course of the “Choppoola” or Chipola River to his charts because the mapmaker had simply not known of its existence.
The more he explored, the more he also came to realize that the plan of Congress to build a 25-foot road all the way from Pensacola to St. Augustine was simply impossible with the means at hand. In fact, he soon became convinced that even removing tree stumps from the path would be unnecessary and impossible. “In opening a road of this kind,” he wrote, “it is altogether unnecessary to dig or cut off the stumps level with the ground, unless occasionally when one happens to stand directly in the route, nor is it necessary to cut it through the open woods wider than for one wagon to pass with ease.”
The actual survey of a proposed route for the road began in late October of 1824, when Burch and a detachment of 22 men from the 4th United States Infantry set out from Pensacola to mark the construction lines of the project. It took them 34 days to reach St. Augustine, but they settled on a route for the highway.
Captain Burch intentionally platted his road to lead through some of the least desirable lands in Florida because the open scrub woods would be easy to clear and speed the construction process. From Deer Point on Pensacola Bay at present-day Gulf Breeze, the proposed route led west to Choctawhatchee Bay then turned to the northeast and crossed the Choctawhatchee River at the “Cow Ford.” So named because it was a place where cows could be driven across the river, the ford was near present-day Ebro in Washington County. From here the route led on to the natural bridge of Econfina Creek and then angled northeast again to a point near the southern shore of Compass Lake.
Turning east and southeast, it led through southern Jackson County until it intersected with today’s State Highway 73 about 1.5 miles north of the Calhoun County line. Crossing the Chipola River into Calhoun County at this point, the road led on to Ocheesee Bluff on the Apalachicola River.
Construction on the road began near Pensacola on October 5, 1824 and the section through Jackson and Calhoun Counties was completed in June of 1825.
Although Burch believed his road would become the “great leading road of the country,” he soon learned otherwise. Because his route led primarily through scrub lands, the road proved of little benefit to the actual settlers of Northwest Florida. By 1830, residents in Jackson County had already built a new road linking Marianna and Webbville with Chattahoochee to the east and Holmes Valley to the west. The Federal Road was bypassed and fell into disuse. For Jackson County, at least, it became little more than a wasted government appropriation.
A few miles of the original route can still be traced along dirt roads in the southern edge of Jackson County, but little else remains to remind residents that the Federal Road ever existed. It has been common over the years to mistake today’s “Old U.S. Road” with this original path, but the two were separate. The “Old U.S. Road” was built in 1836-1838 by the U.S. Army to connect Alabama with Apalachicola Bay by way of Marianna. It ran from north to south, while the original Federal Road ran from west to east.
A section of the Old U.S. Road west of Greenwood, Florida.
By Dale Cox
The "Old U.S. Road" leads from north to south through Jackson County, Florida. It has been a prominent feature on the local landscape since 1836 and parts of it are still in daily use.
Florida was still a wilderness when President Andrew Jackson signed an Act of Congress into law establishing the road on July 2, 1836. The Second Seminole War (1835-1842) and the Creek War of 1836-1837 raged across the Deep South.
Jackson believed that federal money should be spent only on infrastructure projects that benefited the people of more than one state or territory. The proposed new road did that. It began at Daleville, Alabama (west of present-day Dothan), and ran south across the border to Marianna on the Chipola River. From Marianna, the road continued south to St. Joseph (Port St. Joe) on St. Joseph Bay and then east to its southern end at Apalachicola.
Two Alabama and four Florida counties can be found along the original route today.
The primary purpose for federal involvement in building the road was to provide a reliable and safe route for delivery of mail to the growing Florida cities of Marianna, St. Joseph and Apalachicola. Bid for delivery were let by the postal service in 1836 and the contractor was required to have mail deliveries up and running by February 1, 1837.
Provisions outlined by the U.S. Postal Service required that mail be carried between Marianna and Daleville, a distance of around 60-miles, once each week. This was done by means of stage coaches that also provided transportation for any passengers so inclined.
A second line of stages connected Marianna with St. Joseph and Apalachicola on the Gulf of Mexico. Deliveries along this section of the road were required twice weekly, despite the longer distance of more than 90-miles.
