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1983

William Eugene "Gene" Barber authored a series of articles for the Baker County Press entitled "The Way It Was".
His articles covered all aspects of Baker County pioneers lives in a colorful, entertaining, as well as, educational manner. At an early age, Gene possessed the desire and ability to interview the 'Old Folks'. He was as talented in the use of the pen, as he is with a brush, choosing his words and expressions in a way to paint an exciting and interesting story.

The following are his articles written in 1983.


  • The Colorful Colonel Cone

  • The Colorful Colonel Cone - Part Two

  • Darbyville, a parent community of McClenny

  • Getting the Cracker treatment in Keystone

  • The Georgia-Florida boundary - Part One

  • The Georgia-Florida boundary - Part Two

  • The Georgia-Florida boundary - Part Three

  • Boundary wrap-up and notes on the Dawkins Lodge

  • McClenny Potpourri

  • some old and interesting McClenny structures

  • some old and interesting McClenny structures - Part Two

  • some old and interesting McClenny structures - CONCLUSION

  • some old and interesting McClenny structures - Sites without structures or newer buildings

  • A recap of the 1st Centennial

  • Rain soaks sale; but not the dance

  • Well, it's our final weekend to celebrate!

  • The Centennial - A wrap-up

  • The month of May has arrived...

  • Historical potpourri from a desk drawer

  • Historical potpourri from a desk drawer - Part Two

  • Historical potpourri from a desk drawer - THIRD AND FINAL PART

  • A Plea For Presidential Pardon

  • A look at commercial McClenny of 1887

  • McClenny social notes from the year 1887

  • Fred 'Bubba' Bullard; a genuine McClenny product

  • It's been eight years.....

  • Historical potpourri

  • Ms. Liberty and Daisies

  • "Summer sort of slow-walks you down"

  • More Nostalgic Reminiscenses

  • What are is not.....

  • Now, what art is.....

  • Composition in art

  • Creativity in art

  • Different types of art

  • Autumn brings out poet

  • Hoppin' John discourse

  • 1921 catalogue goodies

  • The Household Guest, 1921

  • Historical potpourri

  • More.....potpourri

  • 'Ain't no boogers tonight

  • Crackers & nature's signs - Part One

  • Crackers & nature's signs - Part Two

  • Boost Christmas downtown

  • The'Tarnished Tinsel Trophies'

  • Edging into Christmas

  • The Yule tree ordeal

  • The 'magic' of Christmas

  • Thoughts on the new year


    • THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, January 6, 1983 Page Two

    THE WAY IT WAS - Gene Barber

    The Colorful Colonel Cone

    Christmas is always a warm and lively occasion at the home of the writer's father and step-mother, especially since the grandchildren are proliferating all over the place. The conversation and laughter so increased at one time that day until the writer's baby sister (a pixyish young thing who is due to become a lovely madonna any minute now) warned that the family might get written up in the next Press issue.

    Jean Marie was somewhat prophetic, but it was not to be the immediate family who would be this week's subject. It is a coincidence that the subject would be the multiple-great grandfather of one of the family's Christmas day callers, Miss Linda Finley (surely the world's prettiest attorney).

    Ms. Finley's maternal grandmother, the late gracious Mrs. McAlpin, and your writer used to enjoy swapping stories about Colonel William Cone over at the Stephen Foster Memorial where she spent many volunteer hours. It cannot be said of Colonel Cone that after he was made the pattern was thrown away; he did not fit any known pattern. Frontiersman, soldier, statesman, humorist, planter, and a tweaker of the nose of the devil, Bill Cone would try anything and always succeeded.

    He was born in North Carolina (Orange County, we believe) in 1777 to William Cone and the former Keziah Barber (great aunt of Baker County settlers Moses Barber and Louvicy Mann). The elder Cone was considered a Revolutionary War hero among the North Carolina Line. His sister-in-law Frances (nee Barber) Carter was said to be the ancestress of many Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi Carters, including one well-known Georgia peanut farmer with a toothy grin and a fondness for executive mansions.

    The Cones moved down into Effingham County, Georgia, soon after the Revolutionary War, and some of the family remained in that area where they married into the famous Harvey and Williams families who later peopled much of northern Baker County. Robert Cone of Bullock County who married Florida Damula Williams (daughter of State Representative Samuel N. Williams, Sr.) and who got into serious trouble with Baker County unreconstructed Democrats in the 1870's was also a relative (is everybody related to everybody? Yes. Is everybody happy about that? No).

    The stories about Bill Cone are legion, and some of them are apocryphal. Many are true, and one wonders how one man could have lived so long and fully so as to perform all the feats attributed to him.

    In the very early 1800's (sometime in the vicinity of the Creek or First Seminole War) Colonel Cone was captured by the Indians somewhere in the area of the present Folkston. It was said of the sagacious gentleman that he could talk anybody or anything into or out of any item or situation and that his ability to fluently speak several Indian languages and dialects fascinated his captors so much that they delayed sending him to the happy (or unhappy) hunting grounds. Others figured that since Cone was so despised by the redmen that they kept him tied all night just that they could plot a more fitting, creative, and lingering torture and death for him.

    Whichever, Colonel Cone escaped his bonds during the night, stole the Indians' rifle balls from their weapons, replaced the powder, placed the bullets in his pocket, and sat back until the Creeks waked.

    When he noticed the first one stirring, Cone bolted for the woods. The Indians made hot pursuit, firing their bulletless rifles at him. Cone turned and pretended to catch the balls and put them into his pocket. He then walked over to the amazed Indians, retrieved the rifle balls from his pocket from where he had placed them the night before and, to use an idiom of our day wowed them.

    They justifiably fled, leaving their horses behind. Colonel Cone returned home still happily attached to his scalp and soul and leading the Indians' horses as a bonus.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, January 13, 1983 Page Two

    THE WAY IT WAS - Gene Barber

    The Colorful Colonel Cone

    PART TWO

    Colonel William "Bill" Cone settled in old Camden County, Georgia, about the beginning of the nineteenth century (it is known that he was there in 1804), and set about forming a volunteer militia unit.

    Cone's outfit saw duty in and about the Okefenokee Swamp ostensibly to protect the Camden County Anglo-American residents, but, actually, he and his men were attempting to exterminate the Creek Indians in the area. They did a fairly good job of it too, but succeeding waves of Indians from western Georgia, Alabama, and Florida kept replenishing the stock.

    Sometimes, in fact quite often, Cone's men made forays into Spanish Florida where they retrieved stolen and runaway slaves, "stray" cattle, and "unattended" horses. They were so successful in these ventures that it is traditionally rumored that the Spanish government offered a reward of $10,000 for his head. The reward can be well believed because the Spaniards knew that many of the Georgians were not above turning in one of their own for a handsome price, but the amount is a bit incredible (the Spanish were extremely tight with a peso).

    At the beginning of the War of 1812 (sometimes called the Second War of American Independence), Colonel Cone performed the southernmost known feat against the British in that war. Archibald Clark of St. Marys was a collector of customs in that port and was a major lumber miller near Traders Hill (not a great distance above Baker County).

    When the British occupied St. Marys (not at all a difficult feat for them), they demanded Clark to hand over his funds. He refused, and he and Abraham Bessent (ancestor of many Baker Countians, some of whom lent their surname to the now defunct community of Bessent in the south of our county) secreted the money at a hideaway somewhere between Traders Hill and the Okefenokee. Bessent, by-the-way, was waylaid by some Spanish thugs and...but that's a whole other story worthy of its own space.

    The British marched up the crooked St. Marys River to burn Clark's extensive lumber milling operation in revenge and for the purpose of destroying a valuable American asset. Cone's unit, including some familiar names among the Bend and Baker County area - Hicks, Garrett, Crews, Greene, etc. greeted them from the banks of the stream and destroyed almost half the British force (Cone was greatly out-numbered but not outsmarted).

    The Cone Militia was later active in the Bend Section and made a number of belligerent trips into Florida where they harrassed the Spanish and Indians in what has become known as the Florida or Patriots' War (not-so-simply stated as a concurrent and extension conflict of the War of 1812 as well as a fight between anybody and among anybody who cared to join in).

    Colonel Cone married Mrs. Sarah Peeples in 1826. She was born Sarah Haddock, a daughter, of a very old English family from British Colonial days in East Florida. It was probably because of her dowry (a sizable hunk of Nassau County real estate) that he moved to the new American territory of Florida. He gave up his long-time seat in the Georgia Legislature for the move but was soon involved in Florida territorial politics.

    Cone, as a Georgia legislator, had wanted Spanish Florida to give up several million acres of northeast Florida when he pushed for the headwaters of the South Prong below the present Sanderson to be declared the beginning of the St. Marys River (there had been an agreement between the two governments that the beginning of the St. Marys would play a starring role in just where the boundary lay). However, he found himself as a Florida statesman having to oppose and finally successfully fight his own claim regarding the river's beginnings.

    He used the Old Settler Trail/Yarborough Trail through the Okefenokee-Pinhook complex and the Jacksonville-Tallahassee Road that ran through the center of the present Baker County and through the Gum Swamps for much of his business. He evidently saw that Columbia County's western part and those areas beyond along the route were somewhat more fertile and amenable to settlement than the swamps and sand of Nassau and Baker. He moved there during the Second Seminole War (1835-1842)

    A grandson was the late Governor Fred Cone, a friend to Baker County and one of the most human and humorous chief executives this state has had. Another grandson (and brother of Governor Cone) was Macclenny attorney William Branch Cone.

    Colonel Branch Cone was a member of the state Democratic Executive Committee, Chairman of the Baker County Democratic Committee, mayor of Macclenny for several terms and was secretary to his brother Governor Cone from 1937 to 1941. He received his law degree from Stetson University in 1910 after graduating from the public schools of Lake City and Jasper.

    His home in Macclenny was at the corner of Fifth Street and Shuey Avenue, now occupied by his grandson Kenneth Kirkland. This is one of the fine old residences that is a reminder of the city's rich past.

    The widow Mrs. Cone was for many years church pianist at the First Methodist Church in Macclenny and was the excellent and dedicated librarian at the Emily Taber Public Library.

    These are the type of people who made Macclenny the pleasant, personable, and unique community it is. Please help it retain that flavor and meet with the Macclenny Centennial Commission Tuesday evening at 7:30 in the city hall to plan and man (or person) the greatest function of its sort anywhere.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, January 20, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    Darbyville, a parent community of McClenny

    Darbyville was established as a naval stores community in about 1868 by Colonel John Darby and Mr. Oliver Savage. Colonel Darby was a native of Ireland, had lived in South Carolina, and was a Confederate veteran. His principal interest in Florida had been in the present Bradford and Clay Counties.

    By 1872, the little settlement of shacks, turpentine distillery, and Darby's commissary had grown sufficiently to warrant a post office. Before that time, Colonel Darby had served as an unofficial postmaster from his "Big Store"on or near the site of the present post office and from his commissary which stood on the site of the present Chevron Oil yard on East Florida Avenue.

    Charles A. Finley moved his newspaper The Star to Darbyville from Sanderson sometime in the late 1860's, and he soon had competition from a C.D. Allen from the North who published for a short while The Florida Standard (later re-vitalized as The Macclenny Standard. J. Mott Howard, who published The Press at Sanderson in the early 1880's, also joined the newspaper war in Darbyville sometime around 1880.

    As agriculture eased in to add to Darbyville's economy, a cotton gin was constructed just south of the railroad on the east side of forth Street. The area north of the present US 90 was an extensive cotton field.

    In 1871 the Dawkins Lodge F&AM was established in the tiny community, named for prominent Floridian Dewitt C. Dawkins (or so we've been told). Some of the older Mason heads also informed this columnist in years past that the Lodge had first been established in Sanderson, but others tell us this is not so (this is one of those situations in which we can only report what heard).

    In 1880, the federal census (the first taken after the founding of Darbyville) indicated the village had few inhabitants. They were Dr. Richard Kennedy of North Carolina, his wife, Mattie C., and their son, Richard W. who was born in Kansas; John D. McClenny, his wife, Georgian, and children, Ulala, John W., Julia, Laura, Emma May, Carr B., Ada and James E., and they were all born in Virginia; Walter Turner of Mississippi, his wife lilla, and their son Ulphian G. (both born in Florida), and Mr. Turner's sister Irene of North Carolina . (Mr. Turner's father, Charly was a moving man who lived through much of North America except the northwest and Canada).

    There were also Charles F. Swain (a school teacher) of New Hampshire, his wife, Susan M. of Florida, and children, Charles A. and Susan M., both of Florida, and Mrs. Swain's grandmother Matilda Norton (born in Florida); William Chambers and his mother, Martha of Ireland; John McIver of Georgia, his wife Elizabeth of Georgia, and their children, John L., Emma E., Thomas E., and Carly E., (all born in Florida); and Carr B. McClenny of Virginia, his wife, Ada of South Carolina (a daughter of the aforementioned John Darby), and children, Clara and an unnamed infant son, both of Florida.

    Captain McClenny, a wheeler-dealer of note, constructed the Hotel McClenny in 1881 and catered to northern tourists and winter visitors. Since Jacksonville and Saint Augustine were the end of the southern line, all the little outlying communities came in for their share of the Yankee trade, and Darbyville was no exception.

    According to some of the McClenny descendants, the Messrs Talbott and Coloney (we've lost their first names through the vandalism to our records a few years ago) got together in about 1880 to plat out a new town near Darbyville. That new community would become Maccienny.

    Mr. Talbot, from Indiana, was rumored to have been a relative of Captain McClenny and was a U.S Army veteran during the Civil War. He had been a hardware Merchant in Cincinnati and Gallipoiis, Ohio. He came to Jacksonville in 1879. because of failing health.

    He joined up with Mr. Coloney, a native of Virginia and, for many years, a resident of Gallipolis, Ohio, and a wholesale grocer. He also came to Jacksonville to recuperate from a severe illness. They foutnded Coloney, Talbott and Company early in 1880, but Mr. Coined retired in 1884.

    They laid out the town of Edgewood and were the real estate agents for their little enterprise (now the lovely section of Jacksonville known as Avondale).

    From their office at 39 West Bay Street, Jacksonville, they controlled 70,000 acres of what was described by Wanton Webb as "desirable lands" in Florida, and much of it was in Baker County, (again, according to some of the older heads and Mr. Wanton).

    If anybody has information regarding the map of 1883 bearing the name "McClenny" prepared by Coloney, Talbott, and Company in 1883, we will offer almost our right arm for a copy. There was once a poor copy in the courthouse, but it has since disappeared (please, we're not casting aspersions on the custodians of those venerable records, but we are simply asking the person who "borrowed those invaluable pieces from the courthouse to anonymously return them.

    Darbyville continued as a community until the Malaria Epidemic of 1888. When the fever was over in the fall of that year, so was Darbyville.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, January 27, 1983 Page Two

    THE WAY IT WAS - Gene Barber

    Getting the Cracker treatment in Keystone

    For the past several years, your columnist has been on the lecture circuit and putting his hot air on a paying basis. Last week saw him in the delightful community of Keystone Heights before the Woman's Club. A live-wire group in a well laid out facility, that bunch of sweet ladies threw the grandest Cracker buffet this writer has ever been privileged to witness and pig out through.

    There were generous servings of sweet tater pone, turnip greens with corn dodgers, bisquits and cane syrup, home-put-up pickles, black eyed peas and sow belly, corn pones, cheese grits, and a few variations of old dishes such as grits souffle'.

    For comment, we can echo a remark often written by the late editor of The Press, Tate Powell, Sr., when writing about his sampling a mess of something brought to him by a Press reader: "Umm, and were they good!"

    The ladies were lovely in their period costumes, creative in their antiques display (a brainchild of Mildred Weisgerber), and gracious in their treatment of this Baker Countian who dared approach the ladies with the attitude that he could enlighten and instruct them.

    We met the personable authoress Zonira Hunter Tolles and obtained a copy of her second in the trilogy of the history of the north Florida lake region between the St. Johns and Santa Fe Rivers. The two completed and published works are Shadows On The Sand and Bonnie Melrose.

    We came home, built up the fire, and settled in for a long and never dull night of reading. We don't dare risk displaying our ignorance by reviewing so scholarly and meaty a book, but we can unequivocally recommend it (and the first) to any who have even a casual interest in Florida history.

    Some of the surnames mentioned, and some with detail, who have connections with Baker County families are Austin, Baldwin, Barber, Bennett, Bessent, Canova, Carter, Cason, Chesser, Cone, Darby, Dougherty, Drawdy, Driggers, Dyess, Finley, Fowler, Futch, Geiger, Godwin, Griffith, Griffis, Malphurs, Mann, McRae, Mizell, Mobley, Osteen, Prevatt, Raines, Revels, Raulerson, Roberts, Sapp, Stafford, Sweat, Terrell, Thippin, Thompson, Tillis, Weeks, Wells, Wilkerson, Wynn and Yelvington.

    We might have gotten a little mixed up on some of the aforementioned names, but we think we are on the right track with most, if not all, as being connected to Baker Countians.

    During last week we also kept speaking and luncheon engagements at a number of our neighboring towns and cities, and the general theme was,"We hear you're having a centennial celebration; tell us about it." We've been asked to travel down the state to do more of the same.

    We came home quite merry and hopped up on the enthusiasm exhibited by our neighbors and sister counties, in fact, so much so that we accosted the first acquaintance we saw when we arrived back in town that we met, "Hey, man, ain't you excited about our upcoming centennial?"

    And he answered with a quizzical expression and a "...whut?"

    When we see that more interest in the city's centenary has been generated outside the county than within, and when we don't see as much preparation and offers of participation as our boundless enthusiasm makes us want to see, we begin to wonder if we haven't jumped into a fathomless deep by getting all this started.

    But we pause and remember Glen Saint Mary. We believe some of the spirit begun there is still alive, and we take heart.

    If you want to become part of the McClenny Centennial Celebration, drop a line to Centennial, 118 East Macclenny Avenue, or call 259-6261 during working hours or 259-3385 or 259-6430 at night. It's your city's birthday; help your ol' columnist plan the party.

    Appointments......

