Fort Ogden, Florida In 1877

Fort Ogden, Florida In 1877

Edited by Spessard Stone from the Savannah Morning News of Thursday, August 2, 1877

I have of late been receiving a great many letters relative to this portion of Florida, which has, up to the present time, been overlooked.

Being the great cattle market of Florida, the idea obtained that it was unfit for anything but the raising of cattle until the cold snap last December, when persons living on the St. Johns, and others at a distance, have turned their attention to this section as being the best tropical fruit growing section in the State, and in a coming day will be the garden spot of Florida, for the many advantages it has of climate and good water facilities.

Our rivers abound in fish, among which can be named trout, bream, snapper, bass, sheephead, turtle, oysters, clams, and a great many other varieties, among which are mullet, the most valuable of all. There are three fisheries in Charlotte harbor, who catch fish for the Cuban market and do a large business.

Fort Ogden is situated on Pease creek, fifteen miles from its mouth, which stream can bring four feet of water up to this point. Good pine and hammock lands are found on both sides of the river, which are subject to entry by homestead or pre-emption at United States or State prices, unexcelled in the State for orange land.

We grow corn, cane, rice, potatoes, peas, pumpkins, and in fruits, oranges, pineapples, sugar-apples, guavas-in fact, all tropical fruits that have been tried. We have never turned our attention to fruit growing until the past ten years, and most of our groves are young, but those groves that are bearing are fine. Judge King has eighty trees. L. W. Parker has fifty. Z. G. Curry has sixty, and a few others have small groves bearing. You can buy two, three and four-year-old sweet trees at from ten to twenty cents each.

There are some improvements to sell to persons wishing to move into the range to fatten stock at reasonable prices. Orange growing and cattle raising do not go together, that is, many cattle. Our ponds and swamps abound in quantities of muck for fertilizing, and an orange grove can be made easy, not by making it all at once, but plant out fifty trees. You can easily attend to them and at the same time make corn, cane, potatoes, peas and something to live upon. The next year plant fifty more trees, and so on every year. You can soon have a large grove and make it self sustaining. But it requires some energy and some capital to begin with, and time, say eight years, to bring a grove to perfection. Of course, some of the more thrifty trees will bear in six years, but not enough to yield much profit.

Lumber you can buy-pine at fifteen dollars per thousand, cypress at eighteen dollars, and any quantity of fine cypress shingles at our dollars per thousand.

Our climate cannot be excelled. The thermometer never ranges higher than eighty-five degrees, nor lower than thirty-five degrees. Last winter was the coldest by far that was ever experienced in this county, striking some guava trees to the ground.

We have good drinking water and good health, but sometimes we have chills, more especially among new comers, who all have to become acclimated. The old settlers seldom have chills.

Fort Ogden is a scattered village of about forty families, located within an area of four miles, with two churches, Baptist and Methodist, three stores, and a post office. We have a mail from Manatee by Pine Level overland, one from Punta Rassa, embracing Fort Myers and Charlotte’s Harbor to this place. A new route is to begin from Fort Meade, on the east side of Pease creek, a distance of seventy-five miles to Fort Ogden. Three sail boats are running to Manatee, Punta Rassa and Key West, carrying all the produce and bringing goods to the stores, which keep tolerably well supplied, and sell at reasonable prices.

We have our drawbacks. The greatest is transportation. The boats that run here are too small for the emigrant, and when emigrants speak of coming here each place wants them to settle in its particular locality, and tries to frighten them off by large stories as to mosquitoes, flies, fleas, sand flies, ticks, alligators, snakes, and that we down in Manatee are not civilized, and no better than the Indians. Several reliable gentlemen told me that the captain of the Valley City told them such tales of this society and insects as to frighten any one who was a stranger. We do have mosquitoes, fleas and sandflies on the coasts, and here, but not bad, never troublesome in day time, though we have to use bars to sleep comfortably; and there are but few poisonous snakes.

We bid all industrious, honest emigrants a hearty welcome, and are anxious to have this county settled up, and the emigrant will be find the people hospitable, and to be treated as well as any portion of the State.

There are good lands north and south of this point. The Caloosahatchee river lands cannot be excelled for corn, though not so good for oranges, having a layer of rock underneath the soil. I will give you a description of Caloosahatchee river and Lake Okeechobee at another time.

This article was published in The Herald-Advocate (Wauchula, Fla.) of November 13, 2003, 11A.