Vol. 1 No. 3 Where old news is good news! July - September 1998

A Splendid Little War! In 1889 Kathleen Blake Wat-kins found herself widowed for the second time in her short life and with two young children to support. “Kit” submitted articles to Cana-dian magazines, and was finally published in Saturday Night. After reading her article about bohemians in Paris, while vacationing there, Toronto Mail publisher Christopher Bunting offered Kit a job as editor of Canada’s first woman’s page. Not content to write merely about frills and fruitcake, her columns were laced with commentaries on politics, the arts, personalities, social mores and romance. She both shocked and fascinated her readers with her candor. Whenever a distant story idea intrigued her, she would ask for travel money. She would always get it because she was such a good writer. In fact she was being paid the same salary as star male reporters - $35.00 a week. Thus when the Spanish American War broke out with Spain in 1898, Kit resolved to join the press corps. Despite the ban on women journalist imposed by the U.S. military, Kit pushed her way into the office of American Secretary of War Russell Alger. He responded with laughter. Women could not go to Cuba. The soldiers in the camps would be wondering around with their shirts off. What next? The determined redhead wore him down by returning again and again until

More excitiNg StorieSiNSide thiS iSSue

Events 19…page 2Museums & Societies…page 2Our Ancient Cities…page 4Juneteenth…page 5The Most Spectacular Show on Earth…page 6 Protecting Tampa Bay …page 7Yellow Jack!…page 8New Woman of the ‘90’s…page 11Uniforms of the War…page 13Book Reviews…page 14 Sports of the 1890’s…page 15Tampa Bay Hotel Recipes p16

See page 3...Kit

or was it ?

Kit WAtKiNS...Female War correspondent

by elizabeth Neily

Contrary to popular belief it was the 9th and 10th Calvary of Black soldiers that won the Battle of San Juan Hill. Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders long credited for the victory took KettleHill a short distance away.

©Hermann Trappman

FLORIDA

The three troopers in the foreground are preparing to load a 3 inch field canon on board a trans-port ship at Port Tampa. Photo courtesy of Tampa Bay History Center

WhY WAr iN cuBA?by Elizabeth Neily Cuba’s struggle for independence from Spain took many twists and turns throughout the century preceding the Spanish/American War. No longer content to suffer under the yoke of Spanish rule, Cuban insurgents fought valiantly for years for Cuba libre. Called the “Queen of the Antillies”, the “Jewel of the Caribbean”, Spain had a strangle hold on the last vestige of her once vast empire. Poorly trained

Cuban insurgents, joined by soldiers of fortune and aided by filibustering ex-peditions from the United States, pitted themselves against the better equipped professional troops of Spain. Prior to the American Civil War there had a popular movement by the southern states to annex Cuba. By di-viding Cuba into four additional states, each with representation in Congress and the Senate, the balance of power would have been thrown into the hands

of southern business interests. In 1848 an insurrection was led by Narcisso Lopez, with the aid of a Kentucky businessman, Crittenden. who led a force of 400 Americans and 200 Cubans to capture Cardenas on the north coast of Cuba. The victory was short lived however as there was no popular support on the island. The expedition was forced to withdraw to Key West. Two years later, Lopez See page 12 War

American’s were itching for a fight after the battleship Maine blew up in Havana Harbor on Feb. 15, 1898. Recruits clustered about Army offices ready to sign up.Artist - William Allen Rogers.

Quiz1. What was the name of the soldier that placed the Amer-ican and Cuban flags on San Jan Hill?2. The heavenly body which ended the days of the dinosaurs crashed where?3.What was counted as a “hand down” or out in 1890’s base-ball?4.What was the pop-ulation of Tampa in 1898?5. What is filibuster-ing.

Answers in text

Published Quarterly by Neily trappman Studio5409 21st Ave. S. • Gulfport • FL • 33707Phone (727)321-7845 E-Mail tocobaba@gte.net

Vol.1 No.3July - September

1998

Writers: A.D. deQuesada Althea England Elizabeth Neily Hermann TrappmanIllustrations/Photography: Elizabeth Neily Hermann TrappmanSponsorship/Sales Elizabeth Neily Hermann Trappman

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“Understanding the past gives you the freedom to plan for the future.”

EVENTS CALENdAR1998

July1-31 Bradenton, South Florida Mu-seum, Meet a 1920’s Flapper Give her advice on how to fix her Model T. Daily 1:40 p.m. (941)746-413.11-12 Fernandina Beach, Fort Clinch, living history Spanish American War 12 Bradenton, DeSoto National Memo-rial, 16th C. Spanish Encampment. (941) 792-0458.Free.18 Bradenton, South Florida Museum, Bishop Planetarium and Parker Mana-tee Aquarium Snooty’s 50th Birthday Bash. Call for fees. (941)746-413120-24 Bradenton, South Florida Mu-seum, Bishop Planetarium and Parker Manatee Aquarium, camp dinosaur & Fossil Fun (941)746-413.18 Largo, Pinellas County Heritage Village, American Civil War, 10-4. Battle at 2:00 p.m. Free.(727)582-212324-25 St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg Little Theatre, Tapestry of interna-tional tales, told by Cayl Ann John-son, Jennifer Samuel, Elizabeth Neily and Judy Weingarten. 8:00 p.m. 25 Largo, Pinellas County’s Heritage Village, Pioneer toys, learn about the toys of pioneer chilren then make a wooden toy of your own. (Kids - $15) Robin Popp at (813) 442-6242.31- Aug. 2 St. Petersburg, St. Peters-burg Little Theatre, Tapestry of inter-national tales 8:00 p.m. $5.00 Adults$3.00 Kids 12 and under.August8 Largo, Pinellas County’s Heritage Village, Tin Punch, Learn the deco-rative art of tinware and make your own, (Kids - $15) Robin Popp at (727) 442-6242.9 Bradenton, DeSoto National Memo-rial, 16th C. Spanish Encampment. (941) 792-0458.10-14 Bradenton, South Florida Mu-seum, Bishop Planetarium and Parker Manatee Aquarium, Camp Space camp (941)746-4131September7 Dade City, Pioneer Florida MuseumAward Winning-Pioneer Florida day Festival. (352)567-026219-20 St. Petersburg,Pinellas Pio-neer Settlement 2900 31st Street So., tampa Bay raid, American Civil War $3.00 Adults, Kids $1.50October10-11 Fernandina Beach, Fort Clinch, living history Spanish American War 1898.16 St. Augustine, Fort Mose histori-cal Society Annual Meeting, African American Community of Freedom Kerri Hampton (904) 471-1660.24 Largo, Pinellas County’s Heritage Village, 21st Annual Country Jubilee10-5 (727) 582-2123.

SuBScriPtioNS1 YEAR/FOUR ISSUES - $6.00This price will increase 1/1/99.Pleasesend name, address and phone # with check payable to Neily trappman Studio

Writers, artists, photographers may submit articles to us for concideration. Subject matter must be written in style appropriate for all age groups from the 4th grade into the golden years. This is not meant to be a scholarly publication but one to increase awareness of Florida’s rich and varied heritage.We want to celebrate our past, not dwell wholely on our failures.

Florida’s Fossil & Archaeology Clubs

AUCiLLA RiVER PREHiSTORY ProJect Florida Museum of Natu-ral History, University of Florida, Gainesville, Fl 32611. Contact:Joe Latvis. Phone: (352) 392-1721

BONE VALLEY FOSSiL SOCiETY 2704 Dixie Rd., Lakeland, FL 33801.Contact: Mary Harris, 130 E. Johnson Ave. #205.Lake Wales, FL 33853

FLORidA FOSSiL HUNTERS 320 W. Rich Ave., Deland, FL 32720-4128.Web Site:www.ao.net/~ffh/ffhweb/ffhweb.htm Contact:Dave Cass (407) 629-8508

FLORidA PALEONTOLOGiCAL SocietY, iNc. Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611. Contact:Eric Taylor Email: lilnbige@lc.gulfnet.com

FOSSiL CLUB OF MiAMi 12540 SW 37th Street, Miami, FL 33175. Email: Fossiltony@aol.com

PALEONTOLOGiCAL SOCiETY oF LEE COUNTY P.O. Box 151651, Cape Coral, FL 33915- 1651. Telephone: (941) 656-6111. Web Site: www.flmnh.ufl/org/Lee/PSLC.htm. Contact: Jerry Bond Email: fossdick@worldnet.att.netPhone: (941) 283-187

SPACE COAST FOSSiL HUNTERS 2125 N. Indian River Drive, Cocoa, FL 32922 C o n t a c t : L i b b y B r u b a k e r email:gloryb123@aol.comPhone: (407) 638-2061TAMPA BAY FOSSiL CLUB

C/O Frank Kocsis, Jr., 2913 Fair-field Ct., Palm Harbor, FL 34683. or Contact:Terry Sellari, P.O. Box 290561, Temple Terrace, FL 33687. Phone: (813) 968-6820

ARCHAEOLOGiCAL SOCiETY oF SOUTHERN FLORidA, 2495 NW 35th Ave., Miami, FL 33142

BroWArd couNtY ARCHAEOLOGiCAL SOCiETY 481 S. Federal Highway, Dania, FL 33004

CENTRAL FLORidA ANTHROPOLOGiCAL SOCiETY, P.O. Box 261, Orlando, FL 32801-0261

CENTRAL GULF COAST Ar-CHAEOLOGiCAL SOCiETY 7701 22nd Ave. N.St. Petersburg, FL 33682Contact: Wesly Powell

iNdiAN riVer ANthroPo-LOGiCAL SOCiETY3705 S. Tropical TerraceMerritt Island, FL 32952

KiSSiMMEE VALLEY ARCHAEOLOGiCAL & HiSTORiCAL coNSerVANcY,13300 U.S. 98, Sebring, FL 33870

NORTHEAST FLORidA ANTHROPOLOGiCAL SOCiETY,10274 Bear Valley RdJacksonville, FL 32257

PENSACOLA ARCHAEOLOGi-CAL SOCiETYP.O. Box 13251, Pensacola, FL 32591

ST. AUGUSTiNE ARCHAEOLOGi-CAL ASSOCiATiON P.O. Box 1987St. Augustine, FL 32085

SOUTHWEST FLORidA Ar-CHAEOLOGiCAL SOCiETY, P.O. Box 9965Naples, FL 33941

tiMe SiFterS ARCHAEOLOGY SOCiETYP.O. Box 2542, Sarasota, 34277

treASure coAStARCHAEOLOGiCAL SOCiETYP.O. BOX 2875Stuart, FL 34995

VOLUSiA ANTHROPOLOGiCAL SocietYP.O. Box 1881Ormond Beach, FL 32175

SPANISH AMERICAN WARhttp://pw2.netcom.com/~rhichox/saw1898.htm

SECOND SEMINOLEWARF.I.R.E.S. - Florida Indian

Reenactment Sociery newsletter E-mail okhmpkel@ix.netcom.com

www.geocities.com/yosem-ite/1743/seminole.html

AMERICAN CIVIL WARwww.cwc.lsu.edu/civlink.htmFLORIDA FRONTIERSMEN

homel.gte.net/haddo/frontier.htmARCHAEO/PALEO STUDIES

Aucilla River Projectwww.flmnh.ufl.edu/natsc./vertpa-

leo/arpp.htm

Great Web Sites !

Timucuan’s to Visit St. Petersburg, July 1716th Century Native American Camp

Boyd hill Nature trail, 1101 Countryside Way South

(727) 893-7326

Hands-on Activities • Stories • demonstrations

Friday 10:00A.M. - 4:00 P.M.FREE ADMISSION!

Sponsored by the Friends ofBoyd Hill Nature Trail, Inc.

Please let us know about your events, etc.