    The committee chairs for the Centennial are filling up. For your interest and convenience, here they are: Beauty Contest, Tina Rhoden; Run, Joyce Davis; Dances, David Jay; Big Creek Skirmish, Clark Williams; Souvenir Shirts and Sales, Joyce Davis; Softball Tournament, Margaret Nelson; Telephoning, Patty Wells; Typing, Claudette Rhoden; Parade, Judy and Mike Long; Arts and Crafts, Magi Kline and Alice Williams; Traffic Control, Joe Barber and Buddy Dugger; Fireworks, Margaret Nelson; Bass Tournament, Eddy Yarbrough; Rodeo, Curly Dekle; Schools involvement, Janice Hancock and Naomi Roberson; Museum, Historical Society; Photo Contests, Gerald Roberts; Darbyville Mall, Warren Williams and Gerald Roberts; Hosting, Robin Dinkins; and a few others which are filled but the committee chairs who have been appointed don't know it yet.

    Chairs are still needed for the following committees; Costume Promenades and Contests, Concessions, City Decorations, and several contests which will be explained in the Centennial meetings held every Tuesday evening (except second Tuesdays) at 7:30 pm in the city hall.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, February 3, 1983 Page Two

    THE WAY IT WAS - Gene Barber

    The Georgia-Florida boundary

    Our recent columns about Colonel William Cone prompted several letters to this writer, and, incredible as it might seem, they were all in a positive vein. Many offered additional information on the interesting gentleman and his times. Our property appraiser, the Honorable Josie L. Davis, Jr., kindly sent us a lengthy and meaty article from the Sunday Constitution Magazine, Atlanta, 18 February, 1923, in which one of Cone's pet projects - The determining and defining of the Florida-Georgia boundary - is treated at great length.

    "A State Without A Southern Boundary Georgia Finds Herself In Just About this Shape". Several separate and distinct boundaries have been drawn to separate Georgia and Florida, but none of them is a settled boundary whenever a territorial dispute arises over the sale of lands and transfer of the titles. Now a Cornell professor, rather than commissioned agents of the state of Georgia, is trying to clean up this controversy over where Georgia ends and Florida begins - a question that has intrigued Georgia legislators time after time."

    Thus began the article by Ralph T. Jones. We had at first decided to paraphrase Mr. Jones' writing, but additional thought makes us believe that we should copy it verbatim for its historical value. Here, then, is the most scholarly and understandable work on this most fascinating subject which touches heavily on our local Baker County history. Please bear in mind that this is from 1923.

    "Recently a letter was received in the office of S. Guyt McLendon, Georgia secretary of state, from a lumber firm in south Georgia, asking information about the location of the Georgia-Florida boundary line. It was explained that the timber-cutting rights of the firm extended to the line between the two states, and that another concern, in Florida, owned the property up the line.

    "Both concerns expect to cut their timber up to the line at an early date, but neither desired to cut on the other's property. Therefore the question arose, where does the line run? Simple question? Far from It.

    "It happens that Secretary McLendon has devoted considerable time during the past year to a compilation of all available data concerning this southern boundary of Georgia, and he was, therefore, enabled to furnish the best possible information to the concern in question. Also, he expects to incorporate a review of the entire boundary question in his annual report, to be printed shortly. From the manuscript of that report, the facts in this story are taken.

    "It is, however, a remarkable fact, and one which sheds no lustre on Georgia's record, that the present investigation into the history and location of the line, is being made by Cornell University and not by the state itself. Neither Georgia nor Florida have seen fit to take any interest in this important subject. Cornell, however, has appropriated funds for the prosecution of an exhaustive search and has sent one of her most famous investigators, Dr. A.H. Wrightn into the wooded regions of the Okefenokee, the St. Mary's River, and the state boundary, to uncover the historical and scientific date concerning this subject.

    "Up to 1802, when the state of Georgia sold her western territory to the United States, the southern boundary of Georgia was the southern boundary of the United States. Up to that time, Georgia, the southernmost of the original thirteen colonies, extended west to the Mississippi River, and included in her domains wide stretches of territory which are now included in the states of Alabama and Mississippi.

    Since that time, four distinct lines have been run by surveyors, either under the direction of the federal government, or of the government of Georgia itself, and every one of the four is different. The latest, known as the Orr and Whitner line, was run in 1859-60, and is legally the present dividing line between the two states. But there are no markers to locate it, there is no physical evidence of its existence, and it is necessary to run a special survey when exact location becomes necessary on any part of the line.

    "The legal history of Georgia contains cases in which this question of boundary location has figured, and, in the case of Coffee vs. Groover, decided by the federal courts on October 17, 1887, the tangled situation is reviewed at length. It can readily be seen, where reality lies between two or more of these varying state lines, how legal disputes may arise. Both states have given title to the same piece of property, each believing it to come within its own territory. Be it said, however, that in every instance it has been Georgia which has been at fault, inasmuch as each of the four succeeding lines surveyed has moved the boundary a trifle further north than the preceding one.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, February 10, 1983 Page Two

    THE WAY IT WAS - Gene Barber

    The Georgia-Florida boundary

    PART TWO

    We continue this week with the verbatim quoting of an article printed in the Sunday Constitution Magazine in 1923, authored by Ralph T. Jones. Near the end, Jones refers to a picture, which unfortunately we do not have available to illustrate this column.

    In the treaty between the United States and Spain, affirmed on October 27, 1795, the boundary between Georgia and the Spanish provinces of Florida, is defined as follows: "The southern boundary of the United States, which divides their territory from the Spanish colonies of east and west Florida, shall be designated by a line beginning on the River Mississippi, at the northernmost part of the thirty-first degree of latitude north of the equator, which from thence shall be drawn due east to the middle of the River Apalachicola, or Catahouche, (sic) thence along the middle thereof to its junction with the Flint; thence straight to the head of the St. Marys River and thence down the middle thereof to the Atlantic Ocean." Article II. Treaty Between U.S. and Spain, 1795. European Treaties, Vol. 8, page 140.

    A glance at the map will show how this boundary has since become the southern boundary of Mississippi and Alabama, as well as Georgia, with the exception of that stretch where the two more western states both run their territories down to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

    The same treaty which is quoted above also contained a clause providing for a joint survey of this line by two surveyors, one appointed by the United States and one by Spain. It was provided that this survey should be made within six months of the date of the treaty.

    For the running, of this, the first line of this boundary, Andrew Ellicott was appointed as commissioner on behalf of the United States and Stephen Minor on behalf of Spain.

    Following are the instructlons issued to Mr. Ellicott by Colonel Pickering, then United States secretary of state: "So far as the boundary line is a parallel of latitude, you will ascertain the same with all practicable accuracy, and erect permanent monuments of stone, where attainable, and at other places of earth. And in the latter case, it may be eligible to plant in the ground large posts of cedar, or other durable wood, two or three at each monument, in the range of the line, and to bury them up with several feet of earth, so that by being concealed they may not be liable to rot. The amounts of earth may be oblong in the range of the boundary line. Where cedar or other very durable wood is found, a large post may be erected in the center of each mount, standing above ground, with the words United States cut on one side, and Florida, or Spanish Florida, on the other." Department of State. Philadelphia, September 14, 1796. Timothey Pickering, Secretary of State. Senate Documents, First Session; 20th Congress (104) page 8.

    Thus began the first survey of the southern boundary. But, unfortunately for Georgia of a later day, while Eilicott and Minor made a complete survey of the line from the Mississippi to the Chattahoochee and Flint, they were forced to abandon their work when the latter river was reached. Governor Gayoso, of the Spanish Colonies of Florida, withdrew the military escort he had provided, at that point, and harrassments by bands of Indian warriors, threatening to plunder the surveying party while they worked between the Flint River and the St. Marys River, so endangered them all that the survey was abandoned at the Flint River. Which, of course, means just where the boundary line of Georgia of today begins. Wherefore, the future troubles.

    Ellicott and Minor, however, did accomplish one important object essential to a proper locating of Georgia's line. They found the head of the St. Marys River.

    It is not so easy, even today, to say just exactly where St. Marys River begins. There are at least three important branches to this river and Mr. Elilcott traveled up what he believed to be the longest, or main branch, as far as he could go. He then tried to find out if the river had its source in the Okefenokee swamp and decided that it had not. He then erected a mound of earth as near as he could to what was apparently the true source of the river and this mound, known as "Ellicott's Mound", remains to this day as the starting point of all surveys since made of the boundary line. The mound is shown in the accompanying picture. It has almost worn away in the intervening years and is indicated in the picture by the man standing on its top with a gun in his hand.

    That Mr. Ellicott was right in his decisions about the source of the river was later confirmed in the year 1819. In 1817, Captain William Cone, then a member of the Georgia legislature, charged on his own knowledge that Ellicott had mistaken the true head or source of St. Marys Rlver; that another branch was the main source, and that the head of this branch was about twenty miles south of the point where Ellicott had erected his mound.

    The legislature then authorized the governor of Georgia to appoint three comissioners to ascertain the truth of the facts alleged by Captain Cone. The three Georgians appointed were Major Generals John Floyd and Wiley Thompson and Brigadier General David Blackshear. After a faithful discharge of their duty, these generals reported to the governor and the legislature.

    It is very interesting to know that the text of this report neither in the original nor any copy thereof is to be found in the archives of Georgia. Secretary McLendon received a copy of this report from Dr. Wright, of Cornell University, and it is herewith printed, so far as known, for the first time in Georgia."

    Next week: the first known recorded description of a trip through what is now known as Baker County, Florida.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, February 17, 1983

    THE WAY IT WAS - Gene Barber

    The Georgia-Florida boundary

    Part Three

    We continue our verbatim quote from an article written in 1923 for The Sunday Constitution Magazine: "Fairfield, Camden County, February 20, 1819. Sir: We, the commissioners appointed by your excellency, in obedience to a resolution of the general assembly of the state of Georgia, passed the 12th day of December, 1818, for the purpose of ascertaining the true head, or source, of the St. Marys river, have the honor to report that, pursuant to the object contemplated by said resolution and in obedience to executive orders to us severally directed, on the 5th instant we set out for the town of St. Marys intending there to arrange the outfit of the expedition, which place we reached on the evening of the same day.

    On the succeeding day, having made the necessary arrangements for supplying ourselves and the detachment ordered out as our escort, in conformity to your instructions, we set out from the town of St. Marys, on the evening of the 6th, for Fort Alert, or Traders Hill (usually called) on St. Marys river where the detachment of militia drafted to escort the commissioners were ordered to rendezvous on the 8th instant; which place we reached on the morning of the 8th; and, at the close of that day, were mustered thirty-one men, including officers, under command of Captain T.H. Miller. Anxious to avail ourselves of every means of facilitating the accomplishment of the contemplated object, with that precision calculated to meet the expectations of government, we employed Mr. T.T. Woods, of Camden county, as surveyor, to ascertain by actual measurement the length of the northern and southern branches of the St. Marys river, (these being the principal branches, which, by uniting, make the St. Marys river) and thereby, obtain unequivocal testimony on which to predicate our report. While in St. Marys we had the pleasure of meeting Major E.P. Gaines, of the army of the United States, who apprised us of his intention to explore the St. Marys river and the neighborhood of the Okefenokee swamp, by a detachment of regulars under the command of Lieutenant Burch, which detachment was ordered to leave Fernadian (sic) on the morning of the 8th instant and that he had also ordered Lieutenant Burch, in the event of its being necessary, to co-operate with us for mutual security against the attack of an enemy. On the 9th instant the detachment of militia, under command of Captain Miller took up the line of march for the neighborhood of Okefenokee swamp, or the head of the northern branch of the St. Marys river, supposed to be connected with this swamp. But, on the suggestion of General Gaines, who had in the interim arrived on a visit at the garrison, we halted the militia a few miles in advance; that gentleman politely suggested the propriety of awaiting Lieutenant Burch, with the detachment under his command, inasmuch as the route Lieutenant Burch intended to pursue was very nearly that which it was the duty of the commissioners to prosecute, and would therefore add to the security of each detachment; and notwithstanding very little danger was apprehended from the hostility of the neighboring Indians, yet the possibillty of danger was a sufficient justification of the sacrifice of one or two days to the attainment of the contemplated object.

    "On the evening of the 9th, according to anticipation, the detachment under Lieutenant Burch arrived; and on the 10th, the commissioners, in company with Lieutenant Burch and his command, joined the command of Captain Miller - when the whole proceeded on the march for the neighborhood of the Okefenokee swamp and encamped near the head of the north branch of St. Marys river, on the evening of the 11th instant. From this encampment, in company with Lieutenant Burch and Griffith, and Dr. Greene, escorted by a few horsemen, we explored the country immediately between the swamp and the head branches of the northern prong of the St. Marys river, and were unable to discover any communication between the swamp and the river. The surface of the country on the eastern and southeastern borders of this celebrated swamp, is an inclined plane, tending to the swamp and from this circumstance, added to the fact of the very considerable extent of the swamp, and the numerous drains pouring their waters from the surrounding country into the swamp, we do not hesitate to admit the possibility that, during long and excessive rains, the swamp may discharge some of its redundant waters over the surface of the country intervening between the swamp and the head of the northern branch of the river, is a poor pine barren of ordinary elevation, thickly covered with saw palmettoe, (sic) and at present perfectly dry. Having thus obtained satisfactory evidence that there is no positive connection between the Okefenokee swamp and St. Marys River, we returned to our encampment, and immediately commenced our march down the left bank of this branch of the river, ordering at the same time and point a commencement of a survey of this branch, with a view to ascertain its length to the junction of this and its southern branches of the St. Marys river, and immediately commenced the measurement of the latter branch up its left bank (the McClenny side of the Little Saint Marys River. Ed. note), and on the evening of the 14th instant, reached a considerable swamp, in which this branch terminates. Thus having scrupously (sic) examined these several branches, and compared the appearance, size and length of the northern and southern branches, (these being the main-prongs of the St. Marys river) and finding the northern branch of greater length and size and assuming more the appearance of a river than the southern branch, we are therefore of opinion that Mr. Ellicott and the Spanish deputation were correct in establishing on the northern branch the point of demarcation between the state of Georgia and the province of east Florida. The object of the expedition being thus accomplished, we commenced our return march, and on the 16th instant arrived at Fort Alert, where the surveyor and militia were discharged; and on the 17th instant, we arrived at Fairfield.

    "We have the honor to be, very respectfully, your excellency's obedient servants, Wiley Thompson, John Floyd, David Blackshear. His Excellency Governor Rabun."

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, February 24, 1983 Page Two

    THE WAY IT WAS - Gene Barber

    Boundary wrap-up and notes on the Dawkins Lodge

    This column had intended to complete the Sunday Constitution Magazine article on the Florida-Georgia boundary, but much of the remainder is redundant, and instead, we shall quote the final wrap-up paragraphs:

    "First: In 1796, Ellicott and Minor set out to make the survey but were forced, by roving bands of hostile Indians, to abandon it when they reached the point where the present state of Georgia begins, on the west, but how they located the spot, near the head of the St. Marys River, where the later surveys have all begun in the east.

    "Second: how Dr. Greene ran a partial line, but which was later found to be incorrect.

    "Third: In 1820, the state of Georgia caused Colonel Watson to run another line north of the Greene line, known as the Watson line.

    "Fourth: The federal government, for the territory of Florida, ran the third, or McNell line, again moving the boundary even north of the Watson line.

    Fifth: How the final joint survey, made in 1859-60 by Orr and Whitner, finally placed the line still further north than any of the others had placed it.

    "The Orr and Whitner line was ratified as the official boundary of the state of Florida in 1861. Owing to the war between the states, Georgia ratification was delayed, but finally, in 1866, the Georgia legislature, also ratified the Orr and Whitner line."

    Thus ends the Constitution story of the boundary. Our typographer and proof reader are probably very pleased that they won't be fighting through all those extra commas those old-time journalists were so fond of.

    From Mr. Larry Scott of the Dawkins Lodge, F&AM, comes the following historical McClenny information. It is closer in time to us, and some of the older heads will undoubtedly recognize several of the names listed.

    According to the 1873 proceedings of the Grand Lodge, Dawkins Lodge, Number 60, at Sanderson had one of the state's largest memberships. Dawkins would remain at Sanderson for several more years, but most of its members moved with it to Darbyville when that community began to challenge Sanderson for its role as county seat. A number of gentlemen from the Georgia Bend section also joined fellowship with the Darbyville Dawkins Lodge.

    Please note although we refer to Darbyville as late as 1888 in some of our writings, it is to reflect actual historical facts rather than confuse you; McClenny as a community name began to ease in as early as 1881, and Darbyville as a community name was not given up by diehard conservatives until as late as 1888.

    Members in 1873 were J.J. Williams, Worshipful Master, U.C. Herndon, John N. Barnett, John R. Herndon, John W. Howell, Jasper Altman, John T. Austin, James S. Barnett, J.W. Barnett, T.F. Barnett, H.D. Berry, Hugh Brown, Edmund Burnsed, R.W. Cain, George P. Canova, William C. Cobb, James Combs, James S. Davis, Belonia Dinkins, B.W. Fenell, John J. Harvey, T.A. Hill, James H. Lee, John W. Mann, James B. O'Quinn, B.J. Roberts, William Richardson, D. D. Robinson, E. Robinson, A.J. Sweat, L.T. Taylor, W.L. Taylor, John C. Thompson, Ansel A. Green, and W.H. Lewis.

    Fifteen years later, the cash book kept by secretary C.F. Barber listed these names: E. Burnsed, J.W. Canady, John Brown (this was the ex-Confederate who first lived at the present site of the present Olustee Battle Monument), A.J. W. Cobb, John R. Herndon, John Jones, James Kyger, George T. Pearce, C.A. Young, J.I. Harvey, Brother Malphus, G. Chisom (Chisholm, Chism), and C.A. Young.

    Also entered was a gift of $50.00 from the Jacksonville Masonic community. Since it was marked "releaf" (relief) and entered in November, 1888, we are probably safe in presuming it was for easing the results of the infamous and disastrous yellow fever epidemic of the previous summer.

    Brother Barber might have been secretary, but this writer knows the book was not written in his hand...we could read it.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, March 3, 1983 Page Two

    THE WAY IT WAS - Gene Barber

    McClenny Potpourri

    * Reverend S.S. Gasque was appointed pastor of the McClenny Methodist Church in 1886. He was a wholesale grocer, and his impressive house was at the southwest corner of McClenny Avenue and 6th Street. From the Florida Sentinel - a McClenny newspaper at the time - came this announcement: "Farewell Sermon. Tomorrow at 11 A.M. Rev S.S. Gasque will preach his farewell sermon at the M.E. Church at this appointment, and the evening at Bluff Creek."