Much of the road was likely built over existing trails, as it was completed with remarkable speed. By the time President Jackson signed a second appropriation of $20,313 for the project on March 3, 1837, much of the route was done.
The Creek and Seminole Wars, however, slowed things down a bit. A new outbreak of fighting spread south through Alabama into Northwest Florida in the early months of 1837. Battles took place in modern Russell, Barbour, Pike, Dale, and Geneva Counties in Alabama, as well as across the line in almost all the counties of Northwest Florida. Work on roads and bridges was delayed as able-bodied men took the field as volunteers and militia.
Outbreaks of fighting continued in today's Jackson, Calhoun, Gulf, and Franklin Counties until 1844, but lessened in severity and work resumed on the new road in the summer and fall of 1837. The mail deliveries between Marianna and St. Joseph finally picked up speed in November of that year, nine months behind schedule. Construction crews, however, did not complete the total project until 1838.
The road became the primary north-south artery connecting three of the most important cities in Florida. Apalachicola, of course, emerged as a major commercial center at the mouth of the Apalachicola River and eventually became the third busiest port on the Gulf Coast behind New Orleans and Mobile. St. Joseph exploded almost overnight to become the largest city in Florida. Marianna, in turn, became the small but politically-powerful seat of the third most populated county in Florida.
Yellow Fever outbreaks, hurricanes, and war between North and South changed this dynamic over the decades to come, but for several years after its completion the U.S. Road was one of the most important transportation arteries in Florida.
Sections of the original route remain in use today. North of Marianna, a long segment of modern paved road that more or less follows the 1837 right of way extends from Grangeburg (Grangerburg) in Houston County, Alabama, across the border into Florida and west of the modern communities of Malone and Greenwood. It dead-ends at Caverns Road just around the curve from Florida Caverns State Park.
The original road continued straight across but Jackson County rerouted it in the late 19th century. By turning east on Caverns Road then south on Old U.S. Road, you can reconnect with the original route where it picks up again just south of the intersection of Meadowview and Old U.S. Roads.
The original then continued to a wooden bridge that carried travelers across the Chipola River into Marianna. It was located at the foot of Jackson Street. Brick and stone piers visible there are often mistaken for ruins of this original bridge, but they date from later times.
South of Marianna, the original road followed today's FL-73 to its intersection with FL-71. The latter highway approximates the route south to St. Joseph from where the road turned east to Apalachicola.
You can learn more about the early roads and trails of Jackson County in Dale Cox's book The History Of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years. To follow the original route of the Old U.S. Road from Grangeburg to Marianna, please use the map below:
Caves were a source of niter, a key component of gunpowder,
during the War Between the States or Civil War. Confederates
explored caves like this one in Jackson County to see if they
could be mined for raw materials for powder production.
Like most Floridians, the residents of Jackson County showed little initial interest in the blockade of the state’s coastline by the Union navy. Many did not think a total blockade even possible and few expected the war to last longer than a year or two. By the middle of 1862, however, it was apparent that the blockade would prove to be a factor not just for the South’s residents, but for its armies as well. Plagued with limited manufacturing capabilities when the war began, the Confederacy depended heavily on arms, ammunition, and gunpowder brought in from abroad. As the blockade tightened, these avenues of supply were constricted.
In hopes of breaking the blockade and opening key ports, the Confederate Navy pushed forward projects such as the CSS Chattahoochee. Quickly recognizing that they simply did not have the means to challenge the U.S. Navy for supremacy of the waves, however, Southern leaders also embarked on an ambitious program of industrialization. Peacetime mills, foundries, and manufacturing facilities were converted and expanded to provide war material for the Southern military. Major industrial centers grew in Columbus and Augusta, Georgia; Selma and Mobile, Alabama; Richmond, Virginia, and in other key locations across the Confederate States.
It is difficult to imagine today, but the paddlewheel steamboat Jackson carried cargoes of cotton and other commodities down the Chipola River from Marianna throughout the war.
