Crackers & Carpetbaggers
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. CRACKERS & CARPETBAGGERS: Moments In The History Of Jacksonville, Florida From Indians to Airplanes …and Ships in Between. by John W. Cowart Jacksonville, Florida CRACKERS & CARPETBAGGERS: Moments In The History Of Jacksonville, Florida © 2005 by John W. Cowart ISBN # 1-4116-2131-X Library of Congress Control Number: 2005921113 Cover Art & Book Design by Donald Z. Cowart http://www.rdex.net Photo and Graphic Credits: Unless otherwise credited, the illustrations in this book came from the personal collection of Donald Z. Cowart, or from the websites of: Florida State Archives: http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us/barm/fsa.html Jacksonville Library Photo Collection: http://jpl.coj.net/DLC/FLorida/photo/photoindexJ.html Library Of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/catalogabt.html . Being rather new to computers, I confess that I have not always known how to keep track of the source of every graphic. This is the result of stupidity not malice. If you recognize some graphic which should be credited to your site, please e-mail me at [email protected] and I will immediately give you the proper citation in future editions. NOTE: In this book certain racial epitaphs and demeaning names are quoted in context from historical documents. These are included for historical accuracy and in no way reflect the author’s personal attitudes. Please visit John’s website at www.cowart.info Cowart Communications Jacksonville, Florida THIS HISTORY IS DEDICATED TO GINNY, A LADY WHO HAS QUITE A HISTORY OF HER OWN A special acknowledgement to Donald Z. Cowart without whose computer expertise, extreme patience, and good will this book would not be possible. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION..................................................I A TIMELINE OF JACKSONVILLE HISTORY.....................1 Seen On The St Johns River Pleasure Boating...........................................4 BAY STREET’S HISTORY....................................5 Seen On The St Johns River USS Saratoga..............................................17 Seen On The St Johns River: Jacksonville’s Industrial Waterfront............19 THE PRAYING PIRATE: SIR JOHN HAWKINS 1532-1595......................................................20 Seen On The St Johns River: The Clyde Steamship Line...........................31 THE TREASURE OF MONCRIEF SPRINGS.........32 Seen On The St Johns River: Three Friends..............................................41 THE MANDARIN MASSACRE............................42 Seen On The St Johns River: Al Capone’s Robinson Seagull.....................53 THROUGH HELL ON HORSEBACK....................54 JACKSONVILLE UNDER FOOT..........................62 Seen On The St Johns River: Sea Cloud....................................................80 REPORT ON THE LOBE MOUND OF AMELIA ISLAND..............................................81 EARLY DAYS IN MEDICINE...............................98 THE BURNING WHEEL GORY HORROR ON THE ST. JOHNS: THE WRECK OF THE CITY OF SANFORD................111 JACKSONVILLE’S MOTORCAR HISTORY...................121 Seen On The St. Johns The USS Wabash.......................................134 VINDICTIVE, UNRELENTING WAR:.........................135 Seen On The St Johns River: The Maple Leaf..........................................164 EARLY DAYS IN JACKSONVILLE BANKING................166 GENTLEMAN JIM CORBETT’S BIG FIGHT........174 DUVAL COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY HISTORY193 THE NIGHT THE "BIG ONE" ROCKED JACKSONVILLE..............................................206 Seen On The St Johns River: USS John F. Kennedy.................................212 JACKSONVILLE'S RAILROAD HISTORY...........214 JACKSONVILLE’S TELEPHONE HISTORY.........234 THE GREAT TELEPHONE WAR.......................239 THE GREAT FIRE OF JACKSONVILLE..............265 AFTER THE FIRE…........................................289 Seen on the St. Johns River: BLUE ANGELS............................................296 JACKSONVILLE'S TITANIC HERO: DR. ROBERT J. BATEMAN..............................297 Seen On The St. Johns River: THE USS ALOHA........................................319 Seen On The St Johns River: The Union Gunboat Columbine.................320 GUTS, FEATHERS AND ALL:..........................321 THE YEAR NOTHING HAPPENED...................351 AVIATION HISTORY IN JACKSONVILLE...........368 Seen On The St Johns River: Jacksonville’s Liberty Ships.......................383 Seen On The St Johns River: USS Richard Montgomery, a Jax Liberty Ship 384 JAX FACTS.....................................................385 JACKSONVILLE STATISTICS...........................386 JACKSONVILLE HISTORY IN A NUTSHELL.................389 INFORMATIVE WEBSITES..............................395 