Edited by Spessard Stone
This article by F. C. M. Boggess was originally printed in the Fort Myers Press of October 17, 1885 and reprinted in The Herald-Advocate (Wauchula, Fla.) of October 18, 1990. It provides an interesting time capsule of this region then.
Manatee County, Blaine City, Oct. 11, 1885.
Ed. Press:
Mr. W. R. Babcock, one of the founders and proprietors of Cleveland on Charlotte Harbor, and your scribe, started up the railroad from Fort Ogden to Fort Meade with horse and buggy.
The rivers and creeks were all full, and the roads, if they can be called roads, were running branches of water. The first creek (Josh) has a bridge which needs repair badly.
We arrived at Dr. A. S. Johnson's (1) at noon and stopped for dinner with the doctor. He is enthusiastic as to the growth of Arcadia, and says that it will be the largest town in South Florida, and that Fort Ogden and other towns will dwindle into insignificance.
All along the route you find settlements and at Arcadia they have one store and a postoffice. There are no new improvements, and the country appears to be at a standstill as far as improvements are concerned.
We crossed Man branch, Cypress and Charley-Apopka River, and found many settlements. All have orange groves, cane, rice and potatoes, and the razor-backs are to be seen all along this route.
After crossing the Charley-Apopka, there is some sign of enterprise, you see men, horses and new farms, and young groves planted.
On nearing Popash, you reach high rolling pine land, well timbered with yellow pine, and thousands of acres that have but little palmetto, and are choice orange lands, with no clearings or buildings. Popash has one store and a postoffice and is situated in the center of a beautiful country.
Now there is want of enterprise; all the lands are held too high.
Stanley is ten miles to westward and one mile from the crossing of Peace River by the Florida Southern Railroad and where a beautiful site for a depot is on both sides of the river, and, of course, will swallow up Stanley.
Sq. Boney (2) is the founder of Popash and has a fine orange grove.
The road heads up Peace River, and there are thousands of acres of good high orange grove land. Much of it belongs to the railroad and to other corporations, and it is a hard matter to purchase. There are private lands that can be bought, but, as to price, I am unable to say as they fluctuate in the amount of prospectors coming in and have no fixed price.
We cross Lake branch and Little Charley-Apopka, both overflowing the banks, and we reach the line dividing Manatee and Polk counties (3), ten miles from Fort Meade.
In nearing Bowlegs Creek, you pass through high rolling pine land, called the deadening, from the fact that many years ago the pines were all killed. The old Indians say that a large hail storm bruised the pines, and the bugs got in them and killed them.
This is a beautiful country, having grown up with willow, oak and pine saplings, high rolling yellow soil and splendid orange land. A want of enterprise is seen all around-no new buildings, fences or clearings, and a man cannot tell you the price of his own land.
We cross Peace Creek at the bridge, which is a good structure, and shows that the people of Polk have some enterprise.
Fort Meade is a lively place and has a livery stable, two hotels, stores, telegraph and postoffice. The railroad runs one mile to westward of village. Fort Meade is now one solid orange grove, but they are not well cared for as two years since. There is not much enterprise perceptible. Everyone is in the land business that has money enough to buy forty acres of land.
We stopped at the Adams House. The proprietor is very accommodating and furnishes an excellent table at moderate rates.
He complains of not being able to employ sufficient help which is the universal wail of hotel men all over the country.
The proprietors of Cleveland will build a hotel with 100 rooms, a store, and have a postoffice established this fall. The material is hourly expected from Pensacola.
A good hotel would be a paying investment at Fort Ogden, also a livery stable. There is also a good opening for a good wheelwright and blacksmith. The buildings and tools to run both shops can be bought or rented on easy terms.
Under our present system of road working we never will have good roads. And the law is an outrage as it now stands. All able bodied males between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, who have resided in the district twenty days, are subject to road duty and have to work six days or pay six dollars.
Many persons come in to look for homes, or for recreation, and are compelled either to work, pay, or go to jail. There is no justice in such a law.
All free governments should have a highway tax and have the roads worked by taxation, and the voters should have an eye open to this important measure at the next election of members to the legislature. Have the candidates to pledge themselves to change this unjust, abominable road law and have them worked by taxation.
The legislature should also pass a law to have all lands taxed equal and take from the county commissioners the right to levying said tax.
Mr. Disston (4), Sir Edward Reed and other owners of large tracts of lands are assessed to pay on their lands at the valuation of thirty cents an acre, and the poor man who owns only forty acres and has a large family has to pay $1.25 an acre. Where is there any justice in this?
Bring all to the same. Our Solomons say if they assess these monopolies at $1.25 per acre they will not pay the tax and let the lands be sold for taxes, and the lands will return to the State.
This is what we should all desire. The State can sell the lands as well as these land agents. Every newspaper published in the State is advertising Florida, her climate, soil, productions &c.
(1) Alexander Smoot Johnston, M. D.
(2) David J. W. Boney, 1815-89.
(3) DeSoto County, Florida was created from Manatee County in 1887 and Hardee, Highlands, Glades and Charlotte counties from DeSoto County in 1921.
(4) Hamilton Disston, a Philadelphia capitalist, in a controversial transaction in 1881, purchased four million acres of land from the state of Florida for twenty-five cents per acre; subsequently, he sold half of the land to Sir Edward J. Reed of England, but Reed soon withdrew.
February 28, 2001