A Guide-Book of Florida and the South for Tourists, Invalids and Emigrants

In one of the offices a curious piece of antiquity is preserved. It is the fragments of a complete suit of ancient steel armour ploughed up in a field near Monticello. From its appearance it is judged to date from the sixteenth century, lies twenty-four miles west of Tallahassee, (fare $1.50), the present terminus of the railroad. (Pop. 1,000).

QUINCY

Hotels.– Willard’s, in the centre of the town, and Wood’s, at the railroad depot. Both $2.50 per day – $10.00 a week.

Boarding House.– *Mrs. Ann Innes; same prices.

Churches.– Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Methodist.

Newspaper.– The Quincy Monitor, a well conducted Journal.

The vicinity is a rolling, pine country, with limestone sub-soil. Plenty of marl is found, suitable for fertilizing. Cotton, corn, tobacco, and vines are cultivated with success. There is an agricultural association, of which Judge C. H. Dupont is president. Some caves and other natural curiosities are found in the vicinity.

Stages run from Quincy to Chatahoochee, tri-weekly; fare $5.00 – twenty miles – an exhorbitant charge. The boarding house in Chatahoochee, $2.00 per day. The steamer from Columbus and Bainbridge, Ga., touch at Chatahoochee daily; fare to Apalachicola, $5.00.

TALLAHASSEE TO ST. MARKS

By St. Marks Railroad – distance twenty-one miles; time, one hour and thirty minutes. There is no hotel at St. Marks, and but one boarding house, that of Mrs. Eliza Barber, $3.50 per day, $12.00 per week. There are excellent hunting and fishing in this vicinity, and boats can be hired at very reasonable prices, but horses are scarce. The town is an old Spanish settlement, and some remains of the ancient fortifications are still visible in the vicinity. It was first settled under the name of San Marcos de Apalache, in 1718, by Don Joseph Primo. At one time it was a port of some promise, but has now fallen into insignificance.

It is situated at the junction of the St. Marks and Wakulla rivers. The latter stream is ten miles in length, and takes its rise in the famous *Wakulla fountain. The name is the Creek word wankulla, (n-nasal) South. It is a remarkable curiosity, and should be visited by those who have the time. The most pleasant – and most expensive – means is to hire a carriage at Tallahassee, from which the spring is seventeen miles distant.

The country in the vicinity is low and flat, covered with dense groves of cypress, liveoak, &c. The spring is oval in shape, about thirty yards in diameter, and quite deep. On the eastern side is a rocky ledge, whence the stream issues. The water is cool, impregnated with lime, and of a marvellous clearness. Troops of fishes can be seen disporting themselves in the transparent depths.

Mr. Wise, of the Coast Survey, found bottom at eighty feet, the lead being plainly visible at that depth. In the same vicinity the Ocilla, Wacilla, and Spring Creek Springs are likewise subterranean streams, which boil up from great depths in fountains of perfect clearness.

NEWPORT,

A few miles from St. Marks, on the St. Marks river, was at one time a place of considerable summer resort, but is now but little visited. Near by is a natural bridge, over the river, which is esteemed sufficiently curious to attract occasional visitors.

6. THE OKLAWAHA RIVER AND THE SILVER SPRING

Boats leave Jacksonville and Palatka every Thursday for Lake Griffin. Time from Palatka to Silver Spring, forty hours; fare, $5.00; distance, 100 miles. The boats are necessarily small, and the accommodations limited.

The Oklawaha, so called from one of the seven clans of the Seminoles, falls into the St. John opposite the town of Welaka. It is only within a few years that, at a considerable expenditure, it has been rendered navigable. Its mouth is hardly noticed in ascending the St. John.

At Welaka, leaving the broad, placid bosom of the former river, the little steamer enters a narrow, swift and tortuous stream, overhung by enormous cypresses. Its width is from twenty to forty yards, and its depth from fifteen to twenty feet. Natural, leafy curtains of vines and aquatic plants veil its banks.

Twelve miles from the mouth the boat passes

DAVENPORT’S BLUFF,

On the right bank, where there are a few houses. Above this point the “Narrows” commence and extend eight miles. The river is divided into numerous branches, separated by wet cypress islands. Dense, monotonous forests of cypress, curled maple, black and prickly ash, cabbage trees, and loblolly bays shut in the stream on both sides.

Seventeen miles above Davenport’s Bluff are the

*BLUE SPRINGS

These rise in the river itself about four feet from the right bank. They are warmer than the river water, and when seen in the sun’s rays have a dark blue tinge. They have never been analyzed.

Nine miles above these springs the pine woods abut on the river, and there is a settlement on the right hand bank called

FORT BROOKE

This is within two miles of *Orange Spring, a sulphur spring, with strongly impregnated waters, but at present without accommodations for travelers. It is to be hoped that this will not continue, as it is one of the most admirable of the many medicinal springs of Florida.

Twelve miles above is near where the waters of Orange Lake drain into the river.

PAINE’S LANDING,

One and a half miles beyond is a settlement with the pretty name Iola. A few miles further up “forty foot Bluff” commences, which skirts the river several miles, here and there separated from it by cypress groves.