FLORidA HiSTORiCAL SOCiETYHistoric Roesch House1320 Highland Ave., Melbourne, FL 32935 (407) 690-0099Email wynne@metrolink.netwww.florida-soc.org

2

Kit continued from pg. 1

correspondent again.” She came in out of the sunshine a little dusty about the boots and confessing to feel a little tired, but she came down from her room soon afterward as fresh and cool as a watermelon. She had been around the camp but she said. It was very difficult for her, being a woman, to get information, but she had seen a good many people, and had picked up one or two little things of which she thought she would be able to make a story for her paper.” Later when the band was playing on the verandah of the Tampa Bay Hotel, Hands noticed that Kit “knew everybody worth knowing in a quarter of and hour” and was soon “introducing us to generals and colonels.” He wrote, “ she talked to the Cuban women and casually informed us she had got an interesting statement of a personal experience that she thought would throw a great deal of light in the Cuban question.... Before the evening was out she gave us the full details of an expedition to send arms and stores to the insurgents—news which we had unsuccessfully been trying to get.” Despite her credentials, Brigadier General William B. Shafter, refused to let her aboard the press boat heading for Cuba. Kit talked her way onto a decrepit U.S. gov-ernment freighter carrying war supplies. Her news paper ran headlines of her exploits: “Kit Follows the Course of the Escaping Spaniards”; Kit Talks to the Wounded”; “Kit Visits the Camp of Teddy’s Terrors”. Kit did not report on the glorious battle scenes like her male contemporaries. She

wrote passionately of the people the war affected. Spanish soldiers in a field hospi-tal were “living ghosts of men” with eyes sunken far in their sockets burning like lamps on the edge of extinction.” After the battle of Santiago, she described the city, “Here in Santiago, men, nobles and commoners alike, dying in filth and stench, and uttermost squalor; lying out there on the hills for the buzzard and the crab to feed upon. There was heartbreak in the thought of it; in the sight of all this hopeless suffer-ing. We are very little creatures. Very small and cheap and poor.” “Everywhere wagon, pack mules, gov-ernment stores, Red Cross packages. It is difficult to pick one’s way along the wharf. Big bales of hay piled on the ground; mule spans of six or eight animals; boxes, barrels

“Stay close to Miss Barton and the Red Cross.” No, it was no place for a woman—no place at all. Then came the thought of the brave creatures who were there wearing their lives out in the God-like work of nursing the ill. Clara Barton, no longer young, but as active, as clear of brain, as any woman of thirty-five. Far wiser than most, indeed. Clara Barton, working here day after day, in the heat, the stench; out at Siboney, close to the guns, feeding the hungry, nursing the wounded, with her little band of women, quiet, unassuming women—the very thought of it heartened one as one plodded down the white, dusty, baking street. Grumbling, indeed! Feeling hot and weary and dejected! The woman war

correspondent was sadly in need of a good shaking. Business is practically at a stand-still. The Cubans, fed by Miss Barton, seem to have fallen into a stolid leth-argy. They hand around the doors of the Red Cross barn or trail about the streets, or sit in the marketplace cook-ing queer things on ill smelling oil stoves. Greasy food, smelling of gar-lic, dark in color and repulsive to the stomach, lies simmering in saucepans and pots, and all about sit women, unwholesome-looking women nearly all black, and only half clothed. Some of these women wear a single, cotton garment, a sort of long, untidy wrapper, which they trail

of potatoes that, already decaying, send up their stench to mingle with the other foul odors. All these, and a thousand other things lie about as if thrown down hastily and forgotten. Ragged Cubans, black and white, swarmed everywhere. Naked children ran about dodging the flying feet of the horses that clattered along the cobblestones rid-den by orderlies and officers. The houses, low one-storied buildings with heavily-barred and glassless windows, are painted in gaudy tones of blue, yellow and red. The rugged tile roofs, terra cotta in color add to the picturesque look of these old, old houses. The effect on one is curious. The bottledneck harbor filled with sunken ships, through which you creep to the city, has something to do with the feeling of utter dejection that seizes you. It is as if you were cut off from everything fresh, sweet and wholesome. You feel as if in some weird dream you have drifted into a city in fairyland, but a fairyland in which dwell disordered and dilapidated fairies. The place looks utterly hopeless.” “The parting words of the kindly cap-tain of the Vixen thrummed in your brain. ‘This is no place for a woman. If ever you

needed a friend, you need one now,

after them in the dirt and dust. Others with an attempt at coquetry, have pinned absurd colored gewgaws in their hair, and display, spread over their shoulders, shawls of pink and blue. Sometimes you will come upon a creature showing in their thin and withered throat and flattened boson where Hunger had fastened her terrible claws. But amid all I found some laughter...” Kit returned to the United States a month later. She was invited by General Algers to go on a nation wide tour. She agreed only to speaking to the Press Union of Women Journalists in Washington, D.C. saying, “If I tell the women of the United States the awful things I have seen,” referring to the green young men used for cannon fodder,“you will have riots on your hands.”•

This drawing of a reconcentrado camp by William Allen Rogers was titled Starvation by Proclamation. General Wyler, head of the Spanish army, adopted a policy of gathering all Cuban loyalists into garrison towns and forbade the export of supplies to those who remained outside.

3

Kathleen “Kit” Blake Watkins is portrayed by Elizabeth Neily (left) at Spanish American War events and lectures.

“Kit’s one of the boys.”Charles E. Hand for the London Daily Mail

1864-1915

he finally gave up and signed papers mak-ing her the only accredited woman cor-respondent of the war. She joined the 134 indignant male correspondents in Tampa. Charles Hand of the London Daily Mail wrote, “What kind of a newspaper pro-prietor was it, who would send a tenderly nurtured lady around amidst the hardships, the bullets, the yellow fever germs of a Cuban war?” Kit won the respect and admiration of all the journalist when she scooped on a story they had been pursuing. Charles Hand’s article was published on June 13, under the headline, The Lady War Cor-respondent and How She Proved Herself One of the Boys. Hand wrote of this “tall, healthy, youngish woman, with a quiet self-reliant manner and alert, intelligent, enterprising look.” In the evening. when we had recovered from our siesta, we saw the woman war

“i am going to Cuba and not all the old generals in the old army are going to stop me.”

Braiding fiber available locally was once practiced throughout this country and the skill passed down from mother to daughter. In grain growing areas, straw was used; elsewhere wild grass, rush and sedge. Along southern coastal regions like Florida Sabal or “cabbage” palms was the fiber of choice. In 1846, the Boston Almanac listed five businesses importing palm leaves for hat making. In the 1870’s a flourishing palmetto craft industry sus-tained many a “cracker” family. The names of the various braid patterns reflect their origins: close-curl, fishtail, goose-eye, fishpot—the latter a weave copied from that used in the weav-ing of fishtraps.. Some of these skills may have been learned from Native American craft- women Decaying leaf stalks or “boots” of the Sabal palm cling to the trunk for many years giving it the name of the tree which wears boots.. Its fan-shaped leaves are shiny, deep green reaching five to eight feet long. The leaf should be harvested as soon as two or three inches of the stem shows above the wrapper or boot. (Cutting this second leaf from the tree does not injure the palm.) At this stage of development, the leaf is folded tight and pressed against the bud leaf, with no green except on the edges of the fronds. The best time to gather it is at the dark of the moon according to folk tradition. Since there are thirteen new moons every year you will be assured of a continuous crop. However the longest and heaviest leaves appear in the spring. harvest the tightly compressed, sword-shaped leaf by bending it outward and cutting it just above the arc of the stem. Tear the leaf apart along the folds, leaving the ends attached to the stem. Separate the fronds entirely as they will brown if not exposed to the air. cure the leaves by hanging them stem up in a protected place out of the sun but where the air will circulate around it. The leaves must be dried to allow for shrinkage. They will turn creamy white if handled properly. Do not store the leaves where the air cannot get to them as they will mildew. Strip the fronds from the stem and remove the ribs or edges by sticking a pin in the frond on the straight side at the stem end and stripping to the to the tapered end. Half a frond will yield about three strips about 1/4 inch wide. Soak to make them pliable. Do not soak too long however as they waterlog and will cause the weave to be too loosely woven once it has dried. The rule of thumb is to leave it in the water ten to fifteen minutes, then shake out the surplus water, roll the material in a damp towel and leave

See Braiding page 11

Rent-A-Rideof Pinellas County, Inc.www.rentahand.com

1135 Pasadena Ave., #160South Pasadena, FL 33707

Phone(727) 341-2117

We are part of a profound story. The landscape we hurry through in pursuit of our busy lives is ancient with the story of our kind. The soil beneath our lawn was once the stage for another people’s drama. Although their minds and bodies were just like ours, the world was different then, less influenced by humankind, closer to the shared symphony of all nature. They couldn’t separate from it. Everyone was a part of it. Little remains of their civilization. An occasional mound, a few artifacts, a place name, whispers of their passing, the heritage they have left behind. For most of us, the racket of our daily pace drowns out the music of their ancient song. A few of the mounds remain as notes in a once magical melody. A few mounds remain protected within park boundaries. Who were the people who built them and what is their story? Evidence seems to suggest that the earliest mounds in Florida are dough-nut shaped earthworks about 6,000 years old. They come from a time still veiled in mystery. These early mounds herald our earliest known pottery and they seem to share a similarity with mounds along the northern coast of Colombia in South America. These ring shaped mounds appear to be con-structed from the refuse of a shellfish diet. We often picture those ancient people as aimlessly tossing an oyster shell over their shoulder after lunch. Shell after shell the refuse pile grows into an Indian mound. Erase that im-age. Consider instead that shell is an intelligent use of natural resources. Although limestone is common in Florida, it is not in formations which would encourage its use as a building

material. The shape and abundance of shellfish offers a natural interlocking material which will hold up over a long period of time. Certainly ancient people realized this quality when returning to heaps of discarded food shells. Today, we mine shell for use as roadbed. Shell fill, allows water to drain very well while the shell mound maintains its shape. Shell may have been used as the foundation for their buildings along low lying coastal areas. It became the material of choice for permanent earthwork construction. Did those ring-shaped mounds indicate population centers which were involved in a wider local economy? Were they the spark of cities to come? We may never understand the cultural use of the earliest mounds. We can as-sume that their test of shell fill proved successful for future mound builders. Spanish Point, a fascinating his-torical park in Osprey (just south of Sarasota), protects one of these ancient ring shaped mounds. Open on one end,

the mound at Spanish Point is more horseshoe in shape. In 1901, Frank Guptill built a home on the summit of this archaic mound. Beautifully taken care of, you can visit the site and wonder at those early people and their world. Imagine Florida as a panorama of ancient people. As diverse as we are, they discovered, adapted, and changed. They struggled over this landscape. Trade routes opened, new people came, and older cultures shifted or were replaced. Visiting traders settled and were assimilated into the population. Communities fought over economy, an economy tied to the local landscape, and the use of its resources. It was a world of changing possibilities and people were motivated by scarcity and plenty and their passions. The ability to gain a consistent resource was the mechanism for stabil-ity. The native people of Florida must have been learning to develop several systems of provision. The growth of cities is dependent on a variety of reli-able resources. Cities did grow up here. Our ancient people did find answers. Little real research has been con-ducted in central Florida on the use of agriculture. Contrary to the early reports of the explorers, it is mostly as-sumed that the native people practiced limited farming, if any. Over and over again western scholars have asserted that the native diet was mainly shell-fish. Recently, fish have been added to that limited table. Evidence that red tide has com-monly plagued our seashores since ancient times is well established. In the New England area, the Native Ameri-cans warned the early European visi-tors not to take shellfish at certain times of the year. Shellfish as well as fish,

contaminated by red tide is poisonous. So, for a good chunk of the year, our coastal people didn’t eat seafood. When trying to construct a civiliza-tion based on our established perspec-tive, it constantly comes up short. If the mounds are an indication of a religious hierarchy and a population density which could support it, then it must follow that an economy must be at its foundation. It was once thought that the Mayan cities were just religious centers of an amiable nature worship-ing folk. Once mystical, the Mayan people are becoming more tangible. Like ourselves, they need to satisfy real desires and needs. The ancient people of Florida should be seen in the same bright (in-telligent) light. Cities grow from a number of rea-sons. There are cities which are tied to a network of trade routes, cities which link a resource, cities built around a certain industry, as well as cities which satisfy their growing population through agriculture.