In many ways, this effort to wage war by the South foreshadowed future methods of manufacturing and supply. A converted riverboat facility in Columbus, for example, provided engines for warship construction projects throughout the Confederacy, while heavy cannon for those same vessels came from ordnance complexes in Richmond and Selma. Ironworks in Alabama and Georgia, in turn, provided the raw material used for making the guns and powder works in cities such as Augusta turned out gunpowder for both cannon and small arms.
Even Jackson County, far from the booming industrial cities of the Confederacy, contributed to this effort. Cotton from the county’s plantations and farms went up the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers to thread and textile mills where it was converted into uniforms, tents, and bandages. Tanneries like the one at Oak Hill west of present-day Alford produced boots in large numbers for the military and other shops, large and small, manufactured everything from barrels and kegs to wagon wheels and horseshoes. The county’s forests provided heavy timbers, milled lumber and even enormous pine masts for naval construction. Beef, pork, and grain from Jackson County supported Southern armies in the field as far away as Virginia, but primarily in Tennessee and Georgia.
Gunpowder, however, was the key to continued resistance to the gathering armies of the North. While an army might move on its stomach, without powder for its muskets and cannons, it could not fight. A key ingredient of gunpowder was potassium nitrate, more commonly known during the 19th center as saltpeter.
Jackson County's caves proved too wet for use in mining for saltpeter (potassium nitrate).
While there were several ways to collect or manufacture potassium nitrate, perhaps the easiest was to collect it from caves. In its mineral form, it was known as nitre (usually spelled niter today) and was commonly found in clear to whitish encrustations on the walls and ceilings of dry caves. It was formed by nitrates and alkali potassium leaching through the ground. Saltpeter could also be produced from the bat guano that accumulated on the floors of caves.
In an effort to find nitre for powder works such as the massive facility at Augusta, Georgia, the Confederate Nitre Bureau was established and Professor Nathan Pratt of Oglethorpe University was named Superintendent of Nitre for the District of Florida. A noted scientist of his day, Pratt was assigned the formidable task of developing sources for large quantities of nitre. Because the mineral was being successfully extracted from caves elsewhere in the South, his attention quickly turned to caverns that honeycomb much of Florida. Jackson County, of course, is home to hundreds of caves of various sizes.
While most of the many caves in the county were too small to be of much value for industrially producing nitre, it was hoped that several of the larger ones might hold potential. The Natural Bridge or Old Indian Cave at today's Florida Caverns State Park and the Arch Cave three miles northwest of Marianna were the best known of these. The massive tour cave at the state park was not discovered until the 20th century.
To investigate the potential of the caves in Jackson County and elsewhere in Florida, Pratt traveled across much of Florida between May 28 and June 27, 1862. His investigations concentrated on caves near Marianna and Gainesville, as well as on other sources for producing saltpeter in Florida.
Professor Pratt arrived in Marianna on June 8, 1862. After conferring with local military and civic leaders, he hired a buggy and rode north from town on Carter’s Mill Road to inspect the Natural Bridge Cave. He was disappointed with what he found:
…(T)he caves are all small, the largest not over 400 yards long and from 10 to 20 feet wide, with few lateral expansions or apartments. The floors are generally rocky. Earthy floors when found of large extent, generally shallow; these are kept wet by water rushing in at the mouth or by excessive dripping from the porous ceiling above, so that nitre either is not formed or if formed is subject to constant lixiviation. Deficiency of earth or excessive wetness will describe all the caves of Florida that I examined and I consider these a sample of all as they occur in the same “rottru” porous, white limestone, of the Meiocine Tertiarry.
Nitre was a key ingredient needed to manufacture black powder, which was used in muskets of the Civil War era.
In short, the caves of Jackson County were too wet to be of much use for extracting nitre. While the results of his examinations were discouraging, Pratt did not completely rule out the possibility that small quantities of nitre could be mined in Florida. He found one cave near Gainesville that he thought might produce as much as 1,000 pounds, enough to make a considerable quantity of gunpowder, and he thought it might be worthwhile to at least make the attempt elsewhere. While he did not expect quantities produced to be sufficient to justify the construction of Confederate government mines, he did recommend that private owners open works in the caves to see what results they could achieve.
