Petals Plucked from Sunny Climes

by A. M. Brooks

Not far from this we find the Halifax River country, near which is Daytonia and other settlements, said to be remarkable for the selectness of its settlers, no rough adventurers having drifted in there. Below New Smyrna is the famous Colonel Douglass Dummit plantation, from which, a half century since, he raised and manufactured two hundred barrels of sugar in one season, which he sent to the city of Boston, Mass., and sold for eleven cents per pound. It was only rich planters, then, who could afford to buy seed and pay three or four thousand dollars for an engine to make sugar. An acre of cane here has been made to produce three thousand pounds of sugar in one year.

Indian Key Massacre.—Adjectives expressive of the horrible were exhausted in Florida during the Indian war. Some of the contemporaries of the Indian Key murder are still surviving in St. Augustine, and to hear them relate its terrors produces a chilliness which to us is quite overpowering.

August 15, 1840.—The steamer Santee arrived on Wednesday—Captain Poinsett commanding—bringing the family of Dr. Perine. They were living on Indian Key, a small spot not over seven acres in extent, situated near Matacomba Key, about thirty miles from the mainland, on the Southern Atlantic coast. When the attack was made by the savages, seven of its inhabitants were murdered, the island plundered, and its buildings burned. About three o’clock on the morning of the 7th instant a Mr. Glass, in the employ of Mr. Houseman, happening to be up, saw boats approaching, after which, on closer inspection, it was discovered they were Indians. They immediately commenced firing on the residences of Mr. Houseman and Dr. Perine, the former of whom, with his family, and that of Charles Howe and family, succeeded in escaping to boats and crossing over to Teable Key. The family of Dr. Perine passed through a trap-door into their bathing-room, from whence they got into the turtle-crawl, and by great effort removed the logs, and secreted themselves among the rocks. The bathing-house above them was set on fire by these fiends, when with the greatest efforts only they were kept from being roasted alive by putting mud on their heads and cheeks. Mr. Motte and wife, and Mrs. Johnson, a lady seventy years of age, fled into an out-house, from whence Mrs. Motte was dragged by an Indian, and while in the act of calling on her husband, “John, save me!” was killed. Mr. Motte shared the same fate, and was scalped. The old lady, as she was dragged forth, suddenly broke his hold, and escaped under the house. Her granddaughter, a child of Mrs. Motte, aged eleven years, was then killed with a club—the infant strangled and thrown into the water. This was seen by Mrs. Johnson from her hiding-place; but the Indians fired this building, when she was again obliged to flee, escaping to Maloney’s wharf, where she secreted herself until she was finally rescued. Joseph Sturdy, a boy twelve years of age, concealed himself in the cistern under the residence of Mr. Houseman, and was scalded to death by the burning building heating the water. The remains of an adult skeleton were found among the ruins of Dr. Perine’s house, supposed to be the doctor—also a child, thought to have been a slave of Mr. Houseman. The perpetrators of this deed were Spanish Indians, headed by Chekika, the same who made the attack on the Caloosahatchee. They obtained a great amount of plunder from the houses and stores, and whilst engaged in obtaining these articles Mrs. Perine, with her two daughters and little son, reached a boat partially loaded, and put off to the schooner Medium, lying at some distance. On Mr. Houseman reaching Teable Key, Midshipman Murray, U. S. N., started with his only available force of five men and two swivels, hoping to cut off the boats, and thus prevent the escape of the Indians. On the second fire of his guns they recoiled overboard, when the Indians commenced firing on his boat from a six-pounder belonging to Mr. Houseman, charged with musket-balls, driving back the officer. Dispatches were sent to Key Biscayne, but the Indians had retreated, after holding possession of the island twelve hours, carrying off large quantities of powder and other things, besides laying a little settlement in ashes.

This act was regarded as among the boldest feats of the war—that a force of seventeen canoes, with five Indians in each, should make a voyage thirty miles from the mainland, plunder, murder, and retire in perfect safety! Dr. Perine was a man of learning, a botanist, whose observations and notes on Florida will be a great loss. We see daily in our streets armed men in the employ of the Government, we hear of company after company being formed, and why are not operations commenced against the enemy?

CHAPTER XVII.

THE Indians inhabiting the Everglades before the Seminole war had been driven there from the adjacent islands by conquest. They did not belong to this tribe. They spoke Spanish, and many of them had been baptized in Havana. Their pursuits were quite different—they fished and followed the sea as a means of support, having never been ten miles from the shore. No account has ever been written by modern explorers in that region which gives the reader as correct an idea of the topography of the country as the one given by the engineer who accompanied Colonel Harney, Jan. 1, 1841. Those who visit there now and return, appear to have a commingling of scenery—the flowers, the grass, and water, all being blended, the quantity of each not designated. This grass-water country is said to be like no other place in the world—a sea of water filled with grass and green trees, that can only be approached by canoes, which must be pulled through the mud and saw-grass, and then paddled when the water is of sufficient depth, with a black soil of measureless extent.

The following interesting extracts will enable us to form an idea of the energy and enterprise required during the Seminole war to penetrate the fastness of a country where the foes intrenched themselves, and from which they made sallies upon the unwary more to be dreaded than any disease which visited them. The expedition was conducted by Colonel W. S. Harney. His forces were distributed in four or five large canoes, carrying from six to ten men each; the greater number went in boats made for the purpose, containing five men each. Orders were given that every man should be provided with twenty days’ rations, sixty rounds of ball and cartridge, with the necessary blankets, etc. The most perfect silence was to be observed by all; orders communicated by signal-whistles, with which the officers were supplied; the boats moving in single file, twenty paces apart, every man ready to drop his paddle and seize his gun at a moment’s notice. The dragoons were armed with Colt’s repeating rifles, and, being under command of Colonel Harney, formed a well-tried band of experienced Indian-fighters. Half an hour after sunset, and during a shower of rain, the command left Fort Dallas, which is situated on the bay at the mouth of Indian River, eight miles above Kev Biscayne—Colonel Harney in advance, with Mico as guide, and negro John as interpreter, the army next, and the navy in the rear. After passing up the bay seven miles, they entered the mouth of Little River, a tortuous and extremely rapid outlet from the Everglades, where they struggled against the current until after midnight, when they reached their first resting-place—the site of an old plantation—where they landed.

January 2.—The guide says that by not starting from here until toward night, we will reach Chitto—Tustenuggee’s Island—an hour or two before daybreak to-morrow; we therefore retained our position as much as possible in the grass and thickets until 4 P.M., when we started, but in reversed order—the colonel in advance, the navy next, and the army in the rear. After passing up a few miles of swift rapids, we entered the Everglades at sunset, and, skirting along a projecting elbow of the pine barren for two miles, lay concealed behind the point of it until quite dark. We then moved forward swiftly and noiselessly, at one time following the course of serpentine channels opening out occasionally into beautiful lagoons, at another forcing our way through barriers of saw-grass. After several hours of hard paddling, we came in sight of Chitto’s Island, when the signal was passed “to close up.” Moving cautiously, we took our positions around the island, and lay in anxious expectation of the signal to move up and effect a landing. An advance-guard, having been sent in to reconnoiter, after some time reported that the enemy had left the island, and, in a tone of bitter disappointment, the colonel gave the word, “Move up and land; the Indians have escaped.”