Akerman, Joe A. Jr and J. Mark

 

 

Joseph Mark Akerman Jr. and father Joe Mark Akerman wrote the book Jacob Summerlin: King of the Crackers.

ISBN: 1-886104-16-6

In this brief biography, Joe and Mark Akerman manage to capture the essence of Jake Summerlin's life and the broader scope of Florida history.

 

Appleyard, John

De Luna, Founder of North America’s First Colony
by John Appleyard

Reprinted by the Florida Historical Society Press with a new publisher’s preface.  Copyright 2009

ISBN 10:  1-886104-37-9
ISBN 13:  978-1-886104-37-2

 

Pensacola author John Appleyard based this dramatic historical novel upon the letters, journals, and other accounts of the effort to establish a Spanish colony at Ochuse, La Florida in 1559-61. This expedition to present-day Pensacola was the first attempted European settlement in North America.

 

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As this new edition of John Appleyard’s historical novel De Luna: Founder of North America’s First Colony goes to print, twenty students from the University of West Florida are conducting an archaeological excavation in Pensacola Bay, carefully exploring the underwater wreckage of the Emanuel Point II.  The small ship, about 42 feet long, was part of the fleet led by Don Tristan de Luna as he attempted to establish a colony at present-day Pensacola exactly 450 years ago.  The ship and its contents are preserved under 12 feet of water, protected from deterioration by a blanket of sand.  The artifacts and objects that the students are discovering will add to our understanding of the intrepid men, women, and children who joined de Luna on his ambitious quest.

In his undergraduate program John Appleyard was a student of history, but he later entered the business world.  While technically a “non-professional” historian, exploring and documenting history is clearly Appleyard’s first love as demonstrated by his multiple publications on various aspects of Pensacola history.  As anyone who attended Appleyard’s presentation at the Florida Historical Society Annual Meeting in May 2009 can attest, he is also a dynamic and engaging storyteller.  The theme of that event, held in Pensacola, was “From Tristan de Luna to the Twenty First Century: 450 Years of Florida History.”  Presenting the Jillian Prescott Memorial Lecture, Appleyard kept his audience enthralled and entertained while providing exciting information about “The Story of Don Tristan de Luna Arellano, Governor of the First Attempted Colony of Florida.”

To write the historical novel De Luna: Founder of North America’s First Colony, Appleyard combined the skills of an accomplished historian with the passion of a great storyteller to create a fact-based book that is as compelling as it is informative.  Appleyard carefully studied all of the available documentation of de Luna’s expedition and integrated it into this work, logically filling any gaps in demonstrable fact with reasonable supposition and a slight bit of artistic license.  Of course, no one can know the exact content of private conversations or be privy to the subtle nuances of the interpersonal relationships of people who lived 450 years ago.  The best historical novelists incorporate as much fact as possible into their work to help them present believable “characters” in real-life situations, as Appleyard successfully does here.

St. Augustine, established by Pedro Menendez de Aviles in 1565, is recognized as the oldest continuous settlement in North America.  Had de Luna been able to create a permanent colony at Pensacola six years earlier, the history of North America may have been quite different.  The important story of the de Luna expedition, largely ignored until now, deserves to be told.  Thankfully, John Appleyard has accomplished this task in an entertaining way that brings the people and places involved to life in a great historical novel.

Benjamin D. Brotemarkle
Executive Director
Florida Historical Society
July 1, 2009

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Argo, Don David

Don Argo was the retired Head of the department of Mathematics at Brevard Community College in Cocoa, Florida.  A founding member of the Spacecoast Writers' Guild, he was active in assisting and publicizing the efforts of hundreds of authors in the Brevard County area.  Canaveral Light is his first book.

Dr. Don David Argo, 72, passed away on Sunday, October 19, 2008, after a valiant battle against cancer.

Canaveral Light is a historical novel that centers around Florida pioneers in the era of the Seminole Wars and deals with ethnic conflicts, including the question of slave-master relationships.  Canaveral Light won the Patrick D. Smith Award and is a continuing best seller.

READ THIS REVIEW OF CANAVERAL LIGHT--

Robert Fulton, Jr.

"The River Geezer"

w/c 661

History is about people, and not necessarily about great events, says Argo in the acknowledgments section of his earthy and very readable novel, CANAVERAL LIGHT.  His “people” are alive and believable in this rendition, giving historical characters flesh, He stood for a drawn moment . . . . then scalped them, savagely ripping the locks from their heads.  He threw the bloody wads of hair onto the coals of the fire, muttering “Go bald into your next life, you bastards” — page 27.  Now, how can you not like a main character like this?  What keeps Dummett credible, is his cruelty and compassion. 

The author’s women are both fearful and brave, The Indians put a fright in me coming around all the time . . . . And the noises at night — the bears and panthers.  When you’re gone I can’t sleep at night without riding off on a nightmare — page 122.  And we’re concerned if an armadillo digs in the daisies?

Because I grew up in south Florida and often write about it, I’m particularly hard on those who write about the state.  Especially when the genre is historical fiction.  I’m heavy on the “historical” part.  The ten years Argo spent doing research and writing about the turbulent forty years from the 1830’s through the 1870’s has paid off in a tight tale that is loaded with well-researched historical information.  Sure, I’d always heard of the “Haulover Canal,” but I thought it was named after some early pioneer.  Now I know the canal replaced the figurative haul over from Mosquito Lagoon to the Indian River.

Those of us who spend time in natural Florida as opposed to . . . well, that garish place north of Orlando, can appreciate Argo’s images, Long legged ibis stalked like white wraiths in the deep shadows of live oaks — page 6.  And, His enchantment with the Cape grew deeper from daily seeing the natural spectacles of this strange land . . . . his eyes were blessed by sunrises saturated with . . . . unimaginable hues — page 178.

In this exchange between Dummett the Florida Veteran and Burnham the neophyte, one learns about life before OFF: Through clenched teeth, Burnham gasped, “How come I have them (ticks) and you don’t?”

“Oh, maybe you’re just too clean . . . . ” Dummett answered cheerfully while sizzling another tick.  “Or maybe it’s what I eat: garlic and onions.  And the water I drink.  I don’t know, but you live here long enough and they’ll avoid you like the plague.  Mosquitoes too.” — page 35.

Argo treats slaves and Seminoles with respect, yet doesn’t avoid the difficult relationships and inevitable conflicts inherent in the social strata of the South in the 1800’s.  The character of the half-breed beauty, Leandra, and her effect on the white community is especially well done, Certainly Burnham had seen women with a beauty to rival Leandra’s, but . . . . he could not remember when . . . . The light coloration, the emerald brilliance of her eyes, the soft Spanish accent and the . . . . attitude she seemed to hold in check — all were traits in contradiction to his experience with Negroes — page 55.

There are some minor flaws: the author and I disagree as to the efficacy of a black powder musket that has been dropped in the water.  In one sequence there are enough “hell’s” used to compete with an 1800’s era fire-and-brimstone Presbyterian preacher.

In a land of incredible beauty and severity, the Cape Canaveral light is the one constant, and the author demonstrates an appreciation for and a knowledge of its heart, . . . . they carefully wiped and polished the glass lens prisms with spirits of wine . . . . cranked the windlass, tightening the coil spring that turned the lens pedestal.  Engaging the pawl that drove the ratchet gear, they used a pocket watch to time the turning rate of the lens . . . . The fixed beams would now sweep the horizon in an exact time sequence.  Any ship’s captain seeing the flashes would know he was seeing the Cape Canaveral lighthouse and no other — page 176.

I recommend CANAVERAL LIGHT to any reader interested in the history of natural Florida and the nature of its inhabitants.

Ashworth, John

 

Chapin House Books, the popular book division of The Florida Historical Society Press, is proud to announce the release of Overhead The Sun, a gripping historical novel about race relations in Florida during the late Nineteenth Century.  Written by the late John Ashworth, Overhead The Sun is based on the tragic story of Rosewood, a small Florida community of African-Americans that was destroyed by a mob of whites in 1923.