Such efforts were apparently undertaken in Jackson County. Either during his visit or shortly thereafter, Pratt named Dr. Thaddeus Hentz of Marianna as Assistant Superintendent for West Florida and placed him under the supervision of Charles H. Latrobe of Tallahassee. The brother of Dr. Charles Hentz, who practiced medicine in the county before the war, Thaddeus Hentz was a dentist and a private in Captain Robert Gamble’s Leon Light Artillery Company. He was detached from his normal military duties so he could work in Jackson County for the Nitre Bureau. Latrobe, a native of Baltimore, was the chief engineer of the Pensacola and Georgia Railroad and also a member of Gamble’s company.
The two evidently supervised at least limited attempts to mine nitre in the caves of Jackson County, most likely from the primary one at Natural Bridge. Surviving records show that Hentz approved payment to John L. McFarlin, an Apalachicola grocer, who had hired two wagon and mule teams for 25 days each to haul dirt for the Nitre Bureau in Jackson and Gadsden Counties. Some of this earth was mined from the floors of Jackson County caves, but some also came from beneath tobacco barns, stables and other plantation buildings.
The experiment, however, was short-lived and by mid-1863 significant Nitre Bureau operations in Jackson County had come to an end. Professor Pratt’s assessment of the productivity of the caves proved accurate and the county did not become a major source of potassium nitrate for the Confederate war effort.
(End of Excerpt)
The Jackson County cave experiments ended well before the Battle of Marianna, which took place on September 27, 1864. Learn more about the battle by clicking the play button to enjoy a free mini-documentary from Two Egg TV:
The legendary Courthouse Cave that runs beneath the City of Marianna is the subject of a very old story that is told in many different forms.
One popular version holds that the Jackson County Courthouse itself could disappear at any minute due to a collapse of the mysterious cavern. They point to cracks visible in the courthouse as evidence that the weight of the structure is pressing down on the ceiling of the cave.
Inside the cave, looking into a natural "forest" of formations
Another version tells of how early explorers could hear courtroom activity from above while deep within the cave.
Many if not most Jackson County residents have heard folklore about the cave. Here is the real story:The Courthouse Cave legend originates from a story that has been told around Marianna since at least the late 1800s. According to that tale, a pair of teenage friends were exploring the cave when their torch went out and they found themselves trapped in total darkness. Unsure of which way to go, they wandered deeper and deeper into the cave.
Passage leading deep under Marianna
Search parties were organized and groups of local men launched a rescue effort that took them deeper into the cave than any of them had ever been. The missing teenagers were found and brought out alive, but the rescuers told a fascinating story. At one point far into the cave they said that they heard sounds echoing down its passages. Thinking these sounds might be coming from the lost teenagers, the rescuers searched for their source. According to the legend, the noises turned out to be the sounds of courtroom activity drifting down through the roof of the cave!
So is the story true? Well, let's just say that it is one of hundreds of colorful Jackson County stories that result from a bit of exaggeration.
There is in fact a large cavern called the Courthouse Cave that runs deep under part of the City of Marianna, even though it doesn't quite reach all the way to the courthouse and worries of the building tumbling into it have no foundation.
I will be a little circumspect about its actual location, but the cave stretches for hundreds of yards beneath parts of Marianna. Experienced cavers have explored and mapped it, learning in the process that its myriad of passages connect to at least two other named caves.
Inside the Courthouse Cave
While the story of being able to hear courtroom activity deep inside the cave is not true, it does have a rich and important history. Prehistoric American Indian artifacts dating back thousands of years have been found inside the entrance, clear evidence that hunting parties used it as shelter when hunting along the hills on which Marianna was later founded.
On September 27, 1864, the day of the Battle of Marianna, the cave provided shelter and a hiding place for many of the city's women, children and elderly. The Union troops arrived on the west side of Marianna so quickly that many of the town's people did not have time to evacuate. As the men and boys gathered on Courthouse Square to organize for the fight, noncombatants headed for the Courthouse Cave.
View of a connecting passage in Courthouse Cave
The presence of the cave was never discovered by the Union soldiers and many Marianna residents remained safely hidden there with their valuables while the battle took place overhead. They emerged the next day after the Federal troops withdrew only to find that their homes had been ransacked and vandalized. This story is not a legend, but was told by many of those who survived the Battle of Marianna until the day they died.