INDEX...........................................................399 INTRODUCTION wo words sum up the entire history of TJacksonville, Florida: Crackers and Carpetbaggers. Or, if you prefer more polite terms: Natives and Newcomers. There have always been Natives and Newcomers. Paleo-Indians hunted mastodons in ancient times. The culture of the mound builders supplanted them. The Timucua Tribes saw the ships of French colonists sail into the St. Johns River and stop in water so clear that the ships’ anchors were visible on the river bottom. Spanish troops cut the throats of every French settler and took position of the land. English newcomers moved in on Spanish settlements. Florida Patriots battled the English for the land. Americans came to push out a comfortable settlement of pirates who, for a time, flew the flag of Mexico. Seminole Indians migrated into Florida. Slaves escaped from the United States to join the Indian tribes. Consumptives, veterans, retirees, land-grabbers, insurance people – they all moved into the Jacksonville area as newcomers. Many delighted to have found a home and came to consider themselves natives. At one time uncouth, uncivilized Barbarians swooped down from the bleak frozen north to overrun the sunny, cultured land to the South. Looting, vandalizing, destroying the land as they came, these invaders disrupted the lives of i John W. Cowart peaceful native inhabitants. (Today we call such invaders “Developers”). Yes, people have always found Northeast Florida a great place to live. They settle in the Jacksonville area, build homes, raise families and come to consider themselves Native Crackers. Then, new people come to the area and they also find it a great place to live. They move in bringing different ideas, different ways to live, different cultures, different manners. They also begin to experience a proprietary feeling about Jacksonville. At times this layering of lifestyles has resulted in bloody conflict; at other times the layering of cultures blends. Most often the native and the newcomer coexist, each maintaining the best elements of their own way of life while viewing the other element of the community as silly, suspicious, foreign, or even inferior. For instance: In 1882, George M. Barbour, a yankee, rode a train from Jacksonville to the end of the line out in the pine woods -- it was a bad trip. His book, Florida For Tourists, Invalids and Settlers, recorded his impressions: “The entire trip that day was through an unsettled region, the only human beings living along the road being... families of Florida natives, genuine, unadulterated Crackers -- gaunt, pale, tallowy, leather-skinned, stupid, stolid, staring eyes, dead and lusterless; unkempt hair, generally tow-colored; and such a shiftless slouching manner! Simply white savages... Stupid and shiftless, yet sly and vindictive, they are a block in the pathway of civilization, settlement and enterprise wherever they exist,” he said. ii Crackers & Carpetbaggers Then he said some really nasty things about Florida Cracker women concluding with "... No underwear whatever!". Nobody know for sure where the term “Cracker” originated. One idea is that it comes from the hardtack crackers Florida pioneers ate; another is that it refers to the crack of the bullwhips the pioneers used to drive ox teams; a third idea is that the term refers to the religious ecstasy of early camp meetings when frenzied worshipers whipped back and forth so hard that their hair “cracked like a whip”. On the other hand, everybody knows about carpetbaggers: About 1870, Pennsylvania Judge Jeremiah S. Black wrote this description of the "carpet- bagger, who he was and what he did”: The people (Southern) would not have been wholly crushed (politically) either by the soldier or the negro, if both had not been used to fasten upon them the domination of another class of persons which was altogether unendurable. These were called carpet-baggers, not because the word is euphonious, but because they have no other name whereby they are known among the children of men. They were unprincipled adventurers who sought their fortunes in the South by plundering the disarmed and defenseless people; some of them were the dregs of the Federal army—the meanest of the camp followers; many were fugitives from Northern justice; the best of them were those who went down after peace, ready for any deed of shame that was safe and profitable. These, combining with a few treacherous 'scalawags' iii John W. Cowart and some leading negroes to serve as decoys for the rest, and backed by the power of the general government, became the strongest body of thieves that ever pillaged a people. Their moral grade was far lower, and yet they were much more powerful than the robber bands that infested Germany after the close of the Thirty Years' War. They swarmed over all the States, from