Holmes County
FLGenWeb
On Jan
8, 1848, Walton County contributed 435 square miles of her northeast corner,
west of the Choctawatchee River, to form Holmes County. Washington, Calhoun, and
Jackson counties also made contributions. The county, with an area of 484 square
miles, was the 27th county in order of establishment. It was the second county
created after Florida's admission to the Union. It is located in the northern
part of the Florida Panhandle, along the Alabama state line. It is bounded on
the north by Geneva County, Alabama; on the east by Jackson County; on the west
by Walton County, and on the south by Washington and Walton Counties. It was
said that Holmes County was created to help maintain a balance of power between
northeast Florida and the more populous middle Florida.
The Legislative
Act to create Holmes County whizzed through the Legislature and reads as
follows:
Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and the House of
Representatives in General Assembly convened, that the County of Holmes be and
is hereby declared established, and shall be bound as follows: Commencing at the
Alabama line where it crosses Holmes Creek, thence down the said creek to the
line of Washington County, thence west on the said line to the Choctawhatchee
River, thence down the said river to the dividing line between the third and
fourth townships of Walton County, thence west of the said line dividing
centrally the eighteenth Range of said County of Walton, thence due north by the
said last mentioned line to the Alabama line, thence east on the said line to
the beginning.
Section 2. Be it further enacted, that the Governor of
this sate on the passage of this act, shall appoint all officers for said county
of Holmes as it is by law made his duty to appoint for the other counties of
this State.
Section 3. Be it further enacted, that the qualified voters
be and they are hereby authorized to elect such County officers as by law are
directed to elected in the other counties of this State, in the same manner, and
subject to the same duties, provisions and responsibilities.
Section 4.
Be it further enacted, that an election for County officers shall take place, on
the first Monday of March A.D. 1848, or as soon as possible thereafter at the
usual places of holding elections within the limits of the said County of
Holmes.
Section 5. Be it further enacted, that the Circuit Court of said
County and the meetings of the County Commissioners, shall be held at Hewett's
Bluff, until the qualified voters choose a County site, and until suitable
buildings shall have been erected, and the Judge of Probate shall order an
election to be held to locate the County site.
Section 6. Be it further
enacted, that the Justices of the Peace in office before the passage of this act
shall continue in office.
Section 7. Be it further enacted, that until
the Clerk of Court of said County shall be qualified, and provided with the
necessary materials for recording, the citizens of said County who have their
domiciles east of the Choctawatchee River, shall record all instruments of
writing, required by law to be record, in the office of the Clerk of Court of
Jackson County, and all west of said River in said County, in the office of the
Clerk of the Circuit Court in Walton County.
Section 8. Be it further
enacted, that all east of the Choctawatchee River shall remain a part of the
fourth Senatorial District, and all west a part of the third Senatorial
District.
Section 9. Be it further enacted, that said County of Holmes
shall be entitled to one Representative in General Assembly in the State of
Florida: Provided its population shall equal the existing ratio of
representation, and in such case the Judge of Probate shall order an election
for such Representative according to law: And provide further, that the
population of Walton County, shall not be reduced by taking such County of
Holmes from its territory, below the existing ration, and the Judge of Probate
shall forward a copy of its territory, below the existing ratio, and the Judge
of Probate shall forward a copy of the list of the enumeration to the Secretary
of the State of Florida: and no election shall take place for such
Representative, until such evidence shall be forwarded to the said Secretary of
State.
Section 10. Be it further enacted, that until the population of
Holmes County equal the existing ratio of representation, the qualified voters
east of the Choctawatchee River shall be entitled to vote for representative to
the General Assembly for Jackson County, and those west of said river, for the
representative to the General Assembly for Walton County.
Section 11. Be
it further enacted, that a Circuit Court shall be held in Holmes County on the
second Monday of November and in Washington County on Thursday thereafter, and
the Spring Court shall be held in Holmes County on Thursday after the third
Monday of May in each and every year. (Passed the Senate, Dec 27, 1847. Passed
the House of Representatives, Jan 7, 1848. Approved by the Governor, Jan 8,
1848.)