By 350 A.D., a pattern began to develop of growing communities with an associated burial mound. Sacred mounds grew and began to define population areas right up through the period of first contact. The Gulf Coast of Florida is dot-ted with mounds and mound centers. Tampa Bay and the Central Gulf Coast is splashed with ancient cities. Downtown St. Petersburg is built on the foundation of a large city. Something allowed these cities to grow. Their inhabitants learned to maintain some constant source of in-come. The mound complex at Cedar Key and Crystal River are well developed. The cities around Tampa Bay were large for their time. Charlotte Harbor held several important cities, and, of course, there is Marco Island. These cities describe a real pattern of growth and development. These population centers offer a model of a flourishing economy, its demise, disappearance, and new beginnings. Although temple mounds come in an endless variety of shapes, their general appearance rose from a wide oval or rectangular base with a ramp on one of the long sides. The top was flattened and appears to have had a temple built on it. Many seem to have a solar orientation. As shell was used to build mounds, the forests provided most of the raw

material for constructing buildings. Supports for walls and beams for roofing were made out of tree trunks. Matting provided the structure for the walls. Clay was plastered to the matting to finish the walls. The roofs were thatched with palm leaves. Out-buildings, homes, and storage build-ings seem to come in a variety of sizes. The early descriptions do not tell us whether their houses were round or long. Cabeza de Vaca, in his 1528 nar-rative, describes a great house which could comfortably house 300 people. Menéndez visited the Calusa great house which could hold 2,000. Were the great houses like those of the Nors-men in that they were the center of political power? The mounds surely were the places of religious power. descriptions by pioneers and early explorers hint at the extent and complexities of these ancient cities. The first description is by John Bethel, an early pioneer of the Pinellas (St. Petersburg) area. John settled at little Bayou in 1859. In later years he wrote a description of Point Pinellas. “As the mound stands on high timbered land about a quarter of a mile from the present beach line, the transportation of shell thither is a problem. The remains of a causeway reaching the top of the mound and gently sloping toward the south may Ancient ring Shaped mounds are scattered from the southern coast of

georgia and Florida all the way to the northern coast of Columbia

Temple mounds come in a variety of shapes. Although not always easy to realize, they seem to have a solar orientation.

See Ancient Cities page 10

our ANcieNt citieSby Hermann Trappman

4

Other Worlds

JuneteenthCelebrating Freedom

My friend Elizabeth, whom I have christened “Elizabeth the up-lifting,” asked me to write an article for the African-American Juneteenth commemoration, which is a series of freedom festivals celebrating the Emancipation Proclamation.

By way of background, the his-tory of Juneteenth originates during the Civil War on September 22, 1862 when President Abraham Lincoln is-sued a preliminary proclamation an-nouncing that if the seceded southern states did not lay down their arms and return to the Union by January 1, 1863, he would declare their slaves to be “forever free.”

As the secessionists continued in defiance, the final version of the Eman-cipation Proclamation was signed Jan-uary 1, 1863 and freed only the slaves of the rebellious territories. It did not address slave issues in the north or elsewhere in the states and territories. In that context, the linchpin document upon which all Juneteenth festivities are based was, technically, an exercise in pragmatism. It was a political tool used as an incentive to save the Union rather than a pure commitment to the principles of freedom. The text of the declaration admits that those slaves affected by the proclamation are freed only as “a fit and necessary war mea-sure for suppressing rebellion.” Nevertheless, with the ratifica-tion of the Thirteenth Amendment on December 18, 1865, all slaves were constitutionally liberated: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any other place subject to their jurisdiction.” Juneteenth “holidays” erupted spontaneously and spread like brush-

fires wherever slaves were living when they heard the news. By messenger on horseback, by stagecoach, by military dispatch and special attaché announce-ments were sent out to the states and territories. In Kentucky and Tennessee, Juneteenth was August 8th, in Georgia and Alabama, along the banks of the Chattahoochee River, Juneteenth was May 28th. In Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865, General Gordon Granger, accompanied by a regiment of Union soldiers, read General Order No. 3 declaring the freedom of all slaves in Texas. Louisana, Arkansas and Okla-homa quickly joined the lone Star State in their regional emancipation celebra-tions And thus, Juneteenth was born. How ironic, then, that the arrival of Juneteenth ’98 in Jasper County, Texas is marked by the hate-crime killing of a black man. James Byrd, Jr. was beaten, chained and dragged behind a pickup truck, then decapitated and dismembered. Three white men were arrested, two of whom were tattooed with the names of white supremacists groups. Jasper County sheriff Billy Rowles spoke to reporters like a man embar-rassed by his family, as if he found it painful to discuss such things. Perhaps the best years of “sheriffin’” were finally over and the events of that day caused him visible suffering. “We’re almost positive,” he said very slowly, “ that this murder is racially motivated.” I wondered what aspect of the case was in doubt? It has been said that black men with a strong death wish move to Texas. That may not be fair to Texas. After all, it was the late Fannie Lou Hamer speaking at the National Democratic Convention of ’64 who wondered aloud in full view of the nation whether or not Mississippi was still part of America?

by Althea England

Moreover, Alabama, Arkansas, Geor-gia, Louisiana and the Carolinas have never enjoyed a reputation for southern hospitality towards people of color after dark. And if those in glass houses should not throw stones, let us review the exceptionally bad manners of the Sunshine State. According to the Florida Hand-book, 1997-98, Brooksville may have been named for Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina Congressman Brooks supported the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1856 which permitted the expansion of slavery into new territories by allowing the slave question to be decided by the settlers. Brook’s uncle, Senator A. P. Butler of South Carolina, also sup-ported the Kansas-Nebraska Bill and was vehemently criticized for his stand by Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner. When Brooks heard that his relative had been verbally attacked, he found Sumner in the Senate chamber and broke a gutta-percha cane over

his head, leaving him insensible on the floor. Senator Sumner never fully recovered from the assault.

In a line of dialogue from the film, “The Learning Tree,” a blind man who has not seen the world for 30 years imagines an entirely new world of people with purple hair, green noses, blue arms and legs, orange ears. No individual color pattern is exactly like any other . “If people were all differ-ent colors,” says the blind man, “what a happy world it would be. Nobody, nobody the same.”

Historian Barbara Fields makes a final comment at the end of Ken Burns’ “Civil War” masterpiece. She reminds us that to the extent that we allow artificial accidents of birth to divide us as a people, the Civil War is still being fought, and, regrettably, can still be lost. These humble words are my gift to my friend, Elizabeth the Uplifting, as together we celebrate Juneteenth 1998.

Sons of the Confederacy offer an open-ing for better understanding.

Above Musician, Ote Obasi, explains to children about how to get rich on life with “Resourceful Thinking”Left Crowds discover great food and crafts at Tampa Bay’s Junteenth celebration.

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“You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.” Malcolm X (1925-65), The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations is licensed from Columbia University Press. Copyright © 1993 by Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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Remember to tell our sponsors that you saw their ad in theFlorida Frontier Gazette

5

the MoSt SPECTACULAR ShoW oN eArthby Hermann Trappman

Sometimes, before the alarm clock hauls me out of slumber’s comfort, before the ritual that starts my day and sends me off to work, I lay awake and let night shadows crawl back under the bed. I let my imagination draw me back toward Florida’s rich past. This gentle landscape which has allowed our sprawling progress, falls into the background and disappears. I’ve got my favorite places. The city which crowned Roser Park (Down-town St. Petersburg) before the coming of the first Europeans, the nomadic paleo hunters when Florida was twice this size, herds of prehistoric horse mixed in with southern mammoth, islands ringed by emerald waters, their beaches littered with colorful sea shells now extinct, and then the islands too are gone. It’s early June just before dawn and I find myself drifting in a rowboat. Oars, hanging loose under my rest-ing hands, rise and fall with the wide gentle swells. The slightly acid odor of old wood soaked with saltwater adds a hint of spice to the fresh ocean breeze. I gather myself up, searching the horizon. The Tampa Bay area is totally submerged, resting beneath the blanket of ancient tides. The east only hints a faint violet gray. The sky above me is still splashed with a myriad of stars. The time of the Ocala up-lift will happen 40 million years from now. The closing of the present Isthmus of Panama is more than 62 million years in the future. I have gone back 65 mil-lion years to see a truly spectacular event. Gripping the oars, I pull, swinging the bow of the boat to the northeast. I face the stern, watching the south-eastern horizon. Behind me, a school of minnows dances across the surface with a rushing noise. A wide slow swell lifts the boat. The violet streak of sky in the east intensifies. The stars have just begun to fade. A light breeze tarnishes the still dark water and cools my arms and face. The left-hand oar bumps up against the side of the boat with a hol-low thump, bump. Something in the waiting darkness lets out a sputtering hiss of breath. Mosasaurs were still liv-ing in the late Cretaceous age. I hesitate a glance in the direction of the sound. Nothing but dark water. From the south-southeast there is a streak. Close to the horizon, it laonly

a split second, and then the flash. The Tampa Bay area is six hundred miles away from the point of impact, but the flare seems to fill the entire southern sky almost immediately. If the fireball is moving at ten miles per second, then it will take a minute to reach me. As the comet hit the northern edge of the Yucatan Peninsula, it caused a crater 120 miles across, vaporizing the landscape it struck. The initial explosion produced heat of about ten thousand degrees, melting a sixty mile wide crater. As the blast spread away from the point of impact, it carried a blizzard of tiny beads of molten sand. I wait in breathless expectation. For the next few seconds there isn’t any sound, just an intense ball of light. The incredibly loud sonic boom is too far away and will never reach us.Below, the Florida plateau begins to tremble with the passing seis-mic waves. When the blast comes, the splintering boat flames out of existence in wink. The shriek of heaven and earth, becoming one, is lost in the totality of white confusion. It becames itself, the only thing in all of existence, screaming white light. The ocean convulses, sending a wave between 150 and 300 feet high slamming into North America, South America, and Europe. Waves crash through the shallow inland sea cov-ering the central plains of the U.S. After the passing waves, in the burning light, the Florida plateau lay suddenly exposed. A dust storm, thrown into space by the explosive impact, turns the sky to fire as it falls. The leading edge of the continental shelf sur-rounding the west coast of Florida collapses into the Gulf’s deep basin. Then, masses of steaming clays and sand crashed against its shores. The heavens blaze as a rain of shattered rock and fiery elongated tear drop glass beads fall. The returning sea roars and boils with torment. The southwest-ern horizon casts an ugly reddening glow across the darkening sky. A corridor of fire, from the coast of California to the Appalachian Moun-tains, lashes across North America. The original fireball spreads all the way to Siberia. South America and Europe burn. There is a world wide ash fall for days after the explosion. The charred rubble of the world’s forest leaves 90 percent of the known types of leaf-bearing trees and plants extinct. Then, the acid rain begins to fall. The global

overcast lasts many months and causes temperatures to drop to about freezing. The Age of the Dinosaurs was over. In northeastern Mexico, the deposited layer is more than nine feet thick. In Antarctica, an extensive layer of fish fossils is left behind. The die-off of marine phytoplankton, the foundation of the oceanic food chain, takes many marine species with it. The ancestors of every living species somehow made it through this incredible disaster.

