History for Christmas? Consider one of my books on Jackson County's colorful past

Battle of Marianna Monument

If you are looking for a unique Christmas gift that captures the flavor of Jackson County's rich and colorful past, please consider one or more of my books on this beautiful place that so many of us call home.  Here is a list of the volumes currently available. 
All of them are also available as instant downloads for your Amazon Kindle reading devise and the Battle of Marianna book can also be found at iBooks for your iPad, Nook, etc.

Also be sure to watch in coming days for the release of my latest volume, The Claude Neal Lynching: The 1935 Murders of Claude Neal and Lola Cannady.

All of the following are available at Chipola River Book & Tea on Lafayette Street in Downtown Marianna (right across the street from the Battle of Marianna Monument), or you can click the link to order through Amazon online:

A Christmas in Two Egg, Florida
My first work of fiction, this is a short Christmas story set in the quaint Two Egg community of Jackson County.  Please click here to order.

Two Egg, Florida: A Collection of Ghost Stories, Legends & Unusual Facts
Learn the story of Two Egg plus a number of other Northwest Florida legends, including the Ghost of Bellamy Bridge, the Washington County Volcano, the Garden of Eden, Two-Toed Tom and more! Please click here to order.

The Battle of Marianna, Florida (Expanded Edition)
A detailed account of the September 27, 1864, battle in the streets of Marianna that marked the high point of the deepest Federal raid into Florida during the entire Civil War.  Contains detailed troop lists and casualty information.  Please click here to order.

The History of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years (Volume One)
The most detailed account ever written of the early history of Jackson County, including details on Indian villages, Spanish missions, Seminole War battles, early settlement, the "lost county," crime and more!  Please click here to order.

The History of Jackson County, Florida: The War Between the States (Volume Two, The Civil War Years)
The most detailed account ever written of the Civil War years in Jackson County, including the Battle of Marianna, the Battle of Forks of the Creek, the Battle of Port Jackson, deserter raids, troop rosters, genealogical information, Governor John Milton and more. Please click here to order.

Old Parramore: The History of a Florida Ghost Town
The fascinating history of Old Parramore, a ghost town located near the Chattahoochee River in Jackson County, Florida. Learn the history of the rich steamboat era when paddlewheel riverboats were the most important mode of transportation for the area.  Please click here to order.

Life on a Jackson County Plantation - An Excerpt from the New Book

The following is excerpted from Chapter One of my new book, The History of Jackson County, Florida: The War Between the States. The book is available through Amazon.com by clicking this ad. It is also available at Chipola River Book and Tea in Downtown Marianna.

This excerpt discusses Sylvania, the Jackson County plantation of Confederate Governor John Milton:

"...Milton’s plantation, Sylvania, was centered around a surprisingly modest home all but hidden from view in a grove of lush trees. English tutor Sarah L. Jones (a pseudonym) vividly described her first view of plantation manor:


"It was just light enough to distinguish a long, low dwelling, surrounded by a deep piazza reached by steps extending along the whole front. A very pretty style of building, quite Southern, and in the midst of a wood. Excepting the drive to the house, and a cleared space in front, it was literally in a wood, and was therefore appropriately called ‘Sylvania.’

"Jones quickly discovered that Sylvania was a unique mixture of gentility and boisterousness and her arrival at the home in the trees was quite memorable. She described how she was invited into the parlor for tea by Mrs. Milton, all under the watchful eyes of the family’s ten youngest children:

"A fire was soon blazing in the sitting-room, called the parlour, the evenings being chilly; but the doors remained open, and I heard steps and voices on the piazza, and saw by the light of the blazing fire, splendid black eyes peeping in at the windows, and popping away on meeting mine, and I knew that some of the ten were ascertaining what sort of a looking body ‘the new teacher, Miss Jones’ might be.

"At the tea-table some half-dozen of the ten appeared, and I never saw such a collection of eyes in my life. They were all dark, and all beautiful, and all like their mother’s, but no two pairs alike. ‘Pretty girls, and amiable, evidently; manners perhaps a little uncouth, listless and inexpressive; temper easy, mind undeveloped, and character also expressionless. Such were my pupils in Florida….