"Holmes County was named
for Holmes Creek, the eastern boundary of the county, which, in turn was named
for Holmes Valley, which received its name either from an Indian chieftain who
had been given the English name of Holmes, or else from Thomas J Holmes, who
settled in the vicinity from North Carolina about 1830 or '34." -- Utley (From
Allen Morris' Florida Handbook 1949-50)
Simson (1956) says the belief
that the name was derived from that of an early white settler cannot be
substantiated. After Andrew Jackson occupied Spanish Pensacola in 1818, he sent
a raiding party on the sweep along the Choctawhatchee River. During this raid,
the troops came upon and killed the half-breed Indian know as Holmes. Homes was
on of the so-called "Red Sticks", the disaffected Muskogee or Creeks who fled to
Florida from Alabama after the Creek War of 1813 - 14. (American State Papers,
Military Affairs, Vol 1, 1832-59)
Mrs J H Godwin, who wrote on the early
history of the County of Holmes, introduced a third possibility for the origin
of the name of Holmes. A Colonel Robert Holmes was a member of General Jackson's
army in his campaigns in Northwest Florida.
If after more than a hundred
years, we are unable to pin-point the exact origin of the name of Holmes County,
perhaps we will never know. The writer is content with the idea that the county
was named for beautiful Holmes Creek. A visitor to the Holy Land upon her
returned remarked, "The Jordan River reminds me so much of Holmes Creek."
Holmes Creek rises over the line in Alabama, a small stream with some large
springs adding quantities of water near its source. Similar springs in beds and
banks continue to make their appearance until it is a sizeable stream and
further down in its course through Washington County large springs and streams
continue to swell the current into a deep river. At Vernon it is quite deep and
its clear placid waters move majestically on the quiet and peace of a greater
stream. And until this day (in 1981), the creek remained unpolluted.
The following is a quote from the writings of Mrs J H
Godwin on the early days: "The first settlers were typical of the early
Americans who in the unlimited freedom granted by unoccupied, wide-open spaces,
were in not hast to choose a permanent place of abode. Indeed many were habitual
wanderers, who, ever, and anon must seek more elbow room, to find it in the
quite of primeval forests basking in a balmy, semi-tropical sun, with his
nearest neighbor miles away. He found a spot to his liking, water near at hand,
plenty of game, good range for the cow, pigs and chickens he had brought with
him, struck camp and built a log cabin; rather inadequate looking to the man of
today, but wholly in keeping with the early settler's manner of life.
"A
neighbor, though miles away, would ride over and help "raise" the logs. In case
of no neighbor, smaller logs were used and pulled on skids, using ropes. The
cracks between the logs were sealed with split boards. If transient minded,
packed dirt served as a floor, and sometimes a surface of clean sand was given
it. Others used puncheons -- logs split and hewed smooth with a broadax, edges
fitted closely together, and underside notched to fit the sleepers of round logs
beneath. A steady floor, yes.
"If permanent, a larger room was built
later and the first building used as a kitchen. Later a third building was
erected alongside the second, leaving a wide open hall between, a real
breezeway, most pleasant during the summer. Thus it acquired the designation
"dog-trot" house, as it provided a convenient avenue of travel for the watchful,
ever-faithful family dog. This was home in the truest sense of the word and the
latch-string always hung on the outside to anyone who chanced to pass that way.
No one was turned away.
"Life was simple. His domain was unbounded and
undisputed. He was a law unto himself. Society made no demands on him and he
happily and unmolested pursued his rather hard life in his own way.
"Still life did not present so many problems after all. Game in the woods, bacon
in the smoke house, potatoes in the bank, cow on the range, and a calf in the
pen. One didn't have to go to the grocery store every day. No drugstore bills to
pay at the end of the month. He look ahead and the occasional trip to the
crossroads store or small town, forty, fifty, or more miles away, brought ample
supplies of the few things his small clearing did not produce. A day's travel to
the little water mill hid away in a secluded spot where the fish were so active
that one had to "get behind a tree", so said, "to bait his hook" brought back
good corn meal for a month or six-week's bread.
"Time for hunting,
fishing, time for fiddlin'. A pot of good old-fashioned lye hominy always on the
stove."
The writer does not know the date of the first settlement or who the first
settler was, but I did have the pleasure of teaching in the Bethlehem
consolidated school in the mid 1930s. Some of the leading patrons of the school
at that time were the Coats, Faircloths, Forehands, Hawkins, Johnsons, Metcalfs,
Millers, Pilchers, and others. Before the Bethlehem school was consolidated,
there was a Watson School nearby. It is my understanding that the Hathaways
settled near the Bethlehem area. The well-known J J (Boy) Williams also lived in
the community.
