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Intervievrvith Mt. John C. English
a pioneer resident of Lee County.
Jan. 20, 1939.
Interviewed by
MR. JOHN C. MULISH, A PIONEER
RESIDENT OF LEE Gomm
Mr. English: I came to Lee County in January 1876...csme from
Georgia, near Bainbridge, six miles. Left home inDeeember 1875, eight
of us, my mother and seven children. I was the middle one; had three
brothers and three sisters. Came in a covered wagon drawn by steers.
Come to take up a homestead near the Caloosahatohee...It was ten years
after the war, and everything was in a mess...no one can't imagine it...
my =thermos a widow. We boys were fanning in Georgia. Corn was the
money crop...Lots of people went west. We had some relations in Texas
who wanted us to ammo there. ...we never had planned on coming to Florida...
things went alonis and we didn't have any success getting ahead. There
was an old man near us and he had heard about the Caloosahatchee. Hs
come down here and saw the country and he wanted us to came down with
him. At first we didn't tumble to his racket, but our crops didn't
yield...as time went on we thought more about Florida. Dr. Andrews,
a dentist, had a son.in.law, Dr. Anderson, a medical doctor, who lived
in Leon County, not far from Tallahassee. Dr. Andrews and Dr. Anderson
went to Cedar Kaye by railroad ant chartered a sailboat and came to the
Caloosahatchee River above Olga, this side of Olga, in 1874. The country
was nerw•••it had just been surveyed...the government was bffering home-
steads here. It had possibilities...some Americans have always had
a craze to pioneer...as long as there was a frontier to go to they was
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always wanting to go to new places. This old doctor came down and
looked around. a little and he went back on the boat that oome from
Cedar Keys and he began to lay his plans to coo back in the fall.
When the time 03M8, we was ready and come along with him.
My father died Tan. 1, 1870, and left mother with seven children.
I IRS 14, Samson was 19.. .We landed here with our bare hands. I want
to tell you a story I didn't know till lately...Samson told it to me.
On. day he was was walking with father, and father said to him, wBoy,
I don't think I am going to live much longer...when I'm gone I want
you to keep the !wally all together.* We always got along and we
always stayed together. There never was any very inviting circumstances
to make us scatter and make us go each one by himself. The old doctor
we lived about 10 miles from him...we got ready on the first dr/7 of
we
Deceaber...it was a Monday and went down to his place and we stayed there
till Saturday; he wasn't ready to go. There was two families of the
Andrews...there was 18 in the party that come along. We had three
covered wagons in the camp all drawn by steers and one open wagon
used to haul supplies. My sister was the youngest; she was about 12
years old. Uncle Sandy was the oldest; he was about 75. The old doctor
was 72. We made about 20 miles in a full day. I. just travelled along.
We =aid get up early in the morning and get breakfast The girls
did the cooking. We started with at we could, and all along the road
we oould buy things pretty cheap. Share cropping was the order of the
day...we bought things from the niggers.
We had two buggies, and mother and old Mrs. Andres we drove in
one buggy and the other buggy was used to go and get supplies. The
buggies were drawn by horse. We had three horses. We drove 23 head of
cattle. They belonged to the old doctor....his son came with the
caravan him and his wife and his daughter cans in a railroad
ear which he chartered... .in that way we shipped our household goods...
the railroad car came to Cedar Keys. They they chartered a boat and
came down to Dr. Andrews camp, this side of Olga, right on the river.
(At this point Mr. English was interrupted by Mrs. Engliah, his wife.)
Mrs. English: My mother's folks moved from Georgia to Thomasville,
but that was when my mother was a little girl, when she was six years old.
They came to Tampa on the Alfia River, then later moved to Polk County.
My mother moved to Ft. Myers when I was six years old....in '72. Is came
in an ox wagon from Polk County. It was cattle that brought my father
down here, and Capt. Hendry...that was my mother's brother Francis Asbury
Hendry, named for the old Methodist bishop. Bury was my mother's oldest
brother. My grandfather moved his cattle down here from Georgia. Every
man that stayed in the cattle business has been well off the ones that
sold their cattle haven't always prospered. My father was born and
raised in Florida...born near Lake City.
Mr. English: It took us six weeks to come down here. We never travel-
ed on Sunday and we stopped once for a couple of days in Sumter County.
We had fine weather: no rain, no breakdown, no sickness. When we got
dawn here and struck canp...we camped in the woods this side of Olga
and the folks they took the horses and took one of the wagons and filed
it for the horses and went back to Gainesville and filed the homestead
claim. We camped till they got back. Took near three weeks.
The traveling wasn't bad from Georgia down here. We ONMO by way of
the *wire road." We struck it at the little bridge at the Santa le
River...the road vent all the lay down to Punta Raesa...the road followed
the telegraph line. The road was a pretty good dirt road...vide enough
for a wagon (two oxen) or a cart (one cm).
May 22 was the first big rain we saw after we came here. After
we settled here on the river we saw Indians...they used to oonm to our
camp. We first lived about two miles above Ft. Denaud. There WAS a
little branch come in and the Indians would live back in the country
but they would come in there and take their boat and go'down to Pt.
Myers. Sometimes they would stop at our place. I rmnember one day...
it was the first breaking of ground we did. We had a yoke of oxen..
we cleared about an acre..me was out there plowing .the
canoe come
along and stopped and the old fellow he cone out and looked at what we
was doing, and the old fellow he said *You good, me see umoo and he
took hold of tho plow an3 plowed a piece. The Indians were all friendly
Indians. The white folks ARS always suspicious of them, but we wasn't.
Old Tiger Tail came to our camp when he hadn't been there but a couple
of weeks. BA found his way into our place...it was just about sundown.