    The Reverend Gasque's name was pronounced "gas' key."

    * Captain Carr B. McClenny's store stood on the northeast corner of McClenny Avenue and College Street. He and his wife Ada planted some sycamores in front of their store and home. They requested the city to insure the trees' survival, but the installation of the city water and sewer system in 1950 caused them to be cut down. At one time, McClenny's trees formed a tunnel over US 90.

    * One could ride to Darbyville/McClenny from Jacksonville in 1888 for $1.40.

    * McClenny/Darbyville's newspapers have been the Baker County Star, Charles Finley, proprietor, established 1884; The Florida Sentinel, established about 1885; The Press, established in 1880's, Mott Howard, editor; The Macclenny Sentinel, established in the 1890's by James B. Matthews; The Baker County Press, established 1929, Tate Powell, Sr., owner; and The Standard in the 1930's by Quentin Milton.

    * In 1880, Darbyville had a population of about 80. Five years later Darbyville/McClenny had grown to about 200.

    * One could stay at the Hotel McClenny for $2.00 to $2.50 per day in 1885. The grand structure had gone up in 1881 (this was also the first time the name McClenny had been applied to the town...on advertising) on the block on which sits the present city hall. The hotel had over 800 feet of covered, broad veranda.

    * Shuey Avenue perpetuates the name of one of the city's earliest promoters - C.F. Shuey. He was an attorney-at-law and land commissioner of the Florida Improvement and Colonization Society. Mr. Shuey built an attractive home just east of a cotton field on what is now Fourth Street. It is rumored he died in the yellow fever epidemic of 1888, and his survivors sold the house to T. Willie Williams. After Mr. Williams moved to Jacksonville to help rebuild the city after its major fire, the house was rented for a while. After Mr. Williams' death the widow sold it to Uncle Tom Carroll.

    Mr. Carroll was originally from South Carolina, was a Confederate Veteran, a prominent public office holder, and pillar of the Baptist church.

    * Mrs. Alma Geiger has maintained the lovely old house since the death of her husband, Cecil, several years ago.

    * Max Brown was the youngest member of the Florida Senate in 1915 and maintained his office in the Hotel McClenny. A native of Columbia County, he received his A.B. degree from the old University at Lake City. He completed his Law course at Washington and Lee University before he was 21 and was the only Florida man ever so elected. (1904). He settled in McClenny about 1906 and was elected its mayor three times. At 25 years of age, Mr. Brown was the youngest state-at-large delegate ever elected to a Democratic Convention (Denver, 1908)

    * To call this city in 1908, one had only to tell the operator, "give me McClenny, please." There were very few telephones in the county at that time, and one of them was listed under the Barber-Frink Company.

    Barber-Frink raised for sale the following: oranges, satsumas, pomelos (grapefruit), lemons, kumquats, peaches, plums, pears, persimmons, apples, figs, pomegranates, loquats, mulberries, apricots, quince, huckleberries, grapes, pecans, walnuts, Japan chestnuts, chinquapins, almonds, roses, camphor, catalpa, cottonwood, cedrus deodara, cherry laurel and magnolias of all kinds.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, March 10, 1983 Page Two

    THE WAY IT WAS - Gene Barber

    Some old and interesting McClenny structures

    Florida's climate, so salubrious to both residents and Northern visitors, is definitely not conducive to longevity in wood structures. This state has, through most of its history, depended on wood for almost all of its building. Besides the termite and rot encouraging climate, fire took its toll of the state's early wood buildings. Therefore, very old Florida structures are very rare.

    McClenny has some structures at or near the century mark, and some will be on the Centennial Historical Homes and Sites Tour. They and a few other homes which are not so old but are furnished with antiques and other items representative of the nineteenth century will be open as living history books to the public in return for a nominal fee from April second through April seventeenth.

    The following is a list of some of those venerable structures with a few sentences about each. Please understand that much of the information came from the older residents of those houses and from other sources, few or none of which were around when the buildings went up or did not mention a specific building date. If anyone disagrees, please let this column know the facts. And, by-the-way, could we do it without the all-too-often venom in the voice that comes with the mistaken idea that this column intentionally misrepresented the facts as a personal insult to the knower-of-the facts? Thank you.

    Padgett House. At the northeast corner of McClenny Avenue and 6th Street, this was the home for many years of the B.J. Padgett family. Before that, it was the home of some Northern folk named Corbett, and before that, it is reputed to be the second home of John McClenny, brother of the founder of the city. The gentlemanly smile of the affable Barney Padgett warmed up this corner for many years, and the site is old McClenny at its best.

    Thompson/Reynolds House. This structure is supposedly 100 years old this year, and is at 149 East Florida Avenue. It was considered the city's showplace in 1905, according to an article and photograph in the Macclenny Sentinel of the time. Victorian embellishments are gone now, but the interior charm is being recaptured by its present owners.

    Shuey/Carroll House. The fourth structure on the east side of Fourth Street, this lovely old home was built by attorney Charles F. Shuey to face a cotton field. The house vies with another as being the oldest extant house in town. Please see last week's column for more information on this house.

    Barber House. The builders of this, often called the oldest house in McClenny, were Edward and Jesse Rowe and the owner C.F. Barber. One of its prettiest features was once a second story tiny covered porch. It was called "Mother Vic's Porch" because of the owner's mother's habit of using it daily while excluding all others from enjoying it.

    Herndon/Thompson House - Some of the older heads claim the builder was a Northern man named Merritt (there were several in town by that name in the days prior to the yellow fever epidemic). John Herndon, Baker County Judge, is supposed to have purchased it in 1888 soon after he and the county seat moved to McClenny from Sanderson. Aunt Jane Herndon, his widow, operated a boarding house there for many years. The modern day inhabitants were the family of Mr. Jim Thompson. Robert Meara is presently restoring the place, and its bright yellow, close to its original color, lends a note of cheer next to the old brick courthouse/Emily Taber Library.

    Sentinel Office. This two story house at the northeast corner of College Street and McIver Avenue has had a succession of owners, but many of the old-timers referred to it as the Sentinel office. It was moved several feet from its original position when College Street was widened sometime around the years of the First World War.

    Bob Rogers House - One of the best preserved houses in the city, this structure at 327 South College Street went up before the disastrous yellow fever epidemic of 1888. One of its turn-of-the-century owners was Bob Rogers who operated a taxi service in town. Between turns with his horse and buggy taxi, he worked with Clarence Milton in Milton's store downtown. Some folks say the house never knew an untidy housekeeper. The columnist remembers well Aunt Carrie Rhoden regularly raking the yard and scrubbing the porch.

    To be continued--

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, March 17, 1983 Page Two

    THE WAY IT WAS - Gene Barber

    Some old and interesting McClenny structures

    Part two

    We think we should remind our readers that not all of the structures we are writing about in this particular series will be included on the McClenny Historic Homes and Sites Tour.

    Hardware Brown House - At the northeast corner of Shuey Avenue and Fifth Street stands another "fever house", so-called because it was built before the yellow fever epidemic of 1888. The builder was either W.H. or James L. Herndon, and subsequent owners were M.E. Howell, Charly and Mattie Hodges, and Robert Knabb. The pleasant and handsome Judge W.M. Brown moved here from Columbia County and purchased the old Wells Hardware Store, and it was from Judge Brown that the house received its best-known name.

    Shuey-Sessions House - Just out of the southern city limits and north of George Hodge Road stands a house believed to have been built by State Representative Samuel N. Williams in the years soon after the close of the War Between the States. It was later purchased by Dr. M.F. Shuey and used as a hospital during the yellow fever epidemic, hence the long-skirted, female ghosts busily and eternally hauling pails of water to moaning fever victims throughout every full moon season; There were a succession of owners including Jacob E. Sessions and family and the Bert Hodges family.

    Garrett-Williams House. Of pre-fever construction, this house on north Fourth Street was once owned by George W. Garrett. Mr. Garrett owned a sizable section of town including a horse lot where the Citizens Bank now stands. The writer's grandparents Barber were united in marriage on the front porch. For many years Tax Collector George P. Williams lived in the house, and his widow is the current owner.

    Eisenberg House - Mr. Eisenberg lived in McClenny in the 1890's and into the twentieth century, but whether he built the house on the northwest corner of Shuey and Fourth is unknown by this column. Mr. Eisenberg was a blacksmith, and his shop and lot were across the street from his house. The widow Strickland lived there for several years with a houseful of daughters. When Mr. Garrett's wife died just south of Mrs. Strickland's home, she became the third Mrs. Garrett. The Eisenberg House was a fine example of fishscale shingles decoration.

    Bair-Worley House. There is some debate on the construction date of this house at the corner of McIver and Third (it originally stood one block west). Many people remember Mrs. Rosa Worley, a long-time resident of the house and an accomplished musician and social leader in McClenny. When she left the house, a lengthy line of old-time McClenny folks there was ended. The David Briggs' live there now.

    Powers-Green House. Now located on the southeast corner of I-10 and 121, this is believed to be a "fever house." Originally built on the east side and mid-block of Sixth Street between McClenny and Shuey Avenues, it was moved to its present site in the mid 1970's. The writer recalls that it was the home of the delightful and ever-smiling Eula Drawdy Powers.

    Georgia Wolfe House - Built in or about 1923 on the northeast corner of College Street and Minnesota by Mrs. Georgia Williams Wolfe, this well-preserved structure replaced an earlier house destroyed by fire. It has always been a house of quiet, under-stated design and decoration, full of dignity and well reflecting the cultured ladies who lived there. There are houses much older, but very few are such perfect examples of the architecture of the period.

    Dorman House - Built in 1907 by Jess Rowe for T.M. Dorman and conforming exactly to plans drawn by Mrs. Nettie Bynum Dorman, this type house on the corner of College and McIver is called "Queen Anne." It was once a social hub of the city. In tacit answer to criticism from friends and neighbors about the design of her house, Aunt Love hung a sign over the front entrance stating "Suits Us."

    Turner-Rhoden House. Built about 1903 by Edgar "Bud" Turner, the longest resident there was Duncan Rhoden and his wife, Miss Lila. They helped rear a group of some of the loveliest girls (their grandchildren) ever to grace McClenny. Uncle Duncan was a son of a Confederate veteran, and one of the most pleasant afternoons possible was to while it away listening to his gentle voice recall the old days.

    Judge Preacher Rhoden House. Believed by some old-timers to be a "fever house", this structure on the east side of Sixth Street between McIver and Michigan was, for many years, the home of William R. Rhoden and his family. Elder Rhoden was one of the county's most noteworthy and respected Judges and Primitive Baptist preachers. The house has a decidedly "Yankee look" and was probably erected by one of the early Northern transplants soon after the city was organized.

    Citizens State Bank Building - There is disagreement regarding the building date of the building, but it is known that it went up prior to the paving of the present US 90 because there are photographs of it with dirt roads, mud puddles, and hitching posts in front and side. A painting of the original building hangs in the present Citizens Bank lobby. The first structure changed very little until the 1950's.

    Baker County Press Building. Built between 1905 and 1910, it was home to grocery stores and a newspaper until bought by Tate Powell, Sr., for The Baker County Press in 1929. The bricks for the very thick walls were lifted to the top by a mule-powered lift.

    To be continued...

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, March 24, 1983 Page Two

    THE WAY IT WAS - Gene Barber

    Some old and interesting McClenny structures

    CONCLUSION

    Old Baker County Courthouse/Emily Taber Library Building. This venerable and handsome structure was erected in 1908 by Jess Rowe, the man who built old McClenny, and his cousin Art Rowe. Your writer was privileged to have seen the plans of this buliding many years ago, and he is pleased that there is no appreciable difference in the exterior appearance.

    Old Baker County Jail/Historical Society Headquarters - An article from the old Sentinel informed that the land was filled in for this building in early 1911. Locally produced brick was used in some of the structure, but being of poor quality, it began to deteriorate soon. The cell block wing was added many years later. Some of the area's best names are represented by inmate graffiti, and the rusty cell block is spookier than any horror movie. The old gallows trap door has been long covered over. There is a mystery room with no entrance above the old office area. The Historical Society will house some of its museum acquisitions in this building during the final weekend of the centennial celebration.

    Barber House (Rural). Called by the family as simply "the House", this is the home that was never completed. Built by Jess Rowe and his cousin-in-law Charly Barber in 1881, 1886, and 1889 (pick your date, the family disagrees, and this writer will not argue with them). It incorporated material from an earlier structure from the 1840's. Like most of the older homes in this area, the lumber came from C.B. McClenny's sawmill where young Charly Barber was sawyer. This warm and friendly old house has been home to scores of non-family members who had fallen on unfortunate circumstances, host to many well-known personalities, and the birthplace of this writer.

    Depot - Constructed in the 1920's to replace an older frame building about a block to its west, this is the building represented on the centennial logo. Your writer recalls when it was a social center and just a fine place for sitting on the platform on Sunday afternoons.

    Branch and Ruth Cone House - Built by a Mr. Powell in 1915, this recently remodeled home at the corner of Fifth and Shuey was residence for the late Mr. and Mrs. Cone for many years. Mr. Cone was a local attorney and the brother of former Governor Fred Cone, and Mrs. Cone was a pillar of the Methodist Church and volunteer county librarian for a very long time. Much of the success of the library is due Mrs. Cone's unselfish and dedicated work and attitude.

    Griffin/Fraser House - Located in rural south McClenny, this lovely old house was constructed in about 1905 by Dave Griffin who had recently moved from Texas (it was said he was originally from "up North"). This site was the old Griffin Interstate Nurseries, the precursor of the present Southern States Nurseries (once billed as the South's largest). The late Clem Fraser family lived there for several years.

    Taylor/Powers House. On US 90 in west McClenny, this house was built by Paul Taylor and was the first electrified structure in the city (1928). McClenny Councilman and Mayor Dink Powers snd his wife Sadie spent much of their lives there.

    Business Buildings on South Fifth Street. The oldest (1903) masonry building in McClenny is contained within this group of structures on the east side of the street just south of the railroad. They have been home to such diversified businesses as Thompson's Grocery, Thompson's Millinery Shop, a movie house, Charly and Mattie Hodges General Merchandise, Jewel's Fish Market, the Baker County Standard, and Frank Dowling's General Merchandise. Two of the old shops will be open for the centennial tour-Victoria's School of Dance and the Knabb Offices- and both will feature displays of the city's history.

    Goethe Building. Some research by a University of Florida team has been done on this block, but this writer has had no access to it. The Goethes were a sawmill family operating here in the early years of the twentieth century. Its architectural interest is focused on the top of the facade.

    Hotel Annie Block. Perhaps McClenny's most famous site, patrons flocked here from along the eastern seaboard for the sumptuous fried chicken dinners at almost give-away prices. It is a successor to the old Hotel McClenny built in 1881. Like many of the other historic sites in McClenny, it will be open to the public during the centennial homes tour.

    There are other sites, some old, some interesting, but our limited space precludes listing all of them. Why not treat your home as an historic site and try to outdo your neighbor in getting it ready for the centennial? Visitors will be hitting the area in about a week. Are you and your great McClenny home ready for them?

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, March 31, 1983 Page Two

    THE WAY IT WAS - Gene Barber

    Some old and interesting McClenny structures

    Sites without structures or newer buildings

    First Methodist Church. The cornerstone was laid in 1914. This brick edifice on North 5th Street replaced an older white frame structure built sometime in the 1880's. A Methodist Society was in Darbyville from the earliest years, but the church was not established until the mid 1880's.

    First Baptist Church - The original building, dating from before 1890, was razed in the 1950's for a newer brick meeting house. This congregation began in 1877 as the Bethel Baptist Church south of town (across the road from the present Woodlawn Cemetery) and later affiliated with the newer McClenny Baptist Church (1883). For many years this united group went under the name Bethel.

    Allen Chapel Methodist Church. This group meets in a newer sanctuary, but the church dates from 1871. It was founded as a separate black congregation during Reconstruction.

    Saint James Baptist Church - Now located on West Boulevard (Church Street), it is believed to be the successor of a very old church from south of the city. Some old-timers recalled that the blacks worshipped with Bethel Church but chose to remain near the old site when the white members voted to remove to McClenny Baptist.

    Saint James Episcopal. Established in the early 1880's or earlier by the Reverend Charles Snowden, this church has suffered vicissitudes engendered by fever, changing economy, and shifting population. Its physical structure is considered by many to be the loveliest in McClenny.

    Calaboose. The foundation is still visible at the northwest corner of McIver and Sixth. It dates from the early 1880's or before, and it remained in operation until the First World War.

    First Cattle Fever Tick Dipping Vat In Florida. Located on Rowe Barber Road in south rural McClenny, this site marked the end of the dreaded tick fever that was rapidly destroying the state's rich cattle Industry. Senator C.F. Barber pitched a gigantic barbeque at his ranch in 1913 to celebrate the event and to run the first cattle through the arsenic solution.

    Saint James Academy Chapel and Dormitory - Better known as the Poythress House, this structure came down several years ago. It was bulit by C.B. McClenny in 1885 to house the school established by Mr. Snowden in 1881, but the yellow fever epidemic of 1888 shut its doors forever.

    Hotel McClenny - It was in the hotel's first advertisements in 1881 that little Darbyville's name-change fate was sealed. Captain McClenny catered to northern visitors and commercial travelers. The hotel's heyday was over in the summer of 1888, but even after the fever epidemic of that year, the new proprietress Elizabeth Ann Barber continued a thriving business until the grand structure burned after the turn of the century.

    These do not complete the list of old and interesting places in and around McClenny, but they are representative of the city's rich heritage. Some of them will be on the Centennial's Historic Homes and Sites Tour during the first three weekends of April.

    Some of the homes are far from elegant (your writer's, for instant), and most have been modified to conform to today's desire for convenience and comfort. All, however, retain the charm of old McClenny.

    Purchase your tour tickets at The Baker County Press office, McClenny City Hall, and George Rhoden Agency. At $5.00 per ticket, you can visit every one of the more than a score of sites. It could very well be the last big bargain of your life.

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    BAKER COUNTY PRESS Thursday, April 7, 1983 Page Two

    THE WAY IT WAS - Gene Barber

    A recap of the 1st Centennial week

    Macclenny Avenue was lined with enthusiastic spectators Sunday afternoon as Easter paraders passed in review in their centennial finery. "Put on Your Easter Bonnet" sung by children and seniors on gaily decorated floats and from cooperative tape decks along the way cheered the marchers on.