At the time I taught in Bethlehem School, the late C L
Galloway was the principal. He was the principal there for several years. At
that time Bethlehem was considered to be one of the largest consolidated schools
in the South. While teaching there, I attended the Union Hill Baptist Church.
B Middleton, staff writer for the Holmes County Advertiser, had this say
about Bethlehem school: "Tucked away in a quiet country corner of Holmes County
is a consolidated high school that has been sitting there since 1929. Bricks
scarred with the touches of decades of scholars, Bethlehem High School lends
quiet education to nearly 600 Holmes County youngsters."
Bethlehem serves
an area extending from the western side of the Choctawhatchee River to the
Alabama-Florida line. Bethlehem’s principal, Odell Paul, spoke with obvious
pride of the red brick structure housing his academic charges: "Bethlehem High
School has been a part of Holmes County for almost three generations.
Grandparents are seeing their grandchildren enter the rooms where they too once
sought the glories of learning. Names that have been on the classroom rolls for
years return and write again. Many that have struggled through the curricula
return to teach still others."
In 1999, at the time of the second edition
of Heart and History of Holmes County, the Bethlehem School was being replaced
with a new, modern structure.
It is hard
to fix just who the first settlers were in a community, but the name sometimes
gives us a clue. The town was originally called Hutto, but was renamed to honor
a man known as "Old Man Esto". Old Man Esto had arrived even before the railroad
was built. The respect for this man must have been very high since there is no
record of any great accomplishment of historic importance credited to him.
Esto’s first post office was established Sep 22, 1898. The first postmaster
was Albert S Johnson. The post office was discontinued on Jan 31, 1958, and mail
was sent to Bonifay.
The L&N Railroad passed through Esto and on the
south side Highway 2 and Highway 79 intersect. These advantages have helped to
bring some new growth to Esto. The northern edge of Esto borders on Alabama.
Noma is her neighbor to the east.
Esto has a Church of Christ and a
Baptist Church, a Community Park, Colonial Industries Sewing Factory, Lamb’s
Salvage Yard, a meat processing plant, a Farm Center, and a 7-11 Store.
There was a school in Esto, but it was discontinued in the days of
consolidation.
The country of origin of the
Curry family is the British Isles, Scotland. The period of migration to America
was before 1750. William Curry on May 30, 1689, witnessed a will in North
Carolina. The 1790 Census listed Currys in Pennsylvania, Virginia, North
Carolina, and South Carolina.
Many Currys fought in the Continental Army
during the American Revolution. Others reportedly were Loyalists. Currys not
only settled along the eastern seaboard but throughout the United States.
Direct descendants of the Holmes County Currys go back to James Curry and
Nancy Lassiter who were born in North Carolina. They migrated through South
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and on to Florida. The period of migration to
Georgia began before 1820. Whitmill Curry was born in Georgia in 1826. He moved
to Alabama about 1856. Marcus Curry was born in Georgia in 185?. Titus Curry was
born in Alabama in 1856.
Whitmill Curry, an early settler of Holmes
County, settled in Florida in Isagora. Its population in 1885 was 42. The place
was first settled in 1872. Mail was sent semi-weekly by stagecoach. Whitmill
Curry was listed under County officers as county surveyor, and Superintendent of
Schools, holding both positions for many years, being the first County School
Superintendent after the office was separated from the Judge’s office.
He
was a minister, postmaster, and Mason. He served as an officer in a Florida Unit
of the Confederate Army serving in Virginia. He was a man of many talents and
set a good example for us to follow.
The origin
of the name "Noma" seems to be a mystery. The town was named for Noma Milling
Company, but where did the Noma Milling Company get its name? Was it named for a
lovely lady?
Ira Hutchinson and Drew Morris operated in the town near the
end of the 1800s. The enterprise in which they had a partnership was a sawmill.
It has been said that if the name was pronounced or enunciated in such a way to
indicate that it had no-ma, it could boast of two pa’s. The two men termed
fathers would naturally be Drew Morris and Ira Hutchinson.