            John Ashworth taught writing at Columbia University, worked as a journalist for the Office of War Information during World War II and worked as a journalist for the Hindustan Times and the Boston Transcript.  In addition, he wrote for Harper’s, the Atlantic Monthly and other major national magazines.  He was also a playwright.  His O. Henry Award winning short story, High Diver, was made into a film by Universal Studios.

            Overhead The Sun is Ashworth’s last novel.  During the 1950s, he compiled interviews with the survivors of the Rosewood tragedy.  John Ashworth died in 1993 and did not live to see the descendants of the Rosewood massacre win a large monetary settlement from the State of Florida, which acknowledged its failure to protect African-American citizens.

            The central character in Overhead The Sun is Julia Clayton, a young woman striving mightily to achieve emotional and intellectual independence.  Her husband, Tom Clayton, works for Arthur Wilkins (who is based on the real life person of Henry Flagler) who seeks to extend his hotel and railroad empire across the Sunshine State.  Neglected and verbally abused, Julia Clayton takes a heretical economics professor, Thorstein Brach, as her lover.  The intrigues and conflicts of personality that mark these tortured relationships light up the pages of Overhead The Sun.

 

Overhead The Sun by John Ashworth

ISBN 0-9771079-9-X

ISBN 978-0-9771079-9-5

$21.95, 400 pages, Paper

 

Brotemarkle, Ben

Biography

Ben Brotemarkle is author of the book Beyond the Theme Parks: Exploring Central Florida, a look at historic preservation efforts and cultural festivals throughout the region that provide residents with a sense of community and visitors with interesting vacation options.  The book received the inaugural James J. Horgan Book Award from the Florida Historical Society.  Dr. Brotemarkle’s book Images of America: Titusville and Mims, Florida is a photographic and textual history looking at one of the world’s most important archaeological digs, the home of civil rights martyr Harry T. Moore, and the launch site of America’s manned exploration of space.  His book Barberville is a photographic and textual history looking at the infamous Barber-Mizell Feud of 1870, the establishment of the rural Barberville community, and the creation of the Pioneer Settlement for the Creative Arts where historic buildings from throughout Central Florida are preserved.  His latest book Crossing Division Street: An Oral History of the African American Community in Orlando is an interdisciplinary examination of the past, present and future of an historic neighborhood. 

Dr. Brotemarkle is Associate Professor of Humanities and Department Chair at Brevard Community College in Titusville. As creator, producer and host of the weekly public radio program The Arts Connection on 90.7 WMFE-FM Orlando from 1992 to 2000, Brotemarkle covered the local arts and cultural scene including theater, music, dance, film, the visual arts, and literature.  His award-winning features have been heard around the world on Voice of America Radio, across the country on National Public Radio, and throughout the state on Florida Public Radio.  Brotemarkle also occasionally produces and hosts special programs for public television.  His 1999 television documentary The Wells’Built Hotel: A New Guest Checks In was awarded the Presidential Citation of the Florida Historical Society.  His latest television documentary A Legacy of Hope: The Moore Heritage Festival of the Arts and Humanities is airing on several PBS stations. 

As a part-time professional singing-actor, Brotemarkle has appeared in more than two dozen Orlando Opera Company productions, with Seaside Music Theater in Daytona Beach, and has been a featured performer in Cross and Sword--the official state play of Florida in St. Augustine. 

Brotemarkle serves on the board of directors of the Florida Historical Society, the state’s oldest cultural organization and is a member of the Brevard County Historical Commission.  A board member of the Association to Preserve African American Society, History, and Tradition (PAST, Inc.), Brotemarkle helps to plan, present, and promote activities and exhibitions at the Wells’Built Museum of African American History and Culture in Orlando.  Dr. Brotemarkle is the Education Committee Chairman for the Moore Heritage Festival of the Arts and Humanities, organizing student workshops, public forums, oral history panels, and appearances by guest speakers. 

Brotemarkle has a Ph.D. in Humanities and History from the Union Institute and University, a Master of Liberal Studies degree and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Humanities from Rollins College, and an Associate degree in Voice Performance from the Florida School of the Arts.  Brotemarkle lives in Titusville with his wife Christina.

Dr. Brotemarkle is available for signings, lectures and program participation.  You can contact him via e-mail at Brotefla@aol.com or by telephone at (321) 632-1111.

REVIEWS

BEN BROTEMARKLE'S CROSSING DIVISION STREET...

The reviews are in for Crossing Division Street:

“Dr. Brotemarkle does not restrict his study to only the Orlando area.  This well-written book provides an excellent overview of the history of African-Americans in Florida while including the national perspective as well.  This Professor and Department Chair of Humanities/Communications/Social and Behavioral Sciences at Brevard Community College has penned a treasure trove of information on this subject.  This book is a valuable addition to this field of study and is written in such a straightforward easy style, it should be made accessible to middle and high school students.”

Cathy Mathias, Florida Today

“James Baldwin once remarked: ‘American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.’  Swap out the word ‘American’ for ‘Orlando’ and Baldwin’s observation provides a dead-on description of Benjamin D. Brotemarkle’s new book, Crossing Division Street: An Oral History of the African-American Community in Orlando.”

Darryl E. Owens, The Orlando Sentinel

“…Brotemarkle’s book “Crossing Division Street: An Oral History of the African-American Community in Orlando”  has no competition...”

Billy Cox, Florida Today

“ …Ben Brotemarkle [is] well remembered in Orlando from his days on public radio.  Now Brotemarkle is a professor and department chairman at the Titusville campus of Brevard Community College, and he’s got good news.  His new book, Crossing Division Street: An Oral History of the African-American Community in Orlando, has just been published by the Florida Historical Society Press.”

Joy Wallace Dickinson, The Orlando Sentinel

 

 

Crawford Jr., William G.

AUTHORS WEBSITE WWW.FLORIDASBIGDIG.COM

    A native of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, William G. Crawford, Jr., is the author of numerous articles on Florida’s Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, has written scores of others on Florida history, and is an acknowledged expert on the waterway’s history.  He has appeared as historian on the History Channel’s Modern Marvels documentary on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway.

    A Fort Lauderdale attorney for more than thirty years, Crawford is past chair and a longtime member of the Broward County Historical Commission, past president and a trustee of the Fort Lauderdale Historical Society, historian of the Lauderdale Yacht Club, and the City of Fort Lauderdale’s 2004 Citizen of the Year for his efforts in preserving the city’s history.  He is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the Stetson University College of Law.

    Crawford has lived in Fort Lauderdale, a city straddling the Intracoastal Waterway, his entire life and when not practicing law, is found rowing his ultra-light one-man shell in and about the waterway.  He and his wife, Dr. Claire M. Crawford, a longtime member of the Broward Cultural Council, reside in Fort Lauderdale in a home designed by his father, William G. Crawford, a noted local architect who practiced architecture there from 1937 until 1978.

    Bill Crawford is available for presentations to historical societies, corporate functions and all groups interested in the history of Intracoastal Waterway.  He can be contacted by e-mail at WILLGENT@aol.com

 

About the Book

FROM THE SUN-SENTINEL, JUNE 3, 2008

By Robert Nolin | South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Lawyer and amateur historian Bill Crawford wasn't looking for a book project, but one found him.

In researching Broward County's legal past, Crawford needed information on an island once said to be owned by mobster Al Capone. So he asked local historian Rodney Dillon if there were any books on the Intracoastal Waterway.

"None. Why don't you write one?" Dillon replied.

"I said, 'Well I'll think about it,'" Crawford recalled. "Ten years later the book comes out."

Florida's Big Dig: The Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway from Jacksonville to Miami, 1881 to 1935 was published by the Florida Historical Society in November, the first book to tell the story of the waterway that shaped the state and made South Florida a boating destination.

