Blue Springs is one of the Most Historic Places in Jackson County

I've written quite a bit here about Blue Springs, the beautiful first magnitude spring a few miles east of Marianna.

This stunning natural spring, which pours out an average of 73 million gallons of clear water a day, has played a key role in the history of the the area for hundreds of years. Archaeological evidence from the vicinity indicates that Native American hunters frequented the spring for thousands of years before the first European explorers entered what is now Jackson County.

The Spanish visited Blue Springs, which they called Calistoble or Calutoble (depending on the source), in 1674, 1675, 1676, 1686 and 1693. The British made note of the road that passed by the spring as being a major trail during the era of the American Revolution. Future President and Major General Andrew

 Jackson passed the spring in 1818 during the First Seminole War. It was settled by less than two years later by William Pyles, who crossed into Florida while it was still Spanish territory and threw up a log cabin and started farming at Blue Springs.

Over the years that followed, the main spring became a focal point on the 3,100 acre cotton plantation of William Robinson, which was incorporated into the more than 6,000 acre Sylvania Plantation of Florida's Confederate governor, John Milton.

To learn more about the history of Blue Springs, please visit the new webpage on the spring at www.exploresouthernhistory.com/jacksonbluespring.

Irwin's Mill Creek was Key Area for Early Settlers

By Dale Cox


Irwin’s Mill Creek – When American settlers began drifting across the Florida line into what would become Jackson County in the years following the First Seminole War, one of the areas that immediately attracted their attention was the rich country along the south side of Irwin’s Mill Creek.

Then called Red Ground Creek, this beautiful spring-fed stream rose in the southeast corner of Alabama and flowed down across the border into the northeast corner of Jackson County. Florida was then still Spanish territory and would remain so until 1821, but to these early settlers, the opportunity offered by the high quality land was more than worth the risk of moving into a foreign country.

Several factors attracted early settlers to the area as they began to drift across the line in around 1819. First was the availability of good, clean water. Second, the creek flowed with enough force to power a watermill, one of the few industries essential to life in the early 19th century. Third, the land along the creek was very rich and ideal for farming the types of crops then popular (corn, sugar cane, cotton). Finally, the heavy forests that grew naturally across much of the region had already been cleared away.

For at least fifty years, the area of Jackson County from Irwin’s Mill Creek down to Neal’s Landing on the Chattahoochee River had been the site of the important Creek Indian village of Ekanachatte or “Red Ground.” Established before the American Revolution, this rather spread out town had been supported by fields and pastures along both the river and creek. Ekanachatte had been destroyed on March 13, 1818, during the First Seminole War and its inhabitants had relocated downriver to a new site about ten miles north of present-day Sneads.

The fields and cleared areas were empty when white settlers began to arrive, providing an excellent opportunity for them to build homes and start farming immediately without the back breaking labor of felling old growth trees to clear land.

By 1821, when Florida was ceded to the United States by Spain, Irwin’s Mill Creek had become one of the three largest early settlements in Jackson County. The others were in the Spring Creek area near Campbellton and along the Apalachicola River below Sneads.

Given the opportunity to file claims for land they had occupied while Florida was still a Spanish colony, ten Jackson County residents did so based on farms they had established along the creek between 1819 and 1821. They were Joseph Brooks, Joseph Brown, William Brown, William Chamblis, James Irwin, Adam Kimbrough, William McDonald, William H. Pyke, George Sharp and Allis Wood.

The presence of so many heads of household indicates that the Irwin’s Mill Creek settlement probably had a total population of at least 50 or 60 people.

James Irwin, one of these early settlers, built the mill that provided the creek the name by which it is known today. The ruins of his mill can still be seen and are thought to be the only surviving remains of a structure built in Jackson County while Florida was still Spanish territory.

Note: You can learn more about early settlements in The History of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years. The book is available online at http://www.amazon.com/, where you can also find the second volume in the set, The History of Jackson County, Florida: The War Between the States.

Two Egg featured on the morning news in California's Capital City!

 I had an enjoyable interview this morning with the nice folks of the Good Day Sacramento show on KMAX-TV, the CBS owned and operated CW network station in Sacramento, California.

They were interested in sharing the story of Two Egg with their viewers for a bit of fun on their Easter Morning show. So, they went from talking about hunting for eggs to how Two Egg got got its name. We talked about one of the stories behind the naming of the unique and special little community, as well as some other features of interest in Two Egg and Jackson County, including the Bellamy Bridge ghost legend.