Mornings like this really get the heart rate going. It puts the problems of the day laying ahead in a crisp new perspective and helps enclose oppor-tunities with a certain gusto.

CHiCXULUB (Chic-zu-lub) Named for a tiny town at its center, the crater lies on the northwestern corner of the Yucatan Peninsula. More than half of it spreads out into the Gulf of Mexico. Since its discovery in 1981, the crater and its

impact has been the source of much scholarly debate. Did it really end the age of dinosaurs? Was it a comet or an asteroid? Were there more than one impact? Did it cause volcanism in other parts of the world? Answers are dependent on evi-dence. Evidence is dependent on luck, the ability to target the right questions, and financial support. The debate swirl-ing around the crater is the essential shake down of information. The KT boundary is a world wide seam of iridium in the layer which spelled the end of the age of dinosaurs. This led Luis Alvarez and his geolo-gist son to the suggest a collision from space. The size of Chicxulub and the amount of iridium suggests that it was a comet which came to earth 65 million years ago. An asteroid of the same size, would have left much more. Today, Chicxulub rests under three thousand feet of more recent deposits. Its core of melted rock is more than 55 miles wide. A partial ring of sink-holes (cenotes), arcing around its outer cra-ter wall, is the only modern evidence. Their pattern suggests that the crater is over 150 miles wide. It is estimated that the impact would have been equal to a 10 on the Richter scale. (San Fransisco in 1906 was a 8.5). Tiny beads of glass found in KT boundary deposits in Mexico and Haiti seem to match the date and the chem-istry of Chicxulub. The shape of the crater suggests that the comet entered earth’s atmosphere at a rather low angle of 20° to 30°. Its impact would have released greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide and sulfate, into the atmosphere causing acid rain.•

For further reading: T. rex and the Crater of Doom by Walter AlvarezPrinceton University Press, 1997ISBN 0-691-01630-5Wonderful introduction to the subject for general readership.

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WeB SiteS

Safety harbour Museum of regional history

Native Plant SaleSeptember 12

9:00a.m.-3:00p.m.(come early!)

• Autumnal Plants • Butterfly Garden Plants • Vegetables • Herbs

329 Bayshore Blvd. S. Safety Harbor FL (727) 726-1668

All proceeds benefit Safety Harbor Museum of Regional History

Search for Chicxulub

1) dsaing.uqac.uquebeca/~mhiggins/MIAC/chicxulub.htm2) diamond.ge.ic.uk/jb03/jb03/web/chicx/cfaq.html

St. Petersburg Little Theatre presents a

apestry of International TalesJuly 24-26 & July 31- Aug. 2 8:00 p.m.T

Four Captivating Storytellers• Judy Weingarten - German folk tales Hansel & Gretel and Big Quiet House

• Elizabeth Neily - Tales of ancient FloridaGrandmother Woodstork and Gatah Huntin’

• Jennifer Samuel - Carribean and Ghana LoreYiyi, the Spider, & the Sticksapman,& Annancy

• Caryl Ann Johnson - Stories from Arabian NightsKamar & the Flying Horse

Directed by A. Paul Johnson

$5:00 Adults - $2.50 Kids under 12Reservations (727) 866-1973

4024 31st Street So.St. Petersburg, FL

A Letter hometampa Boy in cuba

Murille Shear, aged 15 years, son of Mr. G.W. Shear, of this city, left here with the second Massachucettes volunteers on the Shafter expedition to Cuba on June 14th and the first heard from him was a letter received a few days ago by his father. He gives a good accont of his experience with the Army in front of Santiago.

Age of Reason

Clearwater Books

Attic Bookshop

F.c. & P. train derailed by Washout 3 Miles From town.

The South bound Florida Central and Peninsular railroad train due here at 5:50 p.m., was badly wrecked while coming into the city yesterday after-noon and it was great wonder that all the passengers escaped with their lives and without serious injury. The train was running about 30 miles an hour, according to passsenger statements, when about threee miles from the Tampa depot struck a wash-out. The engine passed over in safety, but the tender was derailed and every coach was jammed upon each other in a mass of confusion. The baggage car was thrown to one side of the track, and the trunks inside were pitched about promisciously. Baggagemaster Wilson was struck by several of the trunks and was the most badly injured of anyone on the train. He was taken out of the wreck and brought to Tampa on the engine about 6 o’clock and given necessary surgical treatment. The first passenger coach was thrown to the south of the track; the next coach swung to the north, and the first class coach on the rear was pitched far to the south, but telescoped to some extent with the preceeding coach. The wreck was a bad one, and it is doubtful it can be cleared by tonight, but a large force of men were at once put to work, and a wrecking train was sent for from Jacksonville. The road bed had washed out from under the rails on and embankment adjoining a trestle over a drain.Tampa Tribune August 7, 1898 •

Train wreck outside Tampa. Wamsley Collection. Courtesty of U.S.F. Special Collections

Washday in camp. Wamsley Collection.

“Grubbing out” palmetto roots was all in a days work for troops setting up camp around Tampa. Wamsley Collection. Courtesty of U.S.F. Special Collections.

He began by saying that upon their arrival, the soldiers were not given any rations, and consequently he and three companions who went with the regiment had nothing to eat for two whole days but magroves[?] and coconuts.

“I tell you we got pretty hungry,” said young Shear in his let-ter. He tells of the march from the landing place to Sibony and of see-ing considerable of the fighting duing the battles around Santiago. In the letter he says. “ T h e S p a n i a r d s would shoot the wounded men on the litters and shoot the men carrying

the litters. They would also shoot the surgeons and the wounded men in the hospital tents. They would shoot the men filling their canteens in the creeks, and the men would fall dead in the water. Some of the negro soldiers were placed where they could locate the

The teamsters had their problems as well. Six mules drawing a government wagon created quite a sensation when they cut lose on Franklin Street. Half dozen soldiers were in the wagon at the time and their yells with the rattle of the runaway outfit scared the hackmen along the side

Spaniards, and they killed four Span-ish sharpshooters in the trees directly over the ford. One of the sharpshooters shot a wounded man on a litter and then dropped down out of the tree with both hands up. A negro soldier junping toward the Spaniard, cursed him and said: ‘you can’t [do] that.’ Then he knocked the Spaniard’s brains out with the butt of his gun.” Young Shear was on board the transport Santiago on the day the Spanish fleet came out of the harbor, and witnessed the destruction of the fleet. He gives a good account of it. He said that he intended to return on the Santiago, and as that ship is now at Port Tampa, it is very probable that the young man is in the detention camp at Egmont Key. • FromTampa Tribune August 9, 1898

of the street almost into spasms. But fortunately no damage was done and they were finally brought under control. Then in another incident that same night an army team-ster was robbed of his monthly wages by two villainous charac-ters who had slipped up behind him and sandbagged him. The Tribune warned that people who walked about Tampa at night should carry a gatling gun and know how to use it!

Then at Fort Brooke, the

fence containing the army’s h

gggggg

teAMSter tROUBLES400 mules were shipped to Cuba through Tampa. Hampton Dunn Coll.

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Then at Fort Brooke the fence containing the horses was not strong enough and one evening the entire herd was spooked and spent several hours rampaging through the streets before they were finally rounded up. Reportedly, one could follow the prog-ress of the herd by the cloud of dust that followed them as they rampaged down one street after another. •

FortS dAde & deSoto

by A.M. de Quesada, Jr. On a quite night on February 15, 1898, an explosion tore apart the Unit-ed States battleship Maine in Havana harbor, Cuba. Two hundred sixty-six lives were lost with the ship and war with Spain was declared nine weeks later. The citizens of Tampa feared that the Spanish Royal Navy would capture the islands at the mouth of Tampa Bay and from there attack Tampa. Henry B. Plant, a well-known railroad magnate who had placed his tracks across Flori-da and especially in Tampa, demanded to some of his political friends in Wash-ington that Tampa Bay must be pro-tected; and, for Tampa to be the staging point for an American expeditionary force to invade Cuba and Puerto Rico. Congress quickly passed a bill and alloted money for the fortification of Tampa Bay. Construction hastily began in April of 1898 at Egmont Key and further plans were made to establish a more permanent type of fortification on the two keys. “On July 30, 1898, an allotment of $150,000 was made for a 12-inch mortar battery on Mullet Key. Field work began in November and the work was completed in the Spring of 1900” (Sarles p.5). The battery was to be constructed with emplacements to hold eight mortars and a narrow guage railroad was also constructed to bring the huge mortar shells to the battery from the pier. The eastern two-thirds of Mullet Key was stransferred by the War Department to the Treasury Department, for use as a Quarantine Station, in 1899. “The rest of Mullet Key became the Fort DeSoto Military Reservation by General Orders No. 43, War Department, of April 4, 1900, which also gave the name of Fort Dade to that on Egmont Key” (Sarles p.5). Within the same time span of the con-struction of the mortar battery in Mullet Key, four batteries were being built on Egmont Key. The first battery was constructed on the southern end of Egmont Key and its three gun emplacements were designed to guard the entrance into the South Channel. The emplace-ments held two 6-inch Q.F. Armstrong Rifles on pedestal mounts and one 15-pounder rapid firing gun on a bal-anced pillar mount. This one of the few forts of the era to bear the year of its construction, 1898, upon its steps to the gun emplacements. A command headquarters for the southern battery was constructed under a mound of earth and was located a few hundred feet inland from the battery. Further up along the beaches of the

island, another battery, armed with two 8-inch high power guns on disappear-ing carriages, was constructed facing west into the Gulf of Mexico. The other two batteries were lo-cated on the very northern end of the island. One of the batteries was located a few hundred yards from the one fac-ing west and was armed with the same 8-inch high-power guns. The next bat-tery was built on the northern tip of the island, near the lighthouse reservation, and had command of Egmont Channel. It was armed with three15-pounder rapid firing guns. The post command headquarters, as well as the various warehouses, for both Forts Dade and DeSoto were located nearby. A more sophisticated guage railroad system was established on Fort Dade and was located throughout the island. The rails began at the pier on the northern tip of the island, where ammunition and supplies were picked up from military transports, and led to the northern, middle, and southern batteries. The dozen or so cars were pulled by a steam driven locomotive and upon one of these cars was mounted a flood light with a powerful beam of light with a range of fifteen or more miles.