And it was penned by a self-described "dry land sort of guy."

In May, the society, acting on a decision by three independent judges, named it the year's best book on Florida history. The 400-page volume was featured as an editor's choice in the June issue of Southern Boating magazine, and about 900 copies of the initial 1,000 press run have been sold.

"The simple fact is nobody has ever done a history of the Intracoastal Waterway," Nick Wynne, director of the Florida Historical Society, said from his Cocoa office. "This was an area of Florida's history that had not been explored before."

Crawford, 58, Fort Lauderdale, is hardly a serious boater, though he does traverse the Intracoastal Waterway in a rowing shell. And while he had written numerous short articles for historical journals, he was at a disadvantage when it came to writing a full book.

"Writing is something that never came easy to me," he said. "I had to learn to write and then I had to learn the historical method."

In other words, don't recite dates, but tell a story.

There came a decade of weekends spent writing, and vacations that morphed into research excursions. Crawford's inquiries stretched from Dublin to New Zealand, and resulted in box upon box of background material.

Though writing was a challenge, Crawford did have one edge: His lawyer's eye. "I read a lot of legal documents," he said.

Another advantage was his wife, Claire, who helped with research queries and to whom he dedicated the work. "There is no way I could have written this book without Claire," he said.

The result was a heavily footnoted, scholarly tome that also could appeal to boaters familiar with the Intracoastal Waterway. "It isn't a quick read; it's a very weighty book," Crawford said.

"Often you get books that are both scholarly as well as popular, and Bill's book certainly does that," Wynne said.

"He's very thorough, meticulous and logical," said Paul George, Miami-Dade College professor and widely known area historian. "He has shed new light on a topic that hasn't been studied to this degree before."

Crawford will continue with his historical research: "It's not a hobby, it's a passion."

He may revisit a favorite topic: desegregation of Fort Lauderdale beaches. But another book is not on the immediate horizon. "Books are hard to come by; they take a long time to write," he said.

Crawford's book is available on Amazon.com and at Bluewater Books on the 17th Street Causeway. It also can be found on the Web sites of most major bookstores, but not on their shelves. Still, the nonprofit historical society is working to meet the demand.

"We're already making preparations for a reprint," Wynne said.

Robert Nolin can be reached at rnolin@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4525.

 

 

Darby, William

William Darby

(With an Introduction by Dr. Joe Knetsch)

    First published in 1821in Philadelphia, the Memoir on the Geography, and Natural History and Civil History of Florida (with map) is among the first treatments of Florida, which came into American hands in 1821.  Darby's book inspired a whole generation of Americans to visit the new territory and to settle it.  This volume is an exact reproduction of the 1821 original.

    Dr. Joe Knetsch, a noted historian of early Florida, has written an Introduction that places the man Darby in the context of the expansion of the United States and manifest destiny.

 

 

 

Dibble, Ernest F.

 Ernest Dible is the author of the book Joseph Mills White Anti Jacksonian Fla by Ernest Dibble. ISBN: 1-886104-07-7

 

 

 

 

Glisson, J. T.

 

  J. T. Glisson is a gifted artist and writer who lives in Evingston, a small town near Cross Creek.  As a young man, J. T. was a confidante and protégé of his neighbor, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, who encouraged him to write and draw.  J. T. was profoundly influenced by his family and "Miz" Rawlings and he captured his childhood adventures in his first book, The Creek.  He has followed this with Guardian Angel 911, his memoirs about his early adult years which center around the frantic attempts by his guardian angel, Lucille, to keep him from harm's way.  As he did in The Creek in Guardian Angel 911, Glisson tells tall tales that are truthful, but which sometimes verge on the unbelievable.  911 is a refreshing and rollicking tale that covers a lifetime spent in rural Florida, in Europe, South America and the Far East.

J. T. Lives with his long-suffering wife, Pat, in Evingston.  He is available for talks and author events.  You can contact him by telephone at (352) 591-3314 or by mail at P.O. 0, Evingston, FL 32633. 

Comments:

 

 

Harrell, George "Speedy" and Geiger, June

 

 

George "Speedy" Harrell and June Geiger

The St. Johns:  From the Marshlands to the Atlantic

          

George "Speedy" Harrell is a native Floridian, born in Brevard County, and a retired postal worker.  He is a founding member and the "Chief" of the Mosquito Beaters, a group of local citizens dedicated to annual reunions of individuals born in the county or who have lived in it a various times.  He is also a founding member of the Spacecoast Post Card Club, a volunteer at the Florida Historical Society's Library of Florida History and is the co-author of two additional books for Arcadia Publishing's Images of America series.

June Geiger, although not a native of Florida, came to Brevard County as a young girl and has lived here since.  She is a Mosquito Beater, a Library volunteer and a member of her church choir.  This is her first effort as an author.

 

Kennedy, Stetson

       Stetson Kennedy was head of the Florida Writers' Project unit on  folklore, oral history, and socio-ethnic studies for the Works Progress  Administration between 1937 and 1942. He traveled the cities, towns, and  rural backwoods of Florida collecting oral histories, songs, and stories  from a diverse cross-section of people. His work resulted in one of the  first volumes in the American Folkways Series edited by Erskine  Caldwell, and remains a unique and important documentation of the social  history of Florida. 

   “I liked Stetson Kennedy's Palmetto Country very much indeed when it first appeared, and I like it even better now that, after [more than] fifty years, it is being reprinted and he has added an admonition that  if we do not take better care of Florida we are going to lose it.”

Marjorie Stoneman Douglas Author of The Everglades: River of Grass

 

   “I very much doubt that a better book about Florida folklife will ever be written.”

Alan Lomax America Folklorist and Musicologist

 “I don't know of any book on my whole shelf that hits me any harder than  Palmetto Country. It gives me a better trip and taste and look and feel  for Florida than I got in the forty-seven states I've actually been in  body and tramped in boot. If only, and if only, all our library books  could say what [Kennedy does]—the jokes and songs and old ballads about  voodoo and the hoodoo and the bigly winds down in your neck of the  woodvine.”

  Woody Guthrie Folk Musician and singer-songwriter, This Land is Your Land

 

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Kleinberg, Eliot

Eliot Kleinberg is a reporter for the Palm Beach Post during normal working hours, but he has found time to author and co-author seven other books, including his Weird Florida, first published in 1998.  Since then, other authors have tried to copy his style and subject, but they cannot match Kleinberg's keen eye and sharp mind.  Weird Florida II:  In A State of Shock continues the great tradition of Kleinbergian humor and style.

    Eliot is also the author of War In Paradise: Stories of World War II in Florida, a collection of essays about the Sunshine and the great war.  From Nazi saboteurs on Ponte Vedra Beach to escaped POWs in the Everglades to American bombings of hapless civilians, War in Paradise is a "must have" addition to any Florida library.

   Kleinberg is a Florida native and a two-time graduate of the University of Florida (Go, 'Gators!).  He has worked as a television and radio reporter.  He also worked for the Dallas Morning News before returning home to Florida in 1987.  He lives with his wife and sons, Robert and Henry, in Boca Raton.

   Kleinberg is available for signings, readings, lectures and radio-television appearances.  To contact him, e-mail him at eliot@eliotkleinberg.com .

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Knetsch, Joe

 

 

FACES OF THE FRONTIER

FLORIDA SURVEYORS AND DEVELOPERS IN THE 19TH CENTURY

$23.95

BOOK REVIEW:  The Florida Surveyor, December 2006

By Arthur A. Mastronicola, Jr.

    The author, Dr. Joe Knetsch, has written yet another book about surveyors and their history.  He is not only a writer, but has been a practicing surveyor for many years.  He has a deep desire to convey the survey history that can be easily lost to future generations and to remind them from whence they came.