If you would like to see the interview, you can watch it here:



It was a fun way to spend a few minutes talking about our great area and promoting Jackson County to the viewers in Sacramento, which is not only California's capitol city, but also a significant metropolitan area with an area population of more than 2,000,000 people!

 There has already been a nice surge of visits to the Two Egg website at http://www.twoeggfla.com/, so hopefully more people are taking the time to learn about Two Egg and enjoy information about Jackson County and the surrounding area.

Thanks again to the Good Day Sacramento folks for seeking us out!

Spring Blooming Season arrives in Two Egg area!

The dogwood trees are coming out just in time for Easter in Two Egg and eastern Jackson County. It looks like the spring blooming season is going to be spectacular
Here are a few samples of photos taken over the last day or so. You can see more at http://www.twoeggfla.com/.

Just look for the Spring Arrives in Two Egg, Florida link under Two Egg News Updates.

Legend of the Dogwood Tree is a Popular Local Tradition

One of my favorite legends of the spring is the story of the beautiful little dogwood tree.

The dogwood is noted for its small size but stunning beauty. Each spring it blooms in full force and trees all over Jackson County are now covered with stunning blossoms. The annual blooming season also brings back memories of the old Southern legend that the dogwood tree provided the wood for the cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified.

The story holds that the dogwood once grew to great size, so big that it provided timber for various purposes. Because it provided sturdy, solid hardwood, the tree was selected to provide the timbers for the cross of Jesus. Its role in the crucifixion, however, brought about eternal changes for the tree.

Legend holds that God both cursed and blessed the dogwood tree. It would never again grow large enough for  its wood to be used for crucifixions. In exchange for its loss in size, the dogwood was blessed with its beautiful blooms, which open each year in celebration of Easter. The petals themselves hold special significance associated with Easter.

To learn more about this unique story, please visit www.twoeggfla.com/dogwood.

A Marianna Resident Meets the Union Navy

By Dale Cox

The following account of Marianna resident Eli Moore’s encounter with the Union navy at St. Andrew Bay was written in 1862 by Miss Sarah Jones (pseudonym of Catherine Cooper Hopley). An English tutor hired to serve on the Sylvania plantation of Governor John Milton near Blue Spring, she witnessed many incidents of life in Jackson County during the Civil War period.

“A resident of Marianna had gone down to St. Andrew’s Bay to fit up temporary salt-works, in order to make enough for his own family use. Such practices were becoming common wherever persons lived in the neighborhood of the coast. Another gentleman contemplated establishing works, large enough to supply one of the midland towns, where he had been offered as much as ninety dollars a barrel!

“Our Marianna adventurer’s salt-works became known to the enemy, parties of whom were in the habit of landing for predatory excursions along the coast. One day a skirmishing party arrived on the shore, and coming up to the place, asked him what he was doing there.

“Mr. [Eli] Moore told them.

“‘How much are you making?’ asked the captain, ‘and for whom? Is it for sale? Is it for the Government? Is any one else making salt about here? Who? How far off? How long have they been making it? How long have you been engaged in this business?’

“All of which questions were replied to by the saltmaker.

“The Federal captain then expressed a wish to see the other works, but Mr. Moore hesitated, and made some excuses about the distance, and so forth.

“‘But I want to see them – I insist on it; or I will order my men to destroy these works of yours immediately,’ said the captain.

“The prudent salt-maker still hesitated, and pleaded the inconvenience of leaving his business; but upon the Federal captain becoming furious, and threatening to shoot him down on the spot, he changed his tone, and said in a sort of confidential manner, ‘Well, to tell the truth, there is a horse company (cavalry) not far from here, and I thought, may be, you’d rather not tumble up against them.’

“The captain suddenly recollected that he had an engagement which compelled his immediate return, and cried out, ‘Turn about, boys! – march!’ to his men; adding to the family salt-maker, ‘Well, well! I have not time to go so far to-day; but mind you do not make any salt for the rebel Government. I do not object to your making a little for yourself, but you must be quick about it; we shall not permit you to be here long.’

“By this pardonable ruse, Mr. Moore saved not only his own, but his neighbour’s salt-works, both of them making the most of the time their federal masters allowed to their sovereign subjects.”

Note: This and other accounts of life in Jackson County during the Civil War years are among the stories found in the new book, The History of Jackson County, Florida: The War Between the States. The book is available at Chipola River Book and Tea in Downtown Marianna or online by clicking the ad at left.

