Steamboat Attack on the Apalachicola River

The Story of a Forgotten Attack of the Second Seminole War

By Dale Cox

One of the more unusual incidents of the Second Seminole War took place in July of 1840 when a party of refugee Creek warriors attacked the steamboat Irwinton as it was churning its way up the Apalachicola River between Jackson and Gadsden Counties.

There were fifteen passengers on the boat at the time, several of them children, and the boat’s captain had become somewhat alarmed after having spotted smoke rising in several locations. According to an account that appeared in New Orleans newspapers a short time later, the captain quickly advised the passengers to retire to their cabins for their safety:

They had only done so when a volley was fired, killing a cabin boy, named John Gill, of Pittsburg. The Indians fired from both shores. Some of the bullets passed through the cabin, and the passengers threw themselves on the floor and escaped the shots. The pilots also cast themselves upon the deck and were unhurt. The captain was at this time below crowding the fires. An alarm was now given that the boat was crowded with Indians, and “we are lost.”

The Irwinton was towing a barge on her trip up the river and eleven of the attacking warriors paddled a canoe out to the barge and were trying to climb aboard when the canoe suddenly overturned, dumping most of the Indians into the river. Three, however, managed to climb onto the barge and make their way over to the steamboat itself:

Two of the Indians who got on board the Irwington, were killed by the engineer and mate, who knocked them down with their wrenches, and threw them into the wheel where they were torn to pieces. The third, who appeared to be the leader, and who supposed his men were with him, entered the cabin calling loudly to the others to follow him. Most of the passengers hid themselves, and the Indian posted himself at the head of the table, apparently waiting a moment for reinforcement. Mr. P. Hendricks seized a chair, as the only weapon of defence at hand, when the chief threw a chair at him across the table. Mr. Metchner, of Randolph county, Ga., a stout man of about fifty years of age, then clasped the Indian in his arms from behind, and endeavored to force him out of the cabin, but was not able. At this time the mate came in and stabbed him in the abdomen, and threw him also in the wheel.

The attack on the Irwinton was the last reported attack on a boat on the Apalachicola and Chattahoochee Rivers during the Seminole Wars. The steamboat continued on its way upstream.

To learn more about other Seminole War events in and around Jackson County, please consider The History of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years. The book is available at www.amazon.com or in Marianna at Chipola River Book and Tea on Lafayette Street downtown.

Second Seminole War Attack in Jackson County

By Dale Cox

Fought in virtually every corner of Florida, the Second Seminole War was a bloody conflict that deteriorated into guerrilla raids by the forces of both sides. Jackson County became the target of such a raid in July of 1841 when a party of Creek warriors emerged from the swamps south of Marianna and attacked the home of Morris Simms.

According to a report carried by newspapers across the nation, the attack took place with around 30 warriors struck the Simms’ home, located near the Chipola River about 12 miles south of Marianna. Subsequent events indicate that the warriors responsible for the raid were part of a group that had eluded capture by hiding with their families deep in what was then a wilderness area surrounding St. Andrew Bay. Between 1840 and 1844 they carried out a series of raids against isolated farms and homes, primarily to obtain food and other supplies.

The attacks were usually swift and bloody. In the attack on the Simms’ settlement, for example, the warriors killed two of Morris Simms’ young daughters. “The little girls were found in the cowpen,” read a letter received in Tallahassee from Marianna, “pierced with spiked arrows, and their brains dashed out with lightwood knots.” The oldest of the girls was seven, while the youngest was only two.

The war party also carried away a large quantity of bacon from the smokehouse, a barrel of flour and any other provisions it could find, before killing two hogs and crippling Simms’ horses by shooting barbed arrows into their legs.

Such attacks, sadly, were commonplace during the war and were not limited to Indian warriors. A party of Jackson County militia had been accused four years earlier of killing a number of women and children in a brutal massacre in Walton County.

As soon as news of the raid was received in Marianna, a group of local men took up arms and formed into a volunteer company. Led by Major Bryan, the rode south to the Simms’ settlement. They reached the scene of the attack and managed to pick up the trail of the retreating warriors, “but they had made good their retreat, and their trail could be traced no further than a hammock some three or four miles from the scene of the outrage.”

News of the Simms’ attack prompted the U.S. Army to send regular troops into the region. In November of 1841, about four months after the raid, Lieutenant James W. Smith and a company of men from the 3rd U.S. Infantry established Fort Chipola south of Marianna. Located where the Federal Road crossed the Chipola River on the Jackson-Calhoun line, the fort served as a base for operations against scattered parties of Indians in the region for at least the next year.

Note: This article is excerpted from my 2008 book, The History of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years. The book is available at Chipola River Book and Tea in Downtown Marianna or online at www.amazon.com.

Jackson County Soldiers Accused of Seminole War Attrocity

This image from the Library of Congress shows a Native American town in Florida at the time of the Second Seminole War.

The war attracted widespread criticism in the United States, largely because of alleged attrocities and growing national sympathy with the plight of tribes such as the Seminoles and Creeks.

It was in this environment that a unit of militia soldiers (equivalent of today's National Guard) from Jackson County became involved in a bloody incident remembered today as the Alaqua Massacre.

