"The Way It Was" Newspaper Column on Baker County, Florida History, 1984
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THE WAY IT WAS
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William Eugene "Gene" Barber, Artist, Instructor, Historian &
Genealogist authored a series of articles for the Baker County Press
entitled "The Way It Was".
His articles covered all aspects of Baker County pioneers lives in a
colorful, entertaining, as well as, educational manner. At an early age,
Gene possessed the desire and ability to interview the 'Old Folks'. He was
as talented in the use of the pen, as he is with a brush, choosing his
words and expressions in a way to paint an exciting and interesting story.
The following are the final articles of "The Way It Was", written in
1984.
Contents:
* The Red Men Lodge
* Baker County and the Movies
* The Baker County State Bank
* Those who died at Ocean Pond Two Parts
* Carr B. McClenny and his bulldog stew
* 'New York Tribune' accounts of the Battle of Olustee
* On to Appomattox
* More didactical sayings
* Still more didactical sayings
* About your Indian blood.... Two Parts
* Are you a Yumpie?
* Are you good at trivia?
* Here's yet more trivia
* Easter-the relaxed holiday
* Baker County history quiz
* Histories of Macclenny depots
* Checking out Winter Park
* Saving depot important
* Old clippings - 'The Pine Tree Festival'
* On saving the hospitals
* Our plagiarizing society
* Former depot chief cam to Macclenny 'to do a job'
* Uncle Charlie Barber Two Parts
* After 466 weeks....Barber's last column
* Barber's column was quality
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THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, January 5,1984
THE WAY IT WAS - Gene Barber
The Red Men Lodge
We can hardly think of two more diverse and incongruous subjects than
those we treat this week. The first--The Improved Order of Red Men--will be
of interest to Baker Countians whose chronic plaint Is that we're one of
the meetingest areas in the world. Old time folks here were just about as
bad as we.
In our history research through old Baker County newspapers, we have
read several times of meetings and socials held at the McClenny Red Men
hall. We suspected it was a fraternal order and wondered why we'd never
heard of it outside the little newsheets.
Then, we found out...yes, it was, and might still be somewhere, a
fraternal order, and we'd heard nothing about it because it hasn't existed
in this immediate section for several years.
But when the Red Men lodge was active it was a force to be reckoned
with by the trashy sorry lot around town and the enemies of freedom.
Some folks said the Red Men were little more than Klansmen out from
under their sheets. Others called the Red Men "frivolous Masons."
The Improved Order of Red Men began in 1813 as the Society of Red Men.
They claimed to be the oldest fraternal order in the United States and that
they were the cultural heirs of the Liberty Boys who chunked tea into
Boston Harbor in December, 1773. They also claimed John Hancock and Thomas
Jefferson among their founders due to their participation in the Boston Tea
Party.
In 1834, the first tribe (lodge) was instituted in Baltimore as a
benevolent, fraternal, patriotic, and scholarship order.
The Red Men came to Florida during the Reconstruction period and made
a strong appeal to old line Democrats who were holding out against military
and carpetbag rule. The influx of a better class of Northerners after
Reconstruction swelled the Red Men ranks, and several trlbes or lodges,
including one at Darbyville/McClenny were instituted in north Florida.
Osceola Tribe of Starke was perhaps the first, in 1879, in the. state. The
Jacksonville Seminole Tribe was established about 1885, and the
Darbyville/McClenny tribe (name not yet learned) was supposedly organized
just before the Jacksonville lodge.
About the mid 1920's, the Degree of Pocahontas, the women's
counterpart of the Red Men, came into being in north Florida. One, the
Palatka group, is reportedly still existing.
By 1955 or so, most Florida Red Men tribes had disbanded or just died
from lack of members. The only reminders this columnist has of the old
order are a couple of photographs of the McClenny ball club wearing their
Red Men sponsor's caps (like the modern painters caps that have
unsuccessfully tried to supplant the redneck bill caps), and a few
newspaper articles referring to community balls (dances to you younger
folk) being held in the Red Men hall.
So much for the Red Men, and on to our second subject--the twelve days
of Christmas. You are, no doubt, saying, "groan, not more stuff about
Christmas? Isn't that getting overdone and also out of date?"
To which we reply, it wasn't this column that began celebrating that
holiday back during trick or treat time. We, in this corner, are
celebrating it correctly. We didn't begin until Christmas eve, and we shall
continue on through Old Christmas on January sixth.
Actually, in olden times, and we mean in Cracker old times too, gift
giving didn't occur until Old Christmas. The tree went up after the kids
had gone to bed on Christmas eve, and a few goodies were left out for them.
But they had twelve delicious days of looking at the magical tree and
anticipating Twelfthnight when Saint Nicolas would bring the good, and big
stuff.
Most Crackers could not afford an affluent Santa, but they tried to do
a little something. The richer planter folk gave a gift, or gifts, on each
of the twelve days. And everybody utilized that magic period of mid-winter
to transplant trees.
We've written about the Twelve Days in the past. We suggest you dig
out some of those old holiday season papers (you do keep them, don't you?)
and brush up on Old Christmas and such. But, of course, you can't; you're
too busy putting out the Valentine's Day and Easter merchandise, aren't
you?
_____________________________________________________________________________
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THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, January 12, 1984
THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber
Baker County and the Movies
Sometimes this column strains a bit to get a point across. This week's
offering--Baker County's connection to movie-making--is perhaps such a
case.
Nonetheless, this little section of the world has experienced the
vicarious thrill of being slightly within the edge of the big screen's
glittering sphere.
Our neighboring city of Jacksonville was the world's first
movie-making capitol, a fact that has been almost totally neglected but
seems to be something that could well be capitalized on. About the only
significance of Jacksonville's role in movie-making to us is our proximity
to that city.
It was easier to acquire films in those days of the twenties. Much of
movie-making was a small affair, and folks running the picture shows could
usually purchase reels directly from the studios. Either the owners of the
local movie houses made an overnight trip to Jacksonville to pick up a reel
or two or they could have them shipped out by rail.
Most of McClenny's early movie showing places were short-lived, and we
don't know if the other county communities ever had picture shows for even
a short time.
One of McClenny's early movie houses was in a small store space near
or on the site of the later Hotel Annie annex and the present Wholesale
Discount. Another was across College Street on the same side of McClenny
Avenue in one of the spaces now within the Hodges building. Both were
evidently of a very short duration.
Still another picture show, and one which your columnist faintly
recalls, was in or near the present Victorias' School of Dance on south
Fifth Street. The screen was small; sound, other than shuffling of feet and
the whirr of the projection machine, was absent; and it seems that the
chairs were of the home-style straight type.
Your columnist cannot remember how old he was at the time, but he was
small enough to sit on his mother's lap. The only other person he can bring
to mind in the theater was the late Uncle Ira Walker, smiling and greeting
us. There are also flashes of a giant monkey climbing a tall building and a
blond haired lady chained against a dark, background and garlanded with
flowers (King Kong?).
Your columnist also recalls, that later, when he was three years of
age,and living in Miami, the old McClenny movie was the locale for his
earliest remembered nightmare...all the patrons were apes and monkeys of a
good-natured sort (but your columnist has never cared for or felt
comfortable around the creatures), and his mother let him down a manhole in
the middle of a Miami street into a movie theater to be baby-sat by the
good-natured, but loathesome and all-hands monkeys and apes. Your columnist
was not happy about the whole affair.
Now, you amateur psychiatrists may feel tree to have a ball with that
one. As unpleasant as the nightmare was, we kind of like to remember it
now.
One of Hollywood's bright young, and money-making stars ot the 1940's
was the late Judy Canova (and mother of television actress Diana Canova).
Her parents were living just south of McClenny when her mother discovered
she was expecting Judy. Mel Tillis, talented as a comic actor as well as
being a dern good country (and sort of pops-y singer), has his roots in
Baker County. His great-grandfather Wiley Hicks was a member of the Baker
County School Board back around the end of last century, and the Tillis
family moved to Baker County from Bradford/Union County at about the same
time as Mr. Hicks served on the school board.
And another link with the movie-making industry is that former Baker
County Director of Human Resources Neil Spirtas, now a resident of Tampa
and an employee of the Florida Department of Commerce, has entered the
business. He and his partner Trish Harvey, also of Tampa, have founded
Neiley Films of Tampa and have begun production of the feature film
"Without a Country."
Trish Harvey has already been involved in films and was the producer
of "Go Tell the Spartans" with Burt Lancaster, "Acapulco Gold", and "Good
Guys Wear Black."
This column received a quick run-down on the plot, but we think that
it would be imprudent to reveal any more than that it concerns the 1983
real life unfortunate shooting down of the air liner by the Russians and is
possessed of some strange turn of events.
The script is, we understand, well under way, if not completed at this
writing, and preparations are being made for a March trip to Israel for
much of the cinematography.
This column wishes much success to Neiley Films and its first
production.
Your columnist is sitting at his typwriter inside another relic of
McClenny's movie past, and the old movie house rings with the shades of
Johnny Mack Brown, Rita Hayworth, and Cecil B. DeMille. The old Earle
brought many happy hours to a lot of folks here in Baker County, and the
new arts foundation located inside it hopes to do the same.
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THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, January 19, 1984
THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber
. The Baker County State Bank
The Baker County State Bank of McClenny was in business in the early
years of this century. Its statement of condition at the close of business
on the thirty-first of December, 1920, gave its resources and liabilities
as $302,026.19.
Loans and discounts were $261,551.98; overdrafts were $78.90; United
States bonds were S10,000.00; the banking house and fixtures were valued at
$5,000.00; real estate owned was listed as $5,000.00; and cash and due from
banks was $20,395.31.
Over on the liabilities side, capital stock was $30,000.00; surplus
was $6,000.00; undivided profits listed as $5,423.68; individual deposits
$250,602.51; and bills payable were $10,000.00.
The officers of the Baker County State Bank were J.C. Sheffield,
president; E.M. Goodbread, cashier; and J.C. Thompson, assistant cashier.
Directors were J.C. Sheffield, H.R. Rhoden, T.M. Dorman, John Burnett, H.J.
Rhoden, J.T. Jones, and T.R. Henderson.
In 1920, four percent interest was paid on savings accounts. Mr: J.T.
Jones of south Baker County was an owner of 10 shares which were issued in
the summer of 1907. Unfortunately, Mr. Jones' widow was notified of the
bank's insolvency in December, 1926, by the state comptroller appointed
receiver Walter Dopson.
McClenny, as a growing little town, could not long continue without
the services of a banking institution, and so the Citizens Bank was soon
organized.
Where the Baker County State Bank was first housed is unknown by this
writer, but it was early situated in the building which still stands at the
northwest corner of McClenny Avenue and Fifth Street. Your columnist has
photographs of that corner sans bank building and evidently very shortly
after, with the structure. Interesting (probably only to him) are two other
camera views of before and after the planting of Texas umbrella trees (also
known as China berry trees).
The streets in the photographs are, unsurprisingly, unpaved, and there
are sizable puddles of water about. A hitching post is clearly seen on one
of the later pictures. Evidently, the bank did not entertain heavy business
in those days of pre-World War I, because only one hitching post was set
up. "Small town-ologists" have infrequently wondered aloud, around your
columnist at the bank's site being off the railroad since, in those days,
most of the business and money institutions of north Florida and south
Georgia tended to line up alongside the railway, the main thoroughfare of
the day. Their puzzlement is increased when they hear that US 90 was not
paved until the middle of the century's second decade.
In McClenny's early days, the east-west route did try to lie along the
rails, but the marshy condition of the little town prevented a neat
parallel. The fact of the matter is that in the infancy of this century the
Jacksonville to Tallahassee Road dipped in to touch the rails in McClenny
only from about Second Street to Fifth Street.
When the Glidden Automobile Tour came through in 1911, the sleek new
horseless carriages came up from the south (between. 121 and 228) and took
a twisting route through McClenny along the then-named National Highway
(little more than a rut road sometimes "paved" with pine straw and pine
saplings).