Chipola River could once block traffic for weeks!

The rains and high water we have seen this winter reminds me of stories I have heard and read from the early history of Jackson County, when rivers and creeks were much great barriers to travel than they are today.

The Spanish, for example, visited the county in 1674-1675, 1677 and 1693. They usually followed the real "old Spanish trail," a footpath that led from the Apalachicola River near today's Sneads northwest across the county along a line that took it just north of Grand Ridge to Blue Spring and on to the Natural Bridge of the Chipola River at Florida Caverns State Park.

Most of their surviving accounts describe few problems in their travels, but in 1693 they found the water running high and it caused major difficulties for them. At the Natural Bridge of the Chipola River, for example, they described water and mud that reached the girths of their horses. As still happens today, so much water was coming down the Chipola that it overflowed the sink where the river normally goes underground and flooded the bridge itself.

The Chipola, in fact, would continue to cause problems for more than 200 years to come. By the time of the Civil War, for example, an open wooden bridge spanned the river at Marianna, but during high water the entire structure would be submerged. This meant a total halt to mail and other communication with the county seat, as English tutor Sarah Jones, who lived on Governor Milton's Sylvania Plantation, described in 1862:

When we arrived at the swamp near the Chipola, which flows into the Chattahoochie [i.e. Apalachicola], the water was up to the spokes of the wheels, and when we returned, less than two hours afterwards, the water had risen more than half a foot. “It is just nine days since any mail left this place,” said the postmaster, “and the river is rising now, so there will be no chance of sending for a week or two.” And no chance of obtaining the mail either!

Jones related that the postmaster would often throw away all but the most recent newspapers to save postal patrons the "trouble" of reading old news. The river would continue to cause such problems almost annually until the elevation of the bridge was finally raised in the years after the Civil War.

To read more of Miss Jones' descriptions of Jackson County during the Civil War, please consider my new book The History of Jackson County, Florida: The War Between the States. It is available through Amazon by clicking the link here or can be purchased in downtown Marianna at Chipola River Book and Tea on Lafayette Street across from the Battle of Marianna monument. You can read more about the Natural Bridge of the Chipola at www.exploresouthernhistory.com/floridacaverns.

A Monster in Two Egg??? Parramore area sightings raise questions!

It appears that Florida's famed "skunk ape" may be ranging north.

Several eyewitnesses have come forward to report sightings of a strange, upright, hairy creature roaming the ponds and swamps about seven miles northeast of the downtown Two Egg crossroads. Locals are calling it the "Two Egg Stump Jumper."

Available descriptions describe the mysterious creature as being smaller in size than a human, but covered in hair. It walks or runs on two legs and seems to frequent swampy and wooded areas. At least two of the sightings have taken place at night, indicating the monster may be nocturnal.

According to eyewitnesses, one of which described the creature as "pale" in color, it seemed as startled to see them as they were to see it. Both described it as upright, but only saw it as it was running away on two legs. It is said to look something like a "hobbit" or "mini" Bigfoot.

Such stories are fairly common in Central and South Florida, where residents have been reporting encounters with what they call the Skunk Ape for years. They are much more rare in Jackson County, but are not entirely unknown.

If you would like to read the full story of the Two Egg Stump Jumper sightings, please visit www.twoeggfla.com/monster.

Two Egg receives first snowfall in a decade!

As snow flurries spread across Jackson County this afternoon, the Two Egg area received its first snowfall in a decade.

Heavy snow began falling in the Two Egg area at around 3:30 p.m. and continued for more than an hour. In places the snow came heavy enough to create a light dusting on grass, trees and plants. The community had been under a Winter Weather Advisory all day. Please click here to see more.

The snow that reached Jackson County marked the southern edge of a large winter storm that is expected to continue moving across the South for the next couple of days. Areas of Alabama, including Mobile, reported snowfall of more than 5 inches and major traffic delays were reported across that state. Heavy snow was also reported south of the Alabama line west of Jackson County in the Florida Panhandle.

Students at Baptist Bible College in Graceville reported heavy snow falling there shortly before 3 p.m. and students at Chipola College in Marianna reported the same about 15 minutes later.

To see more photos of the Two Egg snow, please visit www.twoeggfla.com/snow2010.

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)

Volume 2 of The History of Jackson County is now available at Amazon.com

I'm pleased to announce that The History of Jackson County, Florida: The War Between the States, Volume 2 of my series on the county's history, is now available at Amazon.com for immediate delivery.