Another story that may or may not be legend holds that members of the Republican Party hid arms, ammunition and assassins in the cave during the Reconstruction-era violence that swept through Jackson County in 1865-1876. Documentation of this has not been found, but the cavern's proximity to the scenes of some of the most severe violence of that era adds credibility to the tale.
During the Prohibition era (1920-1933), the cave was used as a place to store secret stocks of bootleg liquor. While claims that a speakeasy or illegal bar called the "Bloody Bucket" operated in it may or may not be true, evidence of moonshiner activity has been found in several Jackson County caves.
The stories all combine to make the cave a myseterious and fascinating place.
It is on private property and not open to the public.
Please click play below to enjoy a "behind the scenes" visit to another legendary Jackson County cave:
To learn more about caves and their place in Jackson County's history, please enjoy the books below from author Dale Cox:
Blue Springs - or Jackson Blue Spring as it is known today -
is the only first magnitude spring in the Chipola River basin.
The following story was handed down from the earliest settlers of what is now Jackson County, Florida, who said they learned it from Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole Indians still living in the area at the time. Many of the events described took place before the first Spaniard set foot in Florida. Blue Springs Recreational Area is currently closed but county officials hope to reopen it in time for July 4, 2019. Ghosts haunt Jackson Blue Spring
by Dale Cox & Hon. Francis B. Carter
A war once raged in eastern Jackson County. The Chacato, a Native American group that had intruded into Florida from the north, established settlements between Holmes Creek and the Chipola River. They soon began to raid the towns of the Apalachee Indians who lived east of the Ochlockonee River around present-day Tallahassee.
The Apalachee fought back and the region between the Chipola and Apalachicola Rivers became a depopulated buffer zone that separated the warring chiefdoms. The attacks and counterattacks continued but neither could defeat the other and the war bogged down into a bloody stalemate.
Jackson Blue Spring, locally called Blue Springs, is the head
of Marianna's beloved Merritt's Mill Pond. It is an impressive
first magnitude spring and the largest source of water for the
Chipola River.
It was in this time of conflict, the Blue Springs legend holds, that a young woman of the Chacato stumbled upon a young warrior of the Apalachee. The two fell in love but kept their romance secret because they knew that their families would object.
The young woman, however, was the daughter of the most powerful Chacato chief. He hoped to form a military alliance with the Chisca, a militaristic group that lived along Irwin's Mill Creek and the Chattahoochee River. The Chisca were fiercely independent and involved in a war of their own against the Apalache.
The chief of the Chacato offered his daughter as a bride to the young war chief of the Chisca in a gesture that he hoped would cement the proposed alliance. The latter group agreed to the proposal and a wedding was scheduled on neutral ground at Blue Springs.
The prospective bride, however, pleaded with her father and in tears begged him to call off the marriage. He refused and ordered her to comply with his will.
The mouth of the cave as seen from beneath the surface.
Photo by Alan Cox.
The young woman's desperation grew as the hour approached andshe concluded that she could not allow the marriage to happen.
Crowds of Chacato and Chisca gathered at the spring for the ceremony but instead watched in stunned disbelief as she suddenly bolted for the water. Before anyone could stop her, she leaped into the spring and dove down deep through the clear water and into the mouth of the submerged cave itself. All efforts by the bravest warriors to find and save her ended in failure.
At this point her true love arrived on the outskirts of the camp, determined to rescue her from her pending marriage. The scene of panic that he saw from his hiding place confused him and it took until sundown that he was able to learn that his beloved had taken her own life by diving down into the spring.
The young warrior waited for darkness and then walked down into the spring himself. He too dove down into the cave and disappeared forever in its depths.
The chief of the Chacatos was despondent and filled with regret over the loss of his daughter. He walked down to the spring at sunrise the next morning to think and express his grief. As the ray of the rising sun penetrated to the bottom of the spring, however, he saw two figures standing there in the shadows at the mouth of the cave. They were holding hands. He knew that it must be his daughter, Calistoble, and her beloved.
