Economic chaos strikes Jackson County. What should we do?

Dale Cox is a retired business leader and journalist
who lives in the "suburbs" of Two Egg, Florida. He has
received national awards for literature and investigative
journalism and has managed multi-million dollar
media outlets and news operations in locations
across the United States.

The following is an open letter to the people and leaders of our community.

Jackson County residents are awakening to a financial crisis that is striking our community from the top to bottom.

The move to close Fire Rescue stations on some days due to insufficient staffing numbers brought the situation home to many, but the county's budget situation is neither sudden nor unexpected. In fact, it has been building for years and numerous local citizens and business people have raised concerns about it only to be promised callbacks that never came or reassurances that the matter was being studied.

In one case a local businessman was even told by an intermediary that he should get behind a specific county commissioner politically if he wanted to be heard.

So what happened? Where did the money go? What can we do about it?

Here are some answers that you have not read in the Jackson County Floridan or Jackson County Times. In their defense, the former often blames lack of staffing for its inability to cover key stories in the community while the latter sometimes says that it only covers "good news."

What is the problem?

The answer, in short, is that we are in the depths of an economic recession that goes far beyond what the rest of the nation suffered in 2008-2009.

Full-time employment in the county is down dramatically since around 2006 due to NAFTA which was a factor in the closings of the local Russell Corporation plants and facilities as well as other industrial operations; the closure of Dozier School for Boys due to the controversy and publicity that surrounded the facility; the loss or downsizing of businesses that supplied these facilities and, last but not least, a dramatic decline in the number of locally owned small businesses.

The net result of the above is that we have lost thousands of full-time jobs with benefits while at the same time local public assistance rolls have skyrocketed.

Financially, many more people in our community are hurting than our leaders seem to realize.

Consider these two statistics:

• Median income in Jackson County has declined from $36,442 in 2009 to $35,470 in 2016. This is a drop of $972 over seven years. As economic development experts will tell you, that is a shocking decline.
• The number of businesses in Jackson County has dropped from 863 in 2007 before the national recession began to 768 in 2017. In other words, we have lost 10% of our business community since 2007.

As Jackson County is learning the hard way, unemployment numbers do not always tell the true story of what is happening to a community's economy. Unemployment numbers, for example, do not count people who have been unemployed for so long that they no longer receive unemployment compensation. Nor do they count the people once employed here who have been forced to move away in search of work.

Young people are leaving for better opportunities in other places.

You often hear people say that their son or daughter, niece or nephew had to leave Jackson County to find a good job. This is more true today than ever.

Here are the facts:

• Jackson County has 1,906 fewer people in the primary working age demographic (18-65) than it did just 8 years ago. 
• Local officials often blame this on population aging - or as one county leader actually put it - "old people dying off." Census data, however, suggests that this is not the case. The county's population of residents over the age of 65 - many of whom still work to make ends meet - has indeed grown by 1,253 people since 2010. Unfortunately, we have lost 2,715 people in the 18-65 and 17 and under age groups. 
• Jackson County has lost 617 households since 2009. If you think you are seeing more "for sale" signs along our roads and streets, you are.
• The drain in our labor force is a very real problem when it comes to attracting new industry to the community. If we can't demonstrate that we have a strong, prepared labor force, we can't attract industry. No factory wants to open somewhere only to find that it can't hire enough people to run its lines.

Sales Tax collections are down.

The loss of 95 businesses, the decline in population and the loss of full-time jobs are all impacting the retail business in Jackson County. Here are the facts:

• Sales tax collections in the main category are down dramatically over the first 8 months of 2017-2018 when compared to the same line item for the same months in the year before the recession (2006-2007).
• The drop is bigger than you might think. This year, collections in this category are down by $244,823 from their level in the first 8 months of 2006-2007.

Money that one decade ago was helping to fund local government is simply no longer there in the amount that it was back then.

Gasoline Tax collections are down.

Gasoline taxes fund road work and improvements in Jackson County. These monies too, however, are on the decline. 

• Using 1-cent local option gas tax collections to measure this decline, the amount brought in during the first 7 months of the 2017-2018 fiscal year is down by $8,394 since 2006/2007.
• The real number has dropped from $391,034 during the first 7 months of 2006/2007 to $382,640 during the first 7 months of this fiscal year.
• All other gas tax collections that benefit the county are also down. 

As families cut back on expenses or leave the area, their need to buy gasoline here decreases. When fuel purchases go down, money coming into county coffers also goes down. 