The government straightened out the highway during paving, and soon
the. bank building stood, quite accidently, at the main intersection of the
city.
This column is indebted to Mr. and Mrs. Lonnie Jones for much of the
information contained in this treatment of the Baker County State Bank.
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, January 20, 1984
THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber
Those who died at Ocean Pond
First thing right off the bat, your columnist, although not wont to
dignify groundless complaints by answering them, feels an incumbency to
categorically state that he tires of the generally biennial rash of
diatribes directed toward him by a small but vociferous segment of his
public. He is quite surprised, but flattered, that any of his constituency
would take him seriously enough to criticize his effusions, but he would
greatly prefer that his readers either learn to read with comprehension
before firing off letters and phone calls or just ignore his corner.
Be assured, dear readers, that should your columnist ever desire to
slander, which we doubt he ever will (he finds its act quite distasteful),
one will have no difficulty detecting it, and it will be aimed quite
directly and not unfairly through this medium.
Now, on to a subject of deeper concern...where are all the Union dead
from the disastrous and sad Battle of Ocean Pond?
The War Department and others would have us believe that they were all
lovingly brought from that melancholy little battlefield in 1867 and
reinterred in the Beaufort, South Carolina, National Cemetery.
A telephone call to the Beaufort National Cemetery Revealed that no
such records of such a re-burial exist.
Several historians over the past few years, including the late John J.
DuFour of Jacksonville and Dicky Ferry of McClenny, have indulged in
extensive and deep research in the matter and have concluded that the
United States Army dead, numbering perhaps as many as three to four
hundred, are now part of the soil of western Baker County.
A bill was presented in January, 1868, by a J.P. Low to the U.S.
government. for relocating Union soldiers' bodies from Florida to Beaufort.
Mr. Low's report and bill stated that he had removed twenty two from
Tallahassee, ninety from Jacksonville, twelve from Lake City, and fourteen
from Appalachicola. Olustee was not mentioned. In fact, until evidence. to
the contrary turns up, not one of the few hundred United States Army dead
was removed from Olustee.
In May of 1866, Lieutenant F.E. Grossman of the 7th U.S. Infantry was
ordered to the Olustee battle ground site to determine the condition and
whereabouts of the. Union graves. He reported to his superiors on May 25th,
1866:
"The bodies of the Union soldiers killed in the Battle of Olustee, February
20, 1864, were buried by the Confederates in such a careless manner that
the remains were disinterred by the hogs within a few weeks after the
battle, in consequence of which the bones and skulls were scattered
broadcast over the battlefield.
"Under instructions from Col. J.T. Sprague; 7th Infantry, I proceeded
to collect those remains, to accomplish which I deployed a detachment of
Company B. 7th Infantry, on the battlefield. The men carried an empty bag
each, into which they gathered all the. human bones found over the ground
as they advanced.
"In many instances where portions of bones protruded, we removed the
earth and disinterred all the bones that had not been disturbed by the
hogs. In this manner and by carefully searching over an area of about two
square miles,. I collected two wagon loads and a half of bones. I then had
a large grave dug eighteen feet by twelve feet, in which all the bones
collected were deposited. I counted one hundred and twenty-five human
skulls among the remains. Considering that the Confederate dead were
principally buried on the south side of the railway, and that they were
more carefully interred (their graves are now even in perfect condition),
it is fair to presume that all the remains collected are those of Union
soldiers.
"Around the above ground I erected a fence twenty-seven feet long and
eighteen feet wide, around which a ditch has been dug. I caused to be
erected, by direction of Col. J.T. Sprague, a wooden monument twelve feet
high with the following inscription:
South side - 'To the memory of the officers and soldiers of the United
States army who fell in the Battle of Olustee, Feb. 20, 1864.'
West side - 'Our Country.'
North side - 'May the living profit by the example of the dead.'
East side - 'Unity and peace.'
"The monument is painted white, the letters, one inch long, have been cut a
fourth of an inch deep into the wood and then painted black. The fence has
been whitewashed. Of course, it is impossible to identify any of the
remains, as they consist only of bones bleached by the sun of two summers.
This grave is shaded by eight large pine trees which were the only ones in
the immediate vicinity of the inclosure."
To be continued.
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THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, February 2, 1984
THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber
Those who died at Ocean Pond
Referring to the unsung, unknown dead buried ignominously in the sand
just east of Olustee, Lieutenant Grossman of the United States Army stated
that they seemed to have been stripped of all their clothing by the
Confederates and hurriedly interred in very shallow graves, sometimes as
many as six or eight per trench.
If this sounds barbaric, remember that the Southern dead fared no
better in the hands of the Union, and it was war. At least, many of the
Union wounded were taken in by locals and either nursed to health or, in
the case of those who did not survive, buried in yards and local
cemeteries.
Grossman further stated that the many Union dead were also buried by
the Confederates alongside the roadway leading from the battlefield back to
Barber's, making that stretch one of the longest cemeteries in the United
States. The bones of these were disinterred by hogs, and Grossman had them
gathered up and reburied at the battleground.
Estimates of the unknown Union dead vary from two to five hundred.
Today; the powers-that-be in such matters still deny they were ever so
crassly ignored by the United States, preferring to talk about the poor
burial practices of the South.
Be it remembered that only in the regimental history of the 54th
Massachusetts is it said that those soldiers were exhumed in 1867 or 1868
and taken to the National Cemetery at Beaufort, South Carolina, for
reburial. As mentioned in this column last week, there are no records of
such a reburial at the National Cemetery in Beaufort, and Mr. J.P. Low, the
contractor for relocating the Union dead, never listed one body he removed
from Olustee.
Another fact largely ignored by the United States Army and historians
is that most or all of those sad cases of scattered and ignored dead at
Olustee were black.
It doesn't take but a little study to realize that slavery and the
mistreatment of the black race was considered a side issue by most of the
war hawks on both sides prior to the War Between the States and that those
questions, laudable and necessary, were raised strongly near the end of the
war for propaganda purposes. The issue.of freeing the slaves and equal
rights were pushed so strongly, in fact, that it would have been folly for
the government to have later acknowledged that the United States black
troops were shoved to the front at the beginning of the battle and fed like
fodder to a famished mule.
Many of those men probably died without ever knowing why or even
caring about the white man's war. Many were like their white compatriots,
forced into the situation. Whatever and whichever, they should be dignified
with (1) acknowledgement that they were mishandled by the army, and (2)
their resting place(s) must be honored with a memorial, preferably a copy
of the original.
Captain Loomis Langdon of the 1st U.S. Artillery said as late as 1876:
"It was during the year 1876 that I made an attempt, through a friend in
Washington to get detailed by the war department to take charge of
collecting and reinterring of the remains of the Federal soldiers who were
killed at Olustee or who died of their wounds in the neighboring village of
Lake City.
"It was my intention, with such means as I could obtain in the
vicinity, a small outlay by the government, and with what assistance could
be procured from the nearest military posts, to establish a small cemetery
set out within it flowering shrubs and trees indigenous and suitable to
that climate...and thus in some small degree, perpetuate in that dreary
region the memory of the 'brave men who fell there.
"It was indulging in imagining such results as I have suggested, and
while fondly anticipating the melancholy pleasure of this memorializing and
adoring for all time the sacrifice of my gallant and beloved comrades who
are to sleep eternally on that soil which they ransomed with their lives,
that I received a final answer in the negative.
In another communication, he states: "In the fall of 1873, while
traveling northward through Florida, I saw the battlefield from a platform
of the train. All that could be seen of the monument described above were
parts of two sides of a weather-stained and brokendown fence, and even this
would have been passed un-noticed except for the conductor having pointed
it out to me in compliance with my request. That was all that marked the
scene of a conflict from which, of four thousand one hundred Federal
soldiers who went under fire at noon, scarcely one half marched out at
sunset unhurt."
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THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS. Thursday, February 9, 1984
THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber
Carr B. McClenny and his bulldog stew
The gentleman responsible for transforming little Darbyville Village
into a platted city was Carr Boughers McClenny. He, incidentally, also lent
his name to the new city. Captain McClenny, as he was often called by the
locals, was a native of South Hampton County, Virginia, and was born on the
ninth of April, 1839.
He moved to Florida in 1859 and settled in the broad turpentining area
that stretched from Alachua County through Baker County. At the end of the
war, he became a resident of Darbyville in Baker County where he entered
the naval stores business in a big way, and was appointed post master of
the village, and dealt in real estate.
Some of our more astute and observant readers are, no doubt, saying,
"We've been through this back during the McClenny Centennial days. Why be
redundant?"
To which we might reply, "Cause you ain't heard nothing about the
man's service during the War Between the States yet, and we're in the
middle of observing that great unfortunate but romantic incident through
February."
On the twentieth day of July, 1907, Captain McClenny (he wasn't a
captain; it was an honorary title of respect) applied for his Confederate
Service position from the State of Florida. James D. Chalker and M.D.
Barber witnessed the application signing.
From that document we learned that McClenny resided in 1907 at Cadilac
in Alachua County, Florida, and that he had enlisted in the Second Florida
Cavalry, Company K at Hart's Road, Nassau County, Florida, on the sixteenth
of April, 1862. His Captain at the time of his enlistment was Robert
Harrison and his captain at the time of his discharge was J.N. Jones. His
battalion or regimental commander at the time of his discharge was Colonel
Carraway Smith.
Actually, Mr. McClenny was not discharged (and it was duly noted on
his application), but he spent much of his service career as a prisoner of
war. He was released and paroled from Fort Delaware at the close of the
war.
A long-time friend of McClenny's was Robert Lee Rowe of south
McClenny.. He had enlisted with Mr. McClenny and served throughout the war
in the same outfit. He stated that he had known the applicant since 1862
and that their unit surrendered at Baldwin, Florida. He also said that
McClenny was captured sometime during the month of February, 1864.
Mr. Rowe further said that Mr. McClenny was by occupation a farmer and
that his physical condition was very good for his age.
Uncle Tom Carroll was Clerk of Circuit Court at the time and affixed
his signature as such.
In August, Mr. McClenny appeared before the Board of County
Commissioners of Alachua County and received .a favorable report and
recommendation from that board toward securing his pension.
As a sideline to this report, we wish to report that Captain McClenny
was resourceful in the time of need. He and a friend from Melrose, Rance
Williams, were serving time together in Fort Delaware, and although that
Union prisoner camp never received the notoriety of the Confederate's
stockades the prisoners were, nevertheless starved and otherwise abused.
The sergeant in charge of McClenny's and Williams' section was a
burley red-haired rather crude fellow, so much the worse for someone of the
breeding of the two. The sergeant had a pet bulldog on which he doted, and
the bulldog accompanied his master wherever the sergeant went, including
into the prisoners' cells.
The prisoners had been for a very long time without meat, and the
southerner's craving for flesh, was getting next to them. They were also
slowly starving to death.
The reader has already guessed the tack of this anecdote...and it came
about in this manner. According to plan McClenny, a great talker, engaged
the Yankee sergeant, also a great talker, in a lengthy conversation.
Williams, after several days of gentle coaxing, finally lured the dog into
the cell where he hid him until the sergeant was out of sight.
That evening, the two men had bulldog stew.
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, February 16,1984
THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber
New York Tribune accounts of the Battle of Olustee
The New York Tribune of February 20, 1864, like any other newspaper,
was not above slanting the news. However, it did manage to get in some
genuine news reporting, and we shall, this week, relay some of both types
of stories from that particular edition.
Next day a strong force (U.S. Army) was thrown out, and headed by the
cavalry, surprised and captured a Rebel battery of eight pieces, with
ammunition. In this exploit the commands of Col. Henry and Major Stevens
greatly distinguished themselves. They rode past the Rebels drawn up in
line of battle at Baldwin, not staying to answer the challenge of the
sentries. Here none but Infantry were posted by the Rebels, and not more
than 100 men were found to have been there. Charging after midnight upon
the terrified gunners of Abel's (Rebel) battery, resistance was useless.