    Under a clear sky as only a north Florida spring can create, there were vintage automobiles, horse and mule units, an impressive Easter float - a joint project of the First United Methodist Church and Southern States Nurseries - a miniature covered wagon, a wheelchair, and hundreds of promenading paragons of period fashion folk.

    To our knowledge, it was Baker County's first, and, judging from its reception, the 1983 Easter Parade might be but the first of many.

    The weekend was a study in contrasts. The day before the quiet, pleasant Easter parade was blustery and filled with unexpected excitement as Gary's Tush Hawgs descended on beard violators and dunked them in the dipping vat on the city hall parking lot.

    The hapless breakers of the beard code were mercilessly, and justifiably, hauled through the streets of Macclenny in the bear cage. We might say that despite the gorilla size (and appearance) of the beard posse, they were sometimes hard-put to consumate the dunking act when they tackled certain wirey and feisty violators.

    There mysteriously appeared tacked to sundry sites a rash of challenges to the authority, and a questioning of the virility, of the Tush Hawgs. These came to light concurrent with Sunday's dawn.

    A salient feature of the weekend festivities was Robin Higginbotham's Gospel Concert in west Macclenny. It could well be billed as the world's only drive-in Gospel Concert; the lot across the street was filled with a parked audience. There will be another Saturday at 10 am.

    Ol' Don was a perfect host Friday night for the first function of the centennial. Hutto's Restaurant was the scene for a great dance with music by the Eddings Brothers (those boys are good!). We trust you will show Mary and Don your appreciation for being the very first sponsors of the very first event of the very first Macclenny Centennial.

    There will be another shin-digging this Saturday down in west Macclenny at 8 pm. For those of you who complained that just as you were getting started, it was all over, may we suggest that you get started when the band does? Try parking those vehicles for a while and put your feet into four wheel drive. Come this Sa'day nite.

    Saturday will be a busy day with the Macclenny Merchants Co-op Sale (the Sale of the Century). See the ad elsewhere for the merchants taking part and spend your money at home. These people are making this centennial celebration possible.

    While in town, take your kids around to the depot area for the pony rides and petting zoo. For a nominal fee the kids can re-live the wild frontier days of old Florida atop a mighty mustang (or maybe a Shetland pony). For a quieter thrill, try petting a brand new goat kid and a baby lamb.

    You raquetball enthusiasts will want to get around to Todd's Gym for the big tournament beginning at 9 am.

    If you're not into raquetball or petting goats, don your centennial duds (try to make them authentic...no TV-inspired stuff), and join us for a promenade through Jacksonville's shopping malls and centers. We're leaving city hall at 11 am, on the dot. Come early and let's make pictures.

    Pick up your historic homes and sites tour tickets and maps at city hall, George Rhoden Agency, or The Press offce before 4:30 Friday afternoon.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, April 14, 1983 Page Two

    THE WAY IT WAS - Gene Barber

    Rain soaks sale; but not the dance

    Although inclement weather prevented a successful Merchants Co-op Sale Day Saturday, all ended on a cheerful and musical note. Margie's Street Dance was called by some the best ever held in the city. All the friendly and accommodating merchants in west Macclenny went out of their collective way to make the evening a happy one.

    Look for another frolic in the same area this Saturday night at 7.

    West Macclenny will not wait for evening to light up. David's Barber and Beauty Designers and Pat Dugger are going all out with organ music all day. The famed Nice House of Music will co-operate with them for the day long event.

    Music will still be the theme of the day with the Gospel Singing Concert between Sherry's Restaurant and WBKF starting at 10 a.m. There is a rumor that if things are going right, they might not even finish up by the scheduled 2 p.m.

    There won't be food concessions down at the west end Saturday...there are enough fine restaurants and sandwich shops to satisfy the most discriminating tastes and ravishing appetites. If you can't find it in the west Macclenny shopping area, you don't need it. Margie's and the Sub Shop will be open late. Show them your appreciation.

    This week the fine folks out in south Macclenny Join in (they've been with us all the while, but now they're giving us some real big action). Cedarwood Shopping Center activities begins at noon with a Macclenny first, a weightlifting demonstration and physique posing, compliments of Todd's Gym. If you ladies can stand it after the couple hours of the city's best beefcake, there will be the Bear Country Cloggers immediately following. All will then turn to old-fashioned musical entertainment and dancing. The Flatland Bluegrass Band will be picking and fiddling, and we hear they are outstanding.

    There will be concessions out at Cedarwood, and the fine merchants will be open to take care of your hunger and nibbles pangs.

    No doubt, some are wondering about the apparent lack of foresight and complete disregard of sponsoring folks' feelings by having two or more functions at the same time. We refer you to our first flat-out statement when we began making plans - "Activities and events will be non-stop and concurrent at various sites within the city and thus avoid needless and embarrassing gaps. No one celebrant will be able to attend and participate in all scheduled events and acttivities." Reason? Safety (less heavy congestion might mean fewer run-over people), convenience of our visitors and local celebrants (would you want to stand a half mile from the only activity going on at the time?), and lack of space (we are definitely short on coliseums, available football stadiums, and huge fields).

    Starting off the day will be the Centennial Bass Tournament at Ocean Pond. Trophies will be awarded for the biggest bass, and perhaps there will be a trophy for the biggest fish fib. The hours are 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.

    The old Wagon Wheel (West 90 Auction) will be the scene of an antique and depression glass show all day Saturday. Wander in and view some Baker County treasures hosted by Jeanette Maddox.

    One of our biggies for the day is the Arts and Crafts Show in the citizens Bank Parking Lot (9 a.m. - 4 p.m.). The Arts and Crafts Show will feature what its name impiles as well as a very interesting old-timey wood-working demonstration by Nick Nichols of Mandarin. Entertainment and concessions will be a pleasant adjunct to the show.

    Friday, April 15, and Saturday, April 16, are the big rodeo nights. Come down to the Riding Club grounds in southwest Macclenny at 7 p.m. for some of the best roping, riding, and bull-tossing you've ever seen. There'll be clowns, excitement, and one heck of a good time. Tickets are $3 and $5 and are available at the gates.

    Now, what you've all been waiting for (you have, haven't you?)...Darbyville lives again! On the site of the old Hotel Annie you will find a reasonable facsimile of old Darbyville. Drop by to photograph, amble, buy, and to enjoy the ambience of an old frontier Florida town. You will be pleasantly surprised.

    The Homes and Sites Tour continues from 10 a.m. to 12 noon and from 2 p.m. until 4. Tickets are available until Friday at 4:30 at The Press Office, City Hall, and George Rhoden Agency. They may also be purchased Saturday morning at City Hall and at the Rhoden Agency from 10 until 12. This is the last week for the tour. There will be no continuation next weekend; get your tickets and go now.

    Listen for updates on the schedule on WBKF-FM, the voice of the Macclenny Centennial (they're such nice folks down there).

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, April 21, 1983 Page Two

    THE WAY IT WAS - Gene Barber

    Well, it's our final weekend to celebrate!

    In spite of windy, rainy, and chilly weather, Centennial activities have been moving right along, smoothly and well. Our crowd estimators' figures varied, and we averaged them up to 4,000. More important than numbers of celebrators were the numbers of smiles on the faces of those celebrators. If the purpose of this fest is to have fun, we're right on target.

    If a person had a little change, there was no excuse for his going away hungry. The food and assortment of same was outstanding...everything from superior biscuits and sausage to real strawberry shortcake that was magnanigoshious. There will be an even wider variety this coming Saturday. Look for all the refreshment and foods concessions clustered around the centers of activity at the City Hall, Citizens Bank parking lot, and, of course, Darbyville Mall. There will be no concessions down in the west end of town, but the merchants there will be open for your convenience.

    As for activities and entertainment, please check the ads elsewhere. There will be everything from a shotgun wedding to a tobacco spitting contest. Don't sit in one place but do keep moving from the east end near City Hall, by Darbyville Mall, over to the bank parking lot, and on down to the west end.

    City Hall - Kelly Norman and Bob Gerard will be strumming and singing from 10 a.m. until 11. Robert Combs and Mark Gainey take over with some picking until 12:30. We'll take a break for the parade, and Jeffery Platt will sing at 2 p.m. Roy Snow will appear at 4. Gather under the lynching tree for some good old time, home-grown entertainment.

    Bank Lot - 10 a.m. until 11 is open, but there will be noise or entertainment of some sort. Todd's Gym will present aerobics from 11 until 11:30. The Bear Country Cloggers will return after a successful session at Cedarwood last week. They entertain from 11:30 to 12:30. After the parade, Billy Nash and Hickory Wind (home-grown recording artists) appear until 5 p.m.

    West End - Beginning Thursday evening at 5, Cheryl Brown will be conducting the Middle School Advanced Band in front of David's, and the Baker County High Wrestilng Team will be featured Friday at 5 p.m. A genuine shot-gun wedding is scheduled for 7 p.m. in front of David's. Judge D.L. Griffis will officiate. On Saturday, the Nice House of Music and David's will present an organ concert all day, and the Jacksonville Firebirds Cheerleaders will show up at 5.

    The big finale' weekend will bring you two street dances. The first will be Friday night in the west end with Floyd Harvey and Mark Gainey and Flatland Bluegrass and the Eddings Brothers. Saturday will end up the dancing in the streets with Tommy Ott's band at Neil Lee's Convenience Store at the corner of 23A and Miltondale Road.

    Don't forget the Grand Centennial Ball Saturday in the high school gymnasium. Tickets are still available at City Hall and from members of the Junior Woman's club.

    Darbyville's Friday evening activities will be some impromptu music sessions; the opening of the commemorative post office (collectors, get there early) in the afternoon; the Costume Parade and judging at 7:30; and your last chance to get an official souvenir shirt, cap, and badge.

    For the athletic minded, there are the softball tourneys on Saturday and Sunday (about 20 teams competing), the 5000 meter run, and the one mile fun run. There is still a little time to enter the runs. Call Marie and Lucky Bell at 259-2013 or stop in at City Hall for your entry form.

    The county museum in the old Jail will be open Friday and Saturday, and there will also be an old fashioned Cracker-type dinner served there on Saturday. A quilt show and home remedy museum are scheduled at Sands Motor Company all day Saturday.

    Gramma's Kettle will be open in the Dykes Building for those who might wish to sit and rest in air conditioning while they eat. And, next door, one can lose his dinner by riding the mechanical bull.

    The big parade begins at 1 p.m. and travels along East Boulevard and US 90, and immediately following is the skirmish at Barber's Plantation re-enactment on the east bank of the St. Mary's River.

    Beards will be judged Saturday night in Darbyville, and fireworks begin at or near 9 p.m. One of the biggies for the weekend will be the Marine's Pageant of Flags at the street dance at 8:30 p.m. We strongly recommend your viewing this stirring sight.

    There will be so much more, but space does not allow a complete listing. Stop by the information booths or stop one of the well-marked hosts or hostesses and ask about the schedule. Whatever else you do, come downtown this weekend and celebrate the city's first one hundred years.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, April 28, 1983 Page Two

    THE WAY IT WAS - Gene Barber

    The Centennial

    A wrap-up

    The celebration is now history; (and great history it is). All those involved claim that it was worth the few pains and headaches, and most have now forgotten about the pains and headaches. Some (bless their hearts) say such never existed.

    About the worst your writer experienced was a long series of sleepless nights that came, not from worry about problems, but from a conspicuous lack of same.

    We don't have to brag on the job we all did. You, delightful public, have been doing that for us. However, we shall edge toward boasting by giving you a general idea of how your Centennial committee pulled it off.

    We began by sitting down and, in a creative manner, deciding just what it was we intended to do about the project and exactly what the project was. We came up with a purpose and concept, and we stuck to it. Among other things, it gave seven reasons for having celebrations: (1) celebrating the first 100 years of the city bearing the name McClenny (or Macclenny or MacClenny or MacCleriney, etc..); (2) showcasing our city's assets, personality, and talents to both our own residents and to a wider audience of out-of-towners; (3) presenting the authentic history of the city to our own residents and to our neghbors and visitors; (4) re-creating civic pride by recalling the city's rich heritage and by involving our citizens in a large-scale cooperative effort, (5) giving reason to resurrect the failing downtown; (6) giving a positive surge to the local economy; and (7) providing an opportunity for festive times.

    The purpose and concept further analyzed our city and planned the type of occasion accordingly. We wished to combine history with contemporary tastes and avoid television-inspired themes and terms, and we carefully tried to not alienate any segment of our society.

    We decided to use color, sound, and movement and to make events and activities non-stop and at more than one location throughout the big day.

    We determined to remain democratic in all stages and aspects of planning, operation, and participation. If anyone was left out of anything, it was by his own choice...the opportunity and invitation were there. We searched out untapped human resources. We used someone other than the same overworked people and the same perennial committee-fillers. One did not have to be rich, a degree-holder, club affiliate, swinger, or pubilc figure to work on or, chair a committe.

    We planned to keep our entertainment suitable for a family affair. We directed much toward the kids, and the schools' involvement was at the core of events and activities.

    One of the smartest things we did (and it would behoove more of us in our county to think along these lines) in our purpose and concept was to provide guide-lines and a few regulations from which committee chairs could not stray or fool around with and then let them all alone until they had done their jobs. They did not have to return to the director or to the general meeting to seek permission for anything else, and that saved scads of time and confusion.

    The basic rules did insist that all committee chairs bring in regular reports for the purpose of incorporating all into the over-all event and to avoid conflicts. The director did become a bit arbitrary and dictatorial by including a final sentence in the purpose and concept that his was the final say. That final rule was clearly stated, not harped on, and was used very infrequently.

    We insisted that problems and conflicts be resolved quickly, not discussed among workers, and kept from the public.

    All this was put on paper and placed in the hands of the committee chairs. It worked. Onto and within that framework went many hours by many people, and most of both went unseen and will probably remain unsung. Adhering to our unwritten rule of not permitting anyone to misuse the celebration for vainglorious purposes, we pushed no particular names. We would like to publish a list of thank you's, but that can be dangerous when a few names are inadvertently omitted.

    It was a community effort, and we believe the best way to express gratitude is for you to turn to your neighbor and thank him or her and then give yourself a pat on the back. It was the general workers and you who did the deed.

    Please read this writer's message on the back page of our little souvenir centennial newspaper tabloid for his sentiments about you. Please don't let the spirit die. Plan ahead for Shine Day and lots of other cerebrations. It's good for you; and if you do them regularly, they get much easier.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, May 5, 1983 Page Two

    THE WAY IT WAS - Gene Barber

    The month of May has arrived in all her pagean glory

    May has always been one of your columnist's favorite months. It is a month of the senses, an earthy month. Gone are the cerebral and spiritual pleasures of awakening April. May has arrived in all her pagan glory.

    We are reminded of two special bits of May folklore. (1) Get out into the first rain of May and you're certain to not catch a cold for the remainder of the year, and (2) Should you be foolish enough to go in swimming before that first magic rain, you will suffer dire results (something we kids figured must have been a cross between drowning and pneumonia).

    An even more widespread May-magic event is the Maypole festivities. Your columnist now often, wonders what would have been the reaction of the sweet little ol' ladies who organized the annual Maypole Day in Baker County schools if they had known that it was a thousand years old descendant of a fertility rite (a euphemism for "doing ugly"). It's been several years since the county celebrated the advent of May with a streamer-bedecked pole and flower-toting kids. We think it's high time the event was re-estabilshed.

    May is also the season when so many of the creatures begin introducing their young to the world. If one is patient and cautious, he can still see the beast mamas coax their little ones out of the brush. However, with bloodthirstiness on a steady and alarming increase, the creatures are becoming scarcer.

    For the few who are aware of their nesting places, the bluebirds are beginning to make a handsome display as they fight over territorial rights around hollow fence posts and stumps. We shan't reveal any of those places, because we know that within a few days they would all be slaughtered by would-be Nimrods.

    An occasional eagle can still be seen and heard wheeling about in certain skies, but we shall not divulge their whereabouts either; they would go even faster.

    When Anglo-American settlers began arriving in the 1820's in the area that was to become Baker County, they found an abundant and varied wildlife. Except for the now ubiquitous armadillo and the semi-annual plague of lovebugs (they might not be classified as wildlife, but their behavior is a bit wild), what we see in the woods now is pretty much what our ancestors saw, plus a few.

    Of course, everywhere a four-wheel drive can get to now is also the habitat of Homo sapiens varmessinaroundous.

    As everybody even remotely familiar with the Audubon Society knows, the old-timers also saw veritable clouds of passenger pigeons and North America's only representative of the parrot family - the Carolina parakeet.

    The first Crackers knew the panther or painter (hold your ground; do not be coerced and cajoled into using the western appellations "cougar" and "puma"), the red wolf, and possibly the remnants of Florida's buffalo herds. Buffalo? Yes, dear readers, Bartram and others of late eighteenth century Florida travels describe buffalo and the Seminoles hunting them from horseback along the western banks of the Saint Johns River and through the Alachua plains.

    Some of the older heads used to tell this writer of "taggers," those long-tailed, ring-tailed, spotted great cats that were bigger than whumpus-cats. Sound suspiciously like Jaguars? These descriptions came from folks who never had the opportunity to flip through an animal book or maybe never even heard a word about spotted cats. Jaguars were in Arkansas within historical times. Maybe they were also in Florida. Why not?

    It has long been the vogue for ecology-minded writers and street-marchers to claim that there were careless, wanton, and even systematic destruction of many species by the frontiers-man. We cannot speak for the other frontier's, but our knowledge of the Southern pioneer prompts us to believe that our Cracker ancestors are guilty of (and by our standards, not theirs, and the whole thing, therefore, is totally invalid) isolated hunts for certain animals in retribution for stock-killing.

    In that, they were very successful, but it took a later generation, much less appreciative of the finely inter-related scheme of nature, to hunt birds and cats and wolves to their final...very final...breaths. They'll never come back. Once killed, always dead.

    This morning, your writer saw several raccoons and possums, a few bluebirds, a couple of snakes and cooters, and a variety of even tinier creatures. Not one of them did him any harm. The death of none would have made him a bigger or more potent man. None have anything to fear from him unless he is quite hungry or if they attack and corner him. Your writer has decided they should live and that he and his fellows have no right to destroy them.