As the steamer ascends, the banks become higher, pines more frequent along the shore, and cultivated fields more numerous.

At length, at a distance of 100 miles from the mouth of the river, the crystal current of *Silver Spring Run, here as large as the river itself above the junction, pours into the coffee-colored waters of the Oklawaha. The Run is ten miles in length, with extensive savannas on either side, shut in by a distant wall of pines. In the spring months these savannas are covered with thousands of beautiful and fragrant flowers.[2 - A good description of Silver Spring is found in Gen. McCall’s Letters from the Frontier, p. 149, and a more scientific one in my Notes on the Floridian Peninsula. Appendix I.] The stream is rapid, with an average width of 100 feet, and a depth of twenty feet. The water is perfectly clear, so that the bottom is distinctly visible. At places, it is clothed with dark green sedge, swaying to and fro in the current; at others, ridges of grey sand and white shells offer a pleasant contrast.

The Spring-head forms an oval basin, 150 yards long, 100 feet wide, and forty feet deep. The water gushes from a large opening about 5 feet high, and fifteen feet long, under a ledge of limestone at the north-eastern extremity. It is free from any unpleasant taste, has a temperature of 73 degrees Fah., and is so transparent that a small coin can be distinctly seen on the bottom of the deepest part of the basin. When the basin is seen with the sunbeams falling upon it at a certain angle their refraction gives the sides and bottom the appearance of being elevated and tinged with the hues of the rainbow.

Some observations I took about a mile below the basin, with a three inch log, at a time when the water was at an average height, show that this fountain throws out about three hundred million gallons every twenty-four hours, or more than twenty times the amount consumed daily by New York city.

At Silver Spring stages meet the boat for

OCALA,

The county seat of Marion co., nine miles distant. The intervening country is rolling, with pine woods and hammocks. Ocala is a neat town, with about 300 inhabitants, two hotels, $1.50 per day, $25.00 per mo.; several boarding houses; two newspapers, East Florida Banner; livery stable; physician, Dr. T. P. Gary; several churches; mail three times a week by stage to Gainesville on the Florida R. R., fare for one passenger to Gainesville, $6.00; mail stage to Tampa.

This portion of the State impresses the visitor favorably, and is well adapted for sugar cane and fruit, but it is cursed with malarial fevers of severe type. A few miles south of the town are the remains of Fort King, a military post in the Seminole war, and six miles south, near the road to Tampa, there is a cave of some size in the limestone rock.

Returning now to the Oklawaha, and pursuing our journey up that river, no change in the monotony of the cypress swamp occurs for about sixteen miles above Silver Spring run. At this distance is the small settlement Cow Ford. Beyond it the cypress disappears, and a savanna covered with dense saw grass stretches on either side for one or two miles from the river. This portion of the river has been but recently cleared and it was not till early in 1868 that the first steamboats could make their trips through this part. The chief difficulty encountered was the floating islands which covered the river, sometimes so thickly that no sign of its course was visible. They were composed mainly of the curious aquatic plant the pistia spathulata. These had to be sawed in pieces and the fragments suffered to float down, or fastened to the shore.

After passing through these savannas some miles the boat enters Lake Griffin, a narrow lake about nine miles long. Several thriving settlements are on its banks, which present a diversity of soil, swamp, hammock, and pine land.

Six miles beyond Lake Griffin is Lake Eustis, a smaller body of water, but more pleasing to the eye. The settlement of Fort Mason is upon its shores.

Beyond Lake Eustis a deep channel a mile and a half long called the Narrows leads to Lake Harris. It is fourteen miles in length and in some parts seven miles wide. Much of the land upon its banks is of the best quality. The Oklawaha enters it at its southwestern extremity.

LEESBURG,

A small village, passed between Lakes Griffin and Harris, is now the county seat of Sumter county. About five miles above Lake Harris is Lake Dunham, the head of navigation of the Oklawaha. A settlement on this lake bearing the name Oklawaha is the terminus.

All this country south of Silver Spring Run is laid down quite incorrectly on all maps but the last edition of Mr. Drew’s “Map of Florida.”

7. FROM FERNANDINA TO CEDAR KEYS

(Florida Railroad; distance 154 miles; time 11 hours, 30 min. Fare $11.00.)

The train, on leaving Fernandina, runs southward on Amelia Island, for about three miles, through a forest of pine and live oak with an undergrowth of myrtle and palmetto. The road then turns westward and crosses the salt marshes, and a narrow arm of the sea, the latter about twenty-five yards wide, which separate the island from the main. Beyond these, it enters the low pine lands of Nassau county. They are unproductive, thinly inhabited, and to the traveler extremely monotonous. The first station is Callahan (27 miles); the next Baldwin (Florida House), where a connection is made with the Pensacola and Georgia Railway for Tallahassee, Jacksonville, etc.

The country gradually rises and improves in quality of soil beyond this point, but houses continue sparse. The station next beyond is Trail Ridge (15 miles). Here the mail is delivered for Middleburg on Black Creek, twelve miles east. (See Route up the St. John.)