Their feeble and terrified supports of cavalry and infantry fell back, and
scattered. A Rebel sergeant captured declares the stampede to have been
general and very cowardly. In the mean time, the brigade commanded by Col.
Barton, in which were the 47th, 48th, and 115th New York, and the 54
Massachusetts pressed closely upon the Confederates at Baldwin, and
scattered them, taking about 100 prisoners. In this brilliant charge 17 men
were wounded, two mortally."
This column ceases quoting the New York Tribune long enough to advise
our readers that whenever we begin to complain of editorializing going on
the front page instead of on the editorial page, there is historical
precedent. The Tribune goes on at great length to tell of the cowardly acts
and antics of the stupid rebels and of the brave deeds of the Federal
soldiers. We are among the first to recognize the bravery and dedication of
the men in blue, but the Tribune spread it on a bit thickly...after all,
the Yankee invasion of north Florida was among the worst fiascoes of this
country's military history.
Back to the Tribune: "On Thursday, February 11, Maj. Steven's and Col.
Henry's cavalry command overtook the enemy at the Little St. Mary's River,
three- quarters of a mile from Barber's Station, and dispersed them after a
brief resistance. Here some 30 prisoners were captured, and a number were
killed and wounded.
"The Rebel troops in Florida adopt the Indian methods of warfare. They
hide in bushes, pour volleys upon detached men, arrange ambuscades, scatter
when attacked, and reassemble by previous arrangement. The two cavalrymen
of the 40th Massachusetts killed at the Little St. Mary's each received
five balls from unseen Foes. They had been sent forward to examine, the one
a ford, the other a bridge...
"Proceeding to Sanderson, the cavalry found an immense depot of Rebel
Commissary's and Quartermaster's stores all in flames, lit by the enemy in
hasty retreat. Only one large building, used for storing salt, was spared.
This was full, and fell into the possession of the United States. Sanderson
is on the Jacksonville and Tallahassee Railroad, midway between Baldwin and
Lake City, 40 miles from Jacksonville.
Further reconnoissances in force have been made as far as Lake City,
where the Rebels will probably make a stand. They are fortifying the place.
"...At a place called Barber's Station, in this vicinity, 4,000 lbs of
sugar, marked "Baldwin" and intended for the Rebel soldiers at that place
were found. These were brought to Jacksonville.
"...At Barber's Station, 36 miles from Jacksonville, on a bend of the
St. Mary's River, is a fine site for fortifications, that Gen. Gilmore has
already taken possession of, to hold as defensive position. It derives its
name from a cattle farmer named Barber, who has very lately paid taxes upon
37,000 head of cattle. Barber is in custody, on suspicion of complicity
with the rebels.
"The telegraph has been established from this point (Jacksonville) to
Baldwin, the railroad junction, and Barber's Station, where our force now
stands. It is frequently cut by prowling enemies. Communication is kept
open by couriers. These have been shot at, but none struck so far. One
Rebel solder captured, and liberated after taking the oath of allegiance,
has been arrested for shooting at a courier. If the charge is proved
against him he will hang...
"Native refugees continue to arrive in Jacksonville. Some have been
hiding in the woods from the Rebel conscription for over two months. Two,
who came in this morning, report the country abandoned and undefended as
far as Lake City."
And so, on the 20th of February, 1864, the Tribune stated the
situation as it had seen it and had heard of it. The United States Army,
believing or wanting to believe the reports of the draft dodgers (probably
planted by the Confederates), were led into one of their most disastrous
battles.
The Battle of Ocean Pond (or Olustee) has the dubious honor of being
one of the bloodiest battles of the entire War Between the States.
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, February 23, 1984 Page Two
THE WAY IT WAS - Gene Barber
On to Appomattox
One hundred, twenty years have passed since the battle near the banks
of Ocean Pond. The battle was climactic in Florida's role as a belligerent
in the War Between the States.
There would be over a year to go before the end of the conflit; and
the units of both sides moved on to more critical areas. On the Confederate
side, strengthened in its morale by the win at Ocean Pond, the cry was, "On
to Appomattox."
Appomattox was a long way in distance and time, and the momentous
event there - the surrender of the Confederate Army by General Robert E.
Lee - was probably not influenced by the bloody set-to in Baker County,
Florida. However, the Battle of Olustee, as it was called in the Northern
history books, did indeed make a difference in local life for generations.
First, many of the local Crackers had not been ardent secessionists
prior to the outbreak of the war. They were mostly of the Whig party
persuasion, and they accepted the oncoming conflict as the rich man's war.
But when the United States troops invaded their home territory, i.e. the
Federal campaign of 1864, most Crackers in north Florida-south Georgia
became strong converts to the Confederate cause.
Many of those converted former Unionists developed a distrust of the
federal government which has lasted even into the last years of the
twentieth century.
Second, although the federal campaign through north Florida had not
the dire consequences of Sherman's drive through Georgia, it was critical
enough to further impoverish an already poor section. The area has only
recently developed out of that poor economical state.
Foraging was done by both sides prior to Olustee. Many was the poor
Confederate widow who complained directly to General Finegan about his
troops stealing her livestock, and the stealing by the Confederate army
went on for several days, as they sustained themselves waiting for the big
battle which was sure to come. Added to the livestock-loss was the wanton
destruction of property and animals by the Union men both during the week
while they camped at Barber's and during the march to Olustee by some of
the flanking units.
But almost as soon as the battle was over, many people wanted to
forget it...it was one of those things which happened to other sections of
the country and not to them. Up through the late 1930's, a few dedicated
Daughters of the Confederacy still convened annually at Olustee's
battleground to lay flowers and sing hymns and remember. But to most of the
locals, the battle was hardly more than a term while the results festered
deep and unspoken inside.
World War II came and the battle slipped even further from minds and
interest. Not until the centennial of the battle in 1964 was interest
re-kindled.
Soon, the re-enactment will be one of the major historical events of
the nation. It will be so because of steadfast and enthusiastic work by
people from a wide area, especially from the Lake City section. Those folks
had foresight. Yes, they are allowing some of the event to become overly
festive to the history purist and buff, but we must remember that to
attract people today to happenings which should stand on their own, there
must be a certain amount of hoopla and fun.
Baker County, do not cry over missed opportunities that you did not
grab this event years ago. Do not be so puerile that you think you must or
could take over the show now that someone else has done the work.
Rather, see if you can join with the people at Lake City and go for a
show that will astound, make money, and remind ourselves of our heritage.
Let us take the weekend before the re-enactment and help the Lake City
people with a pre-festival weekend of events and activities portraying our
county's role in the Battle of Ocean Pond.
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, March 1, 1984
THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber
More didactical savings
Your ol' columnist feels that he has been hitting the history a bit
too hard lately, re-fighting the Civil War, stirring up the good ol' boys'
ire against Yankee folk. He bets you dear readers have been sorely missing
his altogether too infrequent effusions of cute didactical sayings.
So, here goes another treasure-trove of pearls of wisdom to enrich
your lives.
--Marriage is like a parking space in a shopping center...it's easier
to get into than out of.
--Three things most folks don't want built next door to them: a bar, a
convenience store, and a church.
--Convenience store's prices, like their reputations for convenience,
are often greatly inflated.
--No educated fool is born out of his time.
--Beware of anybody who has taken more than one selling course.
--Beware of anybody whose main topic of conversation is computers.
--When you begin to like pot likker in a punch bowl, it's time to get
out.
--Most folks who get excited about games of trivia have just stated to
you their goals in life and their intelligence levels wrapped into one.
--Nothing can be more trying to a man's religion than Jacksonville
traffic and most television preachers.
--Show me a man who'd write a letter to the editor regarding the comic
strip "Boone County", and I'll show you an idiot.
--Gluttony - is its own punishment.
--You can't burn your bridges behind you anymore...they're all made of
concrete.
--Nothing -brings out the trashiness in a person faster than the
belief that nobody's watching.
--Three things are constant about attending a party: you. didn't want
to go, you overstay your welcome, and there's always someone who says, "If
you know what went into wienies you wouldn't eat them."
The prudent diner never visits the kitchen of an oriental restaurant
or the backdoor of a seafood restaurant.
--If you can't find a stomach pump, expose the patient to television's
idea of a Southern accent.
--No ride is smoother than a free one.
--A definition of optimism: believing that you will one day be able to
pull out onto highway 121.
--Another definition of optimism: believing that the sign saying
"express lane" in a super market really means it.
--To determine the operating hours of a business unfamiliar to you: it
opens an hour after you get there in the morning, and it closes five
minutes before you get there in the afternoon.
--Nothing brings out the fool in a person faster than the promise of
something for nothing.
--When life is going great you can rest assured. that there will
always be someone around who will ask, "Are you sure you can pay the
electric bill for this new house?"
--Do not sweat other's envy of you...it is their wretched way of
flattering you.
--Truth wrongfully used is much more damaging than a lie.
--Before judging a worker to be good, examine the trail he leaves.
--A guilty conscience fills a man's mattress ticking with corn cobs.
--The messiest creature in the world is a woman outside her own home.
-Children are a joy in one's old age...the lack of children is a joy
to all other stages of one's life.
--One can always tell when a columnist has stared long and hard at a
blank sheet of paper in his typewriter...he effuses cute didactical
sayings.
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, March 8, 1984
THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber
Still more didactical sayings
Last week's column elicited some rather ugly comments from several of
our readers. Some said, "I couldn't even pronounce that word in the title."
Others chided us for venturing away from local history.
Last week's subject was so rousingly unsuccessful that we've decided
to do it again.
--You can determine a man's thinking ability by what he judges being
responsible for all the ills of the world, starting at the bottom with the
man who accuses sugar.
--Only a fool will take credit for anything that happened before the
day he was born, and only a bigger fool will accept blame for that same
period.
--Nobody knows how to rear a child better than he who has never had to
do it.
--The most successful parents are those who realize they only provided
the making for their kids, not the molds.
--God did not invent fireants and wind.
--White middle class Protestant Americans have been blamed by the
majority of sociologists for everything bad except the eruption of Mt. St.
Helens...we're expecting that next.
--We strongly suspect cold weather was one of the tribulations created
for Job that somebody forgot to cancel out after everything else leveled
off for him.
--lt's hard to excuse a dog after he's bit you.
--News-slanting by the media is a two way street...somebody has to
watch, read, and listen.
--Colds and unexpected company are in the same
category...inconvenient.
--A community's pride in its appearance is not measured by its
clean-up campaigns but by its lack of needing them.
--It's a toss-up whether folks brag more about their illnesses or
children, but I'd as soon not hear about either.
--The charming aspect of shanties diminishes in direct proportion to
one's approaching necessity of having to live in one of them.
--I'm all for rehabilitation, but I'd just as soon some folks not cut
their back to normalcy teeth on me.
--Every time I hear "Catch the fever!" I have a feeling its going to
cost me money in some manner.
--Death sentences carried out deter two people from committing
murder...the fellow in the chair and me.
I'd much rather feed a hung man than one with a coming appetite.
--Be kind to those who are always finding fault with you...some think
they're doing you a favor, some are only trying to stand a head taller by
cutting you down, and the rest are feeling generally unloved.
--I not only get a gorging mess of some people and their actions, I
get a snack over.
--Anything that happens before 1 pm is obscene.
--Most ugly people can't help their appearances...but they surely
could stay home.
--Such folks stay so busy being full-time minorities, they don't have
time to realize that some others want to accept them as human beings.
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, March 15, 1984
THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber
About your Indian blood
Your columnist, always mindful of his obligation to keep some of you,
our readers, straightened out on many and sundry subjects, has determined
to broach a topic which has for several years been an irritant to him, and
by his elucidation, he can save some of you from ignominy if you ever toss
the subject out before more erudite folk.