    Let May work its magic on you, dear readers, and unless it is necessary for your own existence and sustenance, how about letting your fellow creatures alone?

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, May 12, 1983 Page Two

    THE WAY IT WAS - Gene Barber

    Historical potpourri from a desk drawer

    Not long ago, your columnist received a drawer full of aged papers. Although some had faded and were badly deteriorated, the remainder proved to be a mine of pleasure and local historical information. Here is a sampling:

    An invoice from the Farmer's Alliance Exchange on January 8th, 1890, listed a number seven Black Oak stove for $11.00, a number 8 hollow ware set for $15.60, a set of 52 knives and forks for $1.50, a meat cutter for $1.15, a meat stuffer for 85 cents, and six lengths of gas light pipe for $3.00. In, addition to the very low prices, did you note that there was none of that silly "$1.98 and $10.99" stuff?

    From 1892 came a letter from a major insurance company informing a would-be Baker County customer that the company was disgusted with his behavior and attitude and would not grant him a policy under any terms. The general agent for Florida also stated that the would-be policy-holder had also "hummed and raised objections which have never amounted to anything." Imagine that kind of frankness today. There was a time when the customer was not always right, according to some companies (your writer knew that long ago.)

    In 1907, a Baker County resident purchased from a Nassau County resident 146 head of cattle marked crop and under half crop in one ear and crop split in the other and branded with "C reverse C" for $1029.30. The increase from this herd later was the object of a bitter court battle between heirs of the buyer. Testimony from the trial was also included in the drawer of papers, and we offer a few choice pieces (the names of the plaintiff and defendants will be omitted).

    Q. Mr. Rowe, when your sister married Mr. --, was he a young man?

    A. Yes, sir.

    Q. With a limited means?

    A. Well, I don't know. I never inquired. That wasn't none of my business.

    The witness, Mr. Ben Rowe, was a terse gentleman; and his answers proved he had little use for the shenanigans of smart young city lawyers. The following is an example of his contempt for silly and ambiguous questioning:

    Q. Did your father and your sister's father die about the time of her marriage to Mr. -? A. I reckon they died at the same time. My father was her father.

    In typical storybook fashion, the country lawyer Branch Cone outsmarted the young city lawyer and we're happy to report that this incident was eventually amiably resolved.

    James P. Tallaferro was a United States senator from Florida for a number of terms, and although he was responsible for much progress in this state, he was sometimes accused of lining his pockets just inside the law (that's different from now; politicians are today accused of lining their pockets from outside the law. But we digress). In 1905, on his very official letterhead, he wrote from the Royal Mustcoka Hotel in Canada to a Florida state senator asking him to tend to some slightly unethical appearing matters in his (Taliaferio's) interests. The local senator did not lend his aid.

    There were several promissory notes to the Baker County State Bank from the years just prior to World War I. Some had the name J.H. Firestone written on them, and your columnist cannot figure just who Mr. Firestone was or what was his position with the bank, if any.

    A subscription to the Baptist Witness was $2.00 per year in 1914, according to a receipt found in the papers.

    Florida celebrated the Governor William Bloxham birth centenary in 1935. Among the papers was a letter from a local retired politician supporting the Bloxham Committee efforts. The gentleman wrote, "I began studying this great statesman, when as a young man I began taking an interest in politics; and especially so in freeing Florida from Republican and carpet bag rules."

    There were ladies' calling cards (Miss Lou Rhoden and the Misses Georgia and Mattie Rowe, for instance), hand-painted Christmas cards from 1904, stocks for far west and local companies, and some mighty interesting IOU's from folks representing some of the county's finest surnames today.

    There were other treasures, but your columnist's favorite was the lady's refusal card: "Dear Sir -Your earnest and gracious appeal affected me even to tears, as I am very impressible; and I do not hesitate to accept you joyfully for my lover on the strength of your assurances. But to talk of closer ties at present seems premature. Indeed I fear I am acting imprudently even now. But I am so sorry for you that I cannot forego the pleasure of offering words of comfort. If I appear too bold and impulsive in this, forgive me; and be assured that, whatever my faults, I have a faithful and loving heart, which, once fixed, will cling forever to the object of its affection."

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, May 19, 1983 Page Two

    THE WAY IT WAS - Gene Barber

    Historical potpourri from a desk drawer

    Continuing from last week's comments on treasures found in a drawer, we add the following items:

    Julius Slager and Company of 32 West Bay Street, Jacksonville, sold a Baker County resident a gold watch in 1890 with a case warranted for 10 years and a matching chain for $16.50. The same buyer purchased in 1891 from W.S. Gasque of Post Office Box 15, McClenny, 2 pounds of coffee for 50 cents, one pair shoes at $2.25, 55 pounds of bacon for 55 cents, 50 pounds of sugar for 50 cents, 50 pounds of rice for 50 cents, and several other items at unbelievable prices.

    C.B. McClenny received from C.F. Barber on 28 March, 1891, $6.50 donation for one set of stairs for the new McClenny school (thus giving us some idea when the school was built, which used to sit where Bernice and David Yarbrough now live)

    There were several records of bonds and attorneys' fees paid for the men accused of the death and complicity in the death of Deputy Sheriff Rufus T. Thrift in September of 1904. This was in connection with the locally infamous Baxter Rebellion. It was interesting to this columnist that the only one, of the several who received money thusly, who paid money back to the lender was Mr. Berry Crews of the Baxter section.

    From John H. Rollins, receiver of the United States Land Office in Gainesville, Florida, came a note on November 30, 1880, to a Darbyville kinsman of this writer informing him that a certain piece of land was vacant and subject to be claimed by anyone making application to the Clerk of his countty.

    In 1880, D.J. Watkins, Supervisor of Registration of Baker County, had already ceased using the appellation Darbyville for the new district in the eastern part of the county; he wrote in the name "Maccleny" (sic). There were those who feared that your columnist had greatly erred by settling in on the date of 1883 as the city's Centennial date, and more and more your columnist is beginning to think they are right, but in the wrong direction; We have found so many earlier than 1883 dates for the use of the name "McClenny" that we think we should have begun to build up interest in the centennial years earlier. (Yes, McClenny might be, in fact, is older than Glen St. Mary.)

    Mr. C.B. McClenny, the man both responsible for naming the city and for changing the spelling -Macclenny- under duress by the United States Post Office, compromised on his own letterheads and inventory blanks by using "MacClenny." He said he was a dealer in general merchandise, proprietor of the McClenny Saw Mills, paid the highest price for cotton, had the finest selection of town and country property for sale in middle Florida, and solicited correspondence.

    Jones Brothers, dealers in general merchandise and drugs, was comprised of F.A.P., E.H., J.G., and J.H. Jones. They also dealt in land and timber. Soon after 1893, they sold their drug store to Dr. Brown of Lake City. Jones Brothers advertised opium and other pain killers, and they also stocked the new stimulant Coca-Cola (some of the old-timers still called the beverage "dope" when this columnist was a kid).

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday May 26, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS Gene Barber

    Historic potpourri from a desk drawer
    THIRD AND FINAL PART

    We trust our readers will indulge us this one more (and final) installment of Baker County Historical Potpourri found in a steamer trunk drawer, property of the writer's great grandfather, C.F. Barber. Although we place ourselves in danger of being accused of pushing our family a bit strongly in this series, Senator Barber and his interests belong to the entire county. He was, shall we say, on top of everything that happened locally and in the state, and his papers represent a lot of history.

    It is sorely tempting to list the names of the folks, good and not so good, who departed this world owing money to the kindly old gentleman, but we shall forego that delicious pleasure and just say that, in addition to those notes of his own, he bought those of his uncle James Monroe Thompson (most of those were never redeemed either).

    The earliest of those debtor notes is dated May 29, 1874, and was signed at "Darby's." Several were dated in the 1880's and were signed at Sanderson, Olustee, and McClenny.

    From Mr. C.C. Corbett the Woodlawn Cemetery Association purchased $15.00 worth of wire fence in 1891. Mr. Corbett was a Connecticut Yankee and one of McClenny's liveliest entrepreneurs.

    Tax Collector James Combs collected, in 1890, from Senator Barber the sum of one dollar in payment of a capitation of poll tax. This was a handy little instrument to keep paupers and blacks away from the polls in the latter days of the nineteenth century. If you couldn't pay the tax, you didn't vote. Of course, if you swore to vote the "right way", there was always some politician who would volunteer to pay the capitation tax for you.

    It was surprising to discover that Senator Barber, once an avid fan and supporter of Captain McClenny's efforts to found a town (in fact, Barber was one of the original petitioners for incorporation of McClenny and was one of the little city's first aldermen) had become disenchanted with the land dealer and brought legal actions against him in 1889. Barber's attorney, W.P. Ward, charged $10.00 retainer fee and spelled the defendant's name"Maccelly."

    In the drawer were several receipts for payments of dues to Schuyler Rebekah Lodge Number 22 from 1912 through 1921 plus an assortment of notes pertaining to Dawkins Lodge F&AM and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

    Of interest were several stocks of now defunct corporations. The Heard National Bank of Jacksonville, 1911; Great Western Oil and Gas Company of Indian Territory, 1907; Producers Packing Company of Delaware, 1920, and the Florida Cattle and Grazing Company of Jacksonville, 1917 (Barber was the president) are among them.

    From the early years of this century are Southern Express Company receipts for merchandise. Sent away were fresh cut flowers, shrubbery, and cotton, and received were jewelry, furniture, and oysters. The company's logo mentioned that it had lines in all 46 states and territories.

    It was learned from a sales ticket from Williamson and Dennis Stockyard Auction in 1923 that 74 head of cattle brought $1092.71. The prices per pound on the hoof ranged from two and a quarter to three cents.

    There were signatures of C.B. McClenny, John Darby, Judge John R. Herndon, and several other notables in Baker County history - a true heritage lesson and experience - but we shall replace the papers and move on to other subjects next week.

    And on the subject of heritage, please keep the television documentary on McClenny in mind. Tune in to Channel 12 at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, June 5.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, June 2, 1983 Page Two

    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    A plea for presidential pardon

    Recently, your columnist received another welcome communication from his cousin Ward P. Barnes who signed off "Still lost after four years in downtown D.C." In his travels through the National Archives, Ward discovered a document concerning a long-ago Columbia (that part now Baker) County resident.

    That old-time resident Moses E. Barber was an ancestor of this writer, and the petition he tendered President Johnson confirmed family and area legends that he, as well as most of the other citizens of this county, were opposed, If not openly at all times, to the idea of secession from the Union. These were mostly poor and conservative people who stood little to gain, and were in danger of losing what little they had, if the union of states was dissolved. Below is the peti- tlon exactly as written.

    "To his Excellency Andrew Johnson President of the United States Washington, DC, The petition of Moses E. Barber a citizen of Columbia County In the State of Florida, respectfully showeth that believing that he may constructively be deemed within the thirteenth exception of your excellency's amnesty proclamation of 29th May 1865. He makes this appilcation for special pardon, so as to place himself in his rightful position, and obtain the rights of citizenship again, and for cause, of extenuation begs leave to state that at the time of the commencement of the rebellion he was a farmer and large stock keeper, or cattle man, that he was always a union man, and bitterly opposed to multificatlon or secession, and in his quiet way used every effort in his power to influence his friends and neighbors to vote against secession; and has never during the rebellion voluntarily participated in said rebellion, but having a large stock of beef cattle, and the protecting shield of the United States Government being removed from him or the whole country where his stock ranged was within the bounds and under the military control of the so called Confederate States, and he without the means of resistance to them, his cattle were impressed and he was forced to deliver them up for the use of its army, much against his will. His whole stock of cattle were seized by them, and he was not permitted to sell to any one else, or even to select the cattle he could spare or was willing to dispose of, by which a loss was entailed upon him of over one hundred thousand dollars at the lowest gold valuation. He further says that in consequences of the occupation by the so called Confederate Army of the Country in the vicinity of his house, and the operation of the two armies consequent thereon, amounting to at least forty thousand dollars. He is now and always has been loyal in his principles and attached to the Govemment and principles of the Constitution of the United States, and promises if pardon is awarded him to hereafter always conduct himself as a good and loyal citizen in every respect. And therefore humbly prays that executive clemency may be extended to him, and that he may be permitted to take the oath prescribed by your excellency's proclamation, and resume his rights and duties as a citizen of the United States, and your petitioner will ever pray (last word illegible)."

    It was signed by the petitioner and dated September 15th, 1865 at Lake City, Florida. The United States officer who received Mr. Barber's sworn statement was Lieutenant A.A. Knight.

    Two citizens of Columbia County, Messrs. Smith and Ives, appeared as character witnesses for Barber on the same day before the same officer. Barber signed the amnesty oath form on the same day, but whether he received the presidential pardon is still unknown.

    Moses Barber, like so many of his neighbors, remained a Unionist for only as long as was practical; almost all the county became ardent Confederates when the United States troops began moving in as invaders. Of the two armies, the locals suffered more from those clad in Union blue, and they resisted.

    After the war, so many like Barber found themselves lumped together with the radical secessionists, and they, who had so little to lose, lost everything.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, June 9, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    A look at commercial McClenny of l887

    When we set out to celebrate McClenny's centenary, we listed several goals besides the obvious one of a birthday fest. We hoped, as one of those goals to initiate sufficient interest in our heritage to bring in more historical data on the city.

    It worked. By circuitous routes we received the following items.

    The Florida Times Union in an issue of August, 1885, said, "Macclenny, formerly Darbyville, wants to incorporate..." An edition of March, 1887, said:

    "Four years ago there was barely two scores of souls in the place; today we number one thousand...We have a roomy and comfortable hotel very near the depot...Our tobacco factory, an enterprise giving employment to several hands, turns out cigars of a fine quality. We have daily four passenger and two freight trains that pass, and our new depot will soon be completed."

    Young McClenny was a lusty infant, certain of her future, and her growth presented its evidence in her commercial ventures. Frank O. Miller, later of piano purveying fame in Jacksonville, established a cigar factory that was to last for several years after his move to Jacksonville.

    Miller's cigars won first prize at a Joint Baker-Columbia Counties fair in Lake City in 1886. Lake City's leaders offered him attractive inducements to relocate in their city, but he chose to remain in McClenny.

    His two-story factory, thought to have been in southwest McClenny, caught fire in the early summer of 1887. Heroic efforts by his hands and the city's volunteer fire department saved the structure and most of its contents.

    In early 1887 there were nine grocery and dry goods stores, two millinery shops (Mrs. T.A. McClenny's and Mrs. J.O. Thompson's), two drug stores, and one tin shop (can anybody enlighten us as to what a tin shop is or was?)

    John O. Thompson, a native of South Carolina who had moved to the McClenny area as a child, was busying himself in setting up a hardware mercantile business. His store, by the way, is still in existence under the style of Thrift Ace Hardware in West McClenny. The stores' known succession of owners has been the mentioned Mr. Thompson, his son-in-law, Frank W. Wells, Judge W.M. "Hardware" Brown, Richard Blair, Lonnie Thrift (late mayor of McClenny), and Felton Thrift (present proprietor.

    Dr. Shuey's new. drug store on College Street (site of the present "Pastries and Parties") gave "a city-like appearance with glass front."

    The Darby family still held turpentine distillery interest in town in 1887. Captain C.B. McClenny was the major lumber miller and a Mr. Van Seay (we're unsure of the name) sold brick at $6.00 per thousand from his brick manufactory on Willingham Branch.

    The Times Union writer "Broughton" lauded Captain McClenny for creating and developing the city and said:

    "With a lumber mill, a brick yard, with able carpenters and brick masons, with horses and mules to do the hauling and with new people coming in constantly, there is no reason we will not go on with the good work, that is, the building up of a large town in few years."

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, June 16, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    McClenny social notes from the year 1887

    When we mentioned in last week's effusion that our new clippings had come to us via a circuitous route, we were remiss in that we did not give proper credit to those who relayed the material to us. The original researcher was Barbara Foster of, we believe, The Gainesville Sun. Pat Smith Barber of the Ag Center gave them to Ruth Carter of the same offices and Ms. Carter dropped them in the mail for your columnist. Thanks to all.

    According to The Daily News Herald (Jacksonville) of July, 1887, summer was a busy season for McClenny. Saint James Academy's commencement ceremony was just over, and the article listed the following as participants: Ina Sessens (Sessions), Sallie Miller, Florence Lang, Patty Watkins, Florence Jones, Helen James, Rose Porter, Mettie Hendricks, Cynthia Roberts, Misses Sallie and Claud Miller, Lula James, Orlando Jones, Clara Macclenny (McClenny), Helen James, Dana Swayne (Swain), Ella Powell, Lizzie Powell, Ada Macclenny (McClenny, James Melivaine, and Orie Chalker.

    Although Saint James was established as a school for women, it seems that a few of the names indicate an integration of the sexes. Some of the spellings were incorrect (how unusual for a newspaper), but we think that the spellings of Orlando Jones, Dan Swayne, James Melivaine and Orie Chalker represent masculine appellations.

    The McClenny Public School, recently completed in 1887, and Saint James Academy employed between them both, the following teachers: the Reverend Charles S. Snowden, Professor E.T. Woods, Mrs. D.W. Rogers, Mrs. Charles S. (Susie) Snowden, and George Abbott.

    Prefiguring today's' Shine Day festivities, McClenny pitched a giant July 4th celebration in 1887. The city's two ball clubs, rivals for the past few years, staged game, but it was called due to rain. Judge M.F. Shuey was chief orator during the speech making. Little could Judge (and Dr.) Shuey suspect that within a year, he would be a central figure in the worst disaster ever to hit the little town-the yellow fever epidemic-and that his home would be hospital, graveyard, an host to spirits left to wander. After that terrible summer of 1888.

    The McClenny Light Infantry Company, which had been shaken to its collective feet a year before by the Charleston Earthquake, sponsored a festival at Pearce's Hall (wherever that was). There was supper followed by a dance, and the funds collected went into the company treasury.

    Not all residents remained in town for the spirited good times. J.D Merrit and his daughter left for the Catskill Mountains for relief from Baker County's heat and humidity. Mr. Merritt was one of the town's primary promoters. He built several houses, induced his kinspeople to move down, and his wife served in the office of post master in McClenny. R.E. Merrit took his family to central New York. J.F. (we think that might be a mistaken set of initials) McClenny and family went to Franklin, Virginia (near the old McClenny homestead)

    Charles F. Shuey was in Atlanta on business. J.S. Gray was in Uptonville, Georgia, for similar purposes, and Sydney Pons vacated the town that summer for an unannounced location (the Pons folks were usually tight lipped about their business).