Tourism is way down.

Jackson County had a small but thriving tourism industry in 2006/2007. It has dropped by around 10% since that time.

• Tourism tax (i.e. "bed tax") collections in Jackson County were $124,158 for the first four months of 2017-2018 (the most recent numbers available). This is a drop of $12,032 in actual dollars from 2006-2007 when collections totaled $136,190.
• Just as sales tax collections reflect retail sales in a community, tourism tax collections reflect hotel and campground stays. Fewer people are staying here overnight than were doing so one decade ago.
• Attendance at Blue Springs is down dramatically since the county commission doubled entrance fees. Numbers for the 2017 summer season show a decline of nearly 15,000 visitors since 2014, when fees were increased. Money collected at the gate is down since that year. Concession sales are down since that year. Boat rental fees are down. Pavilion rental fees are down. Total revenue from the park is down by around $18,000 from 3 years ago. If that trend continues this summer, the park will make less money than it did before fees were doubled while serving nearly 20,000 fewer local residents and visitors.

It should be mentioned that efforts designed to help attract more visitors to Jackson County have often been blunted or ignored by county administration. Consider the following:

• The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity funded and approved the results of a $20,000 study on ways to improve tourism traffic along U.S. 90 in Jackson County. The plan was prepared by this writer and approved not only by the state, but also by the Tourist Development Council and the Board of County Commissioners. Since that time, several years ago, nothing has been done implement any of the recommendations. One county official even informed a group in Sneads last year that he "hadn't had time to read it" and wasn't sure what he had done with his copy. 
• Local citizens raised and gave to the county more than $5,000 in funding for boardwalks on the Bellamy Bridge trail, an amount matched by the Tourist Development Council. County officials gave assurances that the money was sufficient for the purpose. Despite annual promises to build the footbridges - which will allow access to the popular tourism attraction during most times of high water - they still have not been built. The county now says that it has spent the money donated for the purpose and despite repeated requests has failed to answer specific questions about unauthorized expenditures from the fund.
• Requests that the Tourist Development Council lead a group to organize an annual reenactment of the Battle of Marianna were rejected. A reenactment of the battle staged for its 150th anniversary in 2014 attracted thousands of people. 
• One of the landings on the Merritt's Mill Pond canoe trail has been closed by property owners and has not been replaced. 
• The Upper Chipola River paddling trail, approved by the state after the county promised to maintain it, is barely maintained.
• The county's decade old effort to create an approved plan for development of tourism resources along Lake Seminole from Neals Landing on Highway 2 to Sneads is still not complete.
• The fall in tourism tax revenue is also reflected by the decline of gas tax collections. With our population and median income falling, our failure to return to pre-recession/pre-Dozier controversy levels of tourism has is hurting us in areas far beyond hotel stays.

"Other places have the same problems."

This is a common excuse heard in Jackson County, but is it true? Consider these facts:

• Holmes County to our west and Gadsden County to our east have increased their sales tax revenues during the same time that Jackson County has seen its revenues fall. In fact, those two counties along have increased sales tax collections by $879,000 during the period described above while Jackson County has suffered a decline of $244,000.
• Washington County and Holmes County, on US 90 and I-10 west of Jackson County, have increased their 1-cent local option gas tax collections while Jackson County has experienced a drop. Washington County's collections are up by $8,540 and Holmes County's by $2,076 while Jackson is down by more than $8,000.
• Tourism is increasing in Washington and Holmes Counties to our west and Gadsden County to our east, while falling in Jackson County. Washington County has increased its tourism tax collections over the period described above by $4,896. Holmes County is up by a remarkable $14,794. Gadsden County is up by $25,104. This reflects an increase of more than $40,000 in tourism tax collections by adjoining rural counties while Jackson County's dropped by more than $12,000.

What is the answer?

This is the question that many of us have been pondering for years. I have discussed the very same trends outlined above with county administrators, county commissioners, tourism leaders, other business people and at the Chamber of Commerce's Leadership Jackson County class for years. Others have done the same. Our inability to get anyone to pay attention has been so frustrating that I have sometimes wanted to bang my head on my desk.

The recent news about Jackson County Fire Rescue was just such a moment. Those who pay attention to such things have known for years that this problem was coming. The problem of our trained employees leaving for other places so they can better support their families is not new, and yet years have passed with no major effort to provide better pay so they can stay here. 