The town of
Noma officially came in existence at noon on June 27, 1904, with the adoption of
the city charter. Of course, the settlement had to precede this date. The actual
date that the first settler came is unknown.
Noma developed because of
the importance of logging and wood products. After the disappearance of the
virgin timber in the area, the town experienced a serious slump in growth. The
town’s citizens allowed the city charter to lapse, and in 1970 voted again
re-incorporating. Then in 1976, Owen Powell, a citizen of Noma, sued to
re-instate the 1904 City Charter. He won the suit. At that time, there had been
just one other Florida city to re-activate a lapsed city charter in this manner.
Ponce de Leon has the oldest existing
post office in Holmes County. There were two post offices established before
Ponce de Leon, Cerro Gordo and Smith Home Springs, but neither of those post
offices exists today. Daniel Jackson Brownell, who was later killed in a duel
while he was Sheriff of Holmes County, was the first postmaster at Ponce de
Leon. The office was established on Aug 24, 1853.
Anthony Brownell built
a hotel in Ponce de Leon before the Civil War. It was doing good business until
the war wrecked the economy of the South.
Ponce de Leon is located on the
west side of the Choctawhatchee River. The town was named for the Spanish
explorer, Ponce de Leon, who searched for the fabled "Fountain of Youth."
In 1885, Ponce de Leon had a population of 300. It had a wagon master and an
orange grove. At this time, Ponce de Leon had as many people as Cerro Gordo, the
county seat. The present county seat, Bonifay, had only 150 people.
Some
familiar family names in or near Ponce de Leon before the Civil War were:
Andrews, Mayo, Morrison, Moore, Neel, Padgett, and Sutton.
Updeen Miller,
a writer of Ponce de Leon news for the Holmes County Advertiser, did for Ponce
de Leon what Purl G Adams did for Westville. She takes us back to the first
decades of this century:
"Ponce de Leon was an active and prosperous town
in the years from 1910 – 1920. The Green brothers owned and operated a livery
stable which faced the railroad tracks somewhere near the Presbyterian Church in
Old Town.
"To obtain horses and mules for this stable, the brothers made
a yearly trip to Tennessee, where they purchased at least a railroad carload of
animals. There was always much excitement and interest when the new livestock
arrived in Ponce de Leon.
"Local boys were urged to ride and tame the new
stock. Many were thrown but no one was every seriously hurt. Henry Miller
remembers the rides he and other lads had. He lived only a short distance from
the stable and, to this day, has fond memories of sitting on the corral fence
and watching the action.
"Bill Grice and Bill Bryant were employed as
stable hands to care for the livestock.
"Buggies, horses and mules were
not only sold or traded, but folks could also rent them single or as a pair. A
buggy and a pair of horses rented for $5, whereas one horse and buggy was 43,
and a single horse was $1 per day. A young man could take a five dollar bill, do
business with the stable, and light mighty impressive with a fine-stepping team
when he carried his best girl friend to Sunday meeting.
"Mr. Miller
remembers buying a mule for $200 around 1941. James Padgett recalls his father,
Isom Padgett, purchasing a mule from the stable.
"The Green brothers had
a fondness for new automobiles. At one time, they and Dan and Lance Hughes were
perhaps the only ones in the area to own cars. (Hurdis Green brought the first
car this writer had ever seem to Leonia in 1909. I would have been six years old
when I saw my very first automobile. – Annie Paget Wells). It is fairly safe to
say this automobile was purchased from the Hughes’, who had an automobile
franchise that covered Holmes, Walton, Jackson and Bay counties. Lance Hughes
was the second car dealer in this area of Florida. The first was the Lutter
Music Co of Pensacola. This car boasted a brass radiator and a windshield that
could be let down. The top and the windshield were considered luxuries and were
bought extra. The car had carbide or gas lights, which worked very well unless
they got wet or out of adjustment.
"During the town’s early years, there
were at least two blacksmith shops in operation. One was located between the
homes of Mr. Cutts and the Garr family. Warren was the blacksmith.
"The
other shop was located in front of the home of Dr. G Ballard Simmons, who served
as Dean of Education at the University of Florida. (The Simmons home is now
owned by the Joe Sutton family.) In the front part of this blacksmith shop was a
barber shop. The owner, Mr. Masters, was a handy sort of person who could shave
and cut a gentleman’s hair and also take care of his mount. Now that’s real
service! Mr. Masters is remember as a picturesque character, a strong and
powerful man with a long handlebar mustache.