    Dr. Knetsch is Historian for the Division of State Lands and works in the Bureau of Survey and Mapping.  He has access to records that bring early land development to life with a sharp focus about the way things really were.  He has assembled a collection of narratives that speak about the early Surveyors General, several famous and infamous surveyors in Florida's history, and a few of the notorious developers, Gilchrist for one, who helped shape early Florida.

    Knetsch says, "Far too much of it (Florida history) is based on myths and only the easily accessible records."  As a sampling of the material, he compares Disney's land acquisitions in the 1960s to that of Flagler's in the 1800s.

    Another note talks about John Westcott, known as the "Father of the Intracoastal Waterway," who served as Surveyor General.  Westcott was an active inventor and patented the first "saddle-bag railroad" or monorail.  He was a founder of the St. Johns Railroad that connect St. Augustine to the St. Johns River.  Later he, as a state representative from Madison County, authored the state's first plan for education and a university system.

    These and other early historic persons helped create the Florida we live in today.  Joe Knetsch's research gives fresh insights into our history, how and why our predecessors did what they did and aids in reminding us of our roots.

    I would recommend all surveyors at least read, if not add, this book to their library.

BOOK REVIEW:  The Florida Historical Quarterly, December 2006

    The process by which federal land was surveyed and sold constituted the most pressing concern to the vast majority of early settlers on the American frontier in the nineteenth century. No other issue came close—not politics, not religion—not even war

and peace. While some historians have recognized the importance of the issue, it is remarkable that relatively few historians have written on the subject. Malcolm J. Rohrbough, Paul Gates, and others have contributed much to our understanding of surveying and selling of public lands in American history. But no one has studied the subject in Florida more thoroughly or comprehensively than Joe Knetsch, historian for the Division of State Lands, Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Much of his painstaking research in Florida’s public land records is brought together in this readable and engaging book.

    According to Knetsch, Florida’s “numerous swamps, rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, bayous . . . all were expensive to survey. But the settlers wanted the land, the government needed the money and Florida got surveyed in spite of itself” (1). Florida’s diverse and difficult terrain, its oppressive climate, its hostile Indians, recalcitrant squatters—all made the surveyor’s job extremely difficult, if not physically dangerous. Particularly vexing for surveyors were Spanish land grants such as the Forbes Purchase and the Arredondo Grant that continued unsettled long into the territorial period.

    Faces on the Frontier is a history of surveying public lands in Florida as experienced through surveyors general, surveyors, and developers. Knetsch puts a human face on the subject by using biographical sketches on practitioners of the surveyors’ craft. Few of Knetsch’s subjects are known today, but he argues persuasively for their importance for a fuller understanding of the state’s past. Essays on surveyors general Robert Butler, Benjamin Putnam, John Westcott, and Francis Littleberry Dancy make up the first part of the book; surveyors Sam Reid, John Jackson, D. A. Spaulding, Marcellus Stearns, Benjamin Clements, R. W. B. Hodgson, and Charles H. Goldsborough make up the second part. A final section on developers Sam Hope, Albert Gilchrist, and Hamilton

Disston round out the book. While most of these essays have been previously published as essays in Florida Surveyor, Sunland Tribune, El Escribano, and other periodicals, they work well as an interesting introduction to the process by which the Florida Peninsula was surveyed and developed in the nineteenth century.

    Knetsch reminds his readers of the close connection of state and national politics to the appointment and work of the surveyors.  Surveyors held federal appointment, and thus political connections as well as surveying skills were necessary attributes to obtaining the position. Florida’s first Surveyor General Robert Butler owed his appointment to his close personal relationship to Andrew Jackson. So did Benjamin Clements. Nearly all of Florida’s early surveyors had military backgrounds. Some like John Westcott, Francis Littleberry Dancy, and Albert Gilchrist attended West Point. Others such as Benjamin Putnam and Charles Goldsborough were assisted in their aspirations for office by their links to prominent families. Ties to wealth were important for early Florida surveyors, because, as Knetsch explains, there were “substantial up-front overhead costs which had to be borne by the surveyor. This meant that most of the early surveyors had to have some wealth to perform their contracts or be backed by those who did, most often indicated by those who backed the surveyor’s bond” (154).

    Florida surveying followed the natural settlement patterns of the state and Knetsch turns last to the surveying and development

of the lower peninsula as seen through the experiences of Sam Hope, Albert Gilchrist, and Hamilton Disston. Hope surveyed

the region east of the Peace River in the years preceding the Civil War before becoming a politician-developer in the Anclote River area. Gilchrist surveyed the Charlotte Harbor region near the turn of the century before becoming governor in 1908. Knetsch’s last essay covers Philadelphia tool and dye manufacturer Hamilton Disston’s scheme to transform four million acres of swamp land north of Lake Okeechobee into farm land.  Controversial at the time, the project foundered but as Knetsch reminds us, it did transform lower Florida. Knetsch’s coverage of the Disston project’s impact on settlement, town formation, and the introduction of new agricultural crops in lower Florida is the best in print. Knetsch uses primary documents to both chronicle the project and explode a number of the long-held myths associated with Disston, especially Disston’s purported suicide which he seriously questions.

    The author’s slightly heroic language, a number of typographical errors, and the lack of a bibliography, are a few shortcomings; but these caveats are more than made up by the depth of Knetsch’s original research. For those seeking an accessible, engaging introduction to surveying on the Florida frontier in the nineteenth century Faces on the Frontier is the place to start.

 

James M. Denham, Florida Southern College

MORE REVIEWS:

When we think "frontier," we tend to think of the West. But there once was another frontier to thesouth: that sunlit peninsula to which East Coast northerners now flock to escape the winter blues or retirement blahs. The Spanish called it Florida.

    Back in 1821 when it became a territory of the United States, Florida was sparsely settled. To pioneering northerners and southerners, it was for that very reason a land of opportunity, But it was public land and had to be surveyed before it could be occupied.  And surveyed it was, "despite itself."

    Therein lies the germ of a book--or at least a series of essays with a common theme that lend themselves to compilation into a book. Joe Knetsch has written those essays and arranged them in historical sequence. Most of the essays (the first and the final seven) are dedicated to one personage, or "face." The eighth essay commemorates many surveyors who worked in the southwestern part of the state. Each of the other essays is as detailed a biographical sketch of one of the men as Knetsch's research to date permits. Some are about the first four surveyors general, and others are mostly about deputy surveyors who did the actual surveying. The last three are about "developers" who built on the work of the surveyors. Since most of these characters filled all three positions at one time or another, the distinction is a matter of emphasis. Together, these essays give a sweeping portrayal of the talent and the energy that spurred the growth of the territory and, after 1845, the state of Florida.

    The subjects are intriguing partly because they were more than just surveyors; they were all prominent civic leaders. One was a doctor. Many were lawyers. Almost all of them were elected to legislative positions, state and national, and to executive positions, from mayor to governor.  Many became militia or regular military officers and fought in the Seminole wars and in the Civil War. On the whole, they were anything they needed to be on that frontier. Almost all of them came from other states and had been educated in the north, including such prominent institutions as Harvard and West Point. Some had previously surveyed public lands in other states. Since they were appointed, they had to have the necessary connections in addition to the proper credentials.

    But they are included in this book because they were surveyors. Knetsch traces their successes and failures primarily in this capacity. The work, he shows, took all their physical and moral strength. Many lost their health doing it, and some their wealth. Only two assistants, it appears, lost their lives. Almost all of them did their work competently and conscientiously. The few that did not unfortunately gave the rest a bad name.

    Knetsch's essays cannot help being a catalogue of the difficulties the surveyors encountered. These difficulties were most directly the obstacles presented by the terrain. The land was not easily traversed. Every state has a typical feature, and Florida's is water. Except for the hilly central part, it has "numerous swamps [cypress and mangrove], rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, bayous etc." But the problem is not just the water. It is the plants and animals that thrive in it and pose a danger to intruders. The surveyors had to deal on occasion with brush fires and for part of the year with unbearable heat and humidity and miasma. They also suffered deadly bites from animals. And need we mention exposure to the force of hurricane winds! The combination of these elements slowed them down, but did not deter them.

