Florida:
U.S.
Territory and State
1821-1861
Part Two
 |
| George Washington Sully painting of Fort St. Marks prior to the town moving upriver to its current location. Courtesy of the Archives and West Florida History Center, University of West Florida. |
Americans move into present-day Wakulla County
When
Florida changed hands from Spain to the United States, many families, primarily
from the Carolinas, Virginia, and Georgia moved to present-day Wakulla County,
settling along rivers, streams, and coastal areas. In the early days of
American settlement in what would become Wakulla County, there were barely any
roads. Most were old Indians paths that were nearly impassible with horse and wagons.
They were winding and twisting, covering many more miles than a person actually
needed to travel to get where they were going. This was because the road
builders who cut the trail only cut smaller trees, so the road winded
around large ones.
There
were no bridges so the roads had to go around wetlands, and people had to
cross rivers and streams at their shallowest places. A person would have to
have a high wheeled cart to use the roads, because the road cutters often did
not cut the trees low enough, and wagons would hit the stumps, sending the
occupants flying forward onto the ground. The roads were usually only wide
enough to accommodate a wagon going one way, so when two wagons were coming
towards each other, which probably did not happen often, one of them had to go
up into the woods to let the other pass, which could be difficult depending on
where they were. During long times of heavy rain, many of the roads were made
impassible. The bad road situation lasted for a long time, as Freeman Ashmore
reminisced, “I can recall, when I was growing up on Dad’s turpentine still at
Smith Creek, that there were times when we could not travel to Sopchoppy,
Tallahassee, Quincy, or any other place for two or three months at a time.”
Because
of the transportation situation overland most people settled near rivers and
streams. One such river was the Sopchoppy River. In a local Native American
language, the word sokhe meant convulsing, or twisting, and the word chapke
meant long, so from the native Sokhe Chapke, we get the English pronunciation
of “Sopchoppy.” The land along the Sopchoppy River, as well as most of the land
in Wakulla, was part of the Forbes Purchase and was owned by the Apalachicola
Land Company. The land was cheap, and was sold at auction in both Apalachicola
and Tallahassee. Many of the men who began to settle the area were farmers. As
well as their families, these men brought with them their wagons, tools,
livestock, and some of the wealthier settlers owned slaves.
When these Wakulla
County pioneers arrived in the present-day Sopchoppy area, they found the land
basically untouched by human hands. They planned on planting cotton and
tobacco, as well as other crops, and pitched tents to live in while they
cleared their newly acquired land and built their houses out of trees they
felled. It was not an easy life. Homes were made of logs and had no screens in
the windows or doors. People kept mosquitos out of their houses by using smoke
from outside campfires. The kitchen was separate from the main house, usually
behind it, in those days, so as to prevent the entire home from burning in case
a fire occurred while cooking. These were the days before fencing, and people’s
cattle, goats, hogs, and chickens roamed freely.
St. Marks: An American
Port Town
In
a short time, St. Marks was no longer big enough for all the warehouses
needed to store all the cotton that came down the river before shipping, and an
intense rivalry was started among merchants and new towns on the St. Marks
River were established. Along the river, closer to Tallahassee, some merchants
established the town of Rockhaven, near Natural Bridge in present-day
Woodville, hoping to compete with St. Marks in shipping, but failed
because the St. Marks River at that point is very rocky and shallow.
A
businessman from New England, named Theophelus Hamlin, brought his sons to the
south where they bought and sold lands for profit in Mississippi. When Florida
finally changed hands from Spain to the United States, the Hamlin brothers saw
an opportunity in the new territory. In order to find raw cotton for their
mills, and markets for their goods, the Hamlins, much like other families at
the time, set their sights on the Gulf coast of Florida. At least two of the
Hamlin brothers, John and Nathanial, were in St. Marks by 1825 to help
load cotton shipments and sell products brought over from their family store.[1]
Theophelus Hamlin’s son-in-law, Joseph Ladd, also expanded his shipping
interests into the Florida gulf coast, and by the 1820s, had also begun trading
at St. Marks.[2]
It
was the age of canals, and as soon as Florida became a US territory, people
began flocking to river towns to make a living. Even though the St. Marks River
was notorious for being shallow and full of debris, the people were not
worried because the government would dig out and clean up the river. Congress
appropriated thousands of dollars to make the St. Marks River more accessible
to larger ships, but ships that drew more than seven feet of water still had a
difficult time reaching St. Marks from the Gulf of Mexico. Many were
forced to anchor at the old Spanish Hole and lighter their loads on to smaller vessels to proceed upriver. Plantation
owners in the area, present-day Leon, Wakulla, Jefferson, Madison, Taylor,
Hamilton, and Gadsden counties, as well as Thomas, Brooks, Lowndes, and Decatur
counties in Georgia, looked at St. Marks for their passage to the sea for
the day’s trade routes.[3] In
1825, 64 bales of cotton were shipped out the old fort town.