"Life at Sylvania, however, soon proved to be a bit more difficult than the young teacher had expected. She quickly discovered to her chagrin that Jim, one of the Milton slaves, was a prankster who enjoyed taking items from the home and hiding them in the woods. Prior to bed one night she had arranged a row of books on a piano in the little one-room plantation schoolhouse, only to return to the building the next morning to find them gone:

"‘I bet a dollar that Jim…has carried them off into the woods,’ said Johnny.
‘Why should he do that.’
‘Oh, just for mischief. I left my violin here one evening, and the next day it was gone. A long time afterwards, which I was hunting in the woods, I found it smashed up under the trees; and I know Jim broke it up for mischief.’ Thus the row of books vanished, their loss borne amiably and unconcernedly, without an effort to recover them.

"Miss Jones soon discovered that the girls of the family were just as playful as Jim. In fact, she soon realized that the Miltons, like other wealthy elites of the Southern planting class, did not discipline their children at all:

"…Southern parents who have been reared on the same principals do not understand the discipline necessary to enforce any system. They are too indulgent, too much accustomed to control an inferior class, and to allow their children to control that class, to reconcile to themselves the idea of compelling obedience in their own children when once past infancy, which would perhaps be placing them too much on a par with the negroes.

"In short, the tutor believed that wealthy Southerners did not discipline their children because doing so would place them on the level of slaves. She described how little Johnny would even call a slave to carry his spade for him while helping her in the garden. As a result, her efforts to teach the Milton children were frustrating in the extreme. The children would come and go from the little school on the grounds as they pleased. Sometimes other children from the neighborhood would come, other times not.

"While Jones’ account provides a fascinating look at life in the Milton home itself, the plantation was first and foremost a place of work and farming. The future governor of Florida held 52 slaves, some were children and others house servants, but most were field hands, who worked all day in the fields and woods of the plantation. Jones paid little attention to them during her sojourn at Sylvania, noting only that they were “too busy planting, or ploughing, or chopping wood” to assist her with her small garden...."

To read more, please consider The History of Jackson County, Florida: The War Between the States.

Volume 2 now in stock at Chipola River Book and Tea in Marianna

Volume 2 of The History of Jackson County, Florida is now in stock at Chipola River Book and Tea in Downtown Marianna.
The store had 20 autographed copies in stock as of this afternoon and will have more next week. They expected to temporarily sell out over the weekend, so if you are in town and want to pick one up you might want to visit early tomorrow. The shop opens at 10 a.m. and is located in downtown Marianna right across the street from the Battle of Marianna Monument.

You can also order online through Amazon.com. They have a full supply in stock and can ship immediately. Just click here: The History of Jackson County, Florida: The War Between the States (Volume 2)

A Mission to a Jackson County Indian Village in 1771

By Dale Cox

Although they would side with the British during the American Revolution, the Native Americans of Jackson County did not immediately like the English when they took control of Florida in 1763. This was clearly demonstrated in 1771 when a party of warriors from Tomatley, a town located near present-day Sneads, attacked an English settlement in what is now southern Mississippi.

Two people were killed and several slaves - a man, a woman and their children - were carried away as prisoners. The slaves were also Native Americans and were taken back to Tomatley by their captors. John Stuart, the British agent for Indian affairs, dispatched a letter to the principal chiefs of the Lower Creeks on January 20, 1772, asking for the return of the surviving prisoners:

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.

Stuart sent his assistant David Taitt to carry the message to the Lower Creek chiefs. Taitt traveled to the primary Creek towns but was unable to obtain a response to Stuart’s demand. Accordingly, he decided to visit Tomatley in person.

He purchased a canoe for this purpose, but this plan greatly alarmed the chiefs of the Lower Creek towns and they pleaded with him not to attempt the journey. In his words, 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.”

The chiefs undoubtedly were concerned that the Tomatley warriors would kill Taitt and they continued to present reasons why he should not make his journey. Finally they agreed to send two head warriors to Tomatley, but insisted that Taitt not go in person, “alledging the danger of the River and badness of the people there.”

On May 4, 1772, Taitt gave the two emissaries a letter to James Burgess, the trader at Tomatley, asking for his assistance in freeing the slaves as well as a white woman that was reported to be living in the village. He identified his messengers by name as Chimhuchi and Topahatkee. On the same day he sent a message back to Stuart relaying new information he had obtained about the attacks and the status of the prisoners:

…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.

The trader referenced in Taitt’s letter was John Mealy, who lived and operated at trading post at Ocheesee Bluff.

The emissaries sent down the river by Taitt met with success and returned to the upriver towns on May 22nd. They brought with them the slave woman captured on the Pascagoula, but the young boy purchased by John Mealy had already been sent to the populated areas of Georgia. The white woman that Taitt also hoped to retrieve, however, refused to come. She had married a warrior in Tomatley and fled into the woods rather than return with the two messengers.

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