    The surveyors were, in fact, expected to take note of the physical features of the land. Sometimes, they were expected to provide a "complete topographical description," "all the works of art," in addition to nature's meandering designs.  At the very least, they had to report the soil types and their suitability for cultivation and, after the Swamp and Overflowed Lands Act of 1850, the level of inundation. Since the surveyors were the "first non-native Americans" (sometimes probably the very first humans) to set foot on the land, the settlers relied entirely on their reports to choose the land they would occupy.

    The difficulties of the surveys, however, did not spring from the terrain alone. They also sprang from the inherited land tenure. Spain had given grants and recognized claims, and the United States had created Indian reservations and military fortifications.  These had to be surveyed prior to the imposition of the rectangular system.  The grants were described in Spanish or, in the western part of the state,  French units of measure (varas and arpents) that nearly defied conversion.  The claims often lacked sufficient  documentation. The reservations and forts lacked precise boundaries.  Sometimes, the problem was simply  the sheer size of one of these tracts. 

    The core of these difficulties, however, was the administration of the public land system. The General Land Office  (GLO) in Washington D.C. appointed  the surveyors general. They in turn hired deputy surveyors who made the surveys and turned in their field notes.  On the basis of the notes, the survey was mapped and a report of it made to  the GLO. If the survey was acceptable to the GLO, payment tended to be made promptly. If it was not, the validity of the survey had to be proven in court. Meanwhile, the surveyor, having spent years of his life and his own money to pay for the survey, was left hanging. And still, the surveyors persisted.

    For all their perseverance, they are unsung heroes. Their names and their feats, Knetsch decries, are "without exception" absent from traditional history

books, and he tries to remedy the oversight. His interest in them is infectious. In addition to reading their saga, I pulled out my atlas to look up the locations in which they worked and to acquaint myself with the physical features of the state that were the setting of and the impediment to their work. In this way, Floridian history came to life for me.

    If the book has a shortcoming, it is that it is not an outright history of surveying, but it is not meant to be. The essays do give rise to questions in outsiders like me, however. They have to do with the location of the capital of the state way up in the panhandle, with the choice of the position of the reference monument, with the piecemeal extension of the grid across the state, and with the development of cities and towns within the grid. I would also like to see a complete list of the surveyors general and the deputies that worked under them.

    I'm sure Joe Knetsch could enlighten me in all these matters. I suspect, however, that the first thing he would say is that his work is history in progress. This book is one step in the process of pulling an untold amount of material together, a lot of it yet to be discovered. Where it will end no one knows.

    In the meantime, the book is a joy to read and an example to follow.

 

Wilhelm Schmidt

Professional Surveyors Magazine, April 2007

 

Lindquist, Judy

Ling, Sally J.

 

Sally J. Ling is an author, journalist and communications consultant (sallyjling.com).  She is also a former middle school teacher.

  As a special correspondent, her work has appeared in the Sun Sentinel newspaper as well as Gold Coast, Delray Beach, Boca Life and Carolina Bride magazines.  Her book, Small Town, Big Secrets: Inside the Boca Raton Army Air Field during WWII was published in September 2005 and is the story of how Boca Raton, Florida became the focus of an important and secret operation that helped win WWII.

  Ms. Ling lives in Deerfield Beach, Florida with her husband, Chuck, and her cat, Kitty.  She continues to write both fiction and non-fiction books for children and adults, many of which have a South Florida flavor.

 

 

A great read for children 6-12.

Sally J. Ling, a well known local author, educator and media consultant, published Phillip’s Great Adventures:  Spies, Root Beer and Alligators, a historical novel for young people that is based on the real life adventures of a former Boca Raton resident, Peter Barrett.

Phillip’s Great Adventures captures the excitement of growing up in Boca Raton during the late 1930s and early 1940s.  Drawing on her previous books about the impact of the military in World War II Boca Raton, Ling manages to blend the recollections of Barrett with the history of the area.  The book also features wonderful line drawing illustrations by Martha Barrett Bell.

“I wanted to write a book that could be used by classroom teachers to get students excited about local history,” said Ling in a recent interview.  “I also wanted to write something that would be a good read outside the classroom.  I think I succeeded, but it is up to readers to decide.”

Nick Wynne, the executive editor for Chapin House Books, which is owned by the Florida Historical Society Press, commented, “I was most impressed with Phillip’s Great Adventures.  As an author of children’s stories, I realize how difficult it can be to combine learning with entertainment.  Sally Ling has managed to do both.”

Sally J. Ling is available for autograph sessions and public talks.  She can be reached by e-mail at Sling4815@aol.com

Phillip’s Great Adventures is 144-pages long in a paperback format.  The price is $15.95.  It is available in major bookstores or can be ordered by telephone at (321) 690-1971, Extension 211.  Internet orders can be placed directly with the publisher at www.myfloridahistory.org/fhpress

Chapin House Books is the popular book division of The Florida Historical Society Press, 435 Brevard Avenue, Cocoa, FL 32922.  The Florida Historical Society is the only statewide historical society in the Sunshine State and is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation.

 

 

Long, Nancy Z.

 

Nancy Z. Long is a member of the Bethune-Cookman College faculty and an avid researcher of the school's founder, Mary McLeod Bethune.  When she had difficulty finding a biography of Bethune, Nancy decided to write one that would be readable, inexpensive and available to BCC students and the general public.  She is also working on an audio-visual documentary of Bethune, which will soon be available on compact disc.

    Dr. Long is available for presentations and author events.  She can be contacted by e-mail at longn@cookman.edu or longnz1@earthlink.net. 

 

 

 

McFarland, Ron

   Ron McFarland is a faculty member at the University of Idaho in Moscow.  He is an established poet, author and general raconteur.  He is the Director of the Creative Writing Program at U of I.  He can be reached for comments and appearances at ronmcf@uidaho.edu.

    Confessions of a Night Librarian and Other Embarrassments is his "coming of age memoir" about growing up in Cocoa, Florida, a small town trapped between the mores of the early 20th Century and the exploding demands of the 21st Century, fueled by rapid growth and the overwhelming demands for modernization brought on by the nearby space center and NASA.  Confessions is filled with all the emotional turmoil and angst that a young man, on the cusp of adulthood, encounters as he tries to pass through each today while dealing with raging hormones, an overactive imagination and a somewhat more sophisticated brother.  Confessions produces hundreds of small chuckles and more than a few great guffaws.

 

Potter, William C.

 

 

 

   William C. "Bill" Potter is
a graduate of Brown University and the University of Michigan Law School.  He
has had a long and successful career as an attorney, businessman and civic
letter.  A retired colonel in the Florida Air National Guard, he served for
almost three years as the head of the Department of Law for the United Nations
Mission to Bosnia-Herzegovina.  A Bosnian Diary:  A Floridian's Experience in
Nation Building is his almost daily recollections of the UN's efforts to
restore order and sanity to a region racked by ethnic cleansing, economic
collapse and the utter destruction of orderly government.

This "first person" account IS
a historical document, complete with minutes of meetings, copies of speeches and
other items of interest to students of diplomatic history, government planners
and, in particular, to the general public.

Potter is available for
signings, lectures and consultations.  He can be reached by e-mail at wlpott@yahoo.com.

 

REVIEWS:

William C. Potter's A Bosnian
Diary...

    Given the myriad complexities of attempting to
weld a viable government from the multi-ethnic scrap iron of a culture blasted
apart by civil war, perhaps a simple anecdotal snapshot can summarize the
frustration.

    A decade ago, thanks to the international
muscle flexed by the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, the Balkan peoples of
Bosnia-Herzegovina were bound by treaty to establish a democracy that respected
human rights.