Both military posts on Egmont and Mullet Keys were placed under the supervision of the post commander at Fort Dade and the forts were treated as a single unit. Forts Dade and DeSoto were to concentrate their fire in unison when there was any attempt by the en-emy to enter the harbor in Tampa Bay. The new fortifications that were being built in Tampa Bay were based on the Endicott System, in which concrete batteries replaced the old notion of brick fortification. On Mullet Key, another concrete battery, armed with two 15-pounder Driggs-Seabury rapid firing guns, was constructed in front of the mortar bat-tery in 1901. Around 1902, the mortars were mounted at Fort DeSoto and the 15-pounder guns were to be installed within the next following year. “On May 25, 1903, the mortar battery was

named Battery Laidley, and the other, Battery Bigelow” (Sarles p.6). On both islands barracks and officers quarters were constructed, with Fort Dade re-sembling a small town. “In addition to artillery emplacements, roads, houses, a garrison, a jail and a school — some 70 structures in all — were eventually built on the island [of Egmont Key]” (Hill p.2-F). The first units to be sta-tioned at the posts were detachments of the 1st Company, Coast Artillery. The batteries at Fort DeSoto became an independent post from Fort Dade on February 10, 1904 and remained an independent post until its inactivation in 1910. During a con-struction project on Fort Dade around April 1907, Fort DeSoto became a temporary headquarters for the Tampa Bay coastal artillery. That same month, the 1st Company was replaced by the 39th Company as the new tenants for the forts. In October of 1907, May of 1908, and October of 1909, the new troops were hosts to various elements of the 1st and 2nd Infantry of Florida’s National Guard in joint excercises on coastal defenses at the two forts. Another local artillery unit, the 1st Company, Coast Artillery Corps of the National Guard of Florida, had partici-pated in these excercises as well. On June 8, 1910, Fort DeSoto was deactivated as a post and a caretaking detachment, consisting of the 111th and 116th Companies, was sent from Fort Dade to maintain DeSoto’s guns and mortars. With America’s entry into the First World War, a call was sent out for rapid military mobilization and

for heavy guns to be sent to the front. Therefore,“four of DeSoto’s eight mor-tars were shipped away early in 1917, and the protective detachment there was increased during the war” (Sarles p.6). At the end of the war, on August 31, 1921, Fort Dade was deactivated and the majority of its troops were sent to Key West. A small caretaking detachment was left behind to maintain Forts Dade and DeSoto. It was during this period that the buildings of the two forts began to deteriorate, due to a lack of funds. On May 11, 1963, Mullet Key was dedicated as the Fort DeSoto Park and became part of Pinellas County’s park system. The mortar battery, Battery Laidley, is now preserved intact with its four remaining 12-inch mortars. However, the battery for the two 15-pounder rapid firing guns, Battery Bigelow, couldn’t be saved from the many tropical storms of Florida and from ongoing beach erosion. Its re-mains can still be detected not too far away from the recreational pier. Fort DeSoto’s batteries joined the National Register of Historical Places on June 22, 1977. Egmont Key was declared a Wild Life Refuge in 1974 and was named to the National Register of Historic Places in January of 1979. Since 1980, Egmont Key restoration and preservation work has been carried out by the Egmont Key Alliance, a state recognized citizen support group. Now through September, lighthouse and island tours will be offered every 2nd and 4th weekend. Exursions boats leave John’s Pass at Hubbard’s Sea Adventures, (727)398-6577. Mention the Alliance for discounted rates.•

From Attack!

Protecting Tampa BayVisitors to Ft.De Soto Parkin South Pi-nellas County can still see these rare cannons in-stalled in 1898 to protect our coast.

8

With soldiers and civilians return-ing from Cuba, State officials became increasingly alarmed over the lack of adequate quarantine facilities in Port Tampa. Yellowfever, or yellow jack, was an infectious tropical disease trans-mitted by mosquitoes, characterized by high fever, jaundice, and dark-colored vomit resulting from gastrointestinal hemorrhaging. In 1878, a yellow fe-ver epidemic had swept the U.S. Gulf Coast states and Tennessee, killing an estimated 14,000. Some 4,500 die at New Orleans alone and 5,150 die up the Mississippi at Memphis. So in May, Egmont Key was chosen as the site of a quarantine detention camp. It was located 2 miles from Mullet Key where the State Quarantine was located. The hot sultry summer on this des-ert island, 25 miles from Port Tampa, must have been insufferable for those forced to stay there for the quarantine period. The island swarmed with mos-quitoes and steamed in the scorching summer sun. Dr. H. D. Geddings, the medical of-ficer assigned to the island, reported on May 31 that 9 acres were being cleared at $100 dollars per acre. He explained high cost was due to the “numerous palmetto trees [that] must be grubbed out by the roots and carted away, the holes being filed up and ground lev-eled. This is not only necessary to clear the ground, but the trees themselves harbor all kinds of insects, mostly of a dangerous kind, as scorpions, centi-pedes, etc.” Once construction began Geddings ordered a fumigating shed ($800), 4 water tanks holding 2500 gallons ($200). and 2 store houses 24 by 90 feet and 24 by 40 feet to hold tents and heavy material ($2500.) Because there was a military garrison on the island, he also recommended that a wire fence of at least seven wires be installed ($500) to keep Naval reserves from straying into the quarantine area. In addition to miscellaneous expenses, he ordered kitchen equipment from the John Van Range Company of Cincinnati, Ohio. On Saturday, July 30 the camp opened with the surprise arrival of the troop ship, Santiago, from Cuba. At that time Geddings staff consisted of Hospital Steward Richardson, 1 engineer, 1 cook, 2 carpenters and 8 guards and laborers . He described a grim picture of that first day. “The landing was commenced and completed in the ship’s boats by 2 p.m. and everyone housed or tented and fed. The number had increased from the reputed 130 to 187 by actual count. Many

YELLOW JACKthe terror of the south

of them, the whole company consisted of officers and enlisted men, should never have been sent on shipboard at the time. Many were barely convales-cent from yellow fever and had just been discharged from the hospital at Siboney; some were suffering from commencing and advanced attacks of enteric fever; there were cases of dys-entery, and cases of malarial disease too numerous to mention. The condi-tion of things may be imagined when I state that the first sick calls morning and afternoon after the arrival occupied respectfully four and two and one-half hours. Almost all were in a condition of pitiable prostration, and I think I am within bounds when I stated that there were not twenty well men in the entire lot.” If the condition of the troops was bad, it did not improve much over the next few days when “on Monday afternoon, a heavy rain, accompanied by a much rain, set in. Both increased in violence, and by midnight it was blowing a full gale, with occasional bursts of hurricane violence. Daylight revealed the fact that the thirteen of the new mosquito-proof tents were completely destroyed; two wall tents were torn to pieces; bedding was blown away and never recovered. The tents in which the officers had been quartered had suffered the most, and as rapidly they were gotten into one of the mess rooms and storeroom and put into toler-ably dry beds.” The men well enough to travel

were released from quarantine, their baggage disinfected and put on the steamship Sequranca heading for New York on the steamship. Most of the of-ficers elected to complete their ten day detention at Egmont Key, then caught a train north from Port Tampa. Their places were promptly taken by a lot of [army]teamsters and steve-dores from waiting transports” from Cuba.CLARA BARTON Clara Barton and her Red Cross staff were among those detained at Egmont Key. The time of detention had been reduced by August from ten to five days. The last refugee from Cuba was sent home on October 1st. Dr. Ged-dings was “compelled to go sick leave himself on September 27 from the effects of malaria while almost every one who has been connected with the camp has had attacks of malarial fever of more or less intensity.” Of the 688 people detained at Egmont Key only 6 died and no cases of yellow jack ever appeared. The Acting Assistant Surgeon, G.M. Corbut drew attention to what he considered “the most serious drawback of the camp”. It was necessary to deal for almost all their supplies directly or indirectly with the Plant System which charged exorbitant prices on everything. Source: The Annual Report of the Supervising Surgeon-General or the Marine-Hospital Service of the United States for the Fiscal Year 1898.

ANgrY iS JohN JAcoB AStorJuly 27, Mullet Key

“The steamship Aransas of the Morgan line, one of the Government transports arrived from Santiago Mon-day night and is now in quarantine at the Mullet Key station. On board is Colonel John Jacob Astor, of General Shafter’s staff, Sylvester Scoval and other newspaper correspondents who were banished from Cuba through Schafter’s orders. Colonel John Jacob Astor has been making every effort to secure a modi-fication of the quarantine regulations, so as to permit his coming to Tampa and proceeding to Washington with the important dispatches that he has from General Shafter. So far the colo-nel has been unsuccessful, and is still detained with the deported newspaper correspondents on board the transport. Dr. Glennan, the Marine Hospital surgeon, and Dr. Echmendia, the State Quarantine officer have declared posi-tively that not a man will be allowed to leave the ship. They say there are several cases of sickness on board the Aransa, and while none of the cases are in any way suspicious, they will take no chances and the vessel will have to undergo the usual detention and disin-fected before she can enter port. The regulations of the State quar-antine requires that the vessel be detained a sufficient length of time to make ten days from the time she left Santiago. The collector of customs has stated that if Colonel Astor or any one else succeeds in getting away from the ship, he will be sent back under armed guard and prosecuted for attempting to violate the quarantine law. The people of Tampa, and of the entire State are deeply interested in the outcome of this case, for if the government officers succeed in secur-ing a modification of quarantine, then no further dependence can be placed in the regulations. Colonel Astor has sent several messages to the War Department stat-ing the situation as looked upon by the people on the steamer. He has, it has been said, even made threats but all has been of no avail, and he is still virtually a prisoner. The military authorities here are a unit in supporting the quarantine authorities, and say that if Colonel Astor was in such a hurry, he should have gone on a steamer up the Atlantic instead of coming to a gulf port. In referring to the newspaper men ion board the Aransas, the New York Herald of Monday has the following from its Santiago correspondent.Journalists Expelled by Shafter“In the case of Sylvester Scovel, who was expelled by General Shafter, it was deemed he shall never again enter the United States military lines or board United States War ships.

Caldwell Realty

See Astor page 13

9

have assisted in making the deposit of shell. The Mound is elongated in an almost east and west line. The slope of the sides is abrupt, except on the south, as mentioned. The stop at the south end had once been leveled off for fifteen or twenty feet and terraced over.…vandal hands have preyed upon it so often that now there is scarcely a vestige of the terrace to be seen. About three-quarters of a mile west and fronting the bay…is the eastern extremity of an inter-esting ridge or mound, which curves northward and westward, traversing about a quarter of a mile, and comes back along Maximo Road to the bay, then recurves eastward twenty rods or more along the waters edge, with the extremity again thrown back toward the west like the end of a monster’s tail. It encloses ten or more acres, and is generally called the serpent mound. …the slope to the landward side is quite steep… From Maximo Road west and along the bay is a regular tumble of mounds of all shapes and sizes. …this extends another quarter of a mile to Point Maximo. Jutting out from this mound-base run two long straight ridges or spurs in a northerly direction to the length of several hundred feet, and still six to eight feet high. They resemble rail-road embankments… A short distance north, at the edge of a bayhead, is still to be seen a waterhole where the earth excavated was thrown up in the middle of two basins, making a solid passage way between. There are many isolated mounds in the lower point. There is a handsome group on Big Bayou.”

The following is a description of Pineland as Frank Hamilton Cush-ing found it in 1896. Today, the little which remains of this ancient city is a State Archaeological Site. Although the site is primarily a research area for archaeologists, it is hoped that Pineland will open as an educational facility in a year or so.

