Scott 1817 Education Day bringing nearly 1,000 students to Chattahoochee!

Unforgettable experiences await at Living History event!

by Rachael Conrad

Students learn about the lives of Creek Indian women.

An incredible array of elementary, middle, high, and home school groups will flood the banks of the Apalachicola River on Friday, December 6, for Education Day at the Scott 1817 Seminole War Battle Reenactment.

The annual event commemorates the First Seminole War of 1817-1818 and takes place this year at historic River Landing Park in Chattahoochee, Florida. The park is the site of the first U.S. defeat of the Seminole Wars and is a stop on Florida's official Seminole Wars Trail.

Education Day provides a remarkable opportunity for students to learn about life in the region during the days when the border dividing Florida, Georgia, and Alabama was still a battleground of empires. What is now Florida was then a colony of Spain. Southwest Georgia and Southeast Alabama were claimed by the United States. Still, the claims of both nations intruded on those of the Creek (Muscogee), Miccosukee, Seminole, and other Native American nations.

The Creek Indian warrior Blue Heron instructs a group of
students in the traditional Native American stickball game.

Students will learn about these turbulent days by meeting an array of individuals who "come through time" to speak to them and demonstrate weapons, crafts, food, games, and more.

They will visit the camps of Creek and Seminole Indians, meet Black Seminole warriors, play the authentic Creek/Seminole stickball game, and even try their hand at carefully-instructed tomahawk throwing. Frontier hunters and their families will discuss their lives and survival, demonstrate the firing of their muskets and long rifles, and show the items they used each day. 

The Creek Prophet Josiah Francis will tell the students about the Scott battle and what took place when the fighting raged. A U.S. Army major from 1817 will describe the scene from his perspective. Then there will be an opportunity to step aboard the authentic 38-foot keelboat Aux Arc (Ozark) to see how people once traveled on the Apalachicola River. In a highlight of the day for many guests, the boat will fire off its cannon in fiery displays of sight and sound.

The 38-foot keelboat Aux Arc (pronounced "Ozark) will
be in the Apalachicola River to show students how people
and cargo traveled up and down from the Gulf 200 years ago.

A variety of exhibits on history, archaeology, nature, outdoor activities, animals, and more will also be available for them to explore. Students will even get a lesson in candle-making before they leave!

Historian and author Dale Cox conceived the annual Seminole War Battle reenactment as a way to bring a forgotten part of area history back to life. His dream included a day to help schools immerse students in the lives of historical figures in a way far more real than books or lectures. That dream will be realized on December 6. 

"I am thrilled that so many schools and classes have committed to come and be part of this fantastic free event," he said. "These students are going to learn things about our ancestors in a few short hours that they will never forget."

The Maroon or Black Seminole leader Abraham will come
back to life after 200 years to teach students about his role
in the Seminole War battle fought at River Landing Park.

Cox said that he really likes the fact that the Scott 1817 event lets students learn about people from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds. "There were Creek, Miccosukee, and Seminole Indians fighting to preserve their homes and lands," he continued. "You had Maroons - escaped slaves that many of the students have never heard of - taking up arms alongside the Native Americans and fighting for their own freedom. United States soldiers, frontier people, Spanish soldiers and settlers, people from so many different backgrounds, all coming together at once in this small corner of the world."

More than 500 students from Jackson County alone will be coming across the river to enjoy the event, and there will be many from other locations as well.

Education Day will be followed by the main public days on Saturday and Sunday (December 7 & 8). Everyone is encouraged to come out and enjoy days of living history encampments, demonstrations, pageantry, exhibits, musket and cannon firings, food, vendors, and battle reenactments. The hours are 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. (8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Central). 

Please visit scott1817.com or www.facebook.com/scott1817 for more information.

If your home school or school group would like to attend Education Day, please email us by clicking here.

Paddlewheel Steamboats on the Chipola River

The Jackson, the Farley, and other boats made the dangerous run.

by Dale Cox

The paddlewheel steamboat Chipola operated in 1911-1926.
State Archives of Florida/Memory Collection

Paddlewheel steamboats offered transportation, communication, and opportunities to communities across Northwest Florida long before the P&A (later the L&N and today the CSX) railroad was built across the region in 1881-1883.