The subject is...and some of you are not going to like it...that
Indian blood in you.
No, we're not hinting that it should be best kept a secret; there is
nothing, absolutely nothing, the slightest bit wrong with having that great
and greatly misunderstood race in your background. There is much wrong,
however, with how much of it some of you claim, and it is shamefully wrong
how some (most) of you dear Cracker folk claim the incorrect people as your
Indian ancestors.
First, we address ourselves to those of you Crackers who make the
statement, "My grandmother was a full-blooded Indian."
This, of course, could be true, but we suspect you have your
generations confused (it is amazing how many people have an appalling lack
of both the sense of generations and a knowledge of history).
Let us say that you are fifty years of age. Your grandmother (the
purported "full-blooded Indian") could be as young as about 68 (born,
therefore, circe 1916) or perhaps as old as 130 (born, therefore, about
1854). Either way, there were no Indians in Georgia or north Florida
excusing a very few pitifully degenerate, abject, and dissipated creatures
who were but shadows of their former selves and not at all the type your
ancestors would have married (most of your ancestors wouldn't have married
Irishmen either).
White Anglo-Americans ceased marrying (and we use that term "marrying"
very loosely) Indians in about the early 1830's, and there weren't many of
them living together except among the rawest frontier folk.
So, most of you who say your grandma was an Indian are just parroting
what your grandma said about her grandma...and that is not only closer to,
but probably is, the actual truth.
One of your columnist's maternal great-great-great grandmothers was an
Indian (full-blooded...we don't know), and she was born about 185 years
ago. And...there was no marriage.
Then, we address ourselves to the subject of the people your
ancestress (ever notice how nobody ever claims an Indian grandsire?) was
supposed to be of. Ever since that popular tune of the 1920's (we think)
"Cherokee", everybody has wanted to be part Cherokee. Truth of the matter
is, most ancestors of lower Georgia and Florida Crackers were never
anywhere near the same area of the Cherokee nation.
Sorry, folks, what you mean is "Creek", and don't flinch; there's
nothing wrong with those people. They were as civilized (whatever that is
supposed to mean), educated, and tolerant as their probable kinsmen the
Cherokees, and much more so than their white neighbors.
There were several tribes of Creeks, two of the prevalent ones in this
area in the "marrying" days between them and our Cracker ancestors being
the Cowetas and Miccasukies (themselves broken down into sub-groups). Your
columnist's Aunt Molly Crews, who could speak several phrases and words of
an Indian dialect, gave a hint of the tribe or group in this area when she
pronounced the only Indian tribal name she had ever heard "Coweeter." This
was supposed to be the people in the Georgia Bend and Duval County from
whom her great grandmother came.
Next week, we shall treat some of the other Indian groups who have
lived in this area or who were connected with it in some manner. Until
then, don't be upset about our remarks on either the Indians or the
Irish...your columnist has the blood of both in his veins, and he would
rather be possessed of that than be descended from all the crowned heads of
Europe.
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, March 22, 1984
THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber
About your Indian blood - PART TWO
The Baker County area has had representatives of the Amer-indian
peoples for at least five thousand years (probably longer).
The first reported by the earliest European (early 1500's) explorers
were the Timucua. There were. several groups of them in a wide area of
Florida and southern Georgia speaking a common language - lengua timucuana.
Their known limits were from Just above the present Saint Mary's,
Georgia, southward along the coast (including the islands) to about Cape
Canaveral, across the peninsula to Tampa Bay, up the Gulf coast to below
Tallahassee, to the Aucilla River, northward into southern Georgia, and
eastward through Georgia to the Atlantic Ocean. Although a number of
historians have disagreed on the limits, all have placed Baker County
within the Timucua commonwealth.
The Timucua of the coast told the French that their neighbors from
what we now know as Trail Ridge west to the Aucilla River were the Utina
yroup. Some old maps place Baker County within the northern edge of the
ancient Timucua Potano Province.
The Baker County group and the coastal people raided each other, and,
generally, did not get along well.
The Timucua people were tall, handsome, well organized socially and
politically, community dwellers, agrarian, and possessed of some cultural
and social habits abhorrent to the Europeans (but perfectly acceptable by
those practicing them and their neighbors).
By 1710 or so, the Timucua had been subdued, Christianized,
Europeanized, emasculated as a race, enslaved, decimated by European
cruelty and disease, hunted down by the English, and displaced by the
greedy Creek Indians. Never has a race been so miserably extirpated by so
many bearing the banners of God (with a little help from the Timucua's own
cousins the Creeks). There has been a very special place prepared in
you-know-where for most of those good Spanish fathers, God-fearing Anglican
Carolinians, and mercenary Creeks (they will be joined by Hitler,
Tamberlane, and others guilty of genocide).
The Apalachees in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were
sometimes reported to be in the area of the Okefenokee Swamp, and some very
old maps show Baker County to be within their shifting southern limits or
very near them.
No Cherokees showing up in this area yet.
The Yamasses began to be noticed in the mid 1600's living in scattered
groups from above Savannah to west of Saint Augustine.
Let us digress at this point for a bit of elucidation on what seems to
be contradictions and inconsistencies about where these early folk lived.
Remember, (1) we are talking in terms of over a century, and (2) those
people moved around like anybody else. In fact, as you cry out, "Lo, the
poor Red Man", bear in mind that good ol' Lo-the-poor-Red-Man, being a true
human being, did not mind in the least invading his brothers' land, running
them off, and taking it for themselves. They had been doing it for a few
thousand years and likely would have continued doing so had not the white
man come in to take over the job
A historian named Willard designated the exact area of Baker County as
being Yamasse country as late as 1828 (probably to 20 years. The Steel
Bridge ing here). They had helped Governor Moore and the Carolinians
exterminate the Timucua in the early 1700's and received much of the old
Timucua land for a reward.
The Uchees were called "Children of the Sun" and lived from the
Savannah River to the Okefenokee just interior of the Yamasses. Most moved
south west away from the encroaching whites and onto abandoned Apalachee
lands in 1716, but some remnants remained in the southeast. As late as
1793, some were reported as living on the fork of the Saint Mary's River
(that's us, folks). Whether they remained when their people moved to the
west and southwest or they returned with the advancing Creeks in the mid
1700's, we do not know, but they were a definite part of Baker County's
Amerindian past. Some fought with the Seminoles and Miccasukies against the
whites during the Second Seminole War.
Even the Shawnees of Ohio got into the act, claiming they were
originally from Florida along the Suwannee River. They claimed that river
received its name from them (give those folks a chance, and they'll give
you a legend, even if they have to make it up...isn't it strange how all
races are just alike in some re spects?). Some wanted to say they were over
most of north Florida back in the 1600's. Perhaps they were, but there were
still no Cherokees here.
Then came the Creeks, a Muscogean speaking people with several tribal
names. They came from north and west Georgia, western Alabama, and west
Florida and were related to the Cherokees of western North Carolina. From
them came the Seminoles of north Florida. Two of their groups, the
Miccasukies and Cowetas, displaced by whites and unfriendly Creek brothers,
moved into the Baker County area. They were not native to the area but
newcomers.
There is even evidence that a band of Choctaws from far west of here
were in this section during the 1819 period or thereabouts. From legend
there were the Este Eatchasikko (the Invisible People), and the Daughters
of the Sun whose golden cities disappeared whenever a white man approached.
There were Apaches imprisoned in the Castillo at Saint Augustine.
But...there were no Cherokees.
The nearest they ever came to Cracker country was an isolated band in
extreme northern Georgia far from the ancestral homes of the local Crackers
and in a popular song of several decades ago.
Be happy that you have Amerindian blood in your veins, but make
certain you give the proper credit to the correct Indian for getting
together with your white ancestors to make it happen. You are part Creek,
and don't you forget it.
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, March 29, 1984
THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber
Are you a Yumpie?
Take this test in the privacy of your home The American media (of
which your columnist would just as soon not be considered a typical
representative) dearly loves to invent cutesy labels for cultural and
social movements and for the people within those movements. Recently, we
are hearing of "Yumpies" - young upwardly mobile professionals.
When your columnist began to investigate just who or what these
Yumpies were, he discovered that he knew several. If you are not so
fortunate as he to recognize a Yumpie when you see one, or perhaps you
don't know whether or not you are one, take the simple test that follows
(apologies to the rather bright writer of a few years ago who gave us the
Redneck quiz in a neighboring newspaper).
Yumpie Self-Test Quiz
--If you wear clothes with the labels outside, give yourself 5 points.
--If you subscribe to Gentlemen's Quarterly, give your self 10 points.
--If you think Calvin Klein is a fellow who used to run a dairy,
subtract 12 points.
--If you listen to obscure AM radio stations that feature talk shows,
call-ins, and progressive jazz, add 10 points.
--If you live in a restored or restorable area, give yourself 15
points.
--If you live in a restored or restorable area because you want to,
subtract 5 points.
--If you wouldn't be caught dead in McClenny, Middleburg, Baldwin,
Jacksonville Beach, on Edison Avenue, or Yulee, give yourself 15 points.
--If you have a habit of telling people, unsolicited, that you will be
attending a dinner party in Ponte Vedra, Ortega, Mandarin, or Riverside,
give yourself 5 points.
--If you discuss TV programs such as Real People, That's Incredible,
etc., subtract 10 points.
--If you discuss such programs because they are "a real hoot", add 10
points.
--If you watch such programs secretly and alone, subtract 12 points.
--If you have a lot of copper and wire baskets in your kitchen, the
use of which would tax the imagination of even a bright person, add 5
points.
--If you think vegetables mean mushrooms, raw spinach, barely steamed
broccoli, and stuff that only a Chinese person would recognize, add 7
points.
--If you eat the stuff because you really like it, subtract 7 points.
--If you drive anything made in America, subtract 5 points.
--lf you sit around and talk about how disco is out, but still go to
them, (just to observe the "other half", of course) add 5 points.
--If your job title has but one word, i.e. "mechanic", subtract 15
points.
--If your job title has three words or more, add 15 points.
--If you've completed at least one gourmet cooking class, add 5
points.
--If you were one of the first to possess a food processor, add 10
points.
--If you will admit that it doesn't save any time, but usually makes a
mess of whatever you're trying to fix in it, subtract 10 points.
--If you use funny language such as, "I'm talking the Cadillac of ball
park figures in this readout", add 20 points.
--If, when concerned, you admit you don't know what the heck you're
talking about most of the time with that funny language, subtract 25
points.
--If you'll pay $400.00 for an offset press reproduction of a poorly
done poster or a painting by an obscure artist rather than pay $50 for an
original piece of art work, add 30 points.
--If your favorite artist, writer, and actor is generally unknown, add
15 points.
--If you change your favorite artists, writer, and actor whenever the
general public learns who he or she is, add 25 points.
--If you subscribe to strange magazines such as Window Treatment
Quarterly, add 15 points.
--If you read what you want to read, subtract 25 points.
--If you are a liberal Democrat in your politics, add 7 points.
--If you cross party lines to vote for the lesser of the evils offered
add 15 points.
--If you have had no address change in 10 years, subtract 15 points.
--If you have had no address change in 20 years, subtract 25 points.
--If you've had courses in home pool care, stress management, or
wines, add 25 points.
--If you think taking any of the courses above is silly, subtract 30
points.
--If you spend more than $100.00 monthly on your hair, add 25 points.
--If you just wash and comb your hair, subtract 15 points.
--If you are aware which dog breed is "in" this year, add 10 points.
--If you keep your dog regardless of his breed or lack of, subtract 15
points.
--If you wouldn't have any cat but an exotic breed or a longhair, add
10 points.
--If you insist on giving just about everything initials or acronyms
instead of a full name, add 15 points.
--If you protest that you are "under-employed" "over-educated for the
job", or that your company or agency has placed you in the "wrong slots,,
add 5 points.