Nothing written here should be taken as a criticism of any person or group of people. My goal is to put the facts and my thoughts on them out there for my friends and neighbors to consider. I am an eternal optimist and I believe that we can reverse these alarming trends - and should have already reversed them - but time is growing short. I am not running for public office and have no plans to do so. I hope that this will be seen as what it is, an open letter to the people and leaders of Jackson County with thoughts and ideas from someone who just wants to help.

Here are some recommendations that I have after studying the numbers. Your ideas may be better than mine. It is time for us to start thinking and listening and - above all else - taking action.

• Clerk of Courts Clayton O. Rooks should lead a full audit of county funding to tell us how much is coming in and where it is going. This would help our leaders see places from which money can be moved or cut to assure that our most important county services - Fire Rescue, Law Enforcement, etc. - are not only funded but improved. Reducing these services is not an option. This would also help us identify any financial improprieties.
• County commissioners should consider an immediate moratorium on non-essential travel outside Jackson County by their employees. This money is needed to keep Fire Rescue running.
• Work with Chipola College, Baptist College of Florida, Troy University, FSU, FAMU, UF and other institutions to provide real training so county employees can improve themselves. We can always get better and improving the skills of the people who work for us is a good way to help them get better and more efficient at their jobs.
• Do not, under any circumstance, increase another tax or fee until our economic situation is turned around. Real people are suffering here. Median income is down. Our working age people are fleeing and taking their children with them. Use the money that we have to make things better. It can be done. Private businesses do it all day, everyday. 
• Don't assume that every thought, criticism or idea is political. Most people here just want to see things get better. 
• Work together. The county should work together with Sneads, Marianna, Graceville and other municipalities to find areas of agreement that all can support (and vice versa). Communities in specific parts of the county should work together. Malone, Campbellton and Graceville, for example, have Highway 2 in common. Perhaps they could work together to improve that corridor of the county? The same is true for the Historic Highway 90 Corridor that passes through Sneads, Grand Ridge, Marianna and Cottondale and the US 231 corridor that connects Campbellton, Jacob City, Cottondale, Alford and the Compass Lake area.
• Clean up! Make our interstate exits the cleanest and prettiest in Florida. You never know who is going to come off that highway to look around while out scouting locations for a new business or industry.
• Lower the entrance fees at Blue Springs back to $2 per person so local families - especially those with reduced incomes as a result of this situation - can afford to go.
• Work to make it easy to do business in Jackson County. Reduce fees for startups. 
• Find a way to fix our awful cell and internet service. Let's face the fact: If we want to have a 21st century economy, we have to provide the infrastructure to attract 21st century businesses. Large swaths of Jackson County have no cell phone service and substandard (or no) internet service. Hold the feet of our existing providers to the fire and seek out other companies willing to solve the problem at THEIR expense in exchange for a chance to make money here.
• Invest in our young people. Seek out high school students here in Jackson County who want to major in business, tourism, engineering, law enforcement, fire rescue services, parks and recreation and more. Invest in them by helping with their college expenses in exchange for a commitment that they will return and work here for a set length of time. Provide them with internships and mentoring. If we can afford to help only one, that is one more than we can count on now.
• Listen to local business owners. They can tell you their stumbling blocks to growing and hiring more people.
• Seek out success stories in other places, not to duplicate but to learn how they created success. We have our own special place and want to keep it that way. We can always learn from others, though, about how they made their communities better places.
• County and city administrators and elected officials should return calls and answer emails from constituents.
• Finish projects that are on the drawing board. Get the Historic Highway 90 Corridor plan going. Washington and Holmes Counties are already ahead of us. We want to be a part of the success that they are already realizing.
• Dream. Look for ways to do something good instead of searching out stumbling blocks.
• Stop blaming others. Let's work together. We know that we need to. It means that some of our ideas will be pursued and some won't. That's fine. Movement is better than no movement.
• Take advantage of our human resources. We have many people in Jackson County who have achieved remarkable things in their lives. Listen to the advice and suggestions that they can offer.
• Improve our own corners. In other words, make our own neighborhoods better through elbow grease and cooperation. Not everything takes money to do. If we all improve our own neighborhoods, the whole county will improve.
• Get involved. This is a message to citizens especially. Attend meetings. Offer advice. Run for office. I admire anyone willing to put their name out there. I appreciate the service of all of our current elected officials, just as I appreciated the service of those who served before them and will appreciate the service of our next round of leaders. It is the American way.
• Care. We all have to care for each other and our communities. Churches, we need you now more than ever. Community organizations, we need you too. Individuals, you as well. Do everything you can to make things better.