    Following the collapse of the Soviet Union,
the volatile region that triggered the opening round of World War I had produced
a powder keg once again, this time with horrific "ethnic cleansing" purges that
claimed some 200,000 lives.

    Despite the breakthrough at Dayton, the three
main factions -- Christian Orthodox Serbs, Muslim Bosnians and Catholic Croats
-- eyed each other with debilitating suspicion.

    Propelled by his legal and military
affiliations, Melbourne attorney Bill Potter made a series of trips to the
Balkans beginning in 1996, most notably as an elections supervisor, until
joining the Office of High Representative three years ago.

But in 1999, Potter submitted some ideas
concerning consolidation to the disjointed military. Two weeks later, with no
response to his letter, Potter phoned the military office for an
answer.

    "They told me they hadn't read the letter,"
Potter recalls. "I asked why not, and they said they hadn't even opened it. They
told me it had been sitting there because they couldn't agree on who should open
the envelope."

    Welcome to nation building.

   

    It's a compelling story with what appears to
be an upbeat ending. After all, the American representative to the Peace
Implementation Council has described the Office of High Representative as
potentially "the best peacekeeping bargain" in history.

Unfortunately, Potter claims, all the tedious,
painstaking but ultimately invaluable lessons learned in Bosnia have been
discarded in Iraq.    

    "What we've done in Iraq is tremendously
destabilizing. It's a disaster," laments the lifelong Republican. "The idea that
we could turn that country around in three years was just a fantasy."

    A Melbourne resident since 1965, the Brown
University-educated commercial litigation attorney has been an ubiquitous local
presence during his long career. Melbourne Airport Authority attorney, Florida
Tech Board of Trustees, municipal judge for Melbourne and Melbourne Village,
chairman of the East Central Florida Health Care Coalition steering committee,
president of Potter, McClelland, Marks & Healy, a partner with Holland &
Knight -- Potter's track record on the Space Coast is too extensive for a
complete listing here.

 

Background pays
off

    But it was his military background -- 34 years
with the Air Force Reserves, from which he retired as a colonel with Judge
Advocate General experience -- that led to his participation in
Bosnia-Herzigovina's reconstruction. In 1992-93, during the power vacuum left by
the disintegration of the USSR and Yugoslavia, Potter attended nation-building
classes at the Special Warfare Center in Fort Bragg, N.C.

    His first trips to Bosnia were with the
Reserves, but his most prestigious assignment, as top legal gun for the Office
of High Representative, ran from July 2002 to February this year.

    "Initially, we were only supposed to stay for
a year and a half," says Potter, who moved with his wife Wendy to Sarajevo,
where his office overlooked what used to be the front lines of the bloody,
31/2-year siege that destroyed the city. "But Paddy twisted my arm."

Often described as innovative and charismatic,
Paddy Ashdown is the former leader of England's Liberal Democrats who now heads
the OHR. Created by the Dayton treaty, the OHR's long-range goal is to assist
Bosnia-Herzigovina into becoming a stable and peaceful member of the European
Union. Next year, Bosnia-Herzigovina enters its first contractual agreement with
the EU, and if all goes well, Potter predicts the nation will join the
organization by 2009.

 

Big
changes

    Bosnia-Herzigovina 2005 is a far cry from the
nightmare of the early '90s, when clashing armies and militias displaced more
than a million refugees. NATO responded with 65,000 peacekeeping troops, 23,000
of whom were Americans.

    "Today," says Potter, "less than 150 U.S.
troops are there, and the EU has about 7,500. The total U.S. expenditure in
Bosnia -- in 10 years, total -- is less than $4 billion. And in 10 years we've
not had one single death due to military action. And 51 other countries have
contributed. I think Bosnia is a tremendous success."

    As deputy for the OHR's Rule of Law
Department, Potter commanded a 17-nation team of 235 lawyers, judges,
prosecutors and investigators (reduced to 75 today). Potter's job was to clean
house and start over again; accordingly, he fired all 1,900 judges and
prosecutors in the country and made them re-apply for their old
positions.

    "We faced huge problems over there," says Mike
O'Malley, a Chicago prosecutor who worked alongside Potter with the OHR's
anticrime and corruption unit. "I think Bill's greatest asset was his intellect,
and his ability to cut through red tape, if I can use the politically correct
term."

    Judge Charles E. "Chip" Erdmann of the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in Washington, D.C., recommended Potter
for the position he vacated in 2001.

    "While Bill's role was not of the
headline-grabbing variety," Erdman wrote in an e-mail, "the people of Bosnia and
Herzegovina owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude for his work in reforming the
judiciary."

Potter's "Bosnian Diary" details those challenges
and triumphs in an anthology of weekly e-mail reports he dispatched from
Sarajevo. It wasn't just the recalcitrant Bosnians who erected barriers. After
completing the book, Potter posted a reflective addendum titled "Afterthoughts,"
which pulls no punches.

His
concerns

Among other things, Potter takes aim at:

    "The amateurish nature of the intelligence
being gathered by the U.S."

American embassy staffers "more concerned about
how various actions might affect their careers and performance evaluations than
whether those actions really advanced the peace implementation
process"

    In one case, the U.S.
embassy's nomination of an international judge "who had written and published
several articles such as one arguing that one of the reasons God had created the
United States was to promote Christianity throughout the world."

    "Bill worked longer hours there than he ever
worked here, and he always worked very hard here," says his wife Wendy, who says
there were four mosques, one Catholic cathedral, and one Eastern Orthodox church
within five minutes of their house in Sarajevo.

The Potters so thoroughly immersed themselves in
the local culture, they befriended their young translator, Amina Bilajac,
brought her to the States, helped her through college, and were witnesses at her
Muslim wedding.

Dismay about
Iraq

    It's partially because of the reasonably
bright prospects for Bosnia's future that Potter voices such dismay over
America's chaotic occupation of Iraq. Although Bosnia isn't out of the dark yet
(he cautions against local officials' tendency to rely on international
mediators to make difficult political decisions), he says the contrasts with
Iraq are stark.

    One of the early mistakes in Bosnia was
holding elections too soon, just 15 months after the end of its war, before
economic stabilization.

    "The people inevitably elected radical
nationalists who said, 'I'll protect your rights,' " Potter says. "That worked
against their collective economic interests." Regional stability, he adds, is
equally critical. Bosnia's European neighbors are far less combustible than
those on Iraq's borders. Furthermore, the reconstruction of Bosnia enjoys a
broad international commitment. "The fact that the United States is bearing 90
percent of the burden in Iraq is significant," he says.

    Today, Potter, 64, likes to consider himself
retired, though he continues to extend himself as a consultant on many issues,
including Bosnia. "What I really want to do," he says, "is spend more time with
my grandchildren."

 

Bill Cox, Florida Today

Procyk, Richard J.

Richard J. Procyk has worked in the field of prehistoric archaeology for more than 20 years.  For five years he explored the Loxahatchee River area, investigating the battle site. His book Guns across the Loxahatchee is a record of that work.

He holds a Bachelor's degree in Public Administration and a degree in Criminology and Forensic Science. He has served for more than 15 years on the Palm Beach County Historic Resources Review Board, which oversees historic preservation for Palm Beach County Florida.  He sits on the Board of the Archaeological & Historical Conservancy, Inc., a nonprofit organization that works to protect important historic sites.  He is also on the Advisory Board of the Loxahatchee River Historical Society and has received the Judge James R. Knott and the Bessie DuBois Awards for historic preservation.

Reynolds, Kelly

Kelly Reynolds has spent years bringing Henry Bradley Plant to life on the stage and he has managed to convey the excitement of Plant's life in the pages of this book.