While it is easy to see how the boats could operate successfully on the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee, and Choctawhatchee Rivers, the idea that they navigated the narrow and twisting channels of Holmes Creek and the Chipola River seems much more far-fetched. And yet, the splash of paddlewheels and shrill whines of steam whistles were heard on these streams as well.

Holmes Creek, for example, was navigated by sternwheelers from its confluence with the Choctawhatchee up to a landing just north of Vernon. They carried cotton, timber, turpentine rosin, and other commodities down to Pensacola via the Choctawhatchee River, Choctawhatchee Bay, and Santa Rosa Sound. Vernon actually became one of the world's top shipping points for gopher tortoises, which were considered a valuable food item in the 19th and early 20th centuries. 

The Chipola River in Northwest Florida

Marianna's location on the Chipola River sparked many to dream that it too could become a commercial port. Wooden barges and pole boats carried cotton, rice, sugar, lumber, and other commodities down the river from the earliest days of settlement in Jackson County. The Natural Bridge at today's Florida Caverns State Park was an important port facility. Commerce from the upper river was offloaded there and transferred to larger boats for the trip down to Apalachicola and St. Joseph.

It was not until 1860, however, that the first powered vessel made its way up to Marianna. The boat was the paddlewheel steamer Jackson, which was built in Pittsburg especially for the Chipola River trade:

LIGHT STEAMER.—A neat little steamer—the Jackson, of Marianna, Florida—is just completed and now loading at the Monongahela wharf for the South. The Jackson was built under the superintendence of Capt. Dan Fry, her commander, for the Marianna and Appalachicola Steamboat Company and is intended to navigate the Chipola river—a river never before navigated by steamboat.—She is of light draught, trimming on less than twelve inches, and having a capacity to stow away five hundred bales of cotton. Her cabin is very near and furnished in true southern style and has all the late improvements in her general outfit to make her the boat for the packet trade she is intended for.—(Pittsburg Despatch, July 11, 1860).

The boat's career was short. Just months after she reached Marianna the first time, Florida seceded from the Union and joined the Confederate States of America. U.S. warships blockaded Apalachicola and St. Joseph Bays, prompting Confederate forces to obstruct the Apalachicola River. They also placed heavy cannon along its banks to prevent the enemy from coming upstream.

The steamboat John W. Callahan sank in the lower Chipola
River near Wewahitchka in 1927.

The Jackson stopped her runs to Marianna and was placed under the control of the Confederate army. She was lost in an accident on the lower Apalachicola River late in the war.

The Reconstruction era arrived in 1865 with no boat available to navigate the shallow and twisting channel of the Chipola. The steamers that survived the war were too big. They drew too much water, and their lengths were too long to turn the river's sharp bends. The dream of turning Marianna into a river city was dampened but did not end.

As the community recovered from the economic devastation of the War Between the States or Civil War, attention soon turned to the building a new boat christened the Farley. The sternwheel boat made her first trip up the Chipola in March of 1872:

ARRIVAL OF THE FIRST STEAMER - The little steamer "Farley," built expressly to run on the Chipola river and points on the Chattahoochee and Flint made her first trip up to Marianna on the 16th ult., and created the wildest enthusiasm among the citizens. The Courier of the following Thursday is filled with accounts of pic-nics, dances, and all sorts of jubilees in her honor. - The ladies presented the Captain with a handsome flag for his little craft. "The Farley will no doubt prove a great convenience to the people of Jackson - (Tallahassee Weekly Floridian, April 2, 1872).

The Farley brought commercial river traffic back to Marianna for the first time in ten years. Like the Jackson before her, she could only travel the river during the winter and spring when water levels were high. Promoters, however, dreamed of opening the river year-round and appealed to the War Department which sent Thomas Robinson, Assistant Engineer, to inspect the Chipola and make recommendations:

The John W. Callahan, Jr. was the last commercial
paddlewheel steamer to operate on the Chipola River. She is
seen here passing beneath Victory Bridge at Chattahoochee
on its dedication day in 1922.