“The foundations, mounds, courts, graded ways and canals here were greater, and some of them even more regular, than any I had yet seen. On

the hither or seaward side many en-closures,… flanked wide benches or garden platforms, through or over which led paths, mostly obliterated by cultivation now. The same sorts of channel-ways as occurred on the outer keys led up to the same sorts of

terraces and great foundations, with their cor onets of gigantic mounds. The inner or central courts were enormous. Nearly level with the swamps on the one hand, and with the sand fats on the other, these muck-beds… were framed in, so to say, by quadrangles formed by great shell structures which, founda-tion terraces, summit-mounds and all, towered above them to a height of more than sixty feet. There were no fever than nine of these greater foundations, and within or among them no fewer than five large, more or less rectangular courts; and, beyond all, to the southward, was a long series of lesser benches, courts and enclosures, merging off into scarce visible fragments in the white, bare stretches of sand flats. Suffice it, if I say, that this settlement had an average width of a quarter of a mile, and extended along the shore of Pine Island—that is from north to south more than three-quarters of a mile; that its high-built portions alone, including of course, the five water courts, covered an area of not less than seventy-five or eighty acres. The tuner courts were all, except one, fur-nished with outlets that had originally opened through short canals in to the strait that had separated the key from the main island. The single exception referred to was notable. The midmost of these inner courts,… overgrown with enormous mangrove, buttonwood and other trees, was, or had been, con-nected with the sea by a canal that led into it between two long, very high shell elevations, which flanked it on either side of the western end. From the opposite end of the court another canal led directly eastward into the pine lands. …in the court of the canals I found the finest and best preserved relics I had yet discovered, I will only describe this landward canal and the gigantic mounds and other inland works to which it led. It extended in a straight line almost due eastwardly across the sand flats, that were, at this point, very narrow, and heavily over grown with canebrakes and high grasses; while beyond, palmettos and yuccas covered the entire plain far into the pine-lands. It was uniformly about thirty feet wide, and though of

Ancient Cities, from page 4.

course now much filled, especi ally between the shell-made levees that crossed the flats, it still main tained an even depth of between five and six feet. A few yards beyond where it entered the higher level of the pine lands, there was a little outlet from its

southern Side, which led straight to what had been an enormous artificial pond or oval lake, that was still so boggy I could not traverse it. From the opposite end of this lake, in turn, led for nearly a quarter of a mile further, in a generally southeastern direction, but not in a straight line, another and lesser canal. It terminated in another artificial lake, that extended east and west, and in the middle of this stood, crosswise, a gigantic and shapely mound. This mound was oval in outline, fifty-eight feet high, some three hundred and seventy-five feet in length and a little more than one hundred and fifty feet in the width at its base. A graded way wound around it spirally from the southern base to the summit, which was comparatively narrow, but long and level like the tops of the shell mounds on the keys. As cending this mound, I found that it had been built up of sand and thin strata of sea-shells alternately, and that to the presence of these strata of shells had been due, probably, the remarkable preservation of its form. Potsherds of fine quality, chalky re-mains of human bones, broken shell ladles—their bottoms significantly punctured—all demonstrated the fact that this mound, which obviously had been used as the foundation of a temple structure, had also served as a place of burial. Due northeast from it, half a mile farther in, might be seen another and even larger mound, double, not single-crested, like this. The great canal, a branch of which opened into the encircling lake of this mound also, led on directly past it, and could be plainly traced, even from this distance, through the palmetto-covered plain beyond. Again, in a southwest direc-tion, not quite so far away, I could discern among the scattered pines a hummock, comparatively low and

small, but regular and overgrown thickly with palmettos and brambles. It, too, proved to be a mound, mostly of shell, but probably built for burial purposes, yet furnished like these two larger ones, with a contiguous lake or pond hole, from which also led a slight canal to the near-by sand flats. Return-ing to the greater canal and following it out to the point of its connection with the lake of the double mound, I found that the eastern ends of this lake was large, rather square than round, and that it formed really a water-court fronting the mound and more or less surrounded originally with embank-ments—of sand chiefly—but like the characteristic shell embankments of the keys in form, as if, indeed, made purposely to resemble them. From this excavated lake-court, a graded way had also once led up the eastern side of the double mound, its terminus forming, in fact, the saddle between its two summits—that reached an altitude of more than sixty-three feet. In all these regards it exactly resembled one of the great shell foundations—crowning mounds and all - of the outer keys, and I could not but be impressed with the apparent significance of this, es pecially as I found by slight excavation that the mound had been com posed, like the other, of shell strata in part, and that it was erected verit ably as a foundation, since there was no evidence that it had been used to any great extent as a burial place. Moreover, the great canal, turning a little to the southeast, led on again in a straight line into the interior. I followed it for more than a mile, and, although it lessened in width, it was distinctly traceable still beyond, and I was told that it extended quite across the island to similar works and shellelevations on the other side.•

This is the Maximo Site, drawn in the 1962 Florida Anthropologist ar-ticle by Frank Bushnell. Some of the features described by Bethell are described on this map. This complex is entirely gone now.

10

by Elizabeth Neily Rules for proper behavior in American society were forged dur-ing the “gilded age”. Cookbooks for the growing middle class outlined all sorts of guidelines for proper table settings, proper table service and proper cleaning up. Many of our rules for social behavior can be linked to the rigidly enforced guidelines set during the time when Queen Victoria sat on the throne of England during the 19th century. Although Americans had tossed aside the yoke of imperial rule they were not so willing to reject the social standards ingrained for generations. As the industries of steel, railroads and newspapers poured millions into the hands of a select few families, the desire for legitimate titles forged even closer

from a young woman who dared to questioned the validity of maintain-ing a perfect home. Her letter is paraphrased here: “Please set me straight on one point that often puzzles me. Is housekeeping worth while? It is not that I hate housework. To the contrary, I beleive that anything worth doing is worth doing well. But is it worth while for a woman to neglect her talents in order to have a perfectly appointed house? I have seen so many women with brains wear out and die trying to do their self-imposed duty; to see the large establishments their hus-bands’ wealth, position and wishes placed in their care shall be perfect in detail. And these women could have been so happy and enjoyed the life they threw away, if they had only known how not to keep

ties with British aristocracy. Young American women with wealthy fathers were shipped off to tour Europe with the goal of snagging a duke, a count or even a prince. This extravagantly wealthy class became known as the robber barons for their wealth had been made at the expense of poor wages and worse living conditions of their workers. Strikes organized to improve the lot of the working man were crushed and thousands of workers injured and even killed with military preci-sion. By the 1890’s, middle class women were organizing to demand their right to vote all over North America. The New Woman, as she was called, was now able to do things that were once considered shocking for a genteel Victorian lady. She played tennis, golfed and rode bicycles. She smoked ciga-rettes, talked politics and most shocking of all demanded jobs in male-dominated professions. Newspapers began to recognize that women were readers too. They thought to address this readership and increase sales by including women’s pages which would in-clude recipes, fashion reports and hints on etiquette. In 1875 Marion Harland printed a letter in her newly released cook-book, Breakfast, Luncheon and Tea,

The NEW WOMAN of the 1890’s

house. I should not mind if one could never say ‘Well-done!’ You only finish housework to begin all over again, and so on, until you die and have nothing to show for your life’s work. It looks hopeless to me, I confess. I wish you would show me the wisdom—or the folly of it all.” Mrs. Harland’s reply is “harsh and unsympathetic” as she properly instructs the young lady in Victorian behavior. “In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, a woman with genuine talent will find time to improve it, even amid the clatter of household machinery.” In 1898, Charlotte Perkins Gil-man, wrote in Women and Econom-ics: “The labor of women in the house, certainly, enables men to produce more wealth than they otherwise could; and in this way women are economic factors in society. But so are horses.” Except for the wealthy and upper middle class, many women did not have the luxury of staying at home and wor-rying about whether her servants were performing properly. Like most women who work today, they had to work to pay the bills. Many women were widowed or abandoned and had no man to provide her and her children with food and shelter.•

theLAUNdRY CLASSIn many of the schools of Domes-tic Science, laundry work is now taught in a thorough and scientific manner.In the classroom Ivo-ry Soap is always used to wash the articles that require special care and it is frequently used to the exclusion of all other soaps.

Braiding from Page 3overnight for mellowing. The towelwill absorb the extra moisture and leave the fronds evenly damp. If not all used within two days lay the mellowed strips out to dry to prevent souring. Palmetto may be dampened and dried several times, but care must be taken not to allow it to ferment.

Braiding.There are types of two weaves, the check and the herring bone using even and uneven strands. Since the uneven strand is the easiest let’s start with it.

RULE 1. In all uneven-numbered strand braids the edge strands turn over to the top.Hold so as to braid away from you. Keep hands close together , a little more than waist high.. Tighten every couple of inches. See diagram 1.

When a strand needs to be lengthened, allow at least 1-1/2 inches on the old strand to allow for the lap and turn on the edge.By following diagram 2 you should be able to follow the step by step instruc-tions for an uneven-number strand, check weave. Good luck.

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11

tain peace. However slavery on the island was finally put to an end. From the cigar factories of Ybor City came popular support for the Cuban cause. Party leaders began to plan, raise money and stir up native population sup-port from outside the country. The jobs of the cigar workers depended upon a constant supply of tobacco from Cuba. José Marti led the Cuban Revolutionary Party with General Garcia as the com-mander of the Cuban insurgents. In April of 1895 José Marti and General Maximo Gomez landed on the eastern coast of Cuba and proclaimed a republic. The effect was instantaneous and the spark of revolution spread like wildfire. Finally the revolutionaries were gaining the popular supported they had been seeking for so long Born in Havana, José Marti was the son of a Spanish officer. He spent his childhood in the country where he acquired a love of nature. He was a precocious child with a love of books. At thirteen his family returned to the city where the young Marti found work with a shopkeeper. He learned math quickly and within a few weeks became the bookkeeper. By sixteen Marti was publishing an underground newspaper which promoted revolu-tion. He was caught and thrown into

landed again at Bahia Honda and even succeeded in killing the Spanish com-mander there. But still the country did not rise to his support. Crittendon, at the other end of the island, was forced to retreat to the sea and was eventually captured along with fifty of his men. All the would be revolutionaries were dealt with swiftly and effectively by the Spanish authorities. They were put to death in Havana. Lopez was captured and garroted. With the end of the Civil War and the end of slavery in America attempts to meddle in Cuban affairs had all but died out. For a time Cuba was left to work out her own affairs. In 1873, another filibustering expe-dition set out for the island. Filibuster-ing is the illegal shipment of arms and supplies to a foreign country. The Vir-ginius under the command of Captain Joseph Fry of Fort Brooke, set out from Jamaica. Fry was a retired Confederate Naval Commander, who saw no future in America’s navy after the war. The filibustering ship was captured within sight of the Jamaican lighthouse at the east end of the island. She was towed into Santiago harbor despite the fact she was flying American colors and was in British waters. Despite the inter-national scandal which developed over the incident, the crew stood trial and were sentenced to death. Fifty-three men were killed in the first volley of the firing squad including Captain Fry. Before they could fire again, the Brit-ish man-of-war, Niobe arrived on the scene.

12War Continued from page 1

A Free exhibitionFOR MEN ONLY

OF

Spanish crueltyAt 506 Franklin Street, for a short

time only

Ad in the Tampa Tribune on Dec. 26, 1897. Promoters of Cuba libre used propaganda methods like this to drum up support and money for their war efforts.

“Shoot another Eng-lishman or American,” said her commander, Sir Lambon Lorraine, “ and the Niobe will bomb the city.” All was quiet for a while in Cuba. The home rule advocates tried to gain concessions by peaceful means. Meager conces-sions from an indifferent Spanish parliament, were considered sops to main-

prison. Although his parents could have secured a pardon, Marti was exiled to Spain. While struggling to support himself, he studied at the University of Saragossa. where he earned a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences and, then, a Law degree. Marti returned to Cuba when a peace treaty had been signed by Spain. Realizing that the treaty was only a temporary bandaid to the unrest in his beloved country he became the elo-quent voice of the revolution. Seeing that Marti could not be quieted, the government exiled him once more. From Spain he escaped to New York where he joined General Calixto Garcia in plans for a new invasion. Despite his interest in freeing Cuba, Marti found time to teach the black Cubans of New York. In April 1895, José Marti began the battle to liberate Cuba. His passionate oratory had raised money for the insur-gent army. Unlike former revolution-ary leaders, Marti had funding and an organization to support his movement. As Senor Gonzalo de Quesada, chargé daffairs of the Republic of Cuba wrote, it could be said of him, that to know him was to appreciate him, to know him well was to love him forever. And it could not be his enthusiasm of a believer, nor his dreams as patriot, nor his eloquence, nor his constant and unobtrusive teaching which drew those

José Marti

portrayed by his great grandson, Aurelio Maceo, below, at Ybor City’s Cir-culo Cubanano de Tampa on May 30

who were around him more closely to his heart. No; those were the times of doubt, of discouragement and of defeat, and yet who could fail to admire that man who would not leave his friends alone in trouble, in Florida, but would rush to share with them their sadness? Marti was often in Ybor City gath-ering support. He was the guest of the Pedrosa family. Marti made a point of strolling arm-in-arm with Paulina Pedrosa, which raised eyebrows in this southern town. Mrs. Pedrosa was a black woman, an ardent support and Marti wanted to make a point that this was not just a racial war being faught in Cuba.