“One of the Most Outrageous Acts Civilized Men Could Be Guilty Of”
Jackson County Soldiers Accused of Seminole War Atrocity

By Dale Cox

Marianna – During the spring of 1837 brutal warfare spilled over into Northwest Florida from Alabama as militia forces from that state drove a large party of Creek warriors and their families down the valley of the Choctawhatchee River. Fighting soon broke out between the warriors and the early settlers of Walton County and appeals for help went out to other area counties. Jackson County responded by sending a force of local militia (the equivalent of today’s National Guard) to join the fight.

Commanded by Colonel Levin Brown, the force of 73 drafted men left Marianna on the morning of May 6, 1837, and marched to Campbellton where supply wagons were waiting. Supplies to put in the wagons were difficult to obtain, however, and it was not until the morning of May 11th that the little army marched west for the Choctawhatchee River.

Two days later the soldiers crossed the river at Pittman’s Ferry in what is now Holmes County and then turned south for the community of Eucheeanna, the original county seat of Walton County. They did a lot of marching back and forth, but encountered no Creeks until the 23rd of May when Brown and his men succeeded in capturing a party of four warriors and thirteen hungry women and children near Alaqua Creek.

Colonel Brown tried to force one of the warriors to lead the soldiers on to where the main party of Creeks was hiding, but instead he intentionally led them astray. After spending a day hacking their way through dense forests and wading in waist-deep mud, the Jackson County soldiers let their frustrations get the best of them.

As Colonel Brown reported in a letter to Florida’s governor, things turned violent when the men of Captain Stephen Daniel’s company suddenly opened fire on their unfortunate guide:

Captain Daniels’ company having charge of the prisoners in the rear, when Capt. D. and nearly all his company fired on the Indian prisoner who had led us through so many difficulties during the night. The women and children, taking fright at this, started to run, when they were all shot down, and left on the ground.

The massacre of the unfortunate women and children was one of the great tragedies of the conflict remembered today as the Second Seminole War and undoubtedly was one of the darkest days in the history of Jackson County.

Lieutenant J.G. Reynolds of the regular U.S. Army investigated the incident and made clear in his report that the attack was even more brutal than described in Colonel Brown’s account:

The shrieks of the poor children were distinctly heard at the house, distant, I should think, one-quarter of a mile. Several were scalped and all who had earrings had their ears slit with knives in order to possess themselves of the silver. I do think this is one of the most outrageous acts civilized men could be guilty of.

Despite the severity of Reynolds’ report, no action was ever taken against the Jackson County soldiers for their role in the Alaqua Massacre.

Note: This article is based on a chapter in the new book, The History of Jackson County, Florida: Volume One. The book can be purchased from Chipola River Book and Tea in downtown Marianna or online at www.exploresouthernhistory.com/dalecox.

Fort Marianna - 1836

It is a little known fact that Marianna was the site of a log fort during the Second Seminole War. The presence of such a fortification has been a part of the city's folklore for many years, but proof has been difficult to find.

According to tradition, the fort stood on the site of today's Chipola Apartments (the old Chipola Hotel) at the intersection of Caledonia and Constitution, facing the Battle of Marianna monument in downtown Marianna.

Recently, I have been able to uncover some proof of the existence of this nearly forgotten fort. During the spring of 1836, the Seminole War was underway, but had not really impacted the Jackson County area. A second war broke out, however, when a portion of the Creek Nation attacked towns and homesteads in the Creek Nation of Alabama and Georgia. These attacks caused great fear in the region that the Creeks might try to make their way south to Florida and join forces with the Seminoles.

Ethan Allen Hitchcock, an officer in the U.S. Army, was then making his way east from Louisiana with an unrelated message for President Andrew Jackson in Washington, D.C. His route carried him across Northwest Florida and he reached Marianna during the summer of 1836.

According to Hitchcock's diary, the people of Marianna were in a near panic state because of rumors that groups of Creek warriors were roaming Jackson County. Many people from the country had come into town and, he reported, the citizens were busy building fortifications to defend the city.

Confirmation of the existence of the fort has also been found in the archives of the Tallahassee and Columbus, Georgia newspapers. Newspaper reports in the 1836 issues confirm that a fort had been established at Marianna and that Jackson County had activated its militia companies.

The scare finally eased some, but the fort provided an important measure of security for residents of Marianna until the Seminole War finally ended in 1842.

An Indian Attack in Jackson County - 1841

From 1835 until 1842 (even later in some areas), Florida was the scene of a bloodbath remembered today as the Second Seminole War. The following article relates one incident of the war that took place in Jackson County about 12 miles south of Marianna. It appeared in the Augusta Chronicle on August 4, 1841.

Keep in mind as you read this, that neither side (white or Native American) fighting in this war particularly liked each other. The Jackson County Militia had been accused just a couple of years earlier of massacring a group of unarmed Indians in Walton County. Acts such as this were perpetrated by individuals on both sides:

We learn by a letter received by the last mail from Marianna, that a few days since, a part of Indians, supposed to number about 30 visited the settlement of Mr. Morris Simms, in Jackson county, about 12 miles below Mariana, near the Chipola river, murdered his two daughters, the one seven and the other two years of age, plundered his smoke house of a quantity of bacon, a barrel of flour, and what other provisioins they could find, killed several hogs and crippled two horses with spears or spiked arrows. The little girls were found in the cowpen, pierced with spiked arrows, and their brains dashed out with lightwood knots.

As soon as the news of the murder reached Mariana, a company of volunteers under the command of Maj. W.C. Bryant started off in pursuit of the skulking assassins. But they had made good their retreat, and their trail could be traced no further than a hammock some three or four miles from the scene of the outrage.