Uncle Joe is a character, and all visitors to the Manatee should call on him, examine his mammoth wild fig tree and hedge of century plants. Mem. Ask him to chain his dogs before you go ashore, otherwise the seat of your inexpressibles will require repairs. I have been there.
Eastward, above the Terraceia cut-off, is Sapp’s Point. Further along, and directly opposite Braidentown, is Palmetto, a young town containing two stores and a post-office. The reader will perceive that Uncle Sam distributes post-offices in Florida with a lavish hand. We have three of these convenient institutions within a radius of one and a half miles—Braidentown, Manatee, Palmetto—and Palmasola City, only three miles distant, will have one as soon as Postmaster Warner shall build an office to protect the mail matter of that growing city.
Immediately in the rear of Palmetto is a prairie of several miles in extent. North-east of the town, about one mile distant in the hammock, Mr. Hendricks, of Palmetto, has a promising six-years-old orange grove, grown from seeds planted with his own hands. Mr. Hendricks cultivates vegetables between the rows of his orange trees, and last year he realized several hundred dollars by shipping his early tomatoes, cucumbers and snap-beans to New York and other Northern markets. To Mr. Hendricks belongs the credit of starting the early vegetable boom in the Manatee region.
Mr. David Zehner, from Louisiana, has recently purchased a strip of scrub hammock, east of the town, where he intends to make the cultivation of grapes and strawberries a specialty. He has already received several thousand cuttings and plants of the choicest varieties. A few miles further eastward, you reach the plantation of Major W. I. Turner, the god-father of Braidentown, who has forty acres in tomatoes, cucumbers, squashes and beans. He has already commenced shipping his vegetables to the Northern markets.
Half a mile east of Major Turner’s is the extensive plantation of Major George Patten. General Hiram W. Leffingwell, ex-United States Marshal for the Eastern District of Missouri, has recently purchased 200 acres of this land, and is negotiating for more. Two of the general’s sons, with their families and an unmarried nephew, are now encamped on the land, and are busily engaged in erecting dwelling-houses and the necessary out-buildings. The general and his wife will arrive later in the season. In addition to the cultivation of the various fruits of the citrus family, the general will devote his attention to general farm crops and the growing of early vegetables for the Northern and Western markets. Another St. Louis gentleman, Mr. C. G. B. Drummond, Assistant U. S. District Attorney, has purchased 120 acres of land on the Rogers’ hammock near Oak Hill, on which he will set out an orange grove this summer.
Mr. H. O. Cannon, a California Argonaut, and late resident of New Albany, Ind., after having spent several winters prospecting Florida, has, like a sensible man, concluded to pitch his tent on the Patten plantation. With this view, he has purchased twenty acres of land, which he has commenced grubbing and fencing, preparatory to planting an orange and lemon grove. Mr. C. H. Walworth, of Milwaukee, has purchased twenty acres of land adjoining Mr. Cannon, which he will have cleared, grubbed and planted in orange and lemon trees this year.
In ante bellum times, the present Patten plantation was known first as the Gamble, and afterward as the Cofield and Davis plantation, and was the largest and most thoroughly equipped sugar plantation in the State of Florida. The owners worked 200 hands, and had 1,400 acres of sugar-cane in one field. Their sugar-mill and refinery contained all the modern appliances, and, at the commencement of the war, was worth half a million dollars. Soon after the breaking out of hostilities, most of the slaves were sent to Louisiana, and work on the plantation was abandoned. During the last year of the war, a Federal gunboat entered the Manatee Bay, and a boat’s crew, commanded by an officer, blew up the sugar-house and set fire to the refinery. The destruction was complete; and to-day may be seen the ponderous fly-wheel of the engine, broken shafts and crumbling walls—sad mementos of the event. The family mansion, a large two-story brick structure, with galleries around three sides of both stories, escaped the hand of the destroyer. Although bearing the finger-marks of time, it is at this day, a substantial structure, and, with slight repairs, would weather the storms of another century. Connected with this old mansion is a history, now for the first time published.
Within these walls during the last days of the Southern Confederacy, when that fabric (on paper) was fast crumbling to pieces, Judah P. Benjamin, a fugitive from justice, and flying for his life under the assumed name of Charles Howard, was the guest for nearly two months of Captain Archibald McNeill, its then occupant. When on that memorable Sunday, in the spring of 1865, Jeff. Davis and his cabinet hastily fled from Richmond, Benjamin and Breckinridge struck out for the wilds of Florida, which seemed to offer a secure retreat. Arrived at Gainsville, Breckinridge sought refuge on the Atlantic coast, and Benjamin, under the guidance of Captain L. G. Leslie, started for the Gulf coast, via Tampa, and arrived safely at the mansion of Captain McNeill. After remaining nearly two months at Captain McNeill’s, Benjamin was conveyed in a boat to Manatee, and from thence to Sarasoto Bay in a horse-cart, by Rev. E. Glazier, of Manatee; from thence to Cape Florida in a small sail-boat, commanded by Captain Fred. Tresca, also a resident of Manatee. At Cape Florida a larger boat was procured, and after several hair-breadth escapes from Federal gunboats and the perils of the sea, Captain Tresca landed his charge safely on one of the islands of the Bahama group, and returned to Manatee $1,500 richer than when he left home. Benjamin reached England safely, where he has acquired fame and fortune. Should this page by chance meet his eye, he will no doubt be pleased to learn that Captain McNeill, past threescore and ten, has retired from active life and settled in Manatee, surrounded by a large family. Captain Tresca, or Captain “Fred.,” as he is called by his friends, lives with his wife and two children on a small plantation near Braidentown. Although he counts his years away up among the nineties, he is still a well-preserved “old salt.” Rev. E. Glazier is still a resident of Manatee, and looks as though he had renewed his lease of life for another half century. Judas betrayed his Master for the paltry sum of thirty pieces of silver. Twenty-five thousand dollars was the price offered by the United States Government for the corpus of the fugitive. The example of Judas was not followed by those who assisted Benjamin to escape.
There are more than a thousand acres of the rich hammock land belonging to this plantation for sale at from $15 to $25 per acre, according to location. When the fact that it cost originally $75 per acre to clear this land, is taken into consideration, it will be seen that the price at which it is now offered is very low, and places it within the reach of persons of small means. The land will be sold in lots to suit purchasers.
Adjoining the grounds of the Patten mansion is the residence of Hamet J. Craig, who has a young orange grove of three hundred trees and ten acres of hammock land under cultivation. Five miles further on, in a north-easterly direction, is Oak Hill, the former residence of Major W. I. Turner. At this place the major has a bearing orange grove of several hundred trees, and also one of the most promising six-years-old groves of six hundred trees to be found in the Manatee region. Adjoining Major Turner is the grove of Walter Tresca, just coming into bearing, and near by is the young grove of Mr. William Gillett.