I hope that at least someone out there will take the time to read through this long editorial and that it benefits you. When one of us succeeds, we all succeed.

This was written as a "stream of thought" so please excuse me if I made any errors or typos.

Thank you.

Dale Cox

May 6, 2018

"Bloody Affair in Florida" - The 1865 gunfight at Neely's Store in Campbellton

Jackson County as it appeared during the late 1800s.
Campbellton is at the upper left.

The months after the close of the War Between the States (or Civil War) saw a breakdown in law and order across much of the South. Jackson County was no exception.

This was demonstrated by a gunfight that took place on November 29, 1865. It was election day and the antagonists decided to meet at the polling place - in this case Neely's Store in Campbellton - to settle an old feud once and for all:

BLOODY AFFAIR IN FLORIDA. - A serious shooting affair occurred at Neely's store, in Jackson county, on Wednesday, 29th ult. The parties concerned were two men by the name of Williams, and one named Clare, on one side, and two Hams, father and son, on the other. The cause was an old feud existing for some time. For the purpose of settlement they met at a precinct on election day, armed with rifles and double-barreled guns. - (Quincy Dispatch quoted by the Columbus Daily Enquirer, December 9, 1865)

George Neely had purchased 40 acres of land about 2 miles southwest of Campbellton from the General Land Office on May 1, 1855. He operated one of several general stores in Campbellton.

Campbellton as it appears today. The town square is at right.
Neely's Store was located somewhere in this area.

A line of men were waiting there to vote when the Williams and Ham parties approached. The bystanders were likely unsure of what to expect but any doubts they harbored ended quickly when the two parties suddenly raised their guns:

...At the first fire one of the Williams was killed, and Ham, senior, firing at the other brother, Newton Williams, missed his aim, and the ball unfortunately taking effect on the body of a Baptist preacher named Grantham, and inflicting what is believed to be a mortal wound. Meanwhile the younger Ham was shot down, and his father standing over him defended his body with clubbed but empty gun.While thus engaged, Newton Williams approached, and firing one barrel with fatal effect into the breast of the father, discharged the other through the head of the disabled son. This ended the difficulty. - (Ibid.)

The Baptist minister who became the first victim of the shooting may have been Rev. Sam Grantham. A minister of that name lived in Holmes County and had commanded a local home guard company during the war. If so, he survived the shooting but died 5 years later. The wounded preacher was a bystander and not involved in the feud between the two parties.

Capt. Charles Rawn, 7th U.S. Infantry,
commanded the troops that arrested
Newton Williams after the shootout.
Courtesy U.S. Forest Service

The fatal shootout was one of the bloodiest in Jackson County history. Three men were killed and a fourth, Grantham, was badly wounded:

...Newton Williams remained on the ground nearly all the day, assisted in the burial of his brother, and defied arrest. Next day, Capt. Rawn of the 7th Infantry, in command at Marianna, with a file of men, proceeded to the to the spot, and arrested Williams at his own house. Clare, at last accounts, was still at large. - (Ibid.)

The troops from the 7th U.S. Infantry Regiment were in Jackson County to serve as an occupation force following the end of the War Between the States. With civil authority completely disrupted, the soldiers enforced the law as they saw fit and Newton Williams, though a citizen, was taken into custody to face trial before a military tribunal.

While the details of his trial are unknown, he clearly was acquitted as he was living in Marianna just five years later. The 1870 census lists Newton J. Williams - not to be confused with Jasper Newton Williams, who also lived in the area - as a 36-year-old resident of Marianna who lived with his wife, Martha, three children and his 76-year-old father, William Williams. He had been a resident of Marianna in 1860 as well. He moved to Texas in subsequent years and died there on March 18, 1898.

The Williams brother killed in the feud was James B. Williams of Marianna, age 33.

The identities of the father and son from the Ham family killed in the feud remain unclear, but members of that family were prominent in Jackson County in 1865 and remain so today.

The "Clare" involved in the feud has not been identified to date.

Captain Charles C.C. Rawn, who led the detachment of U.S. soldiers that arrested Newton Williams, had a remarkable career. He and his men later served on the western frontier where they took part in the Battle of Big Hole during the flight of the Nez Perce, founded the city of Missoula in Montana, and were among the first U.S. soldiers to arrive on the scene of Custer's defeat at the Little Bighorn Battlefield. He later commanded the famed African American Buffalo Soldiers as major of the 24th Infantry.