On May 19, 1895 Marti was killed in the first battle. As the hills echoed with his words of encouragement the insurgent camp was surrounded. Gen-eral Gomez told Marti to wait while he attracted the Spanish flanks. Un-able to sit still, Marti lead a handful of followers down another road. As he charged, his spirited horse carried him ahead of the rest. His first engagement as a soldier was his last. He fell from his horse riddled with bullets. Marti’s voice was silenced. The spirit of José Marti lived on. The following year, de Quesada wrote, …he guides from above, our armies to victory; he consoles the suffering, the exiled, the orphan, the widow; who watches with unceasing vigilance for the welfare of his children; who wel-comes his brothers-in-arms who have joined him in the heaven of immortal-ity! Jose Marti, oh father! you live in us, you can only die when, consumed by the flames or submerged in the waves, Cuba shall be no more! This left seventy year old General Gomez to lead the insurgents to vic-tory. Gomez was a tall, wiry, man, sunburned by years of fighting. He had gray hair and a large handlebar mus-tache. Grief stricken by the loss of his friend, Marti, he pressed his army on-ward. He had abandoned his plantation to fight for Cuba libra. His wife refused to take charity from grateful Cubans preferring to live frugally rather than take any money which might be used for purchasing arms. He said, When I gave up in 1868 my uniform and rank of Major of the Spanish Army, it was because I knew that if I kept them I would have someday to meet my own children in the field and combat against their desire for liberty. Now with my many years, I have come to lead and counsel the new generation to ultimate victory. General Antonio Maceo was called the lion and the favored child of for-tune. Of mixed blood, Maceo had been a donkey-driver before he rose through the ranks to Major-General. His courage, coolness and talent as a military leader proved him a formidable foe. The Span-

ish held up his name to propagandize that the revolution was the work of blacks. Tomas Estrada Palma was cho-sen to succeed Marti to raise support abroad for the revolution. Palma had been imprisoned in Spain for his part in the revolution. When he was asked his occupation dur-ing a census, Palma steadfastly replied, President of the Republic of Cuba.. For a while, Palma was Postmaster-General in Honduras. He saved his money in order to realize his dream of establish-ing of a school for Spanish Americans and Cubans children in the United States. Like Marti, he also beleived that

self-government would be best brought about by education. In an address to the people of the United States he said, The revolution is powerful and deeply rooted in the hearts of the Cu-ban people, and there is no Spanish power—no power in the world—that can stop it’s march.” — Tomas Estrada Palma The revolution had a direct impact on the cigar workers in Tampa Bay. Factories were forced to shut down for months due to the lack of tobacco being shipped from Cuba. Thousands were out of work and destitute. A free soup kitchen constructed under the auspices if Edward Manrara fed the hungry for over two months while the crisis continued. Mrs. Ybor donated $20 a day to the Central Relief commit-tee. Every day they fed 1,000 hungry people. The Ybor-Manrara Co. was one of the largest cigar manufacturers in the United States. The Tampa Tribune reported its reopening on April 12. “the revenue paid to its workmen in this city will benefit every enterprise and busi-ness concern in Tampa. The Tribune is indeed very glad to announce authenti-cally that the big factory will begin op-erations this morning, and the people of the entire city will rejoice with it in anticipating what a big benefit it will be to the commercial interests of the city.cuBANS PArAded through the StreetS “There were numerous floats in the procession and all were appropri-ately decorated with flowers and flags. The Cuban and American flags were carried side by side, and one elicited as much applause as the others. On one float that was illuminated with torches and decked with flowers and evergreens were two charming young maidens dressed in white. One wore the American colors and the other the colors of the Cuban republic. Before, during and after the pa-rade there was a constant display of fire works, the booming of pistols, guns and the use of everything that could possibly make a noise. All were in good humor, and as the procession passed the people on the sidewalks cheered until the majority were hoarse. On the band stand in front of the court house a number of ladies were seated. From this stand the promi-nent Cuban and American speakers addressed the public, and stirred up their enthusiasm to the highest pitch. The announcement was made that the Spanish minister had left Washington and this caused expression of satis-faction, but there was not the lightest insult offered to any Spanish subject residing in this city.” Tampa Tribune - April 21, 1898.Story prepared by Elizabeth Neily

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The three Journal men expelled were McNicholl, Mosher, and Mus-grave. They landed at Santiago Mon-day night to open a business office, with 20,000 journals and colored post-ers showing the wreck of the Maine, with dead sailors floating past. An inscription at the top head, “Remember the Main,” and at the bottom another “Buy the Journal. [a Hearst paper] “ As soon as General Shafter saw the posters he sent a detail of soldiers to arrest the Journal men and seize their paraphernalia. The correspondents were placed under guard over night in the Theater Royal. The next day Gen-eral Shafter himself saw them placed on board the Aransas, with Scovel. “ In sending them into exile General Shafter expressed himself in vigorous language.” TampaTribune According to Charles E. Brown, The Correspondence War, 1967, accounts vary as to why Scovel had evoked the General’s wrath. American troops ar-rived in Santiago square to raise the American flag. “On the roof of the palace three officers scrambled over the red tiles to the base of the flagstaff ready to hoist the American colrs. But they were followed by a fourth man who had no business being there: Syl-vester Scovel. Accounts vary as to exactly what hap-pened in the few minutes before the United States flag,at high noon, was to be hoisted above the city, but all agree that it was a scandal. Shafter ordered Scovel down from the roof and Scovel, facing the general in the square, pro-tested in “a loud voice,” according to one observer. There was an exchange of words and Scovel struck, or struck at, Shafter, who struck back or did not strike back. At Shafter’s orders, sol-diers grabbed Scovel and hustled him off the scene of history. The scheduled ceremony proceeded.” The irrepressible Scovel’s future as a journalist was doomed. Although he had President McKinley intercede in his behalf, to avoid prosecution, Scovel never returned to his profession and died in 1905, at thirty-five.•

Sgt. George Berry, 9th U.S. Calvary planted both the United States and Cuban flags on San Juan Hill. He is portrayed here by John Russell of the Buffalo Soldiers of Florida, Military Histoy Post 473, Orlando. He is armed with a carbine version of the Krag and a M1858 “New Pa-tern” light cavalry saber also known as N1860. Neily Photo.

The Spanish-American War brought forth drastic changes in the way the UnitedStates Army uniformed its troops. At the outbreak of the war with Spain, most American regular and state troops wore a heavy wool uniform that can trace its lineage to the Civil War (1861-1865). The tropical climates of Cuba and the Phillipines forced many U.S. soldiers to rid their wool fatgue blouses for their campaign shirts (made of a light wool material). Due to the urgency ofthe situation where men were falling due to heat exhaus-tion and dehydration, the army began experimenting with uniforms made out of lighter materials like cotton. The basis of their study and influence came from uniforms worn by British Troops in Africa and in India. By the end of the Spanish-American War, some units were issued new uniforms made out of cotton duck material. By 1902,the United States Army officially made the tan cotton duck uniforms to be the fatigue uniform of the average soldier. By World Wars One and Two, the American soldier would wear cot-ton fatigue uniforms that would lead into thepresent Battle Dress Uniforms (BDU’s). Therefore,our experiences on the field fighting the Spaniards and later Phillipine Moros led the United States Army in drastically changing the uniforms worn by its men since the Civil War.

The officer’s frock coat worn during the War between the States changed very little by the time of the War with Spain. George Moore above portrays General Wheeler. Neily Photo.

Indians of Roosevelt’s Rough Riders with Captain Bruce wore the lightweight uniforms and carried the Krag carbine rifles and Colt Cavalry moled revolvers. Photo courtesy of Tampa Bay History Center

byA.M. de Quesada, Jr.

Uniforms of United States Marines and Naval Officers is the caption for this illustration which appeared in a book of the period by Senor Gonzalo de Quesada, Chargé dAffairs of Re-public of Cuba.

Tampa Statistics 1898Population 26,000Streets 80Railroads 3Electric Car lines 2Telephones 275Newspapers Daily 4Newspapers Weekly 6Winter 96/97 Tourists 35,000Ice Factories 3Churches 20Banks 3Cigar Factories 120Cigar Factory employees 5,000Cigar Box Factories 2

Alex deQuesada is the author of several books on Florida Military History and a Film/Museum Consultant.

Astor Continued from page 9

the cosmopolitan restaurantCorner of Franklin and Jackson Streets. Mrs. Normon, Proprietor. Meals at all hours. The best of cookery. Polite and prompt attention. Bill of fare best the market affords.

When the well runs dry, we know the worth of water.— Florida Folk Saying.

13

1898 ad in Tampa Tribune. Another for the Palmetto Hotel offered room rates at $2.00 to $2.50 per day.

GLAdESMEN gator hunters, Moonshiners, and Skiffersby Glen Simmons and Laura Ogden.

Fort Brooke drummer Boy

Our young readers can imagine what it was like on the Florida frontier during the Second Seminole War years (1835-1842) through the eyes of young Danny Bauer. Filled with the adventure and the growing pains of an expanding empire, the story thoughtfully weaves its way through the racism of Indian removal. Beyond the gates of the fort, Clague gives us a peek into the early days of Tampa, where, Danny ambled on dodging the dogs and pigs that ran wild in road. Children darted among them—laughing as they chased each other in a game. He passed another noisy tavern, and then he came to a di-lapidated wooden structure that served as the only warehouse for the village, Beside it stood a small fenced yard filled with cattle waiting to be shipped to Havanna. They were scrawny things with brown and white markings and they set up a fearful bawling as they milled around the pen. Fort BrooK druMMer BoY is a good introduction to this stormy heritage. We would like to see more books of this kind available to our children.Maryhelen Clague Pub. (See ad)ISBN 1-57502-747-X$6.99 Softcover

New Book reviews Ybor city ghosts…more alive than dead!

by Hermann Trappman The mystery of a ghost walk caught our attention. Many communities with a past use this format as a way to in-troduce visitors to the deeply human side of their history. Names and dates, the kind of history which has lulled so many students to sleep over the years, fade into the tale. The history of real people tugs at our curiosity. Ghosts take on flesh and blood passion. They are colored with the pleasures and struggles of our lives. In the world of ghosts, decisions are made against the panorama of desire, anger, unrequited love, and, of course, fear. Ybor City has a vibrant past. Des-perate lives passed along its streets. Sensible folks were caught up in the heat of the Cuban revolution, the fight for worker’s rights, and the struggle for wealth and power. Ybor City has many ghosts. Our guide/actor, Philip Cuomo, brought ten characters to back life. From the restless yearnings of the founder, Don Vincent Ybor, to an ax murderer of the 1930’s, the ghosts returned to tell their stories against the background of the places where they lived. Founder of Tampa’s Free Love Society, Dr. Freder-ick Weightnovel, passionately defends his excesses. John Wall talks about the secret world of the rackets during the days of prohibition. His ghost still wanders derelict tunnels beneath the streets in an effort to escape his crimes. Paulina Pedrosa moved us with her

The Reef Country, about half mile or so north of Florida Bay, is kind of poor country for growth and game. The buttonwood snags in there are so sharp and hard, they’d skin a coon. After Lige tore his seat and the seat of his britches on one of those snags, he said, “Now, maybe the gnats will stay out of my face.” We made it to a sports-fishing camp that was on Mud Creek about a mile northeast of Little Madeira Bay. There, on a nail, hung a dirty pair of pants, and Lige did a swap job. He never seemed to want but what he had on. GLAdESMEN captures a very real flavor of frontier character. Beyond the quaint humor, is the feeling of hard-ship and want. The men who explore or choose to live on the frontier are usu-ally mitfits from mainstream society. But they are not intimidated by the daunting challenge of surviving in an environment most would not choose. When they carry us with them, they’re experiences enrich our lives. Glen Simmons tells us that he is no hero, but he is the stuff of Danial Boon, Davy Crocket, Jim Bridger, and Alfred Wallace. If you really want to know those men better, this book will give you insights to frontier attitudes and logic. Get past Ogden’s rather academic preface, and you will find a rich read. Set against the Everglades environ-ment filled with colorful place names and exotic wildlife, you’ll discover memorable characters scratching out a meager living under the Florida sun.University Press of Florida ISBN 0-8130-1530 $24.95 Hardcover

Fort BrooKe druMMer BoYby Maryhelen Clague,

A STORY OF OLD FLORIDAby Maryhelen Clague

$6.99 each + $1.50 postage and handlingFlorida State residents add 6.75% tax

Send check to Maryhelen ClagueP.O. Box 8618

Tampa, FL 33674-8618

passionate plea for Cuba Libre. One ghost even asserted that “life is wasted on the living.” Philip Cuomo’s vision shifted our everyday experiences into a richer drama. He offered us a connection to those people who once wandered our streets. The price of $10.00 per person to peek into the past is a real bargain.For more info on the Ybor city ghost Walk tours call (813) 242-9255.