Jackson Blue Spring is the only first magnitude spring in the
entire Apalachicola/Chattahoochee/Flint/Chipola River Basic.
The chief decreed at that moment that the spring would bear his daughter's name. People from any tribe or nation could come there without fear to enjoy the cold water, beautiful forests and abundant wildlife. It remained known as Calistoble Spring for many years.
The chief's decree also came with a serious warning. If anyone should disturb the beauty of the water where his daughter's spirit remained, the spring would stop flowing and become nothing more than a stagnant pool.
The Chacato, Chisca, and Apalachee eventually disappeared from Florida, the victims of war and oppression. The Creeks and Seminoles that followed, however, abided by the powerful declaration of the ancient chief and preserved Calistoble as a place of recreation, beauty and peace. They also handed down the old warning that damaging the beauty of the spring would bring about its death.
Visitors claimed that the spirits of the lost lovers could be seen moving in the waters of the spring on moonlit nights, constant reminders of the long ago tragedy and a father's warning to to any who might disturb his daughter's peace.
Possession of the spring eventually passed on to the whites, but they soon adopted a plan to adapt it for industry and in doing so awakened the curse and summoned the anger of the Spirit of the Spring.
Blue Springs continued to flow through times of war and peace for hundreds of years after Calistoble and her lover disappeared into its depths.
The Spanish never settled at the spring but preserved it as a stopping place on their journeys into the Florida Panhandle. They continued to call it Calistoble and marveled at both the crystal clear waters and the surrounding hills on which grew wild grapes in profusion. Bison (buffalo) roamed the slopes and drank from the spring.
The British and Americans that followed changed the name to Big Spring and then Blue Springs. The ancient Chacato chief's warning against damaging the spring was forgotten as early entrepreneurs arrived on the scene.
Filming from the diving board at Blue Springs with crystal
clear water rising from the cave below.
One such developer viewed the rapid current with awe and speculated as to the profits that he could make if the spring was dammed to power grist, saw and cotton mills. Plans were prepared and a date set for the beginning of construction.
The Spirit of the Spring watched from within her watery domain:
It is not known until this day how the spring became aware of the business man’s purpose. It is thought that the wind whispered the secret to her while on a moonlight visit. She, who from Creation’s dawn had remained unmolested, now conceived the idea that her privilege – the privilege of being beautiful – was about to be invaded, and that she would be forced to do menial service, which would not only mar her beauty, but degrade her to the level of an ordinary water course. She could not endure the thought of adding an artificial growth, and sitting by the side of a great wheel, turning it all the day long and far into the night. She rebelled at the thought of such desecration and resolutely determined not to submit. The sordid hand of commerce might mar, but it should not forever destroy the beauty and wild freedom of this romantic spring.
Hon. Francis B. Carter
Associate Justice, Supreme Court of Florida
and writer of 1907 account of the Spirit.
State Archives of Florida
The above passage was written by Judge Francis B. Carter of Marianna. He owned the beautiful old Ely-Criglar Mansion from 1889-1900 and was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Florida in 1897-1905.
He wrote the story of the Spirit of the Spring in 1907 (his words appear here in italics):
...At great expense a building was erected for the mill; the miller’s house arose among the oaks, a dam was constructed a few yards below and the Spirit of Commerce gloated over the prospect of its almost brutal conquest of the fairest and loveliest spring in all of Florida. An immense undershot wheel was put in position, the breach in the dam was closed and the Spirit of Commerce took his stand by the side of the waters, awaiting the moment when the clear and limpid element should rise to a sufficient height to do the menial service of turning the great wheel.
The dam discussed in this story was not the one associated with Merritt's Mill where U.S. Highway 90 crosses the foot of the mill pond, nor was it the one at the midpoint of the pond that provided power for Coker's Mill. The first dam was at the spring itself. Heavy wooden beams from the mill can still be seen on the bottom of the swimming area, especially during occasional draw downs for control of aquatic growth.
Merritt's Mill Pond is a stunning Marianna landmark that
is a favorite place for outdoor fun including swimming,
paddling, fishing, diving, birding, boating and more.