The feud that exploded at Campbellton in 1865 was one of those violent incidents often associated with the Reconstruction era in Jackson County, although it really had nothing to do with the political climate of the times. It resulted from a personal grudge.

If you would like to learn more about the career of Captain Rawn on the western frontier, you might enjoy this living history presentation of him:

First Settlers of Jackson County, Florida

Campbellton Baptist Church, Florida's oldest Baptist church
in continuous operation, dates from before the War Between
the States and stands near the Spring Creek settlement site.

The first American settlers of Jackson County arrived pushed down from Georgia and Alabama before 1820. 

The following is excerpted from my book:  The History Of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years.

The smoke had barely cleared from the First Seminole War when the first settlers began to make their way back to the rich lands they had explored with Andrew Jackson in 1818. It was a risky proposition at best. The area that would become Jackson County was still Spanish territory at the time and there was the possibility of violent confrontation with Native American warriors still angered over their losses in the war.

Despite such dangers, however, several dozen frontier families had appeared in the area by 1820. Their initial settlements were along Spring Creek in the Campbellton area, on the Ekanachatte site at Neal’s Landing and along the Apalachicola River south of the Native American towns of Tomatley and Choconicla.

Based on these locations, it appears that the first settlers probably took advantage of fields that had already been cleared by Native Americans. The Chacato village of San Antonio had been located in the area of the Spring Creek settlement and its old fields had been resettled by a party of Creeks from Pucknawhitla by 1778. These fields were undoubtedly still clear of heavy timber in 1820 and it would have been relatively easy for the first settlers to clear away any second growth and underbrush and begin farming.

A section of the old Pensacola-St. Augustine Road can still be
seen between Malone and Campbellton. It connected the Spring
Creek settlement with the Irwin's Mill Creek settlements on the
Chattahoochee River.

The same was true at the Ekanachatte site, which had been abandoned for less than two years. Extensive fields had been cleared over the fifty year history of the village and these were now literally “open for the taking.” In addition, Irwin’s Mill Creek flowed year round and provided sufficient force to turn the wheels of watermills, a fact that eventually led to its modern name.

Some of the names of these first settlers are recognizable in Jackson County today. The Spring Creek settlement, for example, included John Williams, James Falk, William T. Nelson, Abraham Philips, Benjamin Hamilton, Owen Williams, Micajah Cadwell, Joseph Parrot, John Ward, Nathan A. Ward, William Philips, James Ward, Andrew Farmer, Robert Thomas, John Hays, Samuel C. Fowler, Nathaniel Hudson, Wilie Blount, Moses Brantley, Robert Thompson, Guthrie Moore, Stephen Daniel, John Gwinn, John Jones, Allaway Roach, Henry Moses, Joel Porter, Simeon Cook, James C. Roach, John Smith and Presley Scurlock.[i]

Their farms stretched from Holmes Creek on the west across the present site of Campbellton and then down Spring Creek to its junction with the headwaters of the Chipola River. To the south their lands extended about as far down as today’s Waddell’s Mill Pond, while to the north other settlements extended across the Alabama line.

None of these farms were the large plantations for which Jackson County later became known. The largest had around 40 acres in cultivation, but the average settler farmed less than 15 acres. It was a start, though, and qualified each of them to later claim 640 acres after Florida was ceded by Spain to the United States in 1821.[ii]

1823 map of the Jackson County area.

The settlement at Irwin’s Mill Creek, then called “Conchatty Hatchy” or “Red Ground Creek,” included Joseph Brown, William Brown, Joseph Brooks, William Chamblis, James Irwin, Adam Kimbrough, William McDonald, William H. Pyke, George Sharp and Allis Wood.

Down on the Apalachicola, meanwhile, were Charles Barnes, Adam Hunter, John H. King and Reuben Littleton. These men all lived along the stretch of the river between Tomatley and Ocheesee Bluff, where Thomas and Stephen Richards had settled.

Other settlers known to have been in Jackson County prior to 1821 included James Dennard, Jonathan Hagan, John Hopson, Hugh Robertson, Joshua Scurlock and Robert Sullivan, all of whom settled along the upper Chipola east of the Spring Creek settlement, and William Pyles who staked a claim at Blue Spring.[iii]

Blue Springs (or Jackson Blue Springs) was a landmark for
early settlers and Native American residents alike.