--If you think anything from "the Coast" is neat, add 5 points.
--If you think you need a personal computer to take care of your
personal budget, add 5 points.
--If you are happy that you have a job, subtract 10 points.
--If you read this column regularly, subtract 50 points.
There, now, you may add up your points. If you scored 100 or above,
you can rest assured that you have most of the traits needed to become a
Yumpie and that you will be into whatever new and trendy is awaiting just
over the horizon. If you scored 25 or below, you're a half-way decent
person to be around.
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, April 5, 1984
THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber
Are you good at Trivia?
One of the latest rages is a game, or games, based on knowledge of trivial
facts. Your columnist, always eager to be in on the newest fads, figures
you trivia fans (you Yumpie/trivia types do read us, don't you?) might need
a batch of new questions for your pastime. Try some of these at your next
gathering.
Questions
1. Name Stella Dallas' daughter.
2. What was the complete title for pizza when it was first becoming
popular in the U.S. in the 1940's?
3. From what republic did Texas borrow its idea for the lone star
flag?
4. Who was the last resident on McClenny's northeast corner of
McClenny Avenue and Fifth Street?
5. The camera obscure was invented by (a) George Eastman, (b) Bryan
Kodak, or (c) Matthew Brady.
6. Mary Noble, "Backstage Wife," was the soap opera spouse of whom?
7. Where was Florida's first state prison?
8. What English ruler's wife was by the populace called, "Old Joan?"
9. Artus Van Briggle is best remembered for what?
10. Name the 8 flags that have flown over Fernandina.
11. From what animal are the hairs of a camel's hair brush made?
12. What popular carbonated beverage was once called "dope" in the
lower South?
13. What color suit did Captain Marvel wear?
14. What was the name of the comic strip character Smilin' Jack's son?
15. Lt. Gen. Jimmy Doolittle made aviation history in 1922 by flying
across the North American continent in one day. From where did he take off?
16. What soft drink's slogan was, "You like it. It likes you?"
17. What major baking company marketed a cylindrical loaf of bread in
the 1950's?
18. What was the first mass marketing form of the ingredient
chlorophyll?
19. What was the original name of the fairy tale heroine Cinderella?
20. Who played the two top roles in the thirties movie "The Trail of
the Lonesome Pine"?
21. What do famed baseballer Ty Cobb and notorious Westerner Doc
Holiday have in common?
22. Cabin in the Sky was an historic movie first. Why?
23. What was the name of the little dog listening to his master's
voice on RCA Victor's record labels?
24. What was the flavor of the bottled soft drink Mil-Kay?
25. From where in Europe did the Pennsylvania Dutch come?
26. The once very exclusive sporting and spa site of Saratoga, N.Y.,
is closely associated with what popular snack food?
27. Who said, "An army travels on its stomach"?
28. Who first declared Maxwell House coffee "good to the last drop?"
29. What were the colors of the Cities Service gas stations?
30. What religious leader and reformer made the following statement?
"Here I stand. I can not do otherwise. God help me?"
31. What major movie classic was a dud with the public until it was
first shown on TV?
32. Where is the metal Britannium mostly found?
33. Who is the sole survivor of ----[rest missing]
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, April 12, 1984
THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber
Here's yet more trivia
Your columnist is sorely embarrassed. Last week's answer regarding the
survivor of the leading cast of Gone With the Wind should have included the
lovely Ms. Olivia DeHaviland. She is still alive, but like a lot of other
movie greats of yesteryear, she has lately been stuck in some pretty bad
roles in some unbelievably bad movies. There were two or three other little
problems in last week's efforts but none of great consequence.
Since the response to last week's column was absolutely none, we
decided to do the trivia bit again.
1. Gene Autry's sidekick was Frog. Who was Frog's sidekick?
2. Ipana was (a) a popular Brazilian resort area in the sixties, (b) a
toothpaste well known in the forties, (c) a genus of "soap bush" plant
indigenous to the Okefenokee Swamp.
3. Name the predecessor of Baker County High School.
4. What do these three johnny, closet, privy hold in common?
5. Nyoka spent a lot of time in (a) Budapest, (b) on an icebreaker in
the Arctic, (c) in a jungle
6. William Boyd's famous movie role was as _____
7.. Who reportedly wept because there was no more world, for him to
conquer?
8. What popular soft drink once claimed it "hit the spot?"
9. During which trip to Florida did Stephen Collins Foster write "Way
Down Upon the Suwannee River?
10. What is the name of the state that was once known as "Seward's
Folly?"
11. What important feature did Thomas Jefferson inadvertently omit
when he drew the original plans for Monticello?
12. Instanbul was once Constantinople. Constantinople was once _____.
13. What is burgoo?
14. Which is older - Germany or England?
15. The gold dust twins helped sell what product?.
16. Where in the Bible is found the gentle command, "Do unto others as
you would have them do unto you?
17. In the light soap opera of the forties, who was Belle Jones'
husband?
18. The Katzenjammer kids lived on what continent?.
19. Give the western boundary of, Florida during the American
Revolution.
20. Baker County, Florida, suffered one of its very few natural
disasters in April, 1973. What was
[rest missing]
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, April 19, 1984
THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber
Easter-the relaxed holiday
The holiday most often welcomed by sighs of relief is upon us. It is,
of course, Easter the first Sunday after the first full moon after the
spring equinox. It isn't as wild, inspirational, mawkish, or commercial as
Christmas. It doesn't mean blaring parades and trips to the beaches as
during Independence Day celebrations. There isn't the partying atmosphere
of Halloween.
All these attributes, both valid and dubious, of other holidays are
rapidly gaining on it, but for a while yet, Easter remains the ambivalent
season of the relatively quiet pleasure that comes from winter's release
and an irrepressible urge to be festive.
At this time of year, the more sensitive of us succumb to genetic
memory and engage in a little gentle freaking out in honor of returning
warm weather. Much like our pagan ancestors, we make big things of eggs -
the symbol of renewed life - by boiling, coloring, hiding, and hunting
them.
Today, we have super-dooper egg coloring kits that create swirls,
Disney characters, imitation Czechoslovakian designs, and do just about
everything except one of our old-time joys- mixing all the pretty dyes
together until we produced a few new colors that ranged from bilious green
to septic tank grey. Somehow, egg hunts without a few icky colored eggs
aren't the same. There seems to be little creativity left in the coloring.
Oh, for just one ugly-colored egg this year.
Crackers have always done a few eggs for Easter even though it
sometimes meant work and time which most couldn't spare. They used onion
skins to produce beautiful deep tones of red and red-orange. In Victorian
days and up through the 1920's, the more well-to-do families even had a few
eggs - one for each child s hand decorated by whoever passed for an artist
in the area.
The practice of brewing out the dye from colored paper for egg dying
was prevalent among those who had access to colored paper. This form of
coloring eggs came down well into the 1940's as some of your columnist's
classmates swiped crepe paper from school and later brought in some of the
loveliest products of all (much better than many of those .done in the
prissy pre-packaged tablets-and-ugly transfers method).
Easter was much more to folks of the deep South than egg hunts.
Besides the more obvious religious definition of the holiday and the less
obvious return to their pagan ancestry, Crackers liked to name their
daughters for this most favored season.
Easter Ann remained a popular female appellation until the end of last
century. Of course, some of the Easters were either originally Esther or
were named for a relative with little thought of the holiday. Most Easters
were, however it was eventually pronounced, fully named "Queen Esther", and
those named for the season were quite often "Easter Ann."
We don't know if there are any Easters left in the area, but we
remember fondly Aunt Easter Ann (nee Griffis) Wilkerson of Highland who was
well and vibrant at 100 years plus.
Your columnist has several early 20th century Easter greeting cards in
his collection. Besides the well known lillies, the rose (especially
yellow) was a favorite flower on the front. Bells and crowing roosters were
also popular. On the back of one mailed from Whitehouse, Florida, was the
message: Ider done some perty eggs this year. How are you all? Fine I hope.
Come see us. Love, Ellen.
Your columnist doesn't do much wandering around the shopping malls any
more, and he avoids large stores like they carried plague, but he sometimes
has to be in or near one for necessity's sake. In those marketplaces, he
has witnessed some mighty slick Easter cards of foil and heady with cheap
perfume. He has seen crystal and silver-plated Easter baskets filled with
bejeweled alabaster eggs. He lingered long at the candy counters where the
confections defied description. He watched giant Easter bunnies scare the
wits out of little children (and made your columnist a bit nervous too).
And he is quite certain all this is alright (we have to get the
economy going again somehow), but it seems to him, a bit too glorious and
crass.
So, while the rest of you folks gather your purchased already
decorated eggs (we wouldn't be surprised to see a Calvin Klein label on
some this year) in your Cardin or Gucci basket, your ol' columnist thinks
he'll just get. some old-fashioned dyes (if any can be found), mix them all
up and fix up some of the ugliest eggs of the season.
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday April 26, 1984
THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber
Baker County history quiz
Your columnist has discovered that no matter how much the vast
majority of the population dreads taking tests in school and will go to all
manner of imaginative lengths to avoid taking those tests, most folks will
take anything resembling a test once they have neared middle age.
They especially love taking those little quizzes in Reader's Digest,
Parade, and Cosmopolitan to find out, respectively, how smart, sick, or
sexy they are.
This column found, via notes and comments over the coffee table, that
all we have to do to prove we have readership is to include a little quiz
or two (remember the trivia and Yumpie bits a few weeks back?). Well, since
Lewis Grizzard copied our trivia quiz and George Will tried to outjump us
on our Yumpie test, we figured we would try one this week that cannot be so
easily imitated (can you believe the gall of big-time syndicated
columnists?) copying ideas from small town newspaper columnists?).
This is a genuine Baker County history quiz. Ready? Here goes:
1. In old-fashioned parlance, what was a drummer?
2. Pine Log Crossing Place was the name of which present Baker County
community?
3. Within 10 years, give the date of Baker County's first electric
service from a power company.
4. Where was the Macky House and what was its specialty?
5. Baker County's representative to the Florida Secessionist
Convention was Dr. Koon of Columbia County. What was Dr. Koon's medical
discipline?
6. What is a jo-mo?
7. What is the date of the first recorded invasion of Baker County by
U.S. troops?
8. One of north Florida's largest hotels not of the luxury class was
built in Darbyville (McClenny) in 1881. What was its name?
9. What do Sapp, Bessent, La Beuna Farms, Steckert, and McPherson have
in common?
10. What year did Baker County first receive telegraph service?
11. Marion DeGrate was an educator in Baker County during the latter
part of the nineteenth century, What was his other profession and what was
his political party?
12. Where was the "No Hell" Baptist Church located?
13. What prompted General Finegan, CSA, to prepare his defenses at
Olustee prior to joining battle with the advancing Federal Army.?
14. There are three county families whose names are pronounced exactly
alike but are spelled differently. What are they?
.
Answers: 1. A drummer was a store-to-store salesman in the old days.
2. Baxter and Moniac were built on the old Indian Pine Log Crossing Place.
That name was on maps in the early 1800's. 3. The late Paul Taylor received
electricity from Florida Power and Light in 1928 in his west McClenny home
on the present US 90. 4. The Morris House on the corner of McClenny Avenue
and Fourth Street was once the boarding house of Kate Macky, and, although
lesser known than the famous fried chicken of the Hotel Annie and Morris
House, Ms. Macky served a very fine fried bird herself. 5. Dr. Koon, a
resident of Columbia County (it seemed that nobody in Baker County wanted
the job) was a dentist. He favored secession, but his vote was not
recorded. 6. Called in other areas a "mo-jo", this little item is still
being marketed by "witches" in certain sections of the county to adversely
charm enemies. 7. It is agreed by most historians that the U.S. Army
entered Baker County on or about the 10th of February, 1864, although they
had been very near the county a number of times since the beginning of the
war. 8. The Hotel McClenny was erected by Captain. Carr Bowers McClenny in
1881. There was no south Florida tourist business then, and this area was
about as tropical as many of the rich Northerners would wish. 9. They are
all defunct communities and depots on the former Atlantic Coast Line that
ran through the southern part of the county. Manning was among those
communities and was the only one to survive. 10. 1858, as soon as the
railroad had advanced across the county line during its construction, the
telegraph poles and line followed. 11.Parson DeGrate was a minister and
Republican. He influenced politics in the county among both parties. 12.