The book will be available locally at Chipola River Book and Tea in Marianna next week and I'll let you know as soon as they have a supply on hand.

The sequel to The History of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years, this volume focuses on the Civil War years in the county. Key elements covered include the plantation era, slavery, secession, the Confederate warship Chattahoochee, the soldiers form the county that served both South and North, the Battle of Marianna, the skirmish at Campbellton, guerrilla activities including the Battles of Forks of the Creek and Port Jackson, Governor John Milton and much more.

The book is 330 pages long and includes wide ranging historical and genealogical information such as listings of all known Union and Confederate soldiers from the county, many previously unpublished accounts of life in Jackson County during the Civil War and exciting new detail on the life of John Milton, the first resident of the county to rise to the governor's chair.

The book will be followed shortly by the release of Daniel Weinfeld's outstanding new history of the Reconstruction era in Jackson County, which makes an outstanding companion volume to the new book (more on that coming soon).

All shipping and delivery of the new book is being handled by Amazon.com. To order, just click ad at the top of this page.

John Milton as a Defendant: The Murder Trial of the Future Governor of Florida

By Dale Cox


For more than a century the story has been told in Jackson County that John Milton had killed a man in a duel at some point in his early life. Milton, of course, was the first person from the county to ascend to the governor’s chair and is remembered primarily as the calm hand that guided Florida through the turbulent years of the War Between the States.

Thirty years before, however, John Milton was the defendant in a sensational murder trial that attracted attention throughout the South. The trial and his killing of J.T. Camp in Columbus, Georgia, is the basis for the duel legend that is a significant part of Jackson County folklore.

The incident took place when Milton was twenty-seven years old. A lawyer and militia colonel living in Columbus, he had run for a seat in the U.S. Congress on the Nullification or States’ Rights platform promoted by former Vice President John C. Calhoun. The “Nullifiers” as they were called drew severe criticism from the supporters of President Andrew Jackson, a national hero then at the height of his power and popularity. Jackson believed that the Union of the states must be preserved at all costs, while Calhoun and his supporters believed that each state was an individual nation that voluntarily made up part of the Union. As such, they believed the states had the right to secede from the Union at any time.

The political campaign in resulted in an angry dispute between Milton and the major in his militia regiment, J.T. Camp, that came to a head in 1834. A newspaper of the time described what happened:

…Col. Milton understanding that his life had been threatened by Maj. Camp, procured a double barreled Gun, and walked over to Nicholas Howard’s Store, and discharged the contents of one of the barrels into his back, and while falling discharged the other into his left breast. – Camp lived but a few moments after he was shot and spoke not a word…I was some distance from them, but can state that Col. Milton discharged his gun with more coolness and deliberation than any man I think would have done under similar circumstances – and left the spot with seeming unconcern.

The future governor surrendered himself to the authorities in Columbus and, as things moved much more quickly in that day, was brought to trial on charges of murder just two weeks later. After hearing from a number of witnesses, likely including Milton himself, the jury acquitted him of all charges.

Milton soon moved to Mobile, Alabama, and eventually on to New Orleans, Louisiana, where he practiced law until he was severely burned in a steamboat accident on July 1, 1845. The accident seems to have prompted his decision to seek a more comfortable life in a rural setting and by 1847 he had acquired thousands of acres surrounding Blue Spring. Naming the plantation Sylvania, because the main house stood in a grove of trees, Milton eventually expanded the farm to include more than 6,330 acres of prime Jackson County land.

He was elected Governor of Florida in 1860 and took office in 1861. The collapse of the Confederacy evident, he took his own life at Sylvania on April 1, 1865, having told friends that death would be preferable to defeat by the North. He is buried at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church cemetery in Marianna.

The historic marker pointing out the site of Sylvania was damaged on election night in 2008, but is now being repaired. To learn more about the life of Governor Milton and his plantation at Sylvania, please visit www.twoeggfla.com/sylvania.

C.S.S. Chattahoochee: The Maiden Voyage of the Forgotten Confederate Defender of Jackson County

by Dale Cox

In January of 1863, the residents of the northeastern corner of Jackson County were stunned by an unexpected sight coming down the Chattahoochee River. The Confederate warship C.S.S. Chattahoochee was making her maiden voyage down the river.