Despite the tensions that must surely have existed, incidents between the early settlers and the Native Americans still living in Jackson County seem to have been rare. Econchattimico had assembled a group of several hundred followers at Tocktoethla, but following the destruction of Ekanachatte did all he could to preserve peace with the whites. 

So too did Mulatto King, who assumed permanent leadership of both Tomatley and Choconicla following the death of Yellow Hair. The villages grew considerably following the war due to the arrival of refugees from the destroyed town of Attapulgas in what is now Decatur County, Georgia. Mulatto King welcomed these displaced individuals and allowed them to settle on lands adjacent to his villages.

In truth, the Native Americans living in Jackson County between 1819 and 1821 probably lived much better than their white counterparts. While the early white settlers were struggling to build crude log cabins and clear fields, many of the Native Americans – particularly those of Tomatley – enjoyed a prosperity that they had spent years developing. 

Claims later filed by many of these people indicate that they owned cabins, houses, mills, orchards and fields. A woman named Polly Walker, for example, reported that she owned a dwelling house, two cabins and an orchard of 32 fruit trees. Joe Riley owned a house and improvements valued at $1,150, a substantial amount for the time. Econchattimico reestablished himself at Tocktoethla by clearing 73 acres of land and building a cabin, corn crib, shed, three log cabins, a summer house and two mills. His fields were surrounded by fences built using 14,280 rails.[iv]

---

 [i] Claims to Land in West Florida, December 10, 1824, American State Papers, Public Lands, Volume 4, pp. 61-63 (Hereafter ASP Public Lands).

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] List of Claims of Appalachicola Indians who have emigrated West of the Mississippi River, November 11, 1838, Bureau of Indian Affairs, M234, Roll 290, Frame 299.

A Duel near Campbellton in 1829

Dueling seems such a long ago custom today that it is difficult to imagine that the Campbellton area of Jackson County was once the "go to" place for these affairs of honor.

The nearby state line, then the line dividing the State of Alabama from the Territory of Florida, offered a bit of protection for those who participated in duels. If authorities from Florida tried to arrest one participant, he could simply step across the line into Alabama. If authorities from Alabama tried to arrest the other participant, he could similarly escape into Florida.

The practice of dueling has been reduced to something of a caricature today and is perhaps best remembered for the affair that cost the life of founding father Alexander Hamilton. He was killed by former Vice President Aaron Burr in a duel.

As the death of Hamilton demonstrates, dueling was a serious business. Honor was held in extremely high esteem during the first half of the 19th century. An insulted party, having failed at all other means to obtain justice, could demand that his enemy meet him on the field of honor. The challenged party then had no choice but to apologize and admit his fault, flee and lose all honor, or face the aggrieved party with pistol or blade.

Original 1829 account of the duel
near Campbellton, Florida.

Unless the parties fired into the air after having taken to the field, thus ending the duel with honor, the carefully orchestrated fights would continue until one party or the other was either disabled or dead. This meant that in a fight with dueling pistols, for example, the two antagonists would fire and reload as many times as necessary until or the other could no longer continue.

One such duel took place on the Alabama line north of Campbellton in 1829. Dr. H.B. Crews of Webbville, Jackson County's original but now vanished county seat, took the field of honor against Mr. J.O. Sewall of Alabama. The nature of the dispute that led to the duel is not known, but the outcome was reported by newspapers of the time:

...The parties exchanged three shots; Dr. Crews was wounded on the first and third fires. Mr. Sewall was not injured. Dr. Crews being wounded on the third fire in the muscles of the right shoulder, could not continue the fight. - Florida newspaper reprinted in the Rhode Island American, August 25, 1829.

Fortunately for Dr. Crews, his wounds did not prove fatal. He continued to live in Webbville for years to come, serving as both a town doctor and partner in a pharmacy there.

J.O. Sewall also took up residence in Jackson County after the affair, settling in Marianna. It was an appropriate choice since the towns themselves were bitter rivals.

Of the duel between Sewall and Crews, witnesses felt that honor had been served. "It is perhaps proper to say," noted the newspaper account, "that the conduct of both gentleman was highly appropriate on the occasion."

Dale Cox
January 26, 2017

Campbellton, Friendship Church and the contested Election of 1876

Rutherford B. Hayes
19th President of the United States
Library of Congress

Most Americans remember the confusion in Florida that led to the contested election of 2000 between Al Gore and George W. Bush.