The Dr. Koon of question and answer number 5 founded the "No Hell" Baptist
Church at what we now know as Cedar Creek Cemetery after his return from
fighting with the Confederacy during the War Between the States. He said
that after four years of war, he had seen hell and he did not believe God
would, be responsible for such a place and that mankind created its own
hell on earth. 13. He realized that itfthe Yankees were to get to Lake City
and the farther interior of Florida for the purpose of cutting the state
off from the rest of the Confederacy they would have to use solid ground to
pass over, and there was no other except that which lay between the South
bank of Ocean Pond .and the swamp a few hundred yards south. Most of us
know that the defenses were prepared for naught since the Federals did not
cooperate but decided to join the battle a few miles east of Finegan's
earthworks. 14. Rewis, Ruise, and Ruis. There were once also Rollerson,
Rahlerson, Rolleson; and Rollson, but they are now standardized into one
spelling. Other names which had different spellings (Wilkerson-Wilkinson
and Hodge Hodges) were pronounced differently.
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, May 3, 1984
THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber
Histories of Macclenny depots
The railroad first entered Baker County in the summer months of 1858.
The when and where of the first depot is moot, but folks who have studied
such matters think that it might have been on Trail Ridge at what became,
soon after the War Between the States, "Darby's Old Still."
The Atlantic Gulf and Central rails moved westward, and, when they
reached the rise on the eastern banks of the Little Saint Mary's River,
another stop was instituted - Barber's Station. Your columnist has heard
through the older heads that our family patriarch Charley F. Barber used to
say that McClenny and he were born in the same year, reference to the fact
that the first McClenny depot was established where McClenny would be
founded several years later.
By 1868, Colonel John Darby, a native of Ireland and a former resident
of South Carolina, moved his turpentine distilling business down the rails
from Trail Ridge to the present site of McClenny. The depot, if it can be
dignified with such a name, consisted, it was said, of a platform from
which barrels of turpentine and other naval stores products were loaded
onto waiting trains. It was located between the present Fourth and Third
Streets on the south side of the tracks.
Thus, McClenny's first depot was established.
Darbyville (for that was the town's name then) grew rapidly for the
next fifteen years until it became the site of another of those
Northerner-inspired boom towns of the 1880's. With its new name of
McClenny, the little town needed a genuine depot, and it is believed that
by 1883, a new frame building was erected for the purpose.
Photographs of that buff colored structure showed it to be very
similar to the present brick building. The first depot stood on the south
side of the double-track railroad between Fifth and College Streets and was
a smallish affair.
It was a community center, a site for sparking and picnicking, an
impromptu sing-along stage, and a scene of tears shed over departures and
arrivals. Across the tracks, a tragic scenario occurred in 1902; the Drawdy
boys - Neal and Ed - were gunned down after a long running argument with
other townspeople.
Gubernatorial candidate Bloxham and presidential candidate William
Jennings Bryan spoke to Baker County crowds from its platform. Several
doughboys embarked there for a trip to "over there", and two of them did
not return.
Then, its usefulness was over, or perhaps it burned. No one seems to
know. The old wooden rather ugly colored building came down. To replace it,
a new brick structure was erected on the opposite side of the tracks in the
middle of the immediate easterly block.
Locals caught the train there for distant trips "down the state" or
into Jacksonville for an over night shopping spree. After the Jacksonville
Road was paved in 1924 and automobiles caught on, train traffic eased off,
but there were still plenty of train customers until after World War II.
During the war, soldiers from Camp Blanding claimed McClenny as their
territory and challenged the sailors who debarked at the depot and who were
also seeking the fun for which McClenny was legendary. The little depot was
a convenient block away from the popular Hotel Annie and just several feet
from the Legion Hall (already on the military's off-limits list, but the
boys kept coming).
As the locals and military stomped and whooped to "Under the Double
Eagle" the little depot sometimes remained open all night with its feeble
electric bulbs signaling to early morning departers. It was the backdrop
for several "cuttings."
Not all its history was gory and rednecky; there were as many
sentimental departures and arrivals as at the old station. Many a present
county resident first saw his adopted home from its platform. Many a
tearful relative waited for military coffins to be unloaded during the war.
Then, a generation ago, after the life had ingloriously trailed out of
it, the depot closed down and awaited the fate of all empty buildings -
vandalizing.
Now, its fate is taking another and less certain turn. On May 11, the
Seaboard System Railroad will be accepting bids for the building from
heaven only knows who, whose purposes for the building will be, at the
best, removal for a renewed lease on life and, at the worse, demolition for
reclaimed building materials.
Please reread that last phrase.
Seaboard Systems is a BIG outfit, to use a ridiculous understatement.
The company owes us nothing. It is a bit jumpy about the myriad liability
lawsuits, both valid and invalid, from the past. Some of the older heads
there might remember with no fondness the numerous suits brought against
them (and they lost every time) when farmers' cows were killed on the
tracks before the days of the "no fence" law of the late 1940's.
But miracles do happen in rare instances. Write...kindly and
rationally...to Mr. Richard Sandborn, President, Seaboard System Railroad,
500 Water Street Jacksonville, Florida 32202, and ask for the company's
help (whatever it might be) in keeping the McClenny depot intact and within
this area.
Your columnist isn't certain just what to ask for. He's only a small
town newspaper guest editor (we think that's what this position is called),
and those folks over on Water Street are brilliant enough to run railroads.
Let's ask them for advice on what to do and where to go (maybe, we'd better
not request directions on where to go).
It might work. It might not. Let's try.
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, May 10, 1984
- THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber
Checking out Winter Park
On occasion, we (your columnist) break out of our dull and deprived
existence by attempting to edge into the more affluent segment of our
Florida society which may be found in such spots as Palm Beach, Vero, Key
West, and Winter Park. Our last intrepid venture of this nature was to
Winter Park this weekend past...Winter Park, beautiful, shaded, oozing with
money, and only a tad decayed with the infiltration of the poor and
would-be rich.
On these jaunts, we call ourselves, "checking out how the other half
lives." However, since so many of the middle class are successfully
emulating the rich, we are of the mind that in "the other half" has
increased considerably and can now be referred to as "that certain
seventy-five percent."
We went primarily to Winter Park for lunch. Along Park Avenue there is
a score of purveyors of gastronomical delights. We finally found a bistro
that, common as it might sound, listed prices on its menu. We wouldn't have
been concerned about the lack of prices, but we were dining with some
members of the working class.
We perused the menu (impressive) and studied the costs (equally
impressive, if not more so), and then decided on a glass of gourmet ice
water.
When one knows that one will be expected to tip one's waiter with
everything in one's pocket, even if the waiter did nothing more than
practice his intimidating exercises on one...one doesn't order food, but,
rather spends one's time people watching.
No area, not even flea markets and carnivals, rivals the material for
people-watching at the gathering places of the rich and would-be rich; Only
problem is that after the initial quarter hour of watching, they all take
on a weird sameness.
We shall call them "cookie cutter people"...all stamped out with the
same die.
They are all disgustingly lean and of the same hue which puts one in
mind of them all being colored from the same suntan bottle. They have
prominent cheek bones. Their hair is straightish, cut with understatement,
and remains sun-bleached all year round.
The standard costumes are wrap-around skirts for the women and
just-above the knees shorts for the men. Their colors are khaki, dun, and
septic tank grey, and...white shoes...they all wear incredibly, white
shoes.
Evidently, they all are taught in their finishing and military schools
to stand around in a perpetual shrug. They play tennis, smile vacantly, and
have skin that breaks into a million tiny pieces at about age forty.
They never smile at the aspiring-to-be-rich, smile faintly and
patronizingly at the poor, and never smile sincerely at one another.
You see a lot of the whites of their eyes under their irises.
They seem a bid above and quite bored at, most places they find
themselves. in, and to demonstrate their displeasure, they will accept free
samples of food and drink and not tip over fifty cents. They won't do
anything we general run-of-the-mill folk do and they drive funny little
Jeep looking vehicles.
Several Jumps ahead of the Yumpie, they don't admit to having any kind
of job.
They often stand outside restaurants in little groups laughing (they
all learn to laugh exactly alike in finishing school) and sipping champagne
from tulip glasses while denying any taste for the bubbly stuff. They used
to eat quiche a lot until the stuff ,was made available to the public. in
ready-to-pour cartons.
If much of this smacks of sour grapes and envy or the part of your
columnist, you're pretty much on track. He tends to be flabby, and his
experiences in the sun always leave him blotched and flakey. He never can
keep up with what's fashionable, let alone afford it. He keeps his back
ridiculously straight because his grandmother used to slap him if he
slumped.
Common-like, he tips according to the cost and quality of service, and
he never ate quiche because he prefers sugar in his egg pie (if he must eat
it at all). He has always thought it a big cheap to stand around on a
sidewalk to do one's boozing. He can never keep his white shoes even
passably clean.
However, your ol' columnist could suffer through having the riches
they purport to possess.
If this tempts you readers to travel down to Winter Park for some
people-watching, by all means, go. While there visit the grave of former
Baker County area resident David Mizell who founded the community there
(original name Osceola). He was shot by a part-time Baker County resident.
The grave, by the way, is located in Leu Gardens, a botanical treat.
And do stop in at the East India Company for outstanding cuisine and
ice cream (which is what got your columnist started on this in the first
place).
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, May 17,1984
THE WAY IT WAS Gene Barber
Saving depot important
The recent acquisition by the City of McClenny of the rail depot
building elicited the following reactions: "how marvelous", "a waste of
good money and time", and "so what".
We shall address ourselves to the second and third remarks by advising
those good folks that, like a good horse, some things need to be kept for
the good they've been. The depot has been around for a long time serving
the city and area and is a symbol of McClenny.
Why a symbol for the city? As this column has warned many times in the
past, McClenny has serious chances of dying in everything except
population. Silly as it seems to some, a symbol can be a rallying point for
downtown or citywide revitalization.
McClenny is enjoying a reputation among our sister communities as a
city making strides to improve and reverse the decay process which is a
sign of the times everywhere. With the salvaging and utilization of a
valuable representation of history and architecture, McClenny begins to
look even better to potential better quality residents and economic
investors.
Going beyond idealism, which can sometimes be difficult for the more
businesslike heads to understand, we advise you readers that the depot
building is just a plain good ol' investment...$150,000.00 valued structure
for nothing.
The city is growing. It needs, or will need, supplemental office
space. The depot can fill the bill. The loading platform can become an
outdoor stage. With some modifications (and we hope they will conform with
the architecture of the building) meeting space for rent can be created on
the loading platform. The possibilities are limited only by historical
preservation and imagination.
If bad comes to worse, the city can always sell the structure for a
handsome profit.
This column trusts that whatever transpires in the future regarding
the depot, the entire community will put its individual gripes and
prejudices aside and pull together for the purpose of salvaging and moving
the building. If the city is great enough to accept the gift of the depot
from the Seaboard System Railroad and will provide a relocation site, then
the civic and quasi-governmental groups who expressed a desire to save the
station and who hope to benefit by its salvation must expect to carry a
sizable load of the moving costs.
To those who think the idea of keeping the depot is great, this column
begs you to write three letters of thanks to the following gentlemen for
their concern and graciousness: Richard Sanborn, President, Seaboard System
Railroad, 500 Water St., Jacksonville, Fl. 32202; Prime F. Osborn, Chairman
of the Board, same address; and the Honorable Edward P. Westberry, County
Judge, Duval County Courthouse, Jacksonville, Fl. 32202.