A pioneer on the heroic scale, Henry Plant transformed a vast geographic and commercial territory into something entirely new. Out to sea at twelve, then a shopkeeper and a young executive—he rose from promotion to promotion, from success to success. Daringly seizing his own main chance, in the midst of chaos he set out to achieve the altogether spectacular. Over a 20 year period in the post-Civil War South, this Connecticut Yankee overcame a series of seemingly insurmountable obstacles to emerge the ruler of an empire of railroads, steamships, communication centers, and luxury hotels.

And wherever he went, he left behind grateful employees and satisfied customers. From Charleston to Tampa Bay, his financial acumen and trustworthiness produced a corridor of prosperity that extended westward into Georgia, and by sea connected Tampa, Mobile, Key West, and Havana.

Until now, however, this mighty empire—sprawling, but tightly organized and smoothly run—has been a lost chapter in transportation history. This book, the first modern biography of the founder, provides the inside story on the often risky building and consolidation of the ultimately triumphant Plant System.

And of its demise as well. The probate of the immense Plant fortune led to one of the first courtroom sensations of the early 20th Century.

Kelly Reynolds follows Henry Plant through some of the most exciting days in America’s history, when the communication revolution truly began, and when hard-won advances in transportation helped heal a nation torn by bitter division and strife. Henry Plant ~Pioneer Empire Builder~ tells the story of a man who made doing business a daily adventure, and who made his own—and everybody’s—dreams come true."

 

 

 

Rogers, William Warren

 

William Warren Rogers is professor emeritus of history at Florida State University, where he has spent more than a half-century supervising the scholarly efforts of graduate and undergraduate students.  He is the author of a large number of books, including The One-Gallused Rebellion:  Agrarianism in Alabama, 1865-1895, which was originally printed in 1970 and is currently being reprinted.

Rogers, known to his adoring students as "Captain Midnight," is available for lectures, signings and presentations.  He can be reached via e-mail at .

 

Schrecengost, Maity

 

 Maity Schrecengost, a retired teacher, knows kids and what they like.  And she likes kids!  She loves making author visits to schools to get what she calls her "kid fix."  When she's not writing or giving talks, you will find her curled up with a good book, swimming, or perhaps paddling a canoe.

Shearhart, Mary Ida Bass Barber

 

    Mary Ida Bass Barber Shearhart's classic historical novel about the infamous Bass-Barber feud in Central Florida is back in print.  After a decade in which the limited copies available were carefully hoarded and passed from hand to hand, the Florida Historical Society Press was able to persuade Mary Ida to put the novel back into circulation.  Long regarded as one of the tope three books on Florida's pioneering families in the mid-19th Century, The Way Hit Wuz has lost none of its appeal to native Floridians and newcomers alike.  Mrs. Shearhart writes fro the perspective of being related to both sides in the dispute and uses family records to explain the connections and conflicts in this historic feud.  Mary Ida Bass Barber Shearhart is available for presentations and author events.  She can be contacted via e-mail at hoghevin@webtv.net. 

 

REVIEWS

“That which has been is now, and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past,” [Ecclesiastes 3.15] quotes Central Florida native, Mary Ida Bass Barber Shearhart, in her book The Way Hit Wuz.  The poignancy of her choice of scripture strikes home for me, particularly, because like the author herself, I am a part of the sprawling family tree that Shearhart writes about in her account of Florida history.  (In the epilogue, Barber states that “there are few ‘old timers’ that don’t have a drop or two of Barber blood, or are related to one by marriage.”)  Though I may not relish or take pride in everything she has recorded about the connection I have to the formation of this state, I appreciate the statement she makes by beginning her book with an Ecclesiastical care; Shearhart seems to be both cautioning and comforting her readers that however unpleasant life’s circumstances may be, there is a special purpose and providence to the way things happen!

Though her chronological and slightly folk-tale style is engaging, and she sprinkles the main purpose of personal history with historical facts about the broader happenings in Florida, it is regretful that Shearhart’s literary work is significantly lacking in fluidity and coherence.  This book’s creditability would surely improve by leaps and bounds if simple copy editing principles were applied; the basic concepts of punctuation and sentence structure are horribly ignored, to the greater confusion of the reader, and easy correction of these errors could have occurred without much effort.

Still, in spite of these unfortunate circumstances, reading Shearhart’s The Way Hit Wuz significantly enhanced my appreciation for the history of Florida.

Shearhart reveals the development of Florida by following the life of Moses Barber, who married Maria Leah Alvarez and had nine children by her, including his sons Andrew Jackson Barber and Isaiah Barber (named after Isaiah Hart, who changed the name of the Cow Ford settlement to “Jacksonville” and established the first hotel). 

Leah, as she was called, was born in the house at 14 St. Francis Street in St. Augustine. Her mother, Ana Maria Dolores, lived and worked in the home of Don Geronimo Alvarez as his “housekeeper” after the death of his wife.  Alvarez was a descendant of the Adelantado Pedro Menendez de Aviles, who “gave” the house to speculator Jessie Fish in 1763, to “hold in confidence until Spain could get back control.”  Alvarez claimed the house in the name of his mother’s birthright upon his return to Spain, and though Ana Maria never specified who the father of her daughter was, she named the girl Maria Leah Alvarez.

Leah was ten years old when her mother died and Don Alvarez sent her to Cuba to be educated; it was there that the elderly and childless Davis couple adopted her and brought her back to Charleston, where Moses Barber married her six years later.

“Mose” Barber, as he came to be known, was a typical specimen of the rough and rowdy Florida Cracker, and a stark contrast to his gentile wife.  When strangers asked where he found such a “beautiful and polished” wife, and “how he kept her,” Mose always replied, “Jest keep her pregnant and barefoot and don’t give her a *** thing.”

Mose spent most of his life punching cattle, starting out in the Jacksonville area and eventually spreading all the way down into the Lake Okeechobee area.  During the War Between the States, hundreds of cattle belonging to Mose Barber joined the herds of Jacob Summerlin on their way to feed the Confederate Army; he was notorious for simultaneously making a fortune selling cattle to the Cuban markets.  In February of 1863, Mose was forced to leave his small plantation on Big Creek to escape the approaching Federal Army.  Union Colonel Barton set up head quarters there and used the house as a hospital during the Battle of Olustee.

Through my grandfather, Dr. John Zachariah Schmidt, I am a descendant of Mose Barber’s fifth son and seventh child, Isaac J. Barber, 8th Fla. Infantry, Co. I, who was wounded at Sharpsburg, captured at Gettysburg, a prisoner of war at Ft. Delaware, and after the war walked home to what is now Osceola County, and was murdered in the Barber-Mizell Feud.

Any amount of property large enough to be considered a “plantation” in Florida during that time was rare indeed, and the means by which Mose Barber became one of the few plantation owners was rarer still.  He was contacted by wealthy planter and slave trader Zephaniah Kingsley, who had heard of Mose’s expert methods of accumulating cattle.  Kingsley hired Mose to steal the cattle and slaves that belonged to the two thousand Indians being held at Ft. Brook.  In return for “risking life and limb,” and for delivering the cattle to Kingsley’s plantation on Lake George, Mose kept a number of the slaves (including “six breed-able women and one prized Mandingo) and received Kingsley’s guidance and financial assistance to start a plantation of his own.  Upon his death in 1842, Kingsley graciously absolved Mose of all debt.

The above mentioned are only a few of the events described by Shearhart in her book, the pages of which are supplemented with maps, etchings, government documents, and personal letters, and followed by seven pages of bibliography.  I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Florida history, providing they are able to look past the lack of textual editing.

Rachel L. Schmidt

Flagler College

September 29, 2006

 

ANOTHER REVIEW 

 

Not being a native Floridian, but have spent most of my life here in Florida, this book release was a long awaited joy to read. I had the pleasure to speak personnly with Mrs. Shearhart. I found her to be a most enjoyable person to talk with. The liberal use of "dialect" in her book was a little difficult to read through, BUT the dialect only enhanced the reading experiance I had with Mose. I enjoyed reading about the very time frame Mose Barber was so much a part of. Mose was truely a southern cracker. The idea of the "Republicans" telling him what to do and how, especally the high toned Mizel clan was just about more then Mose could handle. Very good read. Anyone interested in Florida history and "The way hit wuz" should read this book.