RA put down his pack and spent the night with us and the next morning
we put hint across the river. The Indians used to buy sweet potatoes
and syrup from us.
People just bare-handed like we were on the way down here, we
stopped and talked with people. At Dade Oity we camped and one Sunday
an old man came and offered us all the induoement he could to stop there...
Some one asked me what sort of business we eopected to follow. .I told
him we was just venting a place to live and something to do to enable
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us to live...Samson was the one who got the homestead. We didn't
have any cattle...We put in little crops...near it. Denaud...near the
big prairie. The cattle men were living near Ft. Thompson, and we got
in touch with the cattle men and they penned in a big drove of cows
and so we had milk and butter. They left us about 25 cows and calves...
we cleared the ground and built the pens...in that =yin fertilized
the land...that was the only way we had of getting fertilizer. The
first crop was watermelons, sweet potatoes, sugar cane and peanuts.
Our crops grew mighty good, but we quit up there on account of the
overflow. We stayed there two years. Samson sold the place after-
wards and we bought a fellow's claim here...Mother lived to be 86 years
old, Dr. Kellum lived right about the camp when we first camped down
there...About a week after we came my sister was taken with a bad cold.
Dr.Kellum homesteaded down there and he come and treated her. He didn't
make a charge for his services, but he had a little Chopping for me
to do in return for his services...I did it for him. He had a little
boat that he didn't have any use for while Samson was gone to
Gainesville...my brother worked for a Mt Hickey clearing the ground
and I worked for Dr. Kellima...so when Samson got back we took things
in the boat and then in the wagon to the homestead. There was a road
from where the wire road crossed the river to the government road that
the government had made from fort to fort...Dr. Kellum was a Catholic
lots of people hates Catholics...Samson and two or three other fellows
went to It. Myers in a boat and he was taken with a hot fever and Dr.
Kellum was in Ft. Myers and Samson went to him. He didn't think the
doctor paid him enough attention...the fellows took Samson hone
The Next day the doctor rode from his place to our camp because he
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knew that Samson was sick. He always as long as he lived...if we
needed any doctoring, he did it, and be never sent a bill...he never
asked for a dollar. If he had a little chopping that we sometimes
could do and it seems that very little of that we over did ...We
have always been very fortunate in havirg a doctor...Mr. Zones
of It. Myers he never sends us a bill...we always had a good doctor
that was always just more than a friend.
The homestead was 160 acres near Ft. Denaud. Eadh boy got 160
acres, John and Ximie....There was several little patches of citrus
trees in Ft. Myers. There was fruit enough so that people had all
the fruit they wanted to eat and some to s11,01d man Townsend at
Buckingham had a grove...we got our fresh seed to plant from him.
BA didn't make a living at it...We bought 500 oranges and gave him
a dollar and from that we planted our grove. He had some cattle and
a farm.
Mrs. English: My father planted a 10 acre grove when I was a
child.
Mr. English: The man in Buckingham had two -three acres...We
never had an exciting experience.. we always had a smooth get -along.
I guess the most exciting experience I ever had was the first deer I
killed. It. Myers was a cow town. There was lots of cattle shipped
to Key West and to Cuba never a boomtown...a good steady growth.
While the cattle business was good the cattleman had a lot of money...
Xust a neighborhood town...two stores when we first knew it. It was 15
years before the railroad ease to Punta Gorda.
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We stayed on that place (the present homestead) in 1881 growing
fruit ,..it was several years before we shipped any fruit to amount to
anything...the early fruit was pulled and loaded in bulk in schooners.
About $4 a thousand was the ruling price for oranges.
Mrs. Inglidh: We moved to Ft. Myers in 1872 about 10-12 families
there. annal Gonzales was a boat man. They lived in one of the old
fort buildings...the one that was recently used for a library....My
uncle Captain Hendry probably lived in one of the old buildings too.
Capt. Hendry's dwelling then was just this side of the Royal Palm
Hotel. My uncle, Marion Hendry, built a concrete building... Major
Frierson came from Tampa. He and my uncle Marion married sisters.
Uncle Marion's old house is still standing. The house of Major
Frierson is right across the street from the new post office.
The Indians would come into It. Myers, 15 or 20 at a time. We
always fed than...we wanted to keep on good terms with thee. Every-
body else fed them too; I don't see how they oould eat as much as they
did, stopping at every house to eat. No, we weren't afraid of thee;
it was just the custom to feed the Indians. They would tan their deer
skins in the tommit was a regular picnic for us ohihdren.
There was an Indian boy, Billy Conapacho, who came in and lived
with my uncle Hendry. He went to sehool with us. He could draw
anything. I remember a picture he drew of our old wharf and the
boat tied up to it...while he was in school his uncle came and had
him to lo back with him Oh, I remember the name of the boat: it
was thespftriree
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The great trouble of the Indian is whisky When we first came to
Ft. Myers there was no regular mail service. The minister drove 10
miles to preach Capt. Billy Collier and his brother Ben ran a boat
service to Pt. Myers from New Orleans and Mobile The nearest rail
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road was at Cedar Keys I went to /seminary at Orlando....We want to
Tampa from Punta Reese and took a little boat from Myers....At
Tampa we took the train for Orlando. I attended in the winter of '84-'5.
Major Janes Evans came down after the mar to homestead and most of
the people who came afterwards bought their land from him. This little
building (the picture of the little log schoolhouse in one of the
Christian Advocates) was owned by Capt. Evans and he let people have it
for a school and church. And the first school master was a young man
the name of Bell. That was in '72. We walked a mile to school.
Bell was an Englishman. After he left they sent us a preacher who
stayed all the time and he taught. Men they built a school building
where the Gwynn* Institute is now.
(Mete: More emphasis on eeonnmic conditions must mono to present
and shoe der,