14

Hashams

Walk on the wild side with Philip Cuomo as the ghost of Dr. Fred-erick Weightnovel, founder of Tampa’s Free Love Society.

Cartoon

Necessity is a hard nurse, but she raises strong children.- Florida Folk saying

were put on for the entertainment of the troops. Swimming in the bay became another popular passtime as the days stretched into weeks while the troops waited in the heat to go to Cuba. In fact when the departure was delayed after the troops were loaded on transport ships at Port Tampa, the men cooled off by skinny-dipping in the bay. Boating excursions were also di-versions from thre monotony of camps life. On July 29, the Tampa Tribune Daily News reported that a party of Roosevelt’s Rough Riders enjoyed an outing on the steamer Tierra Ceia. They sailed to “St. Petersburg and one or two other points of interest on the bay. The outing was heartily enjoyed by the jolly riders, to many of whom a steamboat ride and fishing in salt water were new departures.” By August 4, life was getting pretty much back to routine in the city. The evening before, the staff of the Tampa Tribune were invited to watch the ex-citment of “the opening of two buds of the rare and beautiful night blooming cereus that ornaments one of the win-dow sills of the [Almeria] hotel office.”

Sports of the 1890’s1839- Baseball rules are devised by West Point cadet Abner Dou-bleday, 19, of Cooperstown, N.Y. (legendary date). He called for a diamond-shaped field and two teams of nine players each. Jane Austen mentioned the game in her novel Northanger Abbey while Oliver Wendell Holmes played it at Harvard before his graduation in 1829.

Baseball… Bicycles Boxing…by Elizabeth Neily The 1890’s in Tampa Bay was no different than the rest of the country when it came to sports. Just like today people loved a good sporting event. The Bellair Bicycle Track drew crowds from all over the area. Men competed in heats which could pay the winner up to $1000. The season for the National Circuit came to an end on March 16. Featured was Clarence McLean the famous “trick and fancy” rider of the time. The price of admission was 25¢ for standing room, bleachers - 35¢ and grand stand seating, 75¢ and $1.00. The evening wound up with fireworks. On the following day, Charles. W. Miller, would to try to break the hundred mile world record. Ads in the Tampa Tribune offered bicycles to enthusiasts from $100 down to $5 installments from the Sears, Roe-buck & Company. Even ladies took up the sport and bicycling costumes with pants became the fashion. Baseball was also big. Local teams from Tampa, Bartow, St. Petersburg and Tarpon Springs vied for honors. When the army arrived in town, the first thing they did after setting up camp was to form a baseball team to challenge the locals. The rules of the time made for an exciting game. Spit, tobacco juice and licorice balls were all perfectly legal. Fielders wore thin, fingerless gloves and the pitching rub-ber was 50 feet from home plate instead of 60. They used a dead ball that didn’t bounce. Each game was highscoring with as many as 30 runs batted in. Four strikes and four swings counted for a “hand down” or an out and five balls

counted for a walk. B o x i n g matches were also popular and men in camps burnt of excess s t e a m w h i l e waiting for the ships to leave by pitting box-ers against each other. In took no time at all cock and dog fights

Sports Trivia

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1889 -The “Bicyclette Moderne” designed by French engineer G. Juzan has two wheels of equal size with a chain-driven rear wheel em-ploying a drive chain stronger than the one on the first rear drive. The “safety” bicycle patented in 1885 is introduced in the United States. Within 4 years, more than a million Americans will be riding the new bikes.1867-Marquis of Queensberry rules for boxing are formulated by Eng-lish athlete John Graham Chambers, 24, who has founded an amateur club to encourage boxing under the aegis of Scotland’s Sir John Sholto Douglas, 23, 8th Marquis of Queensberry.dunedin vs. Largo at recent demonsttation baseball game

at Fort DesotoPark where players wore1890’s uniforms and played by historic rules. Games such as these were played by troops in Tampa Bay during the Spanish Ameri-can war to releive the bordom of camp life. Neily Photo.

Sara Criggle, a young lady from the Isle of Man, “near England” visited Tampa in the 1890’s where she col-lected photos like the one of two bicy-clists. Note that their skirts are shorter than the usual walking skirts. Courtesy of USF Special Collections, Criggle Collection. Far left: The photo at was taken by O.C. Wamsley, a soldier with the 157th Indiana Volunteer Regiment. Stuck in Tampa because he had contracted ma-larial fever. Wamsley never saw action in Cuba. However, he did manage to record camp life with his handy Kodak camera. Courtesy of USF Special Col-lections, Wamsley Collection.

Typical uniform. Courtesy of Dunedin Historical Society.

Above

Andrews Memorial chapel c.1888National Register of Historic Places

Available for weddings and other special occassions.

dunedin Historical Society

Trail Sport

(727) 736-1176

Visit our Museum at 349 Main Street, Dunedin, FL

An early Florida Victorian church with hand-carved beamed ceiling styled like a ship’s hull.

Play Ball!Dunedin Railers

vs. Largo Crackers

1890’s rules and equipment

OTTEN PARK - MICHIGAN AVEDUNEDIN

presented by

PINELLAS COUNTY VINTAGE BASEBALL ASSOCIATION

Saturday, July 11 10:00 a.m.

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After all that exercise you could hose down at the local bath house which had just opened in Tampa. Tampa Tribue ad -July 1898

Want to play vintage baseball? Call Vinnie Luisi at Dunedin His-torical Society - (727) 736-1176.Join the Clearwater Mullets.

Stuffed TomatoesSelect small very ripe tomatoes. Peel, scoop out center and stuff with caviar, or crab and pineapple salad. Serve on crisp lettuce leaf.

crab and Pineapple Salad2 tsp. Granulated gelatin soaked in 1/3 cup grapefruit juice 1 T. tarragon vinegar1/2 c. mayonnaise1/2 c. grapefruit pulp1/2 c. pineapple, crushed or cubed1 c. crap meatDissolve gelatin over hot water. Add vinegar and add slowly to mayonaise, beating thoroughly. Mix fruit and crab meat. Add to gelatine mixture.

rhine Wine Jelly1 package gelatine soaked in 1 large cup cold water2 cups white wine1 lemon—all the juice and half the peel.1/2 teaspoon bitter almond, or two peach leaves2 cups white sugar2 cups boiling waterMix soaked gelatine, lemon, sugar, an-dflavoring extract and let stand for half an hour. Pour in boiling water, stir and strain. After adding wine, strain again through flannel bag. Wet a mould and set in refrigerator until next day.

Orange Cream.12 large very sweet oranges2 pounds loaf sugar1 quart milk, warm from the cow.1 quart best French brandy.Grate the peel from three of the or-anges, and reserve for use in preparing the liqueur. Peel the rest, and use the juice only. Pour this with the brandy over the sugar and grated rind; put into a stone jug, and let it stand threee days, shaking twice a day. Then boil fresh milk and pour hot over the mixture, stirring well. Cover closely. When it is quite cold, strain through a flannel bag. Put in clean, sweet bottles, seal the corks, and lay the bottles on their sides in sawdust. It will keep well, but will be fit for drinking in a week. Mix with iced water as a beverage. It is a flavor-ing liqueur for triffles or puddings, etc.

charlotte russe1 egg white1/4 c. powdered sugar1 c. heavy cream whippedFlavor with vanilla, coffee essence, brandy or your favourite liquer.Beat egg whitre until stiff. fold in sugar then whipped cream. Line dessert glass with lady fingers or thin strips of sponge cake and fill with mixture. Add a bit of candied fruit for color. Chill. Serves 4.

tea à la russeTo each goblet of cold tea (with-out cream), add the juice of half a lemon. Fill up with crushed ice and sweeten well. A glass of champagne added to this becomes Russian punch.

The dinner menu at the Tampa Bay Hotel, for Monday, July 4th, 1898, A. E. Dick, Manager. Admiral Dewey’s photo appeared in the background. Courtesy of the Henry B. Plant Museum, Tampa, FL. While we do not have the original recipes we hope that our delicious substitutes come close. Our sources are Breakfast, Lunch and Tea, Marion Hartland, 1875 and the Boston Cooking-School Cookbook, Fannie Merrit Farmer, 1948 edition.

consummé dewey3 lbs. lean beef cut in 1 inch cubes1 lb marrow3 lbs. knuckle of veal cut in pieces1 qt, chicken stock or bones from a chicken and 1 qt. water1/3 c. each diced carrot, turnip, celery, onion2 T. butter1 T salt1 tsp. peppercorns4 cloves3 sprigs tyme1 sprig marjoram2 sprigs parsley1/2 bayleaf3 Qt. cold waterBrown half beef in marrow. Add rest of beef, veal, bones and cold water. Let stand 1/2 hr. Heat slowly to boiling and simmer 3 hours. Remove scum as it forms on top of kettle. Add Chicken stock or bones and water and simmer 2 hours. Add remaining seasonings. Cook 1-1/2 hours, stain, cool, remove fat. To each quart of liquid add 1 beaten egg white mixed with two tsp. of cold water. Add crushed eggshell.Bring to boiling point for 2 minutes. Let stand 20 minutes over low heat. Stain through fine strainer lined with double thickness of cheesecloth.Flavor with lemon juice or sherry.

Baked red SnapperLet fillets stand at room temperature for about 15 minutes. Dip in milk then finely sifted bread crumbs. Place in oiled baking pan or oven-proof plat-ter. Sprinkled fillets with olive oil. and brown quickly in very hot oven. 10-20 minutes at 550O. Serve with lemon, pepper and parsley butter.

Paprika Potatoes2 c. boiled or baked potatoes cubed2 T. butterSalt & Paprika1 c. cream, heated.Put potatoes and butter in saucepan. sprinkle with salt and paprika. Add cream and cook slowly 40 minutes.

Rice Pancakes1 cup raw rice1 quart milk3 eggs1/4 cup rice flour1 T. sugar1 T. butter1/4 tsp. baking soda, disolved in hot water.1/2 tsp. cream of tartar1 tsp. salt (or not)Soak rice overnight in warm warer to cover it. Boil slowly until it is very soft. While still warm—not hot, stir in butter, sugar, salt and milk. Separate eggs and beat whites. Fold in yolks and add to batter. Beat soda into the batter. Sift cream of tartar into rice flour and add to batter. Cook on hot griddle until light brown.

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tampa Bay hotel 1898

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cudoS We would like to thank William H. Marquardt, Curator of Archaeology, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Gainesville, for providing the Frank Cushing description of Pineland for the article on Ancient Cities.And, we would also like to thank Paul Camp, University of South Florida Special Collections for his assistance in allowing us to use Spanish American War photos. Paul is devoted to bringing history to life. And all the reeactors who have tirelessly and freely given us the flavor and the color of the past.

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