"Two drug stores were in
operation. One was owned by Dr. Stephens and the other by the Paul family.
"Several general stores were in business. Some of them offered a wide
variety of goods, others being more like a commissary-type store. According to
some commissary records, the grocery list was much smaller than the typical ones
of today. The typical order then might have consisted of shorts (for the hogs),
a sack of flour, coffee, beans, and make a little salt pork. Eggs and other farm
products were traded back to the store for credit on the customer’s account.
"If a fellow was really in high spirits, he could "set up" everyone in the
store for perhaps 29 cents worth of chocolates.
"One of the general
stores was built about the same time the railroad was being constructed. In
fact, the train depot wasn’t finished, so the storekeeper, Dan Hughes, set up
teletype service in his store for the railroad. He learned to operate it until
the depot could be finished.
"The city also had a bottling plant. Back
then drinks were referred to as "soda water". From all accounts there were some
soda in the formula because from trying to drink one you would receive a spray
in your nose and eyes. The most common flavors were strawberry and orange. No
cola was used at that time. The bottle looked something like an Orange Crush
bottle. The most interesting process in bottling the soda water was the use of a
foot lever to cap the bottle. Young lads were used to wash the drink bottles in
a long trough and according to A B Terry, a penny was what you received for
washing 24 bottles. The drinks sold for 5 cents each.
"Ponce de Leon is
not the same bustling town it once was. But its citizens can take pride in the
countless folks who had their beginnings there and went on to make their mark in
important positions throughout the United States." (Nov 11, 1976).
Ponce
de Leon has had some set-backs. When US 90 was rebuilt and widened, it was
routed to bypass the business district, which promptly moved out to the highway.
This move left the old business district with its empty buildings as a sort of
"ghost town". When I-10 was built, another adjusting took place. Any town with
so many natural assets and so much to offer is bound to bounce back and become
better known than ever. "The "Collard Festival" drew much attention to Ponce de
Leon.
On Ground Hog Day 1886, I arrived on this earth in a
small one-room log, stick-and-dirt-chimney house located about four miles west
of Graceville in the Poplar Springs Community.
About two years before
this, my father had homesteaded 160 acres there. He went out with his ax, cut
down trees into logs, peeled off the bark, notched them, and then asked 12 men
in the community to his house-raising. They erected the log walls and then my
father cut smaller pines for the rafters and with a froe and mallet split laths
and three-foot shingles. All materials for the dwelling came from the
surrounding woods with the exception of the nails and 12-inch flooring.
Next he used his ax to cut the big long-leaf pines into 10-foot lengths and
split rails to enclose his future farm. All farms were enclosed by rail fences
in those days. He deadened the pines, cut the fallen trees and asked 15 men to
his log-rolling. These men used hand sticks to pile the big logs into heaps. It
took a week or more to burn these big long-leaf pines. Some were three feet in
diameter at the bottom and would have been good saw-logs for 50 to 60 feet up,
but there was no market for them.
When I was about three years old, my
dress caught on fire, but Lee, my brother pushed me down and extinguished the
flames with a board. He was four at the time, and just big enough to begin
wearing pants.
All women had spinning wheels and would card cotton and
wool into rolls, spin it into thread and then crochet (or knit) stockings and
sweaters or weave into cloth. Mamma had no loom, so she would put Thad and me on
the pallet in the back of the ox-wagon and drive two miles to Mrs. Martin’s and
use hers. Just before the sun went down, we would start for home and the ox 9Old
Bright) would trot all the way without mamma even prodding him. Papa could hear
the wagon rattling all the way home.
When I was about four, mother got
her first cooking stove. Most women then cooked on fireplaces. We had no
time-piece of any kind except the sun. The kitchen was about 100 feet east of
the big house and was connected by a plant walk. We had marks on this walk and
could tell time by the kitchen shadow on the south side of the walk during the
morning and by the dwelling shadow on the north side in the afternoon.
The school house was a small one-room log building. We went early on the first
morning so I could claim a back seat and lean against the wall. The seats were
made from split logs and peg legs, and my feet could not touch the floor. There
were no backs on the seats and we had no desks.