There are others who were concerned, but it was these three men who
provided the action. Judge Westberry learned of McClenny's desire to keep
the station, and he approached his friend Mr. Osborn with the suggestion
that Seaboard donate the depot building to the city Mr. Osborn and
President Sanborn broached the subject to the rail company's real estate
department. The rest is almost fairy tale history...a valuable old brick
depot of now rather rare architectural interest and beauty was given free
of charge to the people of McClenny.
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, May 24, 1984
THE WAY 1T WAS-Gene Barber
Old clippings - "The Pine Tree Festival"
It's nostalgia time.
While rummaging through some old newspapers and assorted news
clippings, your columnist came across a batch of interesting news pertinent
to our county's history.
From The Press of 25 October, 1949, comes the headline "Baker County's
Third Annual Pine Tree Festival Friday, 18th." The copy stated, among other
things, Macclenny and Baker County last Friday maintained a festive
atmosphere as it played host to hundreds attending the Third Annual Baker
County Pine Tree Festival.
"The pine tree theme was carried throughout the day from the beginning
of the activities with a 19 unit parade though Macclenny until the round
and square dance that evening."
Editor's note here. for those of you younger heads who wonder what a
"round" dance is, it was the old-fashioned kind where folks of the opposite
sex held each other and moved with more or less definite accepted steps to
the strains of "Little White Lies" and "Tennessee Waltz."
"Selected as a queen for the day was Miss Virginia Ware, a senior and
cheerleader at the Macclenny Glen High School, who was chosen over five
other contestants. The queen was crowned during the half of an afternoon
football game between the Macclenny Wildcats and St. Joseph's Academy of
St. Augustine."
Another editor's note coming up: Football was only about two years old
then here, and all games were played immediately after school on Friday
afternoons.
High school student Jackie Douberly won first place with her essay on
"Pine Trees' Importance and Possibilities to Baker County." U.S. Senator
Claude Pepper was the main speaker and defended his Democratic regime
against accusations of being Russian dominated.
There were no prizes awarded for parade units, but Knabb and Sons and
the team of Fred Jones and Tom Cravey were singled out in The Press as
having outstanding floats.
Again from The Press - 15 December, 1944 we read that the new Baker
County Courthouse was to be dedicated on Wednesday, December 20th. The
program for the day was included under a fine drawing of the south facade
of the edifice. Six a.m. - Wild game breakfast Hotel Annie. Seven a.m.-
Dove Shoot. Eleven a.m. - invocation by the Rev. Edward B. Jenkins,
introduction of distinguished guests by Senator Edwin Fraser, introduction
of Governor Spessard Holland by Representative B.R. Burnsed, and dedicatory
address by Governor Holland. Twelve noon-Cocktail party at Club Home (the
Woman's Club on South Fifth Street,. One p.m.- Wild game dinner Hotel Annie
with Jacksonville Mayor John T. Alsop as speaker.
The headline read: Governor Spessard L. Holland Will Dedicate New
$100,000 Baker County Court House at Macclenny Wednesday Morning at 11
o'clock, December 20th: Big Day is Planned.
From the Standard of 17 August, 1917: List of Persons Called Into The
Service Of The United States Not Exempted Or Discharged: Wesley Keen,
Moniac, Ga.; Henry Ross, Macclenny, Fla.; Wiley Lee, Sanderson, Fla.; Paul
Derie Dorman, Macclenny; Nero Reese, Sanderson; Lee Anderson, Glen Saint
Mary, Fla.; Leo Givens, Sanderson; Abe Smith, Sapp, Fl.; Clyde Burnsed,
Sanderson; Arch Bacon, Macclenny; Laut Rewis, Glen Saint Mary; Gilbert
Robinson, Olustee, Fla.; Thurman W. Arline, Sanderson; Lewis Calvin Fraser,
Sanderson; Eugene Burgess, Macclenny; Lewis Owen Harvey, Sanderson; Harley
H. Markham, Lulu, Fla.; Timothy Gibson, Olustee. The Local Board of Baker
County, Fla. was composed of J.H. Brown, chairman and W.C. Thompson, clerk.
Your columnist is indebted to LaViece Smallwood of the Times Union for
the clipping from which came the above information.
The Press of 26 August, 1938, listed as members of the Sanderson
school faculty T.W. Sweat, principal; Mrs. T.W. Sweat, Mrs. Ward Hurst,
Miss Bonnie Smith, Miss Essie Hogan, Miss Madelience Weeks, E.M. Creel, Mr.
Weddell, William Craing, Mrs. J.D. Burnsed, D.F. Dobson, N.B. Dorman, Mrs.
Joe Dobson, Miss Mary Bethea, and Miss Mary McCorvey.
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, May 31,1984
THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber
On saving the hospitals
OK, folks, we've had a ball with the hospitals. We've satisfied
something in our ego-starved selves by castigating both Fraser and NEFSH
since their inceptions thirty years ago.
Now it's time we called a screeching halt and quietus to this hysteria
and proceed calmly in the other - a positive - direction. First, some
truths: hospitals can, and do, close (they rank up there with churches and
bar-rooms in their rarity of closing, but it does happen); hospitals, like
other institutions in the public domain, suffer more from the
capriciousness of politics and distorted public images than from actual
cash shortage (if you don't believe it, wait and see if within a couple of
years after NEFSH's closing a study shows that the more populous central or
south Florida doesn't need either a new half-billion dollar hospital or a
fantastic addition to some existing like facility); in America, despite the
negative propaganda promulgated by news media, ultra-lefters and
ultra-righters, and super-sour minorities, the change of major politics
(like hospital closings) is determined by the way the majority votes (or
threatens to vote); and, in this situation, as in every other impending
disaster, somebody will make political fodder out of it.
This columnist believes this area is served by elected officials who
are deeply concerned about their constituency and serious about their tasks
(he didn't say he thinks they are all exceptionally good at what they do).
In all honesty, it must be remembered that our state representatives'
powers are paler than that of their fellows from the more heavily populated
and moneyed sections. However, they - local and state - can produce
miracles if they have an almost 100 percent concerted effort from their
constuency (this means: No party crap and no looking for scapegoats.
Mass letter writing and petition campaigns do work in the political
world. Complete apathy, on the other hand, works too especially in favor of
hospital closings.
Your columnist has never been overly bright. He has the ability to see
problems but cannot always work out a solution. He believes strongly that
we can on a level be of great help in preventing either hospital from
closing down.
We suggest that it is time for all the feists to be called off from
rushing in and nipping at the heels of the giants. Your little and, big
complaints may not influence the direction taken by those who have the
intelligence to settle this problem, but the atmosphere you create by
continually cavilling can only muck up the situation and make the job more
difficult. Forget your gripes against either hospital. This is bigger than
when Fraser refused to treat your ground itch because you already had a
whopping big, and ignored, bill there.
Calmly proceed to become familiar with the dangers and possibilities
by perhaps attending called meetings or asking your representative. Know
what you're fighting and learn what are your best defenses and offenses.
You won't learn by hashing it out around the coffee tables or out at the
bar. You only create rumors, and we don't need more of them at this time.
If you don t know what you're talking about or are supplied with
first-hand facts, keep your mouth shut. Refer to the last sentence of the
previous paragraph.
Don't be divided by any demagogues rising up from the midst of this
trouble. Ignore anyone making political hay from the hospital's closing
danger and, proceed calmly to support the level heads. Listen to those who
are, or should be, in the know.
Your columnist remembers, beyond the altruistic nature, of NEFSH, how
it filled the gap in a positive manner that was left by the demise of the
moonshine industry here in the area. Your columnist recalls when Fraser
Memorial saved his mother's life. One day, your columnist will have to go
to either one of the two. Let him say to you as a citizen with all the
rights of dignity and other appurtenances thereof, don't screw up his
chances.
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, June 7, 1984
THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber
Our plagiarizing society
Plagiarism...anyway you cut it, it amounts to stealing.
The recent imbroglio about the Jacksonville college instructor's
plagiarism of someone else's research and literary efforts prompts remarks
from this corner. As an arts person, this columnist finds plagiarism
especially distasteful - nay, despicable and bemoans the fact that the act
is fulminating in the country. And what's worse, it is being condoned and
pardoned by what we once believed to responsible and moral people.
When one uses his/her time, talent (natural and acquired), energy,
native ability, education, and experience to search out a subject, compose,
cull, produce, and refine a work, he/she is often so drained that the
marketing and presentation of the work suffers. Since all the labor has
been done, it is a snap for an unscrupulous or abysmally ignorant person to
reproduce the piece and use the energy he/she saved by not being drained by
the process of creativity and labor to market the work...and usually
receive an amount of cash or adulation which would put that normally
received by the creator in the category of "an incredible fraction of."
If that last sentence was a bit too long for you, try this one: It is
like the one buying the feed, tending to the health and welfare of, and
milking the cow while another slips in and skims off the cream.
It is nothing short of sneak-the-ivory. In fact, the dictionary
definition explains that the word comes from the Latin plagiarius
"kidnapper."
This column is disgusted that anyone would rise up in the plagiarizing
teacher's favor (we're not being unmerciful as much as we're being
non-condoning), and we are even more indignant that most of her supporters
whose letters were published on our sister newsheet's editorial page tried
to obfuscate the issue with cries of racism.
As an aside, folks of all minorities, isn't it way past time for us to
lay that protest to rest in matters where it does not genuinely enter? When
overworked in spheres other than true racism, it is in danger of rapidly
becoming effete. It is a discredit to any minority or race when a
membership of that minority or race either believes or misuses his/her
membership in that minority or race as an out for any unethical, immoral,
or illegal act he/she wishes to commit.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
But we're veering off our subject.
Your columnist understands his subject well. He has been an
oft-repeated victim of plagiary in the past quarter century. He has seen
his art, done by another's hand, hanging on bank walls and read his writing
in others' books and magazines. He has even seen his own paintings being
exhibited for show and sale with his name blanked out and another's
substituted. He has been asked to judge paintings which were done by his
own hand as demonstrations but with another's name (the student's) on them.
Just as bad were the dozens of clone-like pieces turned out by his
students from a workshop being exhibited in a mall show. The canvas and
paint, belonged to the student, but concept, composition, work, etc. were
those of your columnist. All the exhibitor did, beyond learning (we flatter
ourselves to think), was to look and copy. In the art world, we call it
"monkey art", and we are misusing the term art.
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, June 14, 1984
THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber
Former depot chief came to Macclenny 'to do a job'
When Thelma McLeod arrived in McClenny in September of 1926, few would
have guessed that the purpose of the pretty petite young lady was to assume
the duties of local station agent for the Seaboard Airline Railroad.
"I came here," she said, speaking of McClenny, "to do a job, and I did
it." She hand-trucked the freight when necessary, and even took a crew out
to remove a fallen tree from the tracks.
Did she experience difficulties because she was a women? "No. I did
what I had come here to do, and the men respected me."
Thelma McLeod Hayes enjoys a myriad of memories of her days as station
agent in this city and tenderly holds a scrapbook of glowing commendations,
recommendations, humor, and newspaper clippings connected to her career.
Nestled among the souvenirs was a letter pertaining to her retirement after
37 years with the railroad.
That career began back in he home town of Live Oak, Florida, when a
friend of her family, Mr. Humphry suggested she allow him to recommend her
for a job with Seaboard. While she was working in the Western Union office
in Live Oak learning telegraphy, Mr. Humphry informed Seaboard that he
would like them to consider a pretty little lady of his acquaintance who
was bright in the extreme, of good moral character, was not a "flapper"
type, wore long hair, long dresses, and long sleeves.
So, at 18 years of age, young Miss McLeod left her parents Joe and
Pearl McLeod and went to work in Govan, South Carolina. She recalls that
her job there was mainly in the heavy winter month, and that in the slower
summer season, she would take appointments in areas of watermelon and other
summer produce shipping and relief work.
