This article was printed in the Taylor County News
February 22, 1945
This County As It Was In 1873
(Editor's Note: In last weeks News the account of the Rotary Club meeting held Tuesday of that week mentioned a talk by Brof. A. H. Wentworth in which he discussed schools in the early days of Taylor county. He spoke of a contract dated in 1850, entered into by John W. Mixon, as a teacher, and signed by patrons whose names are familiar in the early history of this region, among them being Nathan Smart, Horrell Parker, Mari-Jenkins. John W. Mixon was a grandfather of W. T. Cash. Mr. Wentworth also read to the Rotarians a report by the then county Superintendent, James H. Wentworth, to the State Department, and the News is reproducing that report below with the information here that James H. Wentworth who gave the report in 1874, was the grandfather of A. H. Wentworth and the father of the venerable R. E. Wentworth of Shady Grove.)
The advantage and resources of this county are fully set forth in the following communication from the County School Superintendent:
Shady Grove, May 9, 1873. Taylor County is as jet a frontier county and has not had its resources developed even in a primitive manner. The surface of the county is level and presents a beautiful appearance to the traveler; It is interspersed with small streams or creeks some of which have fine mill sites upon them; and all the streams abound in fresh water fish, such as trout, perch, jack fish, pike, cat-fish, black fish and bream, which can be caught in abundance with hook and line. There are also several large hammocks, in which all kinds of game abound, such as bear, wild turkeys, panthers, catamounts, wildcats, deer, etc. Of deer and turkeys there is no end as you can go out at any time and kill whatever you want. Indeed, I have known one hunter to go out and kill fifteen deer in one night by firelight
It is splendid rang for cattle and hogs. There are several thousand head of cattle owned in this county by non-residents, who get the natives to tend their stock for them, and the consequence has been the people, who have always been frontier people neglect the improvement of their homes and the building up of society, and follow up their stock and fish and hunt. But the range is now in a measure broken, and the people are turning their attention more to agriculture and the proper development of the county, and a bright future is held up before us.
The soil is rich and generous, and there is an abundance of as good hammock land here as there is in the state. The soil of the hammock lands is a dark sandy loam, on which leaves have been decaying for ages. The pine lands are very good. The soil of one class of pine land is black and of another a grayish color, and goes to the depth of from one to two feet. We have some very poor pine land, which borders on the Gulf.
The climate is salubrious and genial. We have almost constantly a breeze from the Gulf of Mexico, which is delightful in summer.
The production of the county are Sea Island cotton, which grows to perfection here; also the upland cotton which on the pine land makes a bale to three acres, and on the hammock nearly a bale to the acre. Corn yields from eight to ten bushels per acre on unmanured pine land, on cow-penned land fifteen to twenty bushels per acre, and on the hammock from thirty to forty bushels per acre. Sugar cane does remarkably well, as on good cow-penned land (that is land that has been run by cattle for a while) it produces about twelve barrels of syrup to the acre, or about eight barrels of sugar, and on the hammock land it produces about sixteen to eighteen barrels of syrup of twelve barrels of sugar to the acre.
Peas do very well, but I have no data on them as to the yield per acre as this is a crop which follows the corn crop. Peanuts do well and there are large fields planted to fatten hogs on; we turn the hogs in on them hence I can't say how many are made to the acre, but enough are made to make it profitable to plant them. This is emphatically the home of the sweet potato. We have several varieties, viz: the ni--er-killer, brimstone, yam, Hayti, etc. They all do well and yield from two to four hundred bushels per acre. There is very little tobacco grown in the county but nearly every family raises enough for home use, it does well and grows luxuriantly. This county is the home of the grape as is attested by the abundance of wild grapes found everywhere. There has been little or no attention paid to its culture. I have started a vineyard of scuppernong and concord grapes. They appear to be doing well bur are not old enough to bear yet. I have a tract of hammock land which I intend to put into grapes and sugar cane and manufacture wine. Although we are so far north, oranges do well. There are three small groves in the county and the cold has never hurt them and they bear largely each year.
You can get wild pine land for one to two dollars per acre, according to location. Land with improvements, is worth from one to four dollars per acre, and some as high as five dollars, according to the character of the improvements as the houses are all log houses and very sorry ones at that, the climate being so mild that a house is not much required. The chief value of the improvements is in the cleared lands. The price of good hammock with a piney woods settlement is from five to ten dollars per acre with some improvements to it. The cost of clearing land is difficult to state as there is no large tract cleared and only a little cleared at a time. But I suppose to clear pine land ready for the plow would cost about three dollars per acre and hammock land about eight dollars per acre.