W H Martin was my first
teacher. The first morning we had about ten rules written on the board to
follow. I could not read and broke rule number three which said, "Don’t play in
the branch," the first week. He gave me a whipping. We drank spring water out of
gourds and nature furnished the toilets out among the bushes. Nature also
furnished the toilet paper "stick".
Some of the pupils walked as far as
four miles along narrow paths through the wood to get to school. When the ground
itch was too bad, we came in the ox wagon. All the children had found itch and
everybody had chills and fever. We ate our dinner out of tin buckets and used
logs around the school house for tables. All the hogs in the neighborhood soon
learned to meet us and fight for the crumbs.
Alex Fulford, who taught me
when I was about 12, later became County Superintendent of Schools. Mrs. Jenie
McIntosh, Fred McIntosh’s great-grandmother, taught me when I was about eight.
I did some of all the usual farm work, chopped and picked cotton, put out
guano by hand, and helped pick the geese. We had about 50 geese in the cotton
field. Cotton and sugar cane were the money crops. John Kirkland’s father’s
water-powered mill ginned our cotton and furnished the baggings and ties for $1
a bale. Leander Bess worked for us for $8 and board a month.
We used our
two-ox wagon to take cotton and syrup to Chipley and to bring guano back. Cotton
brought five centers per pound; we got about 12 ½ cents per gall for syrup. It
was 15 miles to Chipley, so Papa, Lee and I would leave home at daybreak and get
there about 11:30, then have to hurry back to get home before dark.
Our
old yellow dog, Bruce, helped "raise" all the children. He was friendly and kind
and we could never have found a more faithful friend that him. He died with old
age after 15 years. He would run rabbits, bay possums and occasionally make the
mistake a=of catching a polecat.
Many of our nearby neighbors would often
drive over and spend the weekend with us. Our neighbors who lived about one mile
away would put their eight children in the wagon and drive over on Saturday
evening to stay until Sunday. Although we never spent a night with them, they
were always welcome. We didn’t have to buy extra groceries as there was always
plenty of pork, beef and sausage hanging in the smokehouse and banks of
potatoes, barrels of syrup – we did not use any sugar – cribs full of corn,
homemade hand-beat rice, milk, butter, chickens, turkeys, guineas, eggs, fruits,
and vegetables. Also, quail and dove that we trapped.
We had two
four-inch snowfalls that covered the ground for about three days. One was about
1892 and the other in 1895.
Since there was no Methodist church at Poplar
Springs, the "Shouting Methodists" had weekly prayer meetings in their homes.
They would move their furniture from the big bedroom (they had no living room)
and put plant seats in. At our home it was difficult to get our two corded
bedsteads out of the door.
The preacher’s text was usually "Hell’s Fire"
and I had scary dreams about the devil pushing me into a lake that burned with
"Fire and Brimstone". I thought that the reason for being a Christian was so we
wouldn’t go to hell. At church, we always asked everyone to come with us. If
they didn’t come, we went with them.
When we moved away from Poplar
Springs in 1899, Papa had 400 acres of land there, and hoped each of his three
boys would be "Big Farmers". But our ambition was to be school teachers, as they
made so much money and had so little work to do, so each of us began teaching as
soon as we finished the eighth grade. By that time teachers’ salaries had been
increased to $30 per month.
At night, after supper, we had to shell a
shoebox full of seed penders (we had never heard of peanuts in those days)
before retiring. The rooster always crowed at midnight and again just before day
when we got up. I would about ten when my father bought our first time-piece, a
clock from John Kirkland’s father’s store. He paid $2 for it.
Each fall
we and our neighbors would grind cane on our wooden home-made mill and cook it
in a 60-gallong kettle. The neighbors would come at night to chew cane, drink
cane juice, eat syrup foam, talk and having jumping and wrestling matches. The
women had quilting bees and the hostess always had pent of dipping snuff and
home-made tooth brushes. Cousin Lizzie McKinnie was the champion ""pitter"" She
could spit between her fingers and hit a spot ten feet away.
Papa and
other men met on Saturday night to play marbles. The girls played with their rag
dolls. There were no store-bought toys – the boys made flutter mills, sling
shots, (the kind that David killed Goliath with), popguns, bows and arrows, rode
bent saplings, played deer-dogs, and went fishing in the nearby ponds.