Commissioned on January 1, 1863, the Chattahoochee was a ship of high hopes for the Confederacy. Nearly 150 feet long, she had three retractable masts as well as two independently operating steam propulsion systems. The former allowed her to sail on the open seas without expending coal, while the latter enabled the ship to navigate the sharp bends of the Chattahoochee and Apalachicola Rivers.

Crewed by over 100 men, the ship was powerfully armed. Her guns included a state of the art 32-pounder rifle (meaning that it fired shells weighing 32 pounds), a 9-inch gun capable of firing solid shot weighing more than 100 pounds, and four 32-pounder smoothbores. The rifle and 9-inch gun were mounted on pivots so that they could be turned and aimed in any direction. In short, the C.S.S. Chattahoochee was the most powerful warship to actually operate on the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee and Flint River system during the War Between the States.

An indication of the significance placed on the vessel by the Confederate government was the assignment of Lieutenant Catesby ap R. Jones (ap was an old term meaning “son of”) to her command. A veteran naval officer, Jones had commanded the ironclad C.S.S. Virginia (also known as the Merrimac) in her historic clash with the ironclad U.S.S. Monitor. In early 1863 he was one of the heroes of the Confederacy. Many of the other officers and men aboard the ship had also served in the clash of the ironclads at Hampton Roads, Virginia.

The design, armament and staffing of the C.S.S. Chattahoochee clearly indicates that the original plan was for her to steam down the river, break the blockade at Apalachicola Bay and then raid Union shipping in the Gulf of Mexico and beyond. In short, she was to be a Confederate raider similar to the famed C.S.S. Alabama.

Time and events conspired against this plan. The ship took longer to complete than expected and by the time she was ready for action, the Confederate army had already placed heavy obstructions in the Apalachicola River near present-day Wewahitchka. These barriers prevented Union warships from coming up the river to attack the plantations in Jackson County and beyond, but also prevented the Chattahoochee from going down to Apalachicola Bay. The warship was stranded in the river and became a defender of the Apalachicola Valley instead of a raider of the seas.

Even so, she presented an impressive site as she neared Neal’s Landing on that January day in 1863, but then something went wrong. As the ship was rounding a bend near the northeast corner of Jackson County, the current of the river drove her stern into shallow water. The rudder was damaged and the Chattahoochee began to leak. Men were ordered to the pumps to keep the vessel afloat.

The damage turned out to be serious and a steamboat was called for to tow the warship down to Chattahoochee Landing. To avoid any additional accidents, men were also put on each shore of the river to handle guide ropes to help the ship navigate additional bends in the river between Neal’s Landing and Chattahoochee. Her progress along the eastern border of Jackson County was slow, but she eventually reached her destination.

The damage from the accident would take weeks to repair. It was an inauspicious beginning for a ship that would soon be involved in the greatest naval disaster of the Civil War in Florida. To learn more about that disaster, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/csschattahoochee.

The Pirate of Two Egg, Florida

In continuing the expansion of my http://www.twoeggfla.com/ website, I've added a new page on the man I like to call the "Pirate of Two Egg."

William Augustus Bowles was probably one of the most fascinating individuals ever to walk the soil of Jackson County. Born in Maryland to a Loyalist family in the years before the American Revolution, he served in the British military when he was still just a young teenager. He was sent to Pensacola, where he quickly ran afoul of his superior officers and found himself cast out the service with no means of support, a long way from home.

Wandering into the wilderness, he became lost and was on the verge of starvation when he was rescued by a party of Indian warriors from the village of Tellmochesses which stood about 7 miles east of Two Egg. This was one of the Perryman Towns, so named because they were headed by various members of the Perryman family. William Perryman, the chief of Tellmochesses, was a grandson of the English trader Theophilus Perryman. Like other members of the family, he could speak English and was a prosperous and educated man. He took Bowles across the Chattahoochee River to meet his father, Thomas Perryman, the head of the clan and a prominent leader among the Lower Creek and Seminole Indians.

The Perryman family adopted William Bowles and he married William Perryman's oldest sister. He would go on to become one of the most notorious pirates of the Gulf Coast, a man celebrated each year at Fort Walton Beach's "Billy Bowlegs Festival."

To learn more, please visit the new page at www.twoeggfla.com/billybowlegs.

New Battle of Ekanachattee page now online!

Continuing the expansion of my TwoEggFla.com website, I've added a new page on the Battle of Ekanachatte.