An
1829 article printed in the Florida
Advocate mentioned St. Marks negatively when it published a writing from a
recent visitor to the port town. The visitor wrote, “St. Marks is a dirty,
swampy, little place, a few huts are scattered over it, half buried in mud –
the inhabitants are pale and squalid – and as for the infantine part, they look
like resurrection children.” The harsh writer also stated that the old stone fort itself
was in ruinous condition, unfit to be garrisoned, and every family had at least
six children. But he loved the seafood![4]
Room for One More on
the St. Marks River- Magnolia
 |
| Layout of Magnolia on the of the St. Marks River |
Magnolia also had a mineral spring nearby, and
the people had plans to build a health resort. Lots began to go on sale in
Magnolia, and by July people were moving in and clearing their newly purchased land.
The Hamlins, along with Benjamin Byrd, opened up stores, and within a few
years, others did as well. Other businessmen, as well as the Hamlin family,
owned and operated shipping warehouses on the river, and some even owned their
own ships. By 1828, a post office was established in the up and coming frontier
town. The Magnolia Advertiser, edited
by Augustus Steele, was printing a weekly paper in Magnolia, and the Hamlin
brothers were advertising their remaining lots they had for sale. The add
stated, “The first improvements in this town were made one year since, it now
contains 200 inhabitants, 40 houses occupied as dwellings, Stores and
Warehouses, besides other out houses, many others are building, 9 respectable
mercantile establishments are in full operation, two Public Houses of
Entertainment, a Weekly Newspaper, it has weekly mail from Tallahassee; a good
spring, Well and River water for family’s use; the situation high, dry, and
healthy – as the past season has established beyond a doubt. It has extensive
country trade with the interior of this territory and the State of Georgia: 2
regular Packet vessels running monthly to New Orleans, it also carries on a
regular trade with New York and other northern cities…It is accessible to
vessels drawing 8½ feet of water.”[5]
The years 1828 through 1832 were Magnolia’s boom years, and families, such as the
Hamlins, were doing very well. Unfortunately for the Hamlins, the youngest
brother, Weld Hamlin, died of yellow fever in 1829. His tombstone in Magnolia
is the oldest known American grave in the county.
 |
| Magnolia, c.1842 |
While
the town of Magnolia was getting started, St. Marks was growing as people began
erecting new buildings and facilities. This was the beginning of a heated
rivalry between Magnolia and St. Marks. St. Marks would eventually outlast the
new town, but Magnolia had its day, and “Magnolians were pleased when the
annual report of postal receipts for 1830 showed $213.36 for Magnolia and
$19.92 for St. Marks. In January of 1829, Magnolia residents petitioned
Congress to become a port of Customs for ships traveling to and from the
northern mills along the eastern seaboard and into Apalachicola Bay. Forty
townspeople signed the petition. Tallahassee resisted Magnolia as a Custom
port, because of the inability of vessels drawing more than six feet of water
to clear the channel, and suggested that St. Marks ought to have it.
Nevertheless, the Hamlins and their neighbors were elated when the United
States Treasury Department located the Custom House at Magnolia in 1830.”[6]
This was a victory over St. Marks, but it would be short-lived.
Sources Used:
Roberts, R. (2005). From Boom to Bust: Ghost Towns
of Selected Florida Gulf Coast Communites. Tallahassee: Florida State
University, Master Thesis.
Shofner, J. H. (1978). Daniel Ladd: Merchant Prince
of Frontier Florida. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida.
This blog is so beautifully and meticulously put together. Thank you for all of the work that you have put into it.
ReplyDelete