We have a variety of timber. The timber of the hammock consists of water oak, post oak, hickory, magnolia, bay, wahoo, red bay, sassafres, maple, red oak, white oak, live oak, holly, ivy, cherry, prickly ash, cedar, etc. The pine land presents some of the finest yellow pine timber in the State. Lumber sells at fifteen dollars per thousand feet. Most of the houses are log houses, floored with hewn puncheons and ceiled with clapboards, owing to the scarcity of lumber. There is one sawmill in the county, which leaves an opening for a good investment in two or three more. A very comfortable log house can be built for about two hundred dollars, but of course much depends on the size and finish.
Wages for farm hands are from ten to twelve dollars per month and board, eighteen to twenty when they board themselves.
We are remote or rather inconvenient to market and this is the greatest drawback we have. It is fifteen miles to the nearest point on the railroad from my place and I live in the northern boundary of the county, next to Madison county, and this county is seventy-five miles long and fifty miles broad. But in the southern part of the county the inhabitants have communication by water with Cedar Keys and St. Marks by means of small sail boats. We have several water courses navigable for small boats by which we could get to good markets, but we have not advanced that far yet. We need energy, enterprise and capital to make this as good a country as there is in the Union.
There are several fisheries along the Gulf coast of this county, where myraids of mullet, red fish, etc. are caught every winter. This industry if properly developed, would bring an immense income to the county.
The county as a general thing is healthy; that is it has healthy belts and risky belts. For instance, along the Econfina river, for about ten miles on either side, it is healthy and there is good water to drink; then along the Fenholloway river for about ten miles on either side is sickly. The inhabitants are compelled to use rotten limestone water. Then there comes another healthy belt and so on. Bad water can be obviated by cisterns.
There are several very fine mineral springs in the county, the medicinal properties of which have been declared of value. There is a sulphur-iron spring on the Econfina river, on Rocky Creek a sulphur known as the Hampton Springs and on Blue creek there is a Chalybeate spring, the water of which are highly beneficial to debilitated and nervous people. There are several visitors to these springs annually, but they have to camp out. A hotel would pay well at any of these springs in summer.
This county is better socially than it was before the war from the fact that then the people depended almost entirely on stockraising and the hardy pioneers looked with a jealous eye upon all new comers. They did not want the county settled up as they desired to keep plenty of space for their cattle to run, and have game to hunt. As a consequence, they threw everything they could find in the way of the immigrant. But now happily, times are changed. The range is in a measure, broken and the citizens are compelled to turn their attention to farming for a subsistance and are becoming more settled in their mode of life and are building up churches, school houses, etc. and they are ready to welcome all that come to make this their home.
Under the school system of the state we have several good schools in a flourishing condition. When the system first went into effect, it was bitterly opposed by the natives, but the schools are now appreciated by the people, and if there is no mismanagement in the educational affairs of the county, it will tend more to the elevation of the masses than anything else.
This county is bounded on the north by Madison county, on the east by Lafayette county, on the south by the Gulf of Mexico and on the west by Jefferson county. It has a coast line of one hundred and twenty miles, dented by several bays, harbors, etc., on which are some of the best fisheries on the coast of Florida. It has a diversified soil, genial climate, and vast resources of wealth; all it wants is energy, capital and enterprise to come and develop them.
Financially we are poor, but the county has been economically administered. There is very little crime committed in the county. The inhabitants are nearly all poor, and it takes about all they can do to make a living, not because there are not resources enough, but because they have not yet learned to apply their labor properly.
There is a great opening here for immigrants in colonies or singly as there are vast bodies of good land vacant and large amounts to sell by present owners; not that the present owners want to leave but they have more land than they need. There are some large landholders who wish to sell all their land except a few hundred acres on which to live. There are also some large hammocks owned by non-residents that could be purchased cheap, and plenty of time given.
The turpentine and lumber business at no distant day is destined to be of vast proportions here and men of capital would make a good investment to buy lands for turpentine orchards in the county. But the strength of a county lays in the hardy economy and to such as them the county offers superior advantages. Here, land is plenty, cheap, easy to clear, easy to cultivate and gives a good yield, and as it is sparsely settled, a good hog range and cattle range can be selected almost anywhere. Hogs can be killed from the woods fat enough for pork. Plenty of game, fish in abundance.
Taking all this into consideration, I can't see what is to prevent a working man from succeeding here and in the course of a few years have a competency with all he wants around him. All it needs to acquire this is to come and settle and employ energy and industry. I have been a resident in this county for eight years and from my observation and experience this is the industrious poor man's paradise.
Wishing you every success in your official labors, as well as otherwise.
I am respectfully
Your ob't serv't,
James H. Wentworth