 

David Humphrey

January 15, 2007

 

Shofner, Jerrell H.

 

Jerrell Shofner was a former president of the Florida Historical Society, and is well known for his works on Florida History.

Smiljanich, Dorothy Weik

Dorothy Weik Smiljanich is a journalist who has worked for Florida newspapers, including the Gainesville Sun, the Clearwater Sun, the St. Petersburg Times and, most recently, the Tampa Tribune, where she was Travel Editor. She has been a film and theater critic and an award-winning features editor. Her work also has appeared in other newspapers, including The New York Times, and in magazines, including Coastal Living.

She has a B.A. and M.A. in English from the University of Florida in Gainesville and taught there, as well as at the University of South Florida in Tampa and at St. Petersburg Junior College in St. Petersburg.  

Born in Camden, N.J., she grew up in Clearwater and lives there now.

 

COMMENTS ABOUT THEN SINGS MY SOUL:  THE SCOTT KELLY STORY

 “In this exciting book—part political history, part travelogue--Dorothy Smiljanich sheds light on 1960s Florida with her vivid portrayal of one of Florida’s most colorful political figures—Scott Kelly.  Mayor of Lakeland at 28 and legislative power broker in his 30s, Kelly strode a wide path in the swirling political cauldron of 1960s Florida.  Kelly twice came within an eyelash of being governor.   This vivid portrayal of Kelly’s life begins in the Old Florida of tobacco and turpentine, and concludes with the New Florida of huge housing developments and super expressways—a Florida Kelly helped create." 

    James M. Denham, Professor of History, Florida Southern College

  “If you followed Florida politics in the 1960s, you knew of Scott Kelly, a dynamic reformer in the populist vein. Dorothy Smiljanich became acquainted with Kelly in his later years and was motivated to profile a much more complex man than his public persona revealed. This is not a traditional academic analysis, but a fascinating study from a skilled writer with a newspaper background.”

Leland Hawes, retired history columnist, The Tampa Tribune

 

FROM THE REPORTER'S NOTE BOOK:  By AL HUTCHISON

Snyder, Robert and Moore, Jack

 

Robert E. Snyder and Jack B. Moore are authors of Pioneer Commercial Photography The Burgert Brothers, Tampa Florida 
ISBN: 978-1-886104-25-9

As Florida moved into the mainstream of American economy in the late 1890's, professional photographers established studios to document the events, people and enterprises that contributed to defining the Sunshine State as an integral part of the New South states. The firm of S. P. Burgert and Son was one of the most prolific photographers of the period and their images recorded the evolution of Tampa Bay from a small village on Florida's west coast to a dynamic city that epitomized the tremendous growth that marked Twentieth Century Florida. From it founding in 1899 until the mid-1950s, the Burgerts took thousands of images of the best and worst of the city.

 

 

Swatek, Phillip M.

    Phillip Swatek was a newspaper reporter and editor in West Texas at the beginning of his career.  He served as a naval aviator during World War II.  When he married his wife, Margaret, a native of Ada, Oklahoma, he discovered that Ada had been the site for a mysterious killing in 1909.  This event, which pitted law enforcement officers against some of the toughest criminal along the Texas-Oklahoma border, has never officially been solved.  Intrigued by the story, he returned to it again and again.  The Pontotoc Conspiracy is a historical novel based on these events.

Phillip Swatek lives with his wife, Margaret, in Melbourne, Florida.  He is available for presentations and author events.  He can be reached via e-mail at mandpswatek@earthlink.net.

 

 

Wynne, Nick

 

Nick Wynne is the author of ten books, ranging from academic tomes to children's books.  Southern Cooking: A Man's Domain is a cookbook that he work to provide instructions for Yankee wives married to Southerners.  It is NOT a cookbook for the fainthearted or those who worry about calories or cholesterol.  Wynne uses ingredients like lard, butter and buttermilk--all designed to satisfy palates and to clog arteries.  Scottish, Irish, Welsh and English by birth--they all hate each other and share the same diets--Wynne recently celebrated his heritage by taking an extended trip to Scotland, where he and wife, Debra, feasted on the haute cuisine of the "mother country."  "It's a burden being a mixture of all these peoples," said Wynne, "some mornings I get up, look in the mirror and decide I can't stand myself!"

Although the recipes are direct to the reader from his late mother, Lola Mae, it is the commentary that accompanies them that makes this cookbook a logical successor to another Georgian by birth, Lewis Grizzard.

Wynne is available for signings, presentations or simply "fun" parties.  He can be contacted at or by telephone at (321) 690-1971. 

 

REVIEWS OF NICK WYNNE'S SOUTHERN COOKING...

At long last I'm back in the mountains, after prolonged visits to Winter Park and Montgomery (I was still so sick from my cold I could hardly drive). When I got to Alabama I gave my dad Nick's autographed cookbook but my step-mom Mary Elizabeth grabbed it from him, opened it at random, read a bit and proclaimed--I kid you not-- "Here's a recipe calling for lard; this is a man who can be trusted!" then they oohed and aahed over the many pork dishes. So I know it will be used--much more than the coffee-table tome I gave them about the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Stuart Ferguson--Wall Street Journal reporter

I've enjoyed this cookbook tremendously.  The recipes are great--if you like Southern cooking (and even if you don't)--but the commentary and humor puts Wynne in the category of humorists like Lewis Grizzard and Justin Wilson.  I plan to steal every story in it, including Nick's famous discourse on the perils of mispronouncing "pecan."

Don David Argo, author, Canaveral Light

What a relief to find an honest-to-goodness Southern cookbook that does NOT pay lip service to the latest fads in dieting and dining.  I applaud Nick Wynne's "cholesterol be damned and in-your-face" honesty when it comes to recipes that I enjoyed as a youth.  I can just see my Mama, with her apron on and her sleeves rolled up, chattering away as she went about preparing dinner or supper--yes, this was before the days of "lunch!"  Can't wait for the next installment--will it be R-C colas and moon pies, potted meat and mayonnaise sandwiches, or some other, now passé, form of Southern cuisine?  Bring it on!

Richard Moorhead, RMA Associates

I should be in the dining room doing my job, but since I picked up your book just to browse the content I have not been able to put it down until I finished it.  What fun!  I first opened up to the section on the pecan pronunciation debate and enjoyed myself too much.  I really needed to get into the dining room, so I thought, “one more quick section,” and stumbled on to “barbeque.”  I was hooked there, and had to read the book from the beginning.  The barbeque section was especially fun because of “sauce, sauce, sauce.”  You would be pleased to know that Chef Erol and I feel the same way about any “center of the plate” (as suppliers call it) item.  As long as you’re buying top grade fish and meats, any chef can cook it to a tender and enjoyable consistency.  But it’s the sauces that differentiate great meals from ordinary! 

The book was not the “text book” I expected from a professor and authority of history!  The visualizations were great.  But then I recall “Tin Can Tourists” was very interesting and fun reading too.  In fact, last weekend before taking a plane trip I pulled a couple of books from my pile of required reading.  Some of these have been in the lot for more than a year, waiting for me to have time for pleasure reading since I normally only find time for trade journals.  One of the books I read on the plane was “Fast Food Nation,” a somewhat predictable book, but required reading none the less.  A section there that spoke of GM buying up trolley lines only to tear them up to increase the demand for motor cars reminded me of “Tin Can Tourists” and I thought of you.  It was ironic to see you today, for of all reasons, to bring me your new book!

Thank you for sharing!  And thank you for writing such a fun book!

Alexander Litras, Cafe Margaux--Historic Cocoa Village, Florida