After three years at Govan, she wished to be near her parents, and,
when the appointment at McClenny was opened, she "bid" for it. Three or
four men with more seniority had also bid for the opening, but when they
learned that it was one of the "hard work" stations, they turned it down.
Thelma was then next in line and but a short trip to her parents' home in
Live Oak.
She took a room in the Hotel Annie. McClenny struck her as a friendly
and accommodating little town of no paved streets. She soon became a member
of the First Baptist Church where she served as Sunday School teacher,
organist, and office worker for many years (she is also that church's
longest term member - 56 years).
Work was demanding but not impossible for the little lady. Besides
keeping the trains blocked one station apart for safety, she did the
bookkeeping, and worked Western Union (quite heavy in those days) freight
and Express. Whenever the section crew was late with the depot
housecleaning, Thelma, very averse to untidiness, turned in and worked to
present the cleanest station on the division.
If those duties were not enough, she also trucked freight when there
was no one else to do so and planted a lovely garden on the west end of the
station. She kept the garden in top shape for many years, but it eventually
went the way of many other beauties before progress; the area had to be
paved and used for parking.
There was heavy business during watermelon season, she remembered. A
large covered loading platform was on the opposite side of the tracks
alongside a side track from which the melons and other local produce went
into refrigerator cars. Pulpwood was also shipped from McClenny. Cattle
were also shipped from a pen on the west end of town, and a turpentine
distillery in the immediate neighborhood sent its great share of freight
away. The warehouse and loading platform continually filled with the
nursery stock being shipped by Express.
She worked eight hours a day except during emergencies. World War II
was one of those emergencies that dragged out for four years. Troop trains
were frequently rushing through town. They - she and extra operators -
stayed on the job seven days a week keeping the many troop trains one
telegraph station apart day and night.
After the war, business slowed down. Trucks began taking over much of
the freight business. Passenger service, never big due to McClenny's
proximity to Jacksonville via paved US 90, dropped drastically (it stopped
altogether soon after Mrs. Hayes retired in 1960). Even the hobos, once a
familiar sight along the tracks, dwindled down.
Thelma Hayes took her retirement in 1960 and settled into her home she
and husband Bill had built in 1937. Mr. Hayes, who had dropped off their
marriage license at the McClenny depot as he sped by in his capacity as a
locomotive engineer, passed away in 1963.
Thelma Hayes was a district president of the American Legion Auxiliary
and a charter member of the McClenny Business and Professional Woman's
Club, and Garden Club, and is still intensely interested in her city.
"I love McClenny and its people", she said, and I was so happy to hear
that the station. where I had so many memories and which was so much a part
of my life, is going to be saved."
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, June 21, 1984
THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber
Uncle Charlie Barber
Your columnist is nearing the nine years mark in these, his effusions.
He has a confession to make. For nine years now he has been covering up and
withholding information...and that deliberately.
He thought it prudent to almost totally ignore mentioning his family
in these columns. That is sad, because the histories of his family and this
county cannot be separated. The Barbers were here prior to the United
States takeover and have been active in the economy, social life, and
politics of the state and particularly Baker County from the earliest days
of the Anglo-American settlement to the period of the Second World War.
It was William Barber who came to Spanish territory and his sons Mose
and William, Jr., who made the area safe for settlement. McDuff Barber
introduced a semblance of culture into Darbyville with his Shakespeare
offerings and musical concerts. There were educators, industry innovators,
and philanthropists.
There were some "real characters" such as little Most who enjoyed
escaping from Yankee prisons, Mean Bill who stole corn from his widowed
sister-in-law by-pulling the ears from between the chinks of her locked
corn crib, Mother Vic who could fell an errant dog at twenty paces with a
stick of stovewood, Aunt Susie who claimed that her greatest pleasure after
retiring from teaching was able to freely say "ain't", and Uncle Obadiah
who single-handedly rustled 100 head of woods cattle in one night while
their owner slept soundly nearby.
Your columnist, of course, has been like none of these, good or bad.
The best of the family may be said to have been represented by the late
Charles Farmer Barber. Uncle Charlie or C.F., as he was often called, was a
true son of the frontier. From information he submitted to the Times-Union
in 1913 we learned that he was born in 1859 near Baldwin where his father
was headquartered as Mose Barber's chief cattle drover. His father Ed was
on the trail between Charleston and Okeechobee almost continuously, and
young Charlie's upbring was the total responsibility of his strong,
domineering, and super religious mother (as a devout Baptist, she often
used to pray for the souls of her Methodist brethren and finally despaired
of the ultimate judgment of her Episcopalian acquaintances). Charlie's
father carried a reputation for brawling and hard drinking, and It was
after such a night during a blustery winter in Savannah that he attempted
to swim the Savannah River. His cohorts brought him home to Barber's
Station where he died of congestive fever.
The mother, left with young Charlie and a daughter Florida, soon
remarried. Her new husband was a son of the Reconstruction Period's chief
politician in the Baker, County section. The family later said, "she ran
him off", and she settled in again to rear the children herself.
She homesteaded some former Barber land in the Macedonia section and
sent Charlie to the fields to plow. When she noticed the plowing was not
getting done and the mule famished for water every evening, she
investigated and discovered nine year old Charlie was tying the mule to a
fence and climbing onto stumps to practice delivering speeches.
Charlie got a sound tanning, but he went on to become one of Florida's
most renown orators, sometimes being likened to the great William Jennings
Bryan.
As so many other geniuses, Charlie Barber could not learn well. He was
sent home after three months as unteachable. Even his Aunt Martha Barber
the fame of her boarding school was widely touted in the northeast Florida
area - gave up on him. Charlie had other ideas about learning, and he took
the classics and Shakespeare and saved his money to buy histories for his
library. He soon outstripped his peers and would-be teachers alike.
"Physically, he was not smart", often remarked one of his cousins,
"but he knew how to work others." There was nothing Uncle Charlie couldn't
do, "claimed another, tongue in cheek, "when he put YOUR mind to it. Uncle
Charlie worked his mind. He didn't have to do anything else." He wed the
gentle and lovely Mary Elizabeth Rowe, four year his senior, and, they set
up a beautiful relationship; she ran the house and reared the children, he
handled the money, and they would both agree to walk away from an argument.
Aunt Polly, as she was known, usually did the walking, taking her bonnet
and hoe and working the fields until Charlie's temper died down.
She was one of those people who truly believed and practiced, as she
often tenderly admonished, "if we can't find something good to say. about
the person, let's not. talk about him at all." If the conversation did not
change its course, Aunt Polly simply removed herself from the company with
no fan fare.
_____________________________________________________________________________
charlie2
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, June 28, 1984
THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber
Uncle Charlie Barber - Part Two
Uncle Charlie's public works are a matter of public record: senator
and representative; chair of the senate committee to investigate Florida's
prisoner lease system (and thereby aided in the abolition of the cruel
practice); president emeritus of the Florida Cattlemen's Association,
Southern Nurserymen's Association, and the Florida Association of
Nurserymen; vice president of the American Nursery Association; co-founder
of the Bethel Baptist Church (parent of the First Baptist Church of
McClenny); reorganizing committeeman for the First Baptist Church of
Jacksonville; office holder for several fraternal orders; founder of banks;
supporter of the Columbia Agricultural and Normal College (a forerunner of
the University of Florida); alderman for the new city of McClenny; and
literally scores more.
During the county's darkest period - the Baxter Rebellion - it was
Charlie Barber who worked among the citizens of that part of the county
convincing them to forsake vengeance in favor of all-forgiving and
all-hiding silence. Among his personal papers are scores of unpaid bonds
and IOU's from men of now prominent families connected to those sad days.
He successfully led a fight against both medieval-thinking cattlemen
of Florida and the Texas Cattle Fever Tick in the early years of this
century, and he constructed the first cattle dipping vat for the purpose of
eradicating the fever tick here in Baker County and dared dip his own
cattle first to prove its safety and efficacy.
Widows, orphans, and men down on their luck came to Uncle Charlie,
calling him out to the gate to plead for a little help, They not only
received a 1ittle help in the form of cash but they were brought in for a
meal, and he even created jobs he couldn't afford for their benefit.
"Nobody ever helped as many people as did Uncle Charlie Barber," was,
an oft-repeated statement.
Like most great persons who put others first, Charlie died in
circumstances not unlike those he was born into....short on cash but long
on pride. Uncle Charlie's life can best be summed up in a speech he made
before the national nurserymen's association in Mont Eagle, Tennessee: "Let
us try to live for something more than dollars and cents."
None of us Barbers ever matched up to Uncle Charlie since, but just
knowing the old gentleman makes this columnist quite happy he was born into
the same family as he.
_____________________________________________________________________________
EDITORIAL/OPINION
After 466 weeks.....
Barber's last column
And with the end of Uncle Charlie's story and the 466th effusion of
more than 279,000 words which have elicited 136 crank calls and letters,
your columnist takes leave of you kind readers. This is the last column of
"The Way It Was."
As is well known by all sensitive people, there are major points in
every life which can be headed "turning" and "stopping." Your columnist hit
one of those turning points when he brought his own business of private art
instruction to a close and accepted a position in the employ of the Florida
Arts Center for Education (formerly the Gene Barber Arts Foundation).
Directing the center immediately became a 16 or more hours a day job. This
brought on one of those stopping points in regards to this column.
Your columnist wishes to express his gratitude to his editor for the
privilege of spouting off these past nine years. It is accepted as a
compliment that most, almost all, columns were accepted and printed as
written.
Much gratitude is also due the typographers and proof-readers (did
your columnist have anything to do with wearing several out?). If they will
forgive him for the interminable lists and dates he will forgive them for
their well-intentioned altering of some words and phrasing which totally
changed the meaning and brought on the hot water from some readers (just
joshing, ladies; I love you).
To the office ladies and the remainder of the efficient staff, thanks
for your patience when the column came in late and the request for pay came
in early. Most of all, thanks, thanks, thanks, for your smiles and genuine
courtesy.
Blessed be you faithful readers. Enough good things cannot be said of
you.
But most of all, thanks to you ol' grouches, for without you this
columnist might never have been aware that anybody ever read this stuff.
_____________________________________________________________________________
THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, July 5, 1984
IMPRESSIONS Jim McGauley
Barber's column was quality
Observant readers will note as they scan this week's opinion-editorial
page that absent from this space is the familiar "The Way It Was" column by
Gene Barber, who no doubt is sick of being referred to in print as "local
artist and historian."
Ever wary of his journalistic talents, Barber agreed to sign on back
in 1976, a sort of Bicentennial (you remember that?) contribution to our
weekly effort. Actually, his column was planned to run a year or less, but
it kept evolving and, spurred by his growing legion of fans, the old boy
agreed to keep writing. And keep writing he did, right up to last week.
The weekly treatises spanned the Baker County historical scene, from
the Yellow Fever Epidemic to railroads to the election of 1876. There was
an occasional foray into contemporary, like when "The Day After" was
televised last year. But mostly, Barber stuck with his interpretation on
Baker County's past. As the years went on, he sometimes was cranky and
cynical, but he was always Barber. And his opinions on things were what we
wanted-and got.
Recently, Gene decided he'd had it with troublesome deadlines and the
pressure of having to come up with something new and original every week.
He'd done it seven years, longer than he or us ever thought he would. When
he said he was quitting, we were sorry but understanding, Anyone who has
ever written knows what "writer's block" is.
This writer has seen just about every weekly paper in Florida an many
in Georgia. There are better papers and worse, but few of this size publish
a locally produce creative column of the caliber of Barber's.
This can be best illustrated by an incident about six years ago when
Gene's column did not get to us in time, and did not appear. There were
phone calls, as opposed to when yours truly misses a week; then you could
put a noise activated bomb next to the phone and not be concerned.
Thanks Gene, we appreciated it.