Most do not remember, however, that the Sunshine State was a key battleground in an even more bitter election fight. The election of 1876 between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden came down to a single electoral vote.

Author's note: As you read this, please remember that neither party of today resembles its 1876 version. Also, please note that the term "Radical Republican" is not an editorial comment, but rather was a commonly used name for the party at that time.

Florida was still a small state population-wise in 1876, but her tiny collection of four electoral votes was more than enough to swing the election in favor of Democrat Samuel J. Tilden. The Carpetbagger Republicans who controlled the state government were determined to prevent that from happening, even if they had to steal the election and disenfranchise hundreds of voters.

The War Between the States (or Civil War) had been over for 11 years by 1876, but Radical Reconstruction was still the law of the land. U.S. soldiers could be sent to patrol civilian streets if there was even a hint that citizens might protest or otherwise "cause trouble." As the election of 1876 approached, in fact, a company of U.S. troops was sent to Jackson County:

Samuel J. Tilden
Rightful 19th President of the United States?
Library of Congress

The commanding officer Fort Barrancas, Fla., will send a battery of the Fifth Artillery to encamp at Marianna, Fla., to be increased, if necessary to make a total of thirty enlisted men, by temporary details from other batteries at the post, for duty under the provisions of General Orders No. 96, current series, Headquarters of the Army.

The battery to arrive at destination before November 7, and to remain until November 14, then to return to its proper station. - Special Orders No. 151, Headquarters, Department of the South, Oct. 18, 1876.

Republican officials in Tallahassee had spread claims that the Ku Klux Klan was planning to attack African-American voters in Jackson County.

These warnings of violence appear to have been fabricated because there was no outbreak or even evidence of Klan activity in the county that year. A later investigation by the U.S. Congress would determine, in fact, that black and white voters in Jackson County were beginning to see eye to eye on the matter of Carpetbagger rule.

Reconstruction had been a time of great turbulence in the county. Claims of widespread political murder, however, have been debunked by recent archival research. This is not to say that some political killings did not take place in 1865-1876. Clerk of Courts Dr. John Finlayson was assassinated by an individual or individuals unknown and several other politicians - Democrat and Republican - were wounded. The actual number, however, was less than 10% of the more than 170 deaths claimed by some writers.

Campbellton Baptist Church, built in the 1850s, was the
home congregation of many of the voters disenfranchised
in the 1876 Presidential election.

Citizens had seen taxes skyrocket to their highest level in Florida history. A couple of schools had been built by the Reconstruction-era government, but despite the increase in taxes very few people were receiving educations. Fees for filing court cases had gone through the roof, making it all but impossible for poor residents - black or white - to seek justice in the Carpetbagger-run courts. A subsequent audit even found that county officials were double and triple taxing some properties so they could purchase them at auction when the rightful owners could no longer afford to pay their taxes.

Such issues affected citizens regardless of race. High taxes and outrageous filing fees were a burden to all small farmers and business people. People of both races wanted better educations for their children. They wanted a peaceful and prosperous community and an end to post-war bitterness.

These common desires led to a remarkable transition in Jackson County's voting demographics. Almost all of the "freedmen" or former slaves had supported the Republic Party since 1865. Many whites had not voted at all during the years following the War Between the States but were now raising the standard of the Democratic party in growing numbers. By 1876 they were joined by a small but growing number of their black neighbors.

Friendship Church near Malone was at the epicenter of the
contested Election of 1876. The polling place then was
described as a small log church with no light or heat.

This new alliance was especially noticeable in the rural precincts that bordered the Alabama state line. Two of these precincts - Friendship Church and Campbellton - held the key to the White House.

A Congressional investigation found that election day of 1876 was for the most part peaceful in Jackson County. There were a few incidents here and there along with reports of long lines at some polling places, but the election system worked well and people voted freely. African-American voters from the Campbellton and Friendship Church precincts later testified that they willfully cast ballots for Democrat Tilden instead of Republican Hayes and that they only threats they received came from Republicans of their own race.

It was a cold day and there was no heat at Friendship Church so when the polls closed, the poll workers - both black and white - took the ballot boxes to Mosley's Store where they could count the ballots by the warmth of his fire. Both Republican and Democrat poll inspectors were present for the count and Samuel Tilden carried the precinct.

Armstrong Purdee was a poll official at the
Campbellton precinct in 1876.