...The energetic and farsighted business man whose brain conceived the plan took his place near the mill, and awaited the event which, though it destroyed the romance surrounding the spring, would add to his commercial enterprises another great source of income. The breach was closed, the waters poured forth with their accustomed vigor for a few hours, and then the flow began to decline. The waters which before, from time immemorial, had been free, which in their wild freedom had danced and sparkled in the sunshine, humming low melodies, clear as crystal, cold as an Arctic river, now refused to the work appointed by the Spirit of Commerce.
The sudden halt in the flow of water from the spring stunned those who waited to see the undershot wheel of the new mill begin to turn. A few older members of the community, however, remembered the ancient legend of Calistoble and her lover. They knew the answer to the mystery that puzzled those who had gathered to see the mill begin its operation:
"The Spirit of the Spring laid her hand upon the opening" to
stop the water that flowed from the magnificent cave at
Blue Springs (Jackson Blue Spring).
Photo by Alan Cox
...The Spirit of the Spring laid her hand upon the opening and said to the waters: “Come not forth,” and they obeyed gladly. She furnished other outlets for some, drove others back into the bowels of the earth, filling surface wells on neighboring plantations, supplying waters for new springs and lakes never before heard of, but refusing absolutely to supply the power requisite for the great wheel. The waters of the spring ceased to flow, they assumed a lifeless appearance, the long green moss settled upon the bottom gasping for breath, a dark green substance rose to the surface and like a thick veil hid the waters from view.
Judge Carter, a boy at the time, was among those who witnessed the stopping of the spring. He knew that the Spirit of the Spring was responsible:
...She mourned and would not be comforted, but she consistently refused to do the work assigned. The great wheel and the mill house which marred the beauty of the spring and had brought about all the trouble, remained idle and vacant, and the Spirit of Commerce, try though he did, could neither coax nor drive.
Blue Springs (Jackson Blue Spring) is
the only first magnitude spring in the
Apalachicola/Chattahoochee/Flint/Chipola
River Basin.
The mill was a failure. The beautiful Blue Springs, just as the Chacato chief had warned centuries before, turned into a stagnant pool. It remained so until the businessman responsible for damming it gave up his project and began to dismantle his mill and dam.
What remained of it finally rotted and broke to pieces:
...The Spirit of the Spring came forth and removed the dark veil that so long had covered the face of the waters, the water began to dance and sparkle and sing as of yore, the long moss, now a dull lead color and lifeless, rose from the bottom, assumed its accustomed hue, waving its long arms in gladness and joy, now rising to the surface to be kissed by the sunbeams and caressed by the breezes, now falling to the bottom, forming momentary hiding places for the fishes and the turtles.
The story, however, did not end there. The Spirit was so angered by the effort to commercialize the spring that she turned harsh and vengeful. The rushing water that now poured from the cave dug deep holes in the lime rock bottom of the creek that flowed from the spring.
These holes and caves have claimed many lives through the years:
The Spirit of the Spring, according to legend, stands ready to
stop the flow of Blue Springs forever should humans again
attempt to destroy its natural beauty.
...Woe to the heedless one who, tempted by appearances, enters one of these seductive places for a bath. Better heed the warnings which the angry waters – angry because obstructed by the remains of the dam – continually thunder forth to the unwary, for the icy coldness of these beautiful waters will chill the blood, and the Spectre of Death will rise from the spring as it has risen, since the Spirit of Commerce hardened the heart of the Spirit of the Spring.
Future efforts to dam Spring Creek were more successful with the resulting mill pond being among the clearest and most beautiful lakes in the world. Those dams were placed far downstream, however, in order to preserve the natural beauty of the spring.
The Spirit of the Spring still resides in its depths with her beloved. She can be seen there on starry nights, when the light of the full moon strikes the water just right, floating in the edges of the shadows with the ghost of her true love.
Calistoble's heart is still hardened and she remains ready to stop the flow of Blue Springs forever at the first sign of damage or disrespect by human beings. -- Note: Blue Springs Recreational Area will hopefully open for the summer in time for the 4th of July as Jackson County continues to recover from Hurricane Michael. To learn more about the history of the spring, enjoy the video below.
. 
.
.