    Evidently the Baptist Church building was not ready for services in the summer of 1887 since Brother Bob Rogers (of Baptist preaching fame, not of rough-and-ready, tipping-the-bottle, taxi-driving fame) preached at the Methodist Church and baptized several people in Turkey Creek during the afternoon after services. Sorry, dyed-in-the-wood Methodists, but in those days Southern rural Methodists often preferred immersion and almost always were given a choice. Also, dyed-in-the-wool Episcopalians, your spiritual and denominational forebears of a century ago in McClenny were as likely seen worshipping in the Methodist and Baptist Churches as their own. The newspapers of those days were abundant with news items of ecumenical services.

    Now that we've picked on the Methodists and Episcopalians, we shall inform our fellow Baptists that in those days and in this little city, you were not so close-communion-ed either. Folks tended to be Christian first an denominational second.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, June 23,1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    Fred 'Bubba' Bullard; a genuine McClenny product

    "That was some adventure we had." Thus spoke a young fellow back in '42 or '43 by the name of Fred "Bubba" Bullard.

    Unless you have been locked away incommunicado for the past few weeks, you surely must be aware of the name Fred "Bubba" Bullard. Local television, radio, and newssheets have made this name almost a household word in northeast Florida...and not without good reason; Mr. Bullard is stepping, nay, boldly tromping, into territory that can be described as perilous...professional sports in Jacksonville.

    There has been much speculation and doubt regarding the wisdom of bringing the USFL to our neighboring city. After all, sports have never brought out the attendance in Jacksonville that arts presentations and entertainment cumulatively and consistently have. The Sharks and Express didn't make it, and the hollow touting of the here-and-gone-and-here-again Tea Men has long been wearisome.

    But, this column goes on record as stating it believes the jinx has met its match and then some. McClenny products have an enviable, if not widely advertised record of succeeding against great odds.

    Fred "Bubba" Bullard is a McClenny product.

    Fred is from good established local stock. This writer should know; Bullard and he share the same great-grandparents (ever notice how your columnist is quick to fasten onto the coat tails of relatives and acquaintances for what he hopes will be an easy ride to whatever and wherever it is one rides coat tails for and toward?).

    Bullard's great-great grandfather Obediah Garrett of Camden and Charlton counties, Georgia, was a gutsy fighter and survivor. When his first family was killed by belligerent Creeks in the First Seminole War, he remarried and began again, never shying away, because of the possibility of it happening again. During the Second Seminole War, after another family was well started, it happened again. Only he and two sons were saved.

    One of the sons, George, was badly shaken and physically damaged, but he survived to produce Fred Bullard's maternal grandmother Gertrude. George moved to McClenny in the 1880's where he accumulated a fortune in real estate and gold eagles and where Gertrude met and married one of the little city's most eligible bachelors, Earnest Vasco "Earnie" Turner.

    Earnie Turner's father Walter was a strong-willed, principled and disciplined gentleman. It was said of him that folks along his walking route to his job as McClenny's post master set their clocks by him.

    Walter Turner's father Charles was a native of Oneida, New York, a United States Army veteran of the Mexican War, a soldier of fortune in the service of Mexico, a pioneering insurance agent for Aetna in the great West, and an experimental farmer the Southwest, and a Republican whose humanitarianism and influence in Washington helped ease the after-the-war pains for many a Confederate veteran, widow, and orphan.

    The Frakers, a maternal ancestral family from the Netherlands, were well known for conservative politics and manners and for the individual members' ability to acquire economic substantiality.

    Fred's paternal ancestors were old settlers in the Columbia, Hamilton, and Suwannee Counties area and those Georgia counties contiguous to Columbia and Hamilton. Fred's father, known to locals as "Bascomb", always had a gentlemanly dash and flair, and he was a good businessman and provider even in the rough times of the thirties. One still hears ladies remark on the man's good looks.

    Fred's mother, Lillian Turner Bullard, is a very attractive, unpretentious, and personable lady who doubtless added her level headedness to Bubba's character as well as her strong Turner comely appearance.

    It takes, of course, more than having been born in McClenny of Baker County ancestry and having lived in McClenny (and Baldwin), to make a millionaire and successful Jacksonville professional ball team owner. It takes something special found in the person that is his or her own.

    Your writer recalls seeing that something special in Fred Bullard about forty years ago when Fred and he marched into the hammock behind the old Barber House for high adventure (the visits between the boys were very infrequent; we don't wish to give the impression of having been inseparable boyhood chums. In fact, the older folks had to give your writer a refresher on just how he and Cousin Fred were related each time he visited).

    That special qualify comes to mind when we remember that Fred was the first person your columnist had heard, other than a teacher use the word quot;adventure." In Cracker country, that takes guts.

    Bubba was not fearful of taking chances. He challenged your writer to climb a tree known to house flying squirrels and capture a few. Your cowardly columnist would not take up the gauntlet. Bubba did. He also caught a young squirrel as it landed and received a nipped finger.

    Your columnist, even as a child, admitted to a perverse joy at hearing the hero make a grammatical error in, describing his traumatic state- "it blooded".

    Also, as a child, your columnist realized that Cousin (we will insist on calling him that) Fred "Bubba" (he once expressed a dislike for his buddies, knowing and using the nickname) Bullard was not of an ordinary cut, because he seemed to not allow his opinion of your writer to drop due to a lack of your writer's bravado.

    Jacksonville's economy could use a professional sports team, and Cousin (there we go again) Fred will be the one to make it go. He will now bring the need and the ripe time together.

    This column wishes you well, Fred, and we have confidence in your great "adventure."

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, June 30, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    It's been eight years....

    This effusion wraps, up, the eighth year of our column-writing efforts. As is our wont with these anniversaries, we shall review our readers' receptions and reactions and wander through divers topics.

    Responses: On the whole, readers' responses have been of a positive nature this past year. Maybe it's because our subjects and treatments of them have been comparatively innocuous. Maybe it's because your columnist is mellowing.

    We received a few "Sometime, why don't you write about..." questions. We would like to treat many more sundry subjects than we do, but with a weekly schedule of 30 hours of classes instruction, 12 hours private lessons, 12 hours driving time, and 9 hours research and preparation for classes, we are happy to get one column out a week. Artists, unlike normal people, don't survive (or thrive) on a 40 hour work week.

    Even the most uninteresting of these weekly writings demands a minimum of four hours compilation from notes, editing, and (ugh) typing. Original research and interviews can, at the least, triple the time (Your columnist makes no pretenses of being bright or rapid).

    And, yes, it does occasionally get old (your columnist also makes little pretense of being a stick-to-it type), but we shall hang in there a while yet. We must admit that the kind notes dropped into our mailbox make it easier.

    Be assured; if the subjects and your columnist last long enough, all those requests will be tended to...maybe.

    We still receive the queries about our use of the old fashioned editorial "we" and our spelling of the proper name "McClenny." The first, and most basic answer to those questions is that we want to.

    Regarding the editorial "we", surely those people are not serious. They have, no doubt noticed that our weekly feature is primarily an historical one. Why should we not borrow the editorial "we" from the charming, if not always easily read, journalism of the past? Also, we bring to mind a quote from one of our favorite, newspaper writers, Tate Powell, Sr.: "We don't want our readers to know how many of us there are. We want them to think maybe they're outnumbered."

    Now, on the spelling McClenny. Even if captain C.B. McClenny, the founder of the town, is responsible for altering the spelling to the personally odious Macclenny-as a result of the United States Post Office requirements of that day to eliminate capital letters and such within a post office name-this column shall continue to wage its lonely and low key war for correction.

    The documentary: The television special on Channel 12 "McClenny-A Place in History" was well received by the Florida Publishing Company's, reviewer; by a wide audience in Jacksonville, northeast Florida, southeast Georgia and by the perhaps 7 people in Baker County who watched.

    The only way we can figure for the evidently low, embarrassingly low, viewing number locally is that there was either a football game or a cable TV dirty movie at the same time. Where were all those folks whose habitual plaint is that the newspapers and TV stations never show anything about us but bad stuff?

    Hey, you seven folks who watched....did you notice that there wasn't one negative comment in the entire 30 minutes?.

    Close to ten weeks writing and videotaping; nights upon nights of editing; miles of traveling and route re-tracing; telephone calls galore; cajoling; politicking; diplomacy; and, worst of all, very early rising...and the result: "Well, I really meant to watch, but I rode over to Maxville to pick up a six pack and plumb forgot."

    You just can't do nothing for Jerusalem.

    Shine Day: We trust the civic pride and festive atmosphere engendered by McClenny's Centenary Celebration will be repeated and enhanced by Saturday's Shine Day. Here is the first opportunity to keep the spirit of the centennial alive.

    The Centennial, through the full-scale efforts of people like Gerald Roberts, Warren Williams, Gary Milton, Scott McPherson plus Dotsie and Shirley and a dozen others brought you Dabyville Mall. Judy Fraser Long inspired you to create your biggest and best parade floats. Doris Long and her group encouraged you to authentically costume up. Now, Baker County, take those efforts and have a Shine Day that outshines every other festival in north Florida.

    We extend appreciation and admiration to those who made the brave and necessary decision to give celebrants the option to "shine out" rather than use moonshining as a theme. We feel this will bring in many more participants. We cannot expect churches and those who suffer bitter and sad memories of a time not at all like a fun filled Burt Reynolds movie to condone or make light of the era.

    We cannot deny that it is a part of our history. Let us keep the dual theme and keep all Baker Countians celebrating rather than one segment only.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, July 7, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    Historical potpourri

    In preparing for our annual hiatus from our usual line of work and endeavor, we had written up several columns for the next several weeks. However, a weekly column prepared several weeks in advance is not- unlike bread baked several weeks ahead; both get mighty stale.

    Here, at the last moment, is a substitute for one of those stale effusions. The secret is now out...when you dear readers see one of these several subject, seemingly tossed together columns, you will know that it is also one of these last minute efforts.

    Letter from Darbyville: This column recently received a welcomed and informative letter from Miss Elise C. Jones, a great grandmother of Colonel John Darby (for whom Darbyville was named). Although we have been remiss in answering Miss Jones' letter, we shall take advantage of it and present a letter dated July 27, 1881, and postmarked Darbyville, Florida which Miss Jones' grandfather sent to Miss Ida Wolfe (later his bride) and which was included in Miss Jones' letter.

    "Dear Miss Wolfe, your most welcome epistle received yesterday and was indeed very glad to hear from you. I now hasten to answer it. There is no amusements (sic) of any kind in Darbyville for anyone. Am sorry you are not coming down to Darbyville in so long a time. Was in hopes you were comeing (sic) before the summer was out. Would try and make it very pleasant for you if you were to come. Hope your attending school will not interfere with our correspondence. With kind regards to your family, I am very respectfully, Arthur M.D."

    Miss Wolfe answered Mr. Darby and accepted an invitation to a meeting of the Darbyville Literary Society. And folks talk about how we're bringing culture to McClenny! It's been here all along; we're just rediscovering it.

    Independence Day: Although some of your columnist's Civil War era ancestors were definitely not pro-secession, there was sufficient anti-government attitude created in his family toward the end of the war and during reconstruction that he grew up celebrating the "Fourth" rather than "Independence Day."

    The commanding officer in Lake City in 1866 complained that the local residents showed little enthusiasm for the Independence Day celebration the army and Reconstruction government sponsored. That lack of enthusiasm naturally sifted down through the generations to our own day.

    But those were the old days, and the country, in case you haven't heard, has been securely (we hope) and happily (we thought) re-united. It's high time we resumed the habit of being thankful for the original foundation and, even though we Southerners got our britches whipped (but it wasn't easily done), we need to start showing gratitude that we re-established the union after the War Between: the States.

    We think we can begin by nipping in the bud a direction we see ourselves sliding into: re-fighting the Civil War. Hold on! We're not getting ready to whip a dead horse, i.e. railing against our Southern white brothers and daughters of the Confederacy only. We are, rather, giving gentle remonstrance to so many of our northern-born brothers who have joined the big re-locating to the sun belt as well as to our own former Confederate states native-born.

    First, it has become a cliché to argue that the re-enactments to honor the dead, etc., but we will say that the re-enactments are among the best "live" history lessons one will ever see. Although unpleasant, the Civil War is part of our heritage, and it did mold us; such actual activities must never happen again, and the re-enactments make that lesson more graphic; and since mankind will always follow his animal nature and: scrap and kill, it is best for him to do it on the re-enactments fields and in the more vigorous sports arenas (we'd rather not hear about how animals don't behave in this manner...they actually do...it's only man who seems to enjoy it).

    Now, you good ol' boys; isn't it about time you stopped making such a big thing of Dixie and the Stars and Bars when you can't even know what they're all about? Frankly, this columnist is getting extremely tired of having the labels redneck, cracker, and rebel interchanged so freely.

    We can understand why, and how blacks cannot and will not get positive goose pimples when the strains of Dixie stir the air. We can understand intolerance toward rebellion now that we've settled down into one country. We can understand having a jolly good time re-fighting a history-changing battle now that all its widows and orphans are gone. We can understand resentment against invaders until the last victim of invasion has passed away.

    What we cannot understand is the continuing venom being passed between regions and races. We've never had it so good or so free. The trip to ultimate good and freedom is not over and will never be over. Blacks are not the only heirs of slavery, and peonage; many local Crackers share a similar background.

    We're trying to say with all this circumlocution that Baker County is one of the few rural Southern counties with good relations between regional backgrounds and races. We could be the model for many others, North and South. Let's begin planning now for a fantastic Fourth for '84.

    And let's begin right now to dwelling on our positive gains for awhile. Baker County, you've never had it so good whether you are white, black, pink, poor deprived, rich, educated, or ignorant. Don't be satisfied, but try being happy.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, July 14, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    Ms. Liberty and Daisies

    Our readers will undoubtedly notice a marked improvement in our spelling this week. We Just received our typewriter back from the typewriter hospital where we are certain the nice folks there rebuilt our spellerator.

    This will be another of those salad-like effusions (tossed together). Or, perhaps, it can be more likened to soup...composed of clearing out the storage of the columnist's mind.

    One subject we would like to comment on is the Statue of Liberty, an old likeable girl in need of repairs (puts this columnist in mind of some of his former girl friends). We have been reading about how $30 million is necessary for the overhaul (this writer has known women for whom this amount wouldn't even get it started), and maybe our readers want to know more about this seemingly expensive lady.

    For one thing, she has cost us very little. The French citizenry (not the government) donated the funds for her design and construction and gave her to the people of the United States (that's us). Some of your great-grandparents right here in Baker County gave money to erect the pedestal, on which she stands (we think that's a redundancy, but we only had the spellerator fixed on this typewriter, not the unredundantator).

    In those days, the twenty eighth of October, 1886, to be specific, when President Grover Cleveland dedicated her, people liked us; the French people's gift of her stands as proof of that.

    For those who are interested, Ms. Liberty was designed by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi. Gustave Eiffel of "the" tower fame planned her elaborate and effective framework.

    She weighs a total of 225 tons (bet even Weight Watchers couldn't handle that job), and she is covered with copper plates. She stands 151 feet high on a pedestal of 89 feet, and her base is an additional 65 feet. If our arithmetic is correct, she raises her torch, symbolically lighting the way to freedom, 305 feet above the water line before the New York City skyline.

    Besides being the first visible bit of America for millions of immigrants in the almost past century, she has represented America to all of us on T-shirts, paperweights, and historical pageants. She has been America's most noticeable symbol in movies that ranged from patriotic documentaries to the Planet of the Apes.

    Now, she's in trouble. She is sick. Her copper is corroding, and her framework is rusting. No matter that she stands in New York harbor, she stands for us here in Baker County, and it is our obligation to go to her rescue.

    This column suggests that our county and city governments kick off the focal campaign with a donation, no matter if it is small. We suggest a schools drive much like our old World War Il paper and metal collecting. Patriotic service, fraternal, and heritage Organizations cannot help but to send in something if they continue to tout the style and purpose under which they now operate. And individuals may send in anything from a dollar up (please' don't expect a receipt for tax purposes unless you're going to toss in something in the three figure range; such bookkeeping expense defeats the whole purpose of collecting the restoration funds).

    Send her some aid in care of Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island Foundation, P. O. Box 1986, New York, N.Y. 10018.

    In past columns we have proferred daisies to certain homeowners for preserving and restoring some of our county's old houses. This week, and irregularly in weeks to come, we wish to give Daisies to Down Town Doers.

    One of the first to restore and renovate a downtown structure was Paul Rhoden. He turned the former Edray Theatre and Crockett's Drugstore into a first class professional building. Its interior is still convenient after several years of use, and the timeless combination of natural wood and brick will keep the exterior attractive for generations to come.

    In the past, this structure has housed, besides the movie house and drugstore, Jewelry, shoe, and camera stores. Uncle Ira Walker began the city's first and only tropical fruit Juice stand around on the side in about 1950.

    Across the way, McClenny's most famous enterprise, the Hotel Annie, existed on the main drag from the mid-1930's until the mid-1950's. It was an economic and cultural descendent of the old Hotel McClenny of 1881. During this contennial year (we think this is a redundancy too, but we couldn't get an opinion on it), Gerald Roberts has encouraged new and re-newed business in the old Powers building with a fresh paint job and a bit of novel dolling up out back.

    Of special interest on that historic corner is the new restaurant, charming in location and attitude. It's been a long time since folks could sit and sip while rocking on the upper porch overlooking McClenny Avenue.

    Not enough praise can be heaped upon the team of Dr. Gary Dopson and attorney Hugh Fish and their lovely wives for renovating the Gilbert Building on the corner of Fifth Street and Railroad Avenue. The tasteful interior is a proper extension of the handsome exterior.

    The building is not old. Your columnist (who, also, is not old) remembers that before it was erected tents were pitched on the site for traveling movies, medicine shows, and all-black musical revues. There was once an open-air bowling alley (during WW II we think, presumably to lure the servicemen away from the den of iniquity that was the foot-stomping, lively Legion Hall).

    The empty lot was a dandy place for Bud Burnett, DeWitt Chessman, and others of us to tunnel through the dog fennels to hideaways. Julia Mae Dyal would often find us and demand that we allow her to play with us or she would squeal on the location.