In Campbellton, one of the Republican poll inspectors was 23-year-old Armstrong Purdee. He would soon become Jackson County's first African-American attorney:

...I do not know as there was any wrong done. I do not know as there was or I would have objected. During the dinner-hour, when we went to adjourn, I said, “Gentlemen, we can’t conceal the box from the public.” I spoke right in that way, and Mr. Callaway came out, and when we all came out he told me it would be all right, and then I didn’t object. - Armstrong Purdee, Testimony before Congressional Select Committee, Dec. 26, 1876.

 The only other problem reported in Campbellton was the appearance of some loud men, but the poll officials made them leave and all was described by whites and blacks alike as "peaceful." A large crowd appeared just before poll closing, but there is no indication that anyone was denied an opportunity to vote. Tilden carried the precinct by a wide margin.

Once the vote totals arrived in Marianna, Republican officials were shocked to find that Jackson County had voted the Democratic Party ticket for the first time since the end of war:

Jackson County Courthouse in Marianna as it appeared
during the contested Election of 1876.

“The day passed quietly. At none of the precincts was there the least demonstrations of a riot, and every man walked freely and without fear to the polls and deposited his ballot, and we are glad to know that a great many of the colored people had the nerve to cast a Democratic vote. The county is Democratic by ninety-six votes. Glory enough for one day – God be praised.”  It may be well, too, to quote a paragraph from the Sentinel, the governor’s organ, of the 11^th, four days after the election. It said: “Reports from all parts of the state bring information that, in spite of previous apprehensions, the election of Tuesday was the quietest and most orderly of any ever held in Florida. No disturbance of any kind is reported from any quarter.” Days after this, when the figures began to look gloomy for the Republicans, the Union raises the cry of intimidation and fraud with respect to Jackson and other Democratic counties. It won’t hold. - Report on Jackson County elections from the Indianapolis Sentinel, Nov. 23, 1876.

When the returns from Jackson County reached Tallahassee the state canvassing board declared fraud and threw out the results from Friendship Church and Campbellton. The board members were all Radical Republicans and their action disenfranchised hundreds of voters from the two state line precincts.

Florida's historic Old Capitol as it appeared in 1876.

A Congressional Select Committee investigated the situation in December and found that Florida's canvassing board had acted without cause. The board's entire reason for throwing out the Jackson County results was that the number of Democrat votes at Campbellton and Friendship Church exceeded the number of whites registered in the precincts. The officials did not believe that any blacks would have voted for the Democratic nominee so they tossed every vote cast. No investigation was initiated and Florida's four electoral votes were handed to Rutherford B. Hayes.

Congressional investigators later interviewed a number of African-American voters from Campbellton and Friendship Church. Placed under oath, many of these men declared that they had cast their vote for the Democratic Party ticket and not the Republican one. Henry Olds, a 27-year-old African-American voter, explained to investigators for example that he voted a "Flag ticket." Asked if he knew whether that was a Republican or Democrat ballot, he responded, "Democrat, I suppose."

John Wallace, African-American political leader in
Florida during Reconstruction, accused his fellow
Republicans of widespread fraud. He believed that
the Presidential election had been stolen.

This did not matter in Tallahassee, where the Carpetbagger members of the canvassing board not only threw out the votes from the two Jackson County precincts, but then voted to abolish their own board. This eliminated the chance of anyone from Campbellton or Friendship Church filing an appeal over the theft of their voting rights.

The battle shifted to Washington, D.C., where it was determined that Tilden could do nothing about the fraudulent electors from Florida. The decision by the canvassing board to abolish itself prevented the Democratic nominee from suing to obtain a court order regarding the Jackson County precincts.

Similar issues in South Carolina, Louisiana and Oregon were resolved in similar ways and the election came down to Florida's four electoral votes. The move by the canvassing board to block the voters of Campbellton and Friendship Church from the rightful exercise of their constitutional rights threw the election to the Republican Party.

Rutherford B. Hayes became President of the United States by just one electoral vote.

His victory was assured by the GOP shenanigans in Florida. Tilden and his allies fought to the end and were able to force the Republican nominee to agree to an end to Radical Reconstruction in the South. The end of Republican Party rule in the region for the next century soon followed.

The two parties, of course, have changed greatly since 1876. So has the election process in Florida. A look back in time to that bitter election shows, however, that every vote counts and even the voters of small rural precincts like those in Jackson County can hold the future of their country in their hands.