This little known battle took place on March 13, 1818, at what is now Neal's Landing Park in the northeastern corner of Jackson County. The park is located where State Highway 2 intersects the Chattahoochee River and the Georgia line.

For more than 50 years prior to the battle, this had been the site of the Lower Creek village of Ekanachatte ("Red Ground"). The warriors of this town had fought on the side of the British during the American Revolution, taking part in numerous battles and skirmishes in northeastern Florida and Georgia. A British force even camped here briefly in 1778. The town also later sided with the adventurer and pirate William Augustus Bowles during his Florida intrigues in the 1780s and 1790s.

By the time of the Creek War of 1813-1814, Ekanchatte was under the leadership of a chief known by his title of Econchattimico ("Red Ground King"). When U.S. forces overran the Creek villages of central Alabama, he welcomed refugees into his town and did his best to feed and house them. As a result, the village grew to become one of the largest in the Florida/Alabama/Georgia borderlands.

In 1817, when U.S. troops attacked the Lower Creek village of Fowltown in what is now Decatur County, Georgia, Econchattimico joined other Creek and Seminole chiefs across the region in launching what became known as the First Seminole War. His warriors took part in the Battle of Ocheesee on December 15-20, 1817, but returned to their village as a brutal winter settled across the region. A volcanic eruption in Indonesia so impacted the climate of the world that by March of 1818, heavy snow was falling in Jackson County and the creeks and ponds were choked with ice.

Brigadier General William McIntosh, the commander of 1,500 Creek warriors allied with the United States against their own people, took advantage of the severe weather to march south from Fort Mitchell, Alabama. His target was Ekanachatte and on the morning of March 13, 1818, he surprised the village with a devastating attack. When the smoke of the battle cleared, 20 of the town's warriors lay dead and 30 others, along with 130 women and children, had been taken prisoner.

To visit the new page and learn more about the Battle of Ekanachatte, please go to www.twoeggfla.com/ekanachattebattle. You can also read a full account in The History of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years.

Econchattimico's Reserve - A Unique Jackson County Historic Site

One of the most unique historic sites in Jackson County is located along the old River Road (Highway 271) about six miles north of Sneads and nine miles or so southeast of Two Egg.

Econchattimico's Reserve was an Indian reservation established in 1823 by the terms of the Treaty of Moultrie Creek. Covering four square miles along the west side of the Chattahoochee River, it provided a home for the Lower Creek chief Econchattimico and his followers, most of whom had been born and lived their lives in what is now Jackson County.

Econchattimico, a title that means roughly "Red Ground King," had fought against the United States in the War of 1812 and the First Seminole War of 1817-1818, but by 1823 he was tired of war and was living in peace with his new white neighbors. Jackson County was formed that same year and the chief and his followers actually lived in some of the finest homes in the county at that time. Records of the time indicate that many of them lived in nice frame homes or sturdy log cabins, surrounded by fields and orchards that were enclosed with split rail fences. Econchattimico owned a mill and the reservation also had a blacksmith shop and other necessities of life.


The chief and his followers lived on their lands until 1838, when they were forced west to what is now Oklahoma at gunpoint by soldiers from the U.S. Army and Florida militia. Their removal to the west was part of the episode remembered today as the Trail of Tears.

To learn more, please visit www.twoeggfla.com/econchattimico. You can also learn more by reading The History of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years available here.

Blue Spring was an important Confederate camp

Although most Civil War camps were temporary affairs, the one at Jackson County's Blue Spring was occupied for three years by troops assigned to protect the area from Union attacks and raids by irregular bands that secreted the swamps of the Apalachicola, Chipola and Choctawhatchee Rivers.

The spring was then part of Sylvania, the plantation of Governor John Milton who had been elected in 1860 just as war was about to erupt between the South and the North. Because of its abundant supply of fresh water, access to plentiful supplies of food from the surrounding farms and plantations and location along what was then the primary road connecting Marianna with Chattahoochee, Tallahassee and the ferry landings at Port Jackson and Bellview, Blue Spring was selected in 1862 as a site for a Confederate encampment.

The first unit documented to have been stationed at the camp at Blue Spring was Captain Richard L. Smith's Marianna Dragoons. This was an independent mounted unit raised in Jackson County during the spring of 1862. It was later consolidated with other similar companies from Alabama and Florida to become Company B, 15th Confederate Cavalry.