    Will Gilbert's store on that site was a fascinating ommium gatherum. It was a place of Pappy A.B. Hart, mayor of Trail Ridge; inventive Sal Colson; friendly and kind Calvin Josie; and the columnist's witty and wonderful Uncle Massey Hurst.

    More Daisies later.
    Correction: Miss Jones, mentioned in last week's column, was the great-granddaughter, not the great-grandmother, of Colonel John Darby. That came under the heading "dumb mistakes."

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, July 21, 1983.
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    "Summer sort of slow-walks you down"

    A few evenings ago, your columnist walked out onto his front porch and was transported back in time. It was still eighty-seven degrees at 9:30, muggy, and heavily, laden with half-hearted cricket lullabies. A quarter moon was trying to ease its light down into the magnolia-canopied yard. The single stingy-watted light bulb was no competition to the little bit of moonlight that came through.

    Easing down onto the steps, your columnist heard the floorboards creak with rockers. The gentle snapping of pea shells, an occasional soft slap of a screen door, sounds of a distant past rushed up to usher him to that almost forgotten time of his youth.

    The crisp picking at ice in the icebox, a metallic non-rhythm played by steam against a pot lid, kids playing at a sweaty game in the sandy lane...summer.

    Winter is an intimidator, but summer sort of slow-walks you down. It's heat and wetness is a narcotic, not always pleasant, that cannot be escaped.

    When we were little, there were the daily summer afternoon trips to either friendly cool Turkey Creek or sharing the back of the truck with some hefty Charleston Greys, out to Big River (The Saint Mary's to you Baker County neophytes). Sometimes, when our favorite holes were already filled with squealing milk-white kids (everybody was white in those days...everybody, that is, who was supposed to be white), we'd wind up at Macedonie (that's not a misspelling. Most of us were grown before we realized that Macedonie and Macedonia were not two-different places.

    Macedonie was as chilly as a glass of lemonade, and as fascinating a place as one could ever hope to. visit. Overhanging trees, tiny islands, sugary white sand, and stories of petrified wood lying at its very distant bottom (remember when we were told about certain holes in the river that "had no bottom?") made it a wondrous world indeed.

    On the way back, there would be tales of Indian attacks and the poor pioneers who were buried in a wagon body in the heat of the fighting. There were stories of runaway slaves (your columnist used to wonder why that was so bad if he had been a slave he would have run away) and how dogs were used to fetch them back...and right along the same route we were traveling. Then we'd hear about how some folks called the road we were on the "Pelham Road" and others knew it from "Indian Days" as the "Yelvington Road."

    As we passed the Rube Crawford place, there would always be the well-rehearsed and known-word-for-word narratives about Grandma Thompson making peach brandy there back before the War (the War Between the States, naturally) and how a red-headed Yankee sergeant had shot poor Great-Grandma Chesser. when she was but seven years of age and had left her lying wounded in the field all day and how her mother was forcibly restrained from going to her (we had a hard time for a long time liking Yankees and only recently believed that all red-headed folks didn't shoot little girls).

    Although we would already be suffering from watermelon bellyaches, there still might be a churn or two of ice cream. We were almost always certain to have at least two churns on account of very few of us could agree on what flavor there should be (other than vanilla, of course). Daddy Rowe Barber, who was never known to turn down any kind of ice cream, used to say, "any kind, as long as it's vanilla."

    There was always some smart-hole who challenged the rest of us kids to run around the house three times tightly holding a piece of salted ice. And there was always someone (usually your columnist) idiotic enough to try it, knowing that we had never succeeded before.

    There might be a few games of blind man's bluff. (we called it "bluff" here rather than "buff"), a couple hampers of peas or butter beans to be shelled, some idle gossip, family history tales about who was really whose father, maybe a couple of radio comedy programs (Fibber McGee and Molly was one of the favorites), and then time for bed.

    The kids playing in the sandy lane could never understand why after spending the afternoon partially and totally immersed in water (we ducked each other and played gator and baptizing) had to wash our feet before retiring. Dumb, we thought. But we still took down the enameled pan, and, sitting on the back porch, washed off our feet and carefully dodged any sandy spots on our way to bed.

    We counted it a real treat to spend the night on the sleeping porch, and even the chorus of mosquitoes on the other side of the screen didn't bother us. There would be more wonderful stories, fairy tales, and always something from old Aesop. Your columnist had the good, very good fortune to be blessed with witty grand parents on both sides, and those last minutes before sleep were the funniest of all day.

    Your columnist sitting alone on the porch that night, caught himself giggling at Grandmother "Big Pearl" Barber's joke about the...but we'd better leave that one alone here. Actually, he was laughing more at the monstrous shaking manner of her laugh, vibrating the entire room as she told and re-told her jokes.

    The dogs thought their old master had gone quite batty (and a bat did just flutter by) as he wondered aloud, Reckon it's too late to go play a little solitary 'Bum, Bum, Bum, Here We Come out in the lane."

    Summer ain't so bad. It's great for dreaming.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, July 28, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    More Nostalgic Reminiscenses

    Your columnist never ceases to be amazed at how his tossed together effusions bring more comments than his well planned ones. Last week's offering was no exception. I evoked such questions and greetings as, "How about a game of Bum, Bum, Bum?" and, "Shelled any peas on the front porch lately?", and, "Your last column set me to reminiscing."

    There were several nice cards and letters filled with memories of summers long ago, and one particularly attractive one came from of our regular readers in Jacksonville, Judy Carlisle. We want to share, Mrs. Carlisle's thoughts with our readers. She is from the hill country of North Carolina, so some of the subjects might be unfamiliar to you Cracker types.

    "Your latest (and most enjoyable) column plunged me into an entire afternoon of nostalgia...I guess kids of our generation did about the same things regardless of where they were located.

    "Did you catch a jar of lightning bugs and sit around listening to ghost stories until you were afraid to go upstairs to the bathroom alone?...Did you play Mother, May I', 'Red Rover', 'Steal the Bacon', and my old favorite, 'Hopscotch?'

    "The salted ice bit was new to me, but I remember being idiotic enough to let a sister convince me that I could see the stars much better if I'd look at them up through a raincoat sleeve and getting a dipper of cold water poured down the sleeve into my face for my trouble.

    "Did you ever mix cocoa and sugar and go far away from the house so your mama couldn't see you so you could put it inside your lower lip and talk and spit like some of the older country women did?

    "Did you have a pretty little graveyard in woods where you buried your little dead critters? We used to cover our graves with green moss and red mountain teaberries and little rocks, and the services we held at graveside would put Graham and Falwell to shame.

    "Did you watch the sky each night for the first star so you could say: 'Starlight, Star bright, First star I've seen tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, Have the wish I wish tonight (and wish your mama would make French fries for supper)?

    "Did you ever see a spring house where the butter, eggs and milk were kept in crocks deep in a cold spring and brought up by ropes? Did you ever get to watch (or maybe help) churn butter in a wooden churn and see it packed into a wooden mold where it came out with an acorn imprinted on top?

    "Did you ever play in a corn crib and find nests with little pink mice in them?

    "Did you ever see a storage room for apples built inside a hill where all the apples are separated in bins according to type and it's cool and smells so good? Did you ever see apple slices being dried on a big screen up on a roof?

    "Did you sit and rock and make up songs to go with pictures on the wallpaper while watching your mama (or grandmother) make cottage cheese in the kitchen?

    "Did you ever try walking the rails across a railroad trestle and wind up crawling the rest of the way on your hands and knees-just knowing a train would come before you got across?"

    To al1 those rhetorical questions, Mrs. Carlisle, I and lots of other folks too if they would admit it, can answer "Yes". Thanks for sharing them with us.

    Now your ol' columnist begins his summer's hiatus. He's laying in a stack of advance columns at The Press, turning the fan to "high", putting the dogs on automatic "sic", and waiting for Labor Day.

    Happy "the-rest-of-summer", folks.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, August 4, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    What art is not.......

    Each year during August (second only to February in lackluster) your columnist takes a break from his classes and lecture circuit and concentrates on what he does best-nothing.

    August is too hot for the beach, too muggy for the daily constitutional, too still for painting, and too set-fired uninspiring for writing columns.

    We went to the attic to search our files for suitable subjects, but one does not remain in an attic very long in August. We tossed on a few platters of Bach and Brahms and laid on the floor before the fan and waited in vain for our Muse to call. We were tempted to pull out a few old pre-published effusions and try to slip them by our editor, but we think he is too sharp for that.

    Then, whilst patting the final touches onto a commissioned painting, we figured "Why the heck not finally spend some paragraphs on a subject we have never touched but are supposed to know something about?" Namely...art.

    When your columnist was young and brash, if called on to define art, he would have tossed out a pat, cut-and-dried definition faster than a monkey shinnying up a pawpaw tree. However, as years and experience have gathered and modified his thinking and eroded his granite-like convictions, he is now sometimes hard put to even attempt to wander vagariously through the most nebulous meaning of the subject.

    As you have probably already gathered, armed with the knowledge of his past columns, he is going to try (one might well question, "is there anything at all the man won't try to talk about?" To which, we might well answer, "No."

    We shall begin by first informing our dear readers what art ain't ("ain't used for effect, dear teachers. Your columnist will stoop to almost anything to get attention).

    It isn't purchased from vans parked at a Chevron service station corner. It isn't Elvis, a tiger, or a black Jesus garishly represented on black velvet or machine-woven or printed onto tapestries.

    It isn't imported from Taiwan or Mexico in great amounts of assembly line, wino-produced, house paint-painted rolls of landscapes and seascapes afflicted with terminal same-osis which are then cut, stretched, and signed with affected French and Italian fake names and finally sold by cutesy name outfits, i.e. "Famishing Artists", at flashy motor inns and civic auditoriums under the description of "sofa size" (your columnist remembers, and not fondly, how he, when on the verge of hunger, back in '74, took a job of cutting and stretching those monstrosities from Taiwan, and then assumed the final humiliation on himself by forging European signatures in the corner. His boss said, "Let's go mostly Italian this week, a few French, and maybe a scattering of English-sounding signatures. No Oriental looking names.")

    Art is not purchased in a kit all printed) up with numbers corresponding to little plastic pots of pre-mixed paint. Art never uses anyone else's printed or cast designs or objects.

    Art is not produced according to directions. That is art instruction, and monkey art, not art.

    Art is not one of several hundred or thousand printing shop reproduced pieces of someone's work regardless of signatures and numbers of slants penciled onto the bottom border and touted in a highly commercial manner as "limited edition." Those items are simply reproductions whereas art prints are created from the artist's on hand-produced printing plates, he/she pulls and inspects each printed step of each-picture (we shall elucidate in another installment).

    Art is not the result your kid brings home from the fair where he shot paint at a spinning board for fifty cents.

    Art is nothing painted by crawling earthworms that have been dipped in colors and placed on canvas. This item does fall, however, under the heading "Needless Cruelty To a Creature Better Suited For Helping One Catch Red bellies On a Summer Afternoon."

    Neither is art anything painted by the swishing of a donkey's tail dipped in paint, nor the result of chunking paint and spilt pea soup over one's head and behind one toward a waiting canvas, nor wrapping perfectly good Islands (and their accompanying ecology) in tasteless pink plastic, nor dribbling paint from a sports car onto a parking lot-sized canvas and then cutting it (either the canvas or the sports car or the parking lot) into frame-able sections for display in the Guggenheim.

    The first three of the afore-mentioned depend on chance and she, not the picture perpetrator, should be awarded any prizes given. The last two are no more than shoddy showmanship and all who stand in awe before them deserve all the ridicule your columnist can heap upon their silly, ignorant, and effete heads.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday August 11, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    Now what art is.........

    Since your columnist was so negative in his last effusion, he feels an incumbency this week to approach his subject from the other pole.

    He still is hard to put to define art, but he can list some of its principle characteristics. They can be mostly assimilated into the principles of (1) drawing, (2) composition, (3) color knowledge and use, (4) handling of the medium, and (5) creativity. They are often referred to as "the big five" in art.

    Gear up. You are about to receive a whole semester of art appreciation in a dozen or so measly paragraphs. And, remember, you read it right here in the pages of the good ol' BCP.

    Before we jump onto that, let us clear up some rather dumb misconceptions preached by many so-called practicing artists. Among the legitimately uninformed, they shall be simply referred to as "misconceptions" (we like legitimately uninformed folks).

    A. Art is not magic. Anyone can learn it and learn about it. A certain art instructor of our acquaintance boast, "I can teach a rock to paint." And the only time we saw him fail was when the rock just absolutely expressed no interest in the subject.

    B. Art does not come solely from so-called natural-born talent. We will concede, after thirty years in the field (and most of it teaching) that some folks tend to possess more of an ease in learning the subject, but we maintain (and who can effectively argue with thirty years of experience?) that talent is acquired, not gratuitously received (a self-professed lack of a natural-born talent is about the easiest way out we know of in attempting to try one's hand at a subject); that talent's main ingredient is 'desire'; and that most of us were born with all sorts of talent potential but had them put in a state of arrest by good-intentioned parents and teachers.

    C. Art is not a mystery. It is, as listed above, composed of five main principles, and the first four can be taught and all five can be learned. Confused? We shall elucidate later.

    Drawing can be taught and learned. It is little more than the animal-like curiosity of looking and imitating in order to learn more about whatever we encounter in our lives. It is also closely kin to having fun. The simple and innocent act of a kid picking up a crooked stick and going "bang" at an imaginary badman is a form of drawing without use of pencil and paper. It is observing (seeing that a pistol has a crooked aspect and can be held in the hand), comparing (noting that among all the objects in the yard, a crooked stick has the closest appearance to a pistol), and putting into practice (picking up the stick, pointing the longer part toward a play-like desperado and making a loud and sharp noise).

    In drawing, one does about the same thing as the kid with the stick. One sees a cow as a large mass with four skinny supports underneath and a mooing end with floppy ears and sometimes curving horns (the other end swishes a lot and does other things which are not really pertinent to our example). One then experiments with a pencil and notes that a fat cucumber shape with four skinny funnels underneath, etc. loosely resembles the animal under observation. One then sets about to carefully look at basic shapes, proportions, relationships of parts to the whole and to each other, and then to relay those observations to paper or whatever, one at a time.

    From there on, practice, like every other pursuit, is the order of the day (every day if one wishes to improve).

    When we art judges are analyzing an artist's work, we do not compare him/her to another artist, but we compare his/her drawing ability to a norm which is something roughly' like "Is he/she making that item out in the field an animal or a haystack? If an animal, is it a mule or a cow? If a cow, shall we classify it as dairy or beef? If dairy, did the artist tell us it is a Jersey rather than a Holstein? The closer the artist has convinced us that the little blob out in the field is a particular cow of a particular breed of a certain age, etc., the more we can judge his/her drawing ability as top rate.

    (To be continued...in simpler language).

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, August 18, 1963
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    Composition in art

    Continuing last week's discourse on art, we offer the remaining four of the big five principles of art. If you get tired of this before we're through, just give us one of those ugly phone calls.

    We shall begin with composition, that old bugbear of all amateur picture perpetrators and the absolute delight of all accomplished artists. Position: to pose, place, set and, Com: with, together. Composition simply means placing items with each other and on the surface being used.

    In art, those items being placed with each other may be colors, forms, directions, edges...you name it. Are there rules for this positioning together?

    Well, we in the arts prefer not to use the mathematical term "rules." We say instead "guidelines." And yes, there are guidelines for good-art composition. They are not complicated in their basic forms, but when they are utilized or broken in a creative way, they can be extremely complex and hairy.

    Anyone can learn the overly simplified guidelines of composition. Some of them are as follows: the fewer items of any kind in an art piece, the safer and more successful it is. Two of every three items should overlap; a dominant mass is beneficial in adding security; all viewing of art is made happier and easier with the inclusion of a focal point; don't lead the eye out of the picture at a corner; don't make the picture heavy on any side; don't bullseye the focal point, and so on.

    Color is among the main determining factors of whether or not the picture producer achieves mastery in her or his work This is true in traditional, abstract or non-objective art. (Don't let the terms throw you; we'll make short shrift of them next week.)

    To conquer color, one must do the unimaginable, i.e. forget everything one's sweet mother or kindergarten teacher said about the subject.

    A bit of observing and unbiased analyzing will soon convince one that nature does not insult and assault the eye and brain with garish colors. She leaves that to mankind. One will eventually realize that clear skies are not blue, grass is not green, tree trunks are not brown, the sun is not yellow at high noon, and little boys are not orange.

    We shan't give you the true answers to these posers, but we shall direct you to find out for yourselves. Compare the blue of the American flag to the next clear sky you see. smear a piece of white-paper with the greenest crayon you can find. Then lay it on some grass, any grass, and be prepared for a shock.

    The mature and creative person at some point in life discovers that the world is nothing like he or she once thought it to be. And discovering color is the first hint that he or she has tasted the fruit from the forbidden tree of knowledge. Once one has seen that sycamore trunks are pastels of yellow-green, pink and beige, the age of innocence (and ignorance) has been left behind. Or that the beaches in north Florida are almost pristine white; or that rust is not red.

    Once color in nature has been learned, the artist can then discover that it is much more important to use the colors seen by the brain of the viewer rather than mechanically fill in outlines with proper colors dictated by nature.

    (Look, we're just promising simpler language, not guarantees of lucidity.)

    One can, for instance, lower the apparent temperature by scores of degrees in a depiction of an arid desert simply by using what are known as the "cool colors" of blue, green, violet, grey or black. The same, scene can be redone in warm colors: yellow, orange, red, earthy tones, and white (our hottest color) to create an extremely hot attitude within the picture.

    Handling the medium (what the art piece is done on) has also been dubbed "methods and materials, application technique, craftsmanship" and a dozen other terms.

    The gist of this principle is (1) put the stuff you're using on the surface in such a manner that it looks like you care; (2) inject a bit of your personality into the manner you apply your medium; (3) strive for some originality in your application methods.

    From some (dumb) where some of us got the idea that we must completely obliterate brushstrokes in art. Thank God that didn't catch on years ago, or we'd never have had Cezanne and Monet with us today. Neither would we be privileged to view Goya nor even Rembrandt, or Michaelangelo or many others whose names should elicit a genuflection. Much of their success came from their brushmarks, sometimes as much or more so than their drawing ability, colors, subject or composition.