About this time there were three loggers boarding at our house. They paid mamma
25 cents a day for room and meals. Each had the old ten-foot two-wheel log carts
that were pulled by six oxen. The tongues of these carts must have been 30 feet
long. The oxen had no bridle or rope on them, yet the driver could direct and
control them with a long whip. These loggers were the two Slay boys and George
Everett, all from Chipley. They hauled the logs to Holmes Creek where they were
floated down to Haglers sawmill in Washington County.
Although my father
never went farther than the sixth grade in school, he was one of the best
educated men around Poplar Springs. He taught two three-months schools and was
paid $17.50 per month. He had no buggy so he had to ride his horse to Cerro
Gordo, the county seat of Holmes County, to make his monthly reports. A few
years later the county seat was moved to Westville and Papa was elected County
Commissioner and School Board member. We still had no buggy, so Pap would take
Lee or me on the horse and ride to Chipley or Bonifay to take the train to
Westville. He would tell us when to come back and meet him with the horse. He
had a pass to ride the train, but he never used it except on these monthly
trips.
Prosperity is a word with multiple
meanings in Western Holmes County. It is a place, the name of a school, a former
post office, a condition, and a state of mind.
For the area’s residents
of long ago, it is a combination of these. It is a word that awakens many
memories. One of these early residents was Mrs. J E Clark of DeFuniak Springs.
Another is Dan W Padgett.
It was Duncan Wilks, Mrs. Clark’s father, who
named Prosperity. "Because the establishment of a new post office suggested the
coming of prosperity."
Mrs. Clark said her father was a South Carolinian,
from Chesterfield County. He taught school there for a while and then entered
the naval stores business. That’s what attracted him to Florida in about 1886,
Mrs. Clark recalls.
"The Florida timber was unworked and was so rich in
turpentine," she explained. "He settled at the Mobley Still, about six miles
north of Westville."
"At that time," she said, "There was no post office
nearer than Westville. Eventually we did get a post office and it was located at
the home of John Brownell. He was also postmaster."
"My father was a
well-educated man and many people south his advice. So, when he was approached
about a name for the new post office, he suggested that it be named Prosperity.
I was about 11 years old at that time. Now I am 84, and all these years it has
been Prosperity."
Mrs. Clark recalls attending a one-room school in the
community, but she couldn’t at the moment recall the school’s name. She later
taught several years in similar small schools in the area.
In fact, one
of her prized possessions is a little school bell. It was with this bell that
she signaled the start of classes and called the pupils in from "recess", the
school activity pupils in that era traditionally liked best.
Mrs. Clark,
for 17 years after moving to DeFuniak Springs, operated what she calls "a flower
business". She was retired a few years from that. "Those were busy but happy
years," she recalled.
But so were the years at Prosperity. There were sad
times there, too. Her mother died at Prosperity. "Our family was a big one," she
said. "My father remarried – to John McDonald’s father’s sister (former State
Senator John McDonald was later administrator of Huggins Memorial Hospital in
DeFuniak Springs). She was wonderful to all of us. We couldn’t have had a better
step-mother."
Mrs. Clark’s comments were prompted by a recent newspaper
article, which feature Prosperity and Two Egg. Said that article, in part: " …
it’s quiet in Prosperity, population about 75; the sky is clear blue and the
Choctawhatchee River, though a muddy brown, isn’t polluted. Prosperity is 10
miles south of Sweet Gum Head, and 55 miles of Panama City."
The name
Prosperity is being preserved largely by the school. Mrs. Mozelle Shepherd,
mayor of neighboring Westville, is principal of the school. It has five
classrooms and an enrollment of 93. There’s talk about closing the school and
sending its pupils to school in Ponce de Leon – about nine miles to the south.
Padgett, like Mrs. Clark, was prompted to comment after reading the
newspaper article. He said the school is actually about two miles from the
Prosperity post office site." The place where Prosperity school is located is
called Cedar Springs", he said.
Some recent maps show a Cedar Springs
Church nearby, and some slightly older ones show a Cedar Springs School. This
may have been the school Mrs. Clark attended as a girl. She recalls walking in
deep sand left on the road to the school by rains that eroded the adjacent
hillsides.
"There is a Cedar Springs Church across the road from the
school," wrote Padgett.