The Chipola River, flowing southward from Marianna to the “Dead Lakes,” an estimated distance of 65 miles, is a stream of 2½ feet per second, surface velocity (with the water 5 feet above low), a general depth of 5 feet at low water, and a width ranging from 60 to 200 feet. The obstructions are bridges, shoals, overhanging trees, and logs and snags in the channel. - (Report of Thomas Robinson, Assistant Engineer, included in Annual Report of the Secretary of War, Washington, DC, 1889, Page 1418).

Robinson placed the cost of the river at $48,300. The obstructions he found included the Marianna road and railroad bridges, a road bridge 14-miles south of Marianna, and six rock shoals. The largest of these was Calhoun County's well-known Look and Tremble Shoals:

This last shoal goes by the name of “Look and Tremble,” and is the chief impediment of the stream at low water. At a 5-foot stage of water no signs of the shoal are visible. To clear a low-water channel of 3 feet in depth and 60 feet in width through all of these shoals, I estimate that 8,000 cubic yards of rock must be removed, at an approximate cost of $22,000. - (Ibid.).

Look and Tremble is popular with outdoor enthusiasts today, but it was a severe hindrance to navigation in 1888. The bridges at Marianna were not replaced. Landings were at Turner's Landing on Spring Creek and at today's Hinson Conservation and Recreation Area just south of the railroad trestle remained in use.

The shoals, however, were cut. Channels deep enough and wide enough for small paddlewheel steamers to pass through were cut into the rock. The Look and Tremble cut is still visible on the east side of the rapids.

Another view of the John W. Callahan, Jr.

The steamer Chipola made her presence on the river in 1886. Able to carry 32-tons of cargo plus passengers, she navigated the narrow channel for three years before sinking at Magnolia Landing in 1889.

Other boats operated in the late 19th and early 20th-centuries. One of these was also named the Chipola and was launched at Apalachicola in 1911. The sternwheel boat operated until she struck a snag and sank in the lower river in 1926. She never made it as far up as Marianna.

Paddlewheel boats continued to operate on the Chipola River until the 1930s, but getting them up to Marianna remained a significant problem. The Annual Report of the Secretary of War for 1925, for example, includes discussion of an appropriation to open a 3-foot channel all the way from Dead Lakes to Marianna:

The improvement between the foot of the Dead Lakes and Look and Tremble Shoals is absolutely essential to a section of the State which is not provided with other means of transportation. Below Look and Tremble Shoals improvement has made it possible to maintain regular transportation throughout the entire year. No benefit has been derived from the expenditure above Look and Tremble Shoals. - (Annual Report of the Secretary of War, Washington, DC, 1925, pp. 715-716).

Service never was restored to Marianna, and the last commercial paddlewheel steamer to operate on the Chipola was the John W. Callahan, Jr. The boat remained in service until the early 1930s after her sister vessel - the John W. Callahan - sank near Wewahitchka in 1927. The Callahan, Jr. never came above the Dead Lakes so far as is known.

The emergence of modern trucks and highways ended the need for the boats, and they faded away into the mists of time.

Annual "ghost town" homecoming a success

The 46th annual Homecoming at Oak Grove Church in Old Parramore took place this weekend and, once again, was a success. The annual event, unlike many Northwest Florida homecomings, actually celebrates a community rather than a congregation.

Regular services are no longer held at Oak Grove, instead the beautiful little country church serves as a permanent memorial to the Jackson County "ghost town" of Parramore. A prosperous commercial center during the late 1800s and early 1900s, the community once boasted 5 stores, a post office, cotton gin, sawmill, gristmill, blacksmith shop, churches, schools and more. Several hundred residents lived in the area.

Parramore owed its commercial life to the turpentine industry. Rosin was harvested from the area longleaf pine woods and shipped out in barrels aboard paddlewheel riverboats. Several Chattahoochee River landings served the Parramore area. The most important of these was Peri Landing (pronounced "Pea Rye"), which was listed in 1919 as being one of the few "warehouse landings" along the lower Chattahoochee.

Railroads and modern highways eventually replaced the riverboats as means of transportation and they disappeared by the middle of the 20th century. Parramore all but disappeared with them. The turpentine industry dwindled away after World War II and with it went the stores and other commercial establishments. Today little remains other than gravestones, churches and a scattering of homes.

Each year on the first Sunday in October, former and current residents of Parramore and their families gather at Oak Grove to celebrate the existence of the community.