    To be continued.....have you ever felt more cultured in your life?

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, August 25, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    Creativity in art

    Before we treat the final one of the big five principles of art, we think we should inform our readers that these principles and guidelines of art were not arbitrarily and prissily conceived and framed by a group of art cognoscenti in a musty backroom in Milan or Florence back in a distant century. They have evolved, with little or no manipulation, from the natural experiences and logical conclusions of innumerable practitioners of art from prehistory through approximately the 1920's.

    Beginning back in the early part of the last century, art academies began to gel the previously somewhat loose guidelines, and, sadly, the guidelines turned into rules.

    As is the wont of the western world mind, we swung too far in the other direction, beginning strongly in the thirties, and burned the rules and spurned the guidelines. We threw out the baby with the wash water, so to speak.

    This brought us, or made the world receptive toward, such inanities as many of the paintings of Kandinsky, Motherwell, Johns, and Pollock. If you've never heard of them, don't fret; you haven't missed much. The twentieth century also gave us the super-intelligent (sarcasm intended) phrase that became the sneering battlecry of the so-called modern artists who substituted weirdism for talent: "If we have to explain it to you, you wouldn't understand it anyway."

    We believe however, that a great many of the artists of the twentieth century including the afore-mentioned, were sincere in their search for originality and individuality, the two main elements of creativity. And when it comes to creativity, many are called, but few chosen.

    It is the opinion of this writer that creativity can be learned, but it cannot be taught (but he sure the heck will continue to try). It is the most elusive of the big five principles of art.

    Creativity is characterized by individuality (we all scream today that we are individuals, but we demand to be allowed to be individuals exactly like everybody else in our particular economic and cultural strata). Individuality is that trait which prevents our art works from looking just like everybody else's.

    Individuality is evident in artist's brush strokes (or pencil lines, thumbprints in clay, etc.) palette (his/her favorite colors not what his/her paint is mixed upon) peculiarities of drawing for instance, does he/she consistently elongate the-human figure as did the marvelous and sainted Greco?), and favorite compositional devices (perhaps a sparse picture, or a crowded picture)

    Individuality also means that the appearance of the artist's work is perceptably modified with his/her constantly evolving personality, and all creative people experience evolutions in their personalities either from outward influences or from workings deep in their minds.

    The picture-producer who has hit upon a financially successful image in his/her art work and then, in spite of his/her evolution and growth, sits on that image for the sake of sales, or fame is not responding to his/her own urge of individuality.

    By-the-way, successful selling is just that - successful selling - not successful art. If the two ever happen to meet within the same artist, so much the better.

    Originality, the second element of creativity, is not so easy to define. In fact, the closer one thinks he/she has come to the meaning of originality, the further he/she has traveled from it. The difficulty of defining originality is perhaps its best definition (think about it).

    Perhaps we could say that originality is looking at the same old world from a brand new vantage point. If individuality is the natural response to one's personality, then originality might be our deliberate attempt to discover something outside our personality and inject it into our art work. This writer is not certain, and he is sure that you nice readers are just about ready to say, "who cares?"

    One example of creativity (individuality and originality) and then we quit for the week: if the artist is a solitary, private person, he/she might choose as a subject, a tree standing starkly against an almost empty background. If an element of mysticism and romance is wished, the tree might be turned into either an ancient gnarled oak or a soaring leafless cypress. Including a fence, that protects his private nature. The escape from reality (or perhaps the route to excitement) symbol, of a roadway or body of water could be added. Sensuousness could be reflected by visible, unctious brushwork. Romanticism would be enhanced by warm earthy colors.

    To prevent an attitude of dread or sadness, the bare landscape can be relieved with a few cool colors and the two - warm and cool - can play against each other to create a subtle liveliness. The sun, or some other source of light, can be made to peek through with sparkle and its ages old message of hope. Some of the guidelines of composition might be broken in order to evoke a feeling of surprise or anticipation in the viewer.

    If one ain't careful, one would have a dern' good piece of artwork there.

    The artist learns these five principles of art - drawing, composition, color, handling of the medium, and creativity - and the myriad elements and properties of each, then learns through study and practice how to modify and defy them and add them to his work. This is not unlike patting one's head while rubbing one's tummy and dancing a waltz to the tune of Dixie, not to mention balancing a tumbler full of water on the upturned nose while maintaining a "don't give a dern" attitude.

    If he/she can succeed, or even approach success, he/she can begin to validly enjoy the epithet "artist."

    To be concluded next week.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, September 1, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    Different types of art

    This is the end of our little series on art. Our treatment of the subject has been terribly over simplified due to shortness of time and space.

    In case you are interested, the content has been drawn from the writer's 33 years art activity (study and practice) and the 23 years he has called himself a professional in the field. Please understand that those years have been concurrent rather than sequential.

    We now must address ourselves to some of the types of art.

    Commercial design is the best buddy of advertisers. . A big golden M sells more burgers than taste ever could; a crisp white wave on a clean red background builds an immediate thirst and a desire to pause and refresh; no company, no matter how small, would be caught dead without a logo...all designed to attract attention and to sell.

    Decorative art is used to enhance, relieve, and beautify. Friezes on buildings, printed and painted patterns on clothing material, and embellishments on books are but a few uses of the decorative arts. This writer prefers not to include tole painting done from a purchased printed pattern as being under this heading.

    Art crafts are currently big in America. We are writing about those crafts in which their utilitarianism is far secondary to their design, beauty, and provocativeness. In other words, who cares whether one can drink coffee from a potter-created mug as long as it is well designed and well made. Who cares whether one can keep eggs in a basket if it is pleasing to the eye and looks well in a corner.

    What is not considered an art craft is a piece of purchased greenware of someone else's design and construction that has had a paint job and glaze applied according to directions and then baked by the instructor. It is a craft and a hobby, but, because most of the principles of art have been removed from it, it is no art craft.

    Fine art is mainly categorized (and, too often, simplistically so into three directions-traditional, abstract, and non-objective.

    Traditional, also labeled representational or realistic this last term is often mis-used) that type most people feel comfortable with. There is no doubt what the subject is, and, to the conservative eye, it is not "weird"

    Its treatment ranges from photographically representational (looking like, or even sharper than, a photo) through impressionistic and slightly abstracted. Lack of space precludes a detailed description of the latter two, but suffice it to say that they are usually characterized by softer, more painterly edges, by visible paint application, and by lack of detail.

    Abstract has received some bum publicity, and most folks toss the term around rather carelessly. In art, abstract means to draw out the gist of a form or subject and to ignore the details. If a form or subject, regardless of how many liberties have been taken with it, is recognizable but the details have been omitted, the result is thought of as being abstracted.

    We shall ignore expressionism here, because nobody seems to agree on what it is, but we shall be happy to sit with you some day and discuss it.

    Non-objective art can be described as presenting no recognizable object. It is, often called "painting for the sake of painting." This is the one that might put one in mind of the perpetrator who tosses a can of split Pea soup at the canvas from ten feet. Believe it or not, it can be art...but only if it submits itself to the same principles of art as the already discussed types.

    This is the stage most artists reach after they have accomplished all other types and directions of art. Unfortunately most state supported art institutions and many private art schools have placed the cart before the horse by shoving their students directly into non-objective work. These are the folks who slip in several bootleg lessons of drawing and composition from your ol' writer after they have gained a name and position in art but finally realize they know nothing hardly about art.

    Please be advised that fine art does not have to make sense. It exists simply as a means of expressing attitudes and to appeal to the senses and mind.

    Don't hold your writer to this lengthy and vagarious treatment; his opinions will have changed with a few more years of living. That is the beauty of art; it grows with the person it lives in.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, September 8, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    Autumn brings out poet

    Labor Day has passed, and summer, except for the heat and September's infamous mugginess, is over. This period between summer's last holiday and the onset of fall's chill is often an awkward time not unlike the middle age crisis experienced by the more neurotic among us.

    Up north, this lovely no-season is referred to as "Indian Summer." Down here, it is just tolerated, filled with school opening activities and relieved with the final flowering of the woods and pastures.

    There are the seemingly interminable baseball games on television.

    It is this time of year that brings out the romantic in your columnist. He fancies himself a poet...not a good one, albeit a poet. September and October ease deeply into his mind and bring it out.

    Time was he wouldn't admit it, let alone share it. But on the subject of September, here is one dragged from out of his musings on the banks of little Turkey Creek.

    The drawn out golden afternoons
    of September are with me
    giving my body a last warmth.
    Hints of chill by morning.
    I must hurry.

    No. No, sweet May
    you are desirable
    but...
    I am September.

    My days were once firm and radiant
    I remember.
    May was fickle.
    June hot
    very hot.

    I was best as August.
    But there's a sensitivity to September unmatched.

    You too are September?
    Come with me.

    For several mornings now, the days' frustrating hazes have been replaced with another of nature's rather pushy climatic conditions-fog. That misty heifer has been treated in painting, photography, and writing, but never, to this writer's knowledge, as a poetic subject in Baker County.

    Soft dirty gray, the fog mistily clutches,
    Rudely erasing slender independent pines.
    The bravest of stars are but icy green touches.
    Damply greedy about my world she twines.
    Diffused among her nebulous bowels,
    The weak glow of wet-wreathed moonlight.
    Her moist chilled arms, as unkind trowels,
    Smear away my world from my anxious sight.
    The road is but a silvered strip of blur.
    The slender stalk of the pine is gone.
    Hardly a hint remains by her erasure.

    Not to leave on this dark and damp note, we include parts of a couple more effusions. First, the dramatic hurricane release from summer doldrums:

    Large drops, hungry drops pearl gray.
    Frankly kissing dirt sandy-gray,
    Wetting, joyously blessing happy gray
    Weeds of dusty green-gray.

    Yellow splashes in fields dust gray.
    Waking into highlights of silver-gray.
    White birds spangling skies of purple-gray.
    Rain frogs' arias out of blue-gray.

    Release, sweet release from dismal-gray
    Into intoxication of polychromatic-gray.
    Gently lifting, steadily rising golden-gray
    Wildly soaring into spiritual-gray.

    And then, the renewal process of October:

    But October is blue and gold
    and crisp
    and all is revitalized.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, September 15, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    Hoppin' John discourse

    Your columnist recently took a delightful and satisfying meal with his aunt and enjoyed a dish of hoppin' John. Because the dish and its name have became outdated and almost non-existent except in articles on Southern cuisine in woman's magazines cooking sections, and, because its ingredients to Florida Crackers is quite different from those of other regions of the lower U.S., a discussion on hoppin' John ensued.

    Later, your columnist talked with other Cracker type cooks and old-timers, nosed through old recipes, and checked out the subject at-a couple of libraries.

    We know as much about hoppin' John today as when we began our research.

    But, then, the world has hardly waited breathlessly for a discourse on the subject.

    We can safely say that of all the several types of hoppin' John we've been privileged to sample, none has been found wanting.

    Our local variation seems mostly to have been almost any vegetable cooked in and with rice...tomatoes being a Florida favorite. We say "have been" in reference to our paragraph 1. And it seems that the local habit of stirring rice into certain vegetables rose from the use of rice--once a very inexpensive and easily stored foodstuff--as an extender.

    Until about World War I the McClenny-Baldwin area was a rice producer. In your columnist's youth he heard a few old timers talk about rice farming, but he does not recall details. They told about flooding the fields and even demonstrated harvesting procedures with an imaginary scythe.

    Florida had been, until about the-afore-mentioned WW I era, a rice producer from Spanish days. Coastal South Carolina and Georgia, background for many Florida Crackers, enjoyed a similar distinction. The earliest Cracker pioneers to Florida combined their established affinity for the subtle flavored grain with that of the earlier Minorcan settlers.

    Both types of early Floridians had learned by necessity to be frugal. Rice, as mentioned earlier, was plentiful and was a perfect extender for poor folks...ergo hoppin' John.

    No, we don't know where the name came from. And after reading up on the subject, we are convinced nobody else does either.

    Higher up the coast, hoppin' John becomes a relatively complicated concoction of cooked and mashed dried black-eye peas, spices, and rice, and which has been formed into balls and fried. Your writer's: experience has been that the farther into the interior one goes the less elaborate becomes the dish. In upper Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi, hoppin' John is often no more than black-eyes spooned atop dry rice (not uncooked "dry"but. cooked separately in water rather than in any kind of broth).

    The farther from the coast, the more hoppin' John is no more than simply cooked dried black-eye peas.

    Back to our local variety, rice was usually cooked in the already stewed tomatoes (a definite Minorcan variation), liberally seasoned with onions and perhaps other compatible vegetables such as peppers. The flavor was enhanced with a bit of salt and a pinch of sugar. In the words of Uncle Budder Johnson;"Monstrous good."

    Some who claim to be hoppin' John purists (your columnist personally thinks they are weird) would decry the use of tomatoes rather than black-eyes. To which we reply that this is not the only instance of other folks getting confused in their food terms. Stick with this column, and you will learn good stuff, including the correct names of foods.

    Northern folks would doubtless gag at the thought of gopher stew, but a good Florida Cracker (especially a poor one) knows that it is a toothsome delight, takes some doing to get it out of its shell, and its eggs are not as tasty as those of its cousin the sea-going cooter. But an old time Minorcan would spend half a day scratching one out of its hole.

    This columnist is put in mind of when dear Uncle John Crews caught a particularly large gopher in the corner of his garden (actually Aunt Molly's garden; Uncle John did not believe in agrarian pursuits) one day when he was on one of his "toots". He insisted that little ol' aunt Molly dress and cook the gopher into a stew since he had often heard its praises sung by members of the black community and some of the Saint Augustine Minorcans who were on the railway, crew. She worked almost all day stripping it of its shell and simmering the meat tender. Some time along about suppertime, she "chunked the whole mess out'n the door fer the hawgs."

    Why would our Northern friends be opposed to gopher stew? They, unenlightened creatures, still think a gopher is a furry little fellow of the rodent tribe. What they think is a gopher is, as any Florida Cracker knows, a sallymander.

    They, (bless their hearts; they're good people, but they Just don't know much about some things some times) even hang, the appellation "corn dumpling" (that doesn't even sound good) on that culinary classic of the Deep South "the corndodger."

    Now, corndodgers would require a whole month of columns just to begin to praise their flavor and mind gratification. Maybe later we'll address the subject, but until then...bon appetite, ya'll.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY, PRESS, Thursday, September 22, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    1921 catalogue goodies

    Your columnist recently received a call from Allie Mae North to stop by her house for a stack of magazines and other items which were of historical interest. Mrs. North was preparing to move to Leesburg to be near her daughters, and the moving van was, she warned, on its way; anything sitting around would be picked up and packed by the movers.

    We rushed out and happily carted home an armload of paper treasures. Three of those treasures were a 1921 Cohen Brothers catalogue, a 1921 gifts suggestion booklet from Jacobs Jewelers, and a program from around 1929 for the George Fasshacht, Sr., company's Passion Play which was presented in Jacksonville.

    The Cohen Brothers catalogue advertised ladies' dresses for up to $35.00 in Georgette, taffeta, and Canton crepe and down to nice little $3.99 ginghams. Choices of colors were as varied as they are now. They were dressy frocks in gray, navy, brown, black, taupe, flesh, and jade. Less expensive dresses were offered in white, rose, copenhagen, maize lavender, pink, orchid, and green.

    Dresses sizes were interesting...16 years to bust measurement 44 inches. Nowhere in that part of the catalogue did we see a bust size approaching 16 years, let alone 44 inches; it was the time of the boyish figure.

    Gabardine was the big material for skirts, and voile seemed to be most popular for waists (that is "blouses" to you born after 1950). Skirt colors were rather cheerful in addition to black and khaki. Waists were popular white, bisque, copenhagen, flesh, peach, brown, and navy. Sweaters were offered in the colors of cascade, paragon, honey dew, and shell (whatever they were).

    Bathing costumes came in one color-black-and in two styles-ugly and uglier.

    Porch or neighborhood wear was somewhat fetching and inspired by oriental styles. For as little as $3.95, a lady could lounge around looking like a Theda Bara.

    We though it of special interest that the illustrations for stout ladies' clothing and foundation garments actually showed stout ladies....much different from the current "big girls" catalogues using emaciated models. For the women of 1921 who did not look emaciated but wished to do so, there was the "Boyshform Brassiere for stout and thin women. The brassiere that give that boylike, flat, smooth appearance."

    One item brought back memories that were not too pleasant for your columnist. The Kiddie-Koop was a crib-like affair covered with wire screen. Your columnist recalls his mother keeping him in one and how he bawled when she put the wire screen lid over him and the Koop. He was too young to put his protests into words, so he just screamed a lot.

    Victrolas came either wind-up type or were electrified and ranged in price from $35.00 to $1265.00. Most were elaborate affairs, and some were advertised as having the same finish as a fine violin. Cohen Brothers listed 7,000 records in a separate catalogue.

    Jacobs Jewelers, then known as V.E. Jacobs Company, printed a very slick eight page booklet full of silver so expensive they decided to not include the prices. It said, "And now it is fitting that the more elaborate jewelry than would be good taste for a debutante, be her portion."

    The Passion Play program, like all good programs, contained more advertisements than information on the performance. The municipal Light Plant of Jacksonville provided the information that one could use a curling iron for no more than 7 cents for 40 hours, an eggette for 1 1/2 hours for 7 cents, and a fan for 17 hours for the same amount.

    This columnist has never figured out why any utility which has a monopoly thinks it has to advertise and make us feel better about something we can do little or nothing about. Utilities never change. Why not save their propaganda money and lower our rates?

    Other ads which might recall businesses to the minds of some of our older readers "were H. and W.B Drew Company; Seashole Funeral Parlors; St. Albans Hotel(rates $1.50 and $2.00); Keys Chilye Parlor; Biser's Restaurant; California Fur and Fur Works; John A. Cunningham (now Cunningham's); Rhodes, Futch, Collins Furniture Co. (now Just Rhodes); Hotel. Windle; the Arcade Theatre; and one which your columnist remembers so well...Howell and Jenks Restaurant.

    One of the highlights of a trip to Jacksonville was our visit to Jenks. There were stenciled flamingos on the table cloths and chair covers, potted palms, ceiling fens, and the most delicious shrimp salad in the world.

    Ever notice...nobody makes shrimp salad anymore?

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, October 6, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    The Household