"Back in the 1920s and 1930s there was a one-room
schoolhouse there which was called Cedar Springs School. I attended this school
when I was in the second grade. It closed in 1935."
"The location of
Prosperity was on a hill where John M Brownell lived. He was my grandfather and
my mother still lives at the foot of the hill. He homesteaded 160 acres there in
1894."
Padgett recalled his grandfather’s frame and log house. "The
house, kitchen, commissary, blacksmith shop, smokehouse, hay barn, syrup-making
shed, 14 horse stables and sheep shearing pens are all gone," he wrote. The old
dirt road that divided them has given way to a paved road running to the back of
where they all were located.
"There may not be much sign prosperity in
the area, but it is still rich in good soil, growing pines, spring water, clean
air, happy people, and memorable history."
With those sentiments Mrs.
Clark and many other former Prosperity residents find themselves in hearty
agreement.
The writer was born in Prosperity on Apr 21, 1903 while
my father had gone for Mrs. Davis, a midwife. Mrs. Davis gave me my first bath
and "Ollie", a name that caused me some problems because it is commonly graded
as a masculine name. My middle name, "Anna", was given to me by Anna Green
Hammond. To further complicate the situation my family and friends nicknamed me
"Annie". Sometimes my mother affectionately called me PollyAnna – a slight
corruption of OllieAnna.
At the time of my birth, Padgett & Laird
operated a small sawmill in Prosperity. While I was still an infant, we moved
back to the Leonia area. The late Walt Brownell told me in later years that he
gave me my first buggy ride. He took my mother, my brother Dan and me on a buggy
so we wouldn’t have to ride on the moving wagon pulled by a team of oxen.
The Sandy Creek Baptist Church was
organized in 1844. The first building was made of logs cut from the nearby
forests. It contained a gallery where slaves were seated during services, at
least it was intended for that purpose; although there is no record that it was
ever used for such. Baptismal services were held at the water’s edge for many
years.
After several years a larger building was needed as the membership
increased. There is no record available for the exact date for the building of
this second church but it has been confirmed that it was in the middle or late
1870s. This building was constructed of rough undressed lumber (pine)
weather-stripped on the outside. Pews or benches were handmade of the same
materials (rough, raw).
The third house of worship at Sandy Creek was
erected in 1906. It had stately lines with a great bell tower and a tall
tapering spire. IN 1962, a fourth building known as Sandy Creek Baptist Church
was built. No debt was incurred in the construction.
Worship services are
held every Sunday. It is a full-time church with a total family ministry.
Mid-week prayer services are well attended. Sunday School and an active church
training program offer the best spiritual training and enrichment. An active
Woman’s Missionary Union keeps abreast of current needs, events and developments
on both home and foreign mission field, and actively support all mission
endeavors. The church grounds as well as the cemetery nearby, are tended with
loving care.
One of the early pastors of the Sandy Creep Baptist Church
was W D Williams, the founder of the Holmes County Advertiser. Another was A B
Riddle, the father of E Bert Riddle, The writer’s paternal grandfather, William
W Padgett was a deacon. He and his wife are buried there. He was a Confederate
soldier. Since 1985, the Rev Dan Walton Padgett, nephew of Anna Padget Wells,
has been the pastor at Sandy Creek. He retired in 1998.
(Some of the
information on the Sandy Creek Baptist Church was taken from Pebbles From Sandy
Creek by Mattie Helms Butts.)
Students at the school at Cedar
Springs had to bring water from a nearby spring. Two little boys were given
permission by the teacher to bring a bucket of water. They came back with the
water wearing mysterious, impish grins on their faces and a twinkle in their
eyes that said, "We know something you don’t know." The teacher forced them to
clear the mystery. They had urinated in the bucket of water for a joke.
The teacher gave us a perfect example of fitting the punishment to the crime:
She had the boys drink some of the water. U-h-h-h-h!!!!
Name of persons
involved are withheld to avoid embarrassment. This episode was also a perfect
example of a job turning sour.
Excerpts used with permission of publisher, Sue Cronkite, from Heart and History of Holmes County, by Anna Paget Wells. This 347-page book is full of info, stories, and pictures. It can be ordered from the Holmes County Advertiser, 112 E Virginia Avenue, Bonifay, FL 32425; phone 850-547-2270.
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