Other units known to have been stationed in the camp over the years 1862-1865 included, at various times, Companies E and G of the 5th Florida Cavalry and Captain Robert Chisolm's "Woodville Scouts," a militia cavalry company sent down from Alabama to help protect Marianna.  Chisolm's unit was praised by Governor Milton for the courage it showed during the Battle of Marianna and ultimately became Company I, 5th Florida Cavalry.

The camp at Blue Spring was just a small part of the beautiful landmark's history. You can learn more at www.twoeggfla.com/bluespring or by reading The History of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years.

Battle of Ocheesee, Florida

This week marks the 192nd anniversary of the Battle of Ocheesee, an important Seminole War engagement fought on the Apalachicola River at the southeast corner of Jackson County.

The battle began on December 15, 1817, when hundreds (if not thousands) of Seminole and Creek warriors attacked a small flotilla of U.S. Army supply boats as it rounded the bend in the river between Ocheesee Bluff and Rock Bluff. These former location is in Calhoun County and the latter is now part of Torreya State Park in Liberty County.

Over the next four or five days, the warriors pinned down the soldiers on their boats in midstream, killing at least two and wounding another thirteen. The fire from both banks of the river was so bad that the soldiers aboard the boats could not even raise their heads above the bulwarks to fire back without being shot themselves.

The stalemate continued until December 19th, when General Edmund Gaines commanding at Fort Scott, Georgia (on today's Lake Seminole), sent a covered boat down with materials to be used in better fortifying the supply boats. The relief boat was also equipped with a special anchor that could be rowed ahead of the other boats and dropped. The soliders could then pull on the anchor rope to slowly move the boats forward. Eventually they managed to get moving again and the attack ended as the boats slowly gained headway.

I've launched a new webpage on the Battle of Ocheesee that you might enjoy checking out. Just follow this link to take a look: www.exploresouthernhistory.com/ocheese1.

Jackson County and the Lost Confederate Gold

by Dale Cox

Parramore - One of the most interesting of Jackson County's legends involves a portion of the famed lost Confederate treasury. When Jefferson Davis and other Southern officials fled Richmond, Virginia at the end of the War Between the States, they took with them the Confederate treasury. According to legend, at least part of that massive haul of gold and silver wound up in Jackson County.

Composed of kegs and boxes filled with silver and gold, the Confederate treasury was valued at somewhere around $500,000 when it was removed from Richmond. In modern terms, it would have been worth millions.

Some of the money disappeared and was likely buried during the time that Davis and the Confederate Cabinet paused in Danville, Virginia. More of the money was used to pay soldiers in the Carolinas and when the fleeing officials reached Washington, Georgia. From there, however, the remaining gold and silver was dispersed in multiple directions. To this day, the final whereabouts of most of the money is a subject of controversy.

It is known that the remaining Confederate officials spread out to minimize the risk that they would be captured by Union cavalry that was desperately searching for them. All were heading for Florida, but they all went by different routes. The goal was to reach the coast where arrangements could be made to flee to Cuba or Texas.

Jefferson Davis was captured near Irwinville, Georgia, as he tried to make his way to Florida, but some officials made it through. Most of the treasure, however, did not. Around $35,000 was seized by the Union army near Gainesville in June of 1865, but otherwise the Confederate gold and silver vanished into history.

THe men involved in hiding it kept some for their own use and spirited some away to support fleeing Confederate officials, but otherwise they never talked about what happened to the money. In various places in Florida and Georgia, however, bits and pieces of the treasure have been found. One of those places, curiously, is Jackson County.

Local tradition has long held that some of the treasure was buried in the corner of a field near the Parramore community in eastern Jackson COunty. The site was then near Bellview Landing, the primary crossing of the Chattahoochee RIver between Chattahoochee and Neal's Landing in 1865 and a likely crossing point into Florida for Confederate authorities or soldiers fleeing Union troops.

During the 1980s, two $20 gold pieces were found at the site, coins that otherwise had no logical reason for being there as the location is not near any old home places. The coins were of the proper date and were consistent with the gold known to have been part of the lost Confederate treasurer.

Could there be more? Or were the two coins left behind when the hidden stash was dug up and removed? Only time and more searching will answer that question.

Note: If you would like to learn more about Jackson County history, please consider my books: The History of Jackson County, Florida: The Early Years;The Battle of Marianna, Florida and Two Egg, Florida: A Collection of Ghost Stories, Legends and Unusual Facts. They are available at Chipola River Book and Tea in Downtown Marianna or online at www.amazon.com.