Hog Killing Time is Coming!

We had a little touch of chilly weather this morning! It reminds us that winter is on the horizon and it won't be long until Hog Killing Time is here. Click the play button to learn about this old-timey tradition from a great storyteller at the Panhandle Pioneer Settlement in Blountstown, Florida.

Ghost in the Old Calhoun County Jail

A ghost story from Calhoun County, Florida!

A Battle at Blountstown, Florida

The Seminole War attack at Blunt's Town and Spanish Bluff

by Dale Cox

The Apalachicola River as seen from "Spanish Bluff," the site
of today's Neal Landing at Blountstown, Florida.

A battle on the banks of the Apalachicola River 202 years ago today marked the end of a remarkable Lower Creek chief.

The Prophet Josiah Francis and other Red Stick Creek, Seminole, Miccosukee, and Maroon (Black Seminole) leaders made clear their disavowal of an attempt by Atasi Mico, William Perryman, George Perryman, Johnson, and the white trader Edmund Doyle to open peace negotiations with U.S. Army officers at Fort Scott on the Georgia frontier. (Please see Earthquake shakes peace effort on the Apalachicola River).

They did so by attacking the Spanish Bluff home of William Hambly, where Doyle and others had taken shelter:

…On the 13th instant, Hambly and Doyle were made prisoners by this party, and, I presume, killed, and their property of every description taken possession of. The chief, William Perryman, who had gone down with a party to protect Hambly and Doyle, was killed, and his men forced to join the opposite party. All of the Indians on the Chattahoochee, below Fort Gaines, who are not disposed to go to war, I fear will be compelled to remove above for security.[i]

William Hambly's home and trading store overlooked the
Apalachicola River at Spanish Bluff. The site is now a
popular recreation spot in Calhoun County.

Spanish Bluff touched the river where Neal Landing Park is located today at Blountstown, Florida. The town of the Tuckabatchee chief John Blunt stood nearby, and it is from this community that Blountstown takes its name. The modern city was founded at Spanish Bluff but later relocated to the higher ground where it stands today.

The killing of William Perryman by the Prophet’s party marked the end of that chief’s remarkable career of leadership among the Lower Creeks and Seminoles. The leader of Tellmochesses, a Eufaula town on the west side of the Chattahoochee River near Parramore Landing in present-day Jackson County, Florida, he was the son of the well-known Lower Creek/Seminole leader Thomas Perryman and the grandson of the British trader Theophilus Perryman.

William Perryman came of age as a chief and warrior during the American Revolution when he led warriors from the Perryman towns to St. Augustine to fight alongside the British against the American Patriots in Georgia. He and his men were engaged in numerous skirmishes and battles across Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia during the Revolution, and he was recognized with the rank of captain by the British Army.

William Perryman was the brother-in-law of the
adventurer and pirate William Augustus Bowles.

William Augustus Bowles married William Perryman’s sister during his first sojourn among the Lower Creeks. The two brothers-in-law got along well enough at first, and warriors from Tellmochesses were among the fighters who supported the adventurer. Some even crewed his “privateer” (i.e., pirate) ships.

This changed, however, when Bowles threatened the life of Thomas Perryman during a minor dispute. William responded to this action with uncharacteristic anger and signed an agreement with the Spanish at San Marcos de Apalache (Fort St. Marks) to help capture the adventurer. He remained on good terms with the Spanish after that, supplying them with beef from his extensive herds and providing them with intelligence about events in the Creek Nation.

William Perryman was called “Indian Will” by Col. Andrew Ellicott, the U.S. Commissioner of Limits, who arrived in the area in 1799 to survey the permanent boundary between Spanish Florida and the claimed territory of the United States. He warned Ellicott of a planned attack by Creek and Seminole warriors. Led by the chief of Tallassee, they were angry that the Americans and Spanish were dividing their lands.

William Perryman was one of the Lower Creek and Seminole chiefs who went to Pensacola in 1813 to plead for military support from Great Britain. A British warship was in port, and they sent a message by him to the governor in the Bahamas. The Creek War of 1813-1814 was underway, and the chiefs feared that the growing war would spread to them.

The battle took place in the area of today's Neal Landing Park
on the Apalachicola River at Blountstown, Florida.

This was the request that brought British forces to the Apalachicola River in 1814. They built forts at Prospect Bluff (the "Negro Fort") and just below the forks of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers. William and Thomas Perryman joined an alliance that supported Great Britain during the last days of the War of 1812.

William’s leadership role grew in 1815 with the death of his father. He and his followers stayed neutral when U.S. forces came down from Fort Gaines to build Fort Scott and attack and attack the Negro Fort during the summer of 1816. His brother – George Perryman – even served as caretaker at Fort Scott when the military withdrew that winter.

Perryman formed an alliance with the United States after the destruction of the Negro Fort. He provided intelligence to U.S. officers at Fort Gaines, and his name frequently appears in military reports from 1817.

The chief was involved in a plot to public flog Neamathla during a council at Fort Scott in August 1817. He believed that the Fowltown chief was endangering all of the towns of the area by confronting the army. Neamathla did not appear, and the plan was dashed.

Blountstown was founded at Spanish Bluff but later moved up
the hill to its present site. This historical marker notes the site
of the "old" courthouse which stood near Neal Landing.

In a last-ditch effort to restore peace after the U.S. raids on Fowltown and the Native American retaliation at the Scott Battle of 1817, William and George Perryman accompanied Edmund Doyle and the chief Johnston to Fort Scott on December 10, 1817. The negotiation failed.

The Prophet Francis and other principal leaders were not consulted about the Fort Scott council. This likely contributed to the attack that followed at Spanish Bluff on December 13, 1817.

Exactly what happened that day is not known. William Perryman and his warriors left their town near today's Parramore Landing in Jackson County, Florida, after the failed peace effort at Fort Scott and went down to Spanish Bluff. They planned to escort William Hambly and Edmund Doyle to safety, but the Prophet struck before they could complete their mission.

Hambly later described his experience: 

…[O]n the 13th of December last, when on my plantation on the Apalachicola, I was made a prisoner of by a party of Seminole Indians, and taken up to the Ocheesee Bluffs in company with Mr. Doyle, who was made a prisoner with me; they kept us here three days, during which time they were busily engaged with some transports which were then ascending the river to Fort Scott; from thence they took us to Mekosukee, where the Indians informed me that they had been told by the commandant of St. Marks, that war was declared between Spain and the United States. From this place we were carried to the Suwanee, when Kenhagee [i.e., Cappachimico], principal chief of the Seminoles, told me that we had been taken and robbed by order of Arbuthnott, and taken there to be tried by him. [ii]

The U.S. Army later executed the Bahamian trader Alexander Arbuthnot on charges that he conspired to kill Hambly and Doyle. The Maroon (Black Seminole) chief Nero intervened to save their lives, taking them to the Spanish fort of San Marcos de Apalache instead. 

The Fowltown war chief Chenubby led the attack on Hambly's home. He also took part in the Scott Battle on November 30, 1817. [iii]

The raid on Spanish Bluff provided the Prophet’s forces with a large quantity of food, which they used to sustain themselves during their coming attack on the U.S. supply ships on the Apalachicola. That siege – remembered today as the Battle of Ocheesee Bluff – began on December 15, 1817.

Editor's Note: Learn more about the battles on the Apalachicola River in 1817 from Dale Cox's books The Scott Battle of 1817 and Fort Scott, Fort Hughes & Camp Recovery. Just click the links for ordering information. 

Visit the site of the battle and see a great view of the Apalachicola River at Neal Landing in Blountstown, Florida:

References:

[i] Lt. Col. Matthew Arbuckle to Major General Edmund P. Gaines (dated Fort Scott), December 20, 1817, American State Papers – Military Affairs, Vol. 1, pp. 689-690.

[ii] Certificate of William Hambly, July 24, 1818, National Archives.

[iii] William Hambly and Edmund Doyle to Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson, May 2, 1818, National Archives.

Eve of Battle: Lt. Scott's Last Night

"I am not able to make a stand against them."

by Dale Cox

The keelboat Aux Arc (pronounced "Ozark") is similar to the
one used by Scott's command. It will take part in the annual
reenactment set for Dec. 7-8 in Chattahoochee, Florida.

Editor's Note: The annual Scott 1817 Seminole War Battle Reenactment begins one week from today on Friday, December 6, in Chattahoochee, Florida. It commemorates the first U.S. defeat of the Seminole Wars, a decisive battle that took place on the Apalachicola River 202 years ago tomorrow.

Lt. Richard W. Scott navigated his shallow-draft keelboat up the Apalachicola River 202 years ago today. He knew that hundreds of warriors waited somewhere near the forks of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers, which form the Apalachicola on the border between Florida and Georgia. He kept going anyway, despite the warning of a longtime trader:

Mr. Hambly informs me that the Indians are assembling at the junction of the river, where they intend to make a stand against those vessels coming up the river; should this be the case, I am not able to make a stand against them. My command does not exceed forty men and one-half sick, and without arms. I leave this immediately. [1]

The Apalachicola River as seen from Spanish Bluff, today's
Neal Landing in Blountstown, Florida. This was the site of
William Hambly's trading post.

William Hambly and his friend and sometimes business associate Edmund Doyle had farms on the east side of the Apalachicola at present-day Bristol, Florida. Hambly also ran a trading post on the west bank at Spanish Bluff near the town of the Upper Creek chief John Blunt, where the city of Blountstown stands today. Doyle was the storekeeper of the John Forbes and Company trading post at Prospect Bluff lower down the river.

Hambly undoubtedly knew of the U.S. Army's attacks on Fowltown, and this news likely formed the basis of his warnings to Scott. The lieutenant had gone down the river from Fort Scott to assist Maj. Peter Muhlenberg in bringing the supply ships Phoebe Ann and Little Sally upstream. The sailing vessels were slowing coming up the river, but Maj. Gen. Edmund Gaines worried about the speed of their progress.

Instead of keeping Scott and his 40-men as the general suggested, however, Muhlenberg replaced 20 of the lieutenant's able-bodied men with 20 sick soldiers from his own detachment and ordered him to take them, 7 women, and 4 children to Fort Scott. A supply of regimental clothing for soldiers of the 4th Infantry was also placed on the keelboat.

The Jim Woodruff Dam stands at the original point where
the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers merged to create the
Apalachicola. The blue water beyond it is Lake Seminole.

Scott stopped at Hambly's trading post, which overlooked the river from Spanish Bluff, where Neal Landing park is located today in Blountstown. There Hambly warned him of danger ahead and found a Native American warrior willing to run a message through the woods to Fort Scott. He encouraged Scott to wait, but the lieutenant underestimated the danger and decided to continue moving upstream. [Note: Neal Landing in modern Calhoun County should not be confused with Neals Landing in neighboring Jackson County.]

Lt. Scott's vessel is often described as a "flatboat" or "barge" by modern writers but really was a keelboat. Flatboats and barges were generally rectangular vessels designed for downstream travel. Quite often, they were broken up after reaching their destinations and the lumber used in other construction projects. A keelboat, however, was a shallow-draft vessel that could move both up and downstream,

Scott's keelboat was similar to the 38-foot Aux Arc
(pronounced "Ozark"), which is coming from its homeport in
Arkansas to take part in this year's Scott 1817 Seminole War
Battle Reenactment on December 6-8 at Chattahoochee, FL.

Common on American rivers in the late 18th and early 19th-centuries, keelboats were the workhorses of the expanding republic. They could carry tons of cargo while still drawing less than 2-feet of water. In fact, they remained in use on rivers like the nearby Chipola long after the introduction of paddlewheel steamboats because they could go places that the larger vessels couldn't reach.

Steamboats were not yet in use on the Apalachicola, so the army depended on keelboats to move men and supplies. All were propelled by oars, and some even had masts and sails. They also usually had a cabin or shelter, and accounts from the time of Scott's voyage indicate that this was the case with his vessel.

By nightfall on November 30, 1817, 202 years ago today, Lt. Scott's boat was nearing the confluence of the Chattahoochee and Flint River. He and his command had made it as far as the vicinity of today's Interstate 10 near Aspalaga Bluff but thus far had not seen so much as a single warrior. That would change the next day.

Editor's Note: To learn more about these real events, please consider Dale Cox's newly updated book, The Scott Battle of 1817: First U.S. Defeat of the Seminole Wars. It is available now in both paperback and Kindle editions.



REFERENCES:

[1] Lt. Richard W. Scott to Maj. Gen. Edmund P. Gaines, November 28, 1817.

Should 1863 storm be called Hurricane "Chattahoochee"?

Remembering deadly Florida hurricane as Dorian churns offshore

by Dale Cox

Stern of the CSS Chattahoochee at the National
Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus, Georgia.

Hurricane “Amanda” was a tropical cyclone that slammed into Florida’s Apalachicola Bay on May 27-28, 1863. Researchers Michael Chenoweth and C.J. Mock concluded in a 2013 article that the storm was a rare May hurricane.

They took the name “Amanda” from the Union warship, USS Amanda. A six-gun sailing vessel, she ran aground during the storm and was burned by her own crew on May 27, 1863. For the sailors aboard a Confederate warship on the Apalachicola River, however, the storm could just as easily have been called Hurricane “Chattahoochee.” Their vessel, the CSS Chattahoochee, went down on the same day in Florida’s greatest naval tragedy of the War Between the States or Civil War.

The Chattahoochee, named for the river on which she was built, was a powerful warship that mounted six heavy guns, was more than 110 feet long and carried a crew of more than 100 men. She was built at shipyard developed by plantation-owner David S. Johnston at Saffold in Southwest Georgia. He had never built a ship before and many of his workers and slaves had never even seen one.

CSS Chattahoochee took longer to build than expected due to the scarcity of necessary supplies, a lack of skilled shipbuilders and river floods that swamped the construction site in the floodplain forest of the Chattahoochee River.

Model of the CSS Chattahoochee

The ship was launched at Saffold on January 1, 1863. Her original captain, Lt. Catesby ap R. Jones of the Confederate Navy, was a hero in the South. He had commanded the famed ironclad CSS Virginia (sometimes called the Merrimac) during her famed battle with the USS Monitor. The epic clash at Hampton Roads, Virginia, was the first battle between two ironclads.

The assignment of Jones to command the Chattahoochee is a clear indication of the hopes that the Confederate war effort held for her. He brought with him several of his officers and men from the CSS Virginia, which was scuttled by her crew in the James River during the Peninsula Campaign as Union troops made one of their many attempts to take Richmond.

Lt. Jones supervised the rest of the fitting of the ship and saw her become a full-fledged warship. The decision of the Confederate army to place obstructions in the Apalachicola River at “the Narrows” near present-day Wewahitchka, Florida, however, prevented the Chattahoochee from reaching Apalachicola Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. A disappointed Jones was transferred and command of the vessel was given to Lt. J.J. Guthrie. A number of the men from the CSS Virginia remained aboard.

The ship was tied to the Arsenal wharf at today’s River Landing Park in Chattahoochee, Florida, when news arrived that a Union boat party from the USS Port Royal had entered the lower Apalachicola River. The U.S. sailors had and captured the blockade runner Fashion in Brushy Creek north of today’s Prospect Bluff Historic Sites (Fort Gadsden) and were towing her downriver to the Gulf.

Lt. Guthrie ordered the crew of the Chattahoochee to raise steam. He intended to go down the river and recapture the blockade runner even if it meant he had to blast the army’s obstructions out of his way. The ship left her home port at Chattahoochee on May 26, 1863.

She was forced to stop later that day by shallow water flowing over a sandbar at Blountstown, Florida.

The Apalachicola River as seen from Neal Landing Park at
Blountstown, Florida, scene of the Chattahoochee disaster.

Neither the captain nor his crew knew that a major early-season hurricane was about to blow in from the Gulf of Mexico. A light rain was already falling and the barometric pressure began a sudden drop as the Chattahoochee rocked at anchor in the Apalachicola River. By the time Lt. Guthrie made it back to the ship on the next morning, the storm was whipping up whitecaps on the river. Realizing that it was impossible to catch the Union raiders and concerned over the severity of the storm, he ordered his men to turn the vessel around and take her back upriver and out of danger.

Hurricane conditions likely contributed to what happened next.

The crew was preparing to raise steam for the trip when an argument broke out below decks. A gauge was not working properly, and they could not tell how much water was in the boiler. The chief engineer was sick with a fever. He rose from his bunk to see what was wrong, but before he could intervene, the CSS Chattahoochee was suddenly rocked by a massive explosion!

Shipyard crews later found that the malfunctioning gauge had allowed the boiler to grow red hot before crew members opened the valves to fill it with water. The cool water hit the red hot iron of the boiler and instantly vaporized to high-pressure steam. The steam to burst through piping attached to the boiler and sprayed out in a deadly jet into the engine room of the ship.

Sixteen members of the crew were killed instantly, scalded to death where they stood. Another man was mortally injured, two others were severely scalded, and another four received minor burns.

Site of the CSS Chattahoochee disaster at Blountstown.

Panicked that the gunpowder in the ship’s magazines might explode, other crew members opened the plugs in the ship’s hull and let the proud Confederate warship sink to the bottom of the storm-tossed Apalachicola.

The horrible accident was described by C.S. Navy officers:

…No description, I am told, could possibly be given of the scene on the deck of the Chattahoochee, men running about frantic with pain, leaving the impression of their bleeding feet, and sometimes the entire flesh, the nails and all, remaining behind them. The dead and wounded were taken onshore, where they remained until the next afternoon, most of the time with a terrible storm raging.

The wounded men spent more than 24-hours in miserable and muddy conditions on the riverbank at Blountstown before a paddlewheel steamboat finally reached them. They carried to Ocheesee Bluff where a makeshift hospital was set up at the historic Gregory House, which can be seen today across the river at Torreya State Park. They were tended there by the ship’s surgeon along with the doctors and ladies of Ocheesee. As soon as they could be stabilized, the victims were carried by boat for extended treatment in Columbus, Georgia.

The dead were taken to Chattahoochee where they were buried south of the Apalachicola Arsenal complex. The burial site was forgotten over time, but a 20th-century construction project uncovered the graves. Archaeologists exhumed the bodies. A monument was placed not long after and can be seen today at the original gravesite on the west side of Main Street about 1/2 block south of U.S. 90.

The scene of the deadly explosion can be seen from Neal Landing Park in Blountstown, Florida.

Military and newspaper accounts from 1863 indicate that more than 150 people died in the hurricane, making it one of the 25 deadliest tropical cyclones ever to strike the United States.

To learn more about the CSS Chattahoochee, please enjoy this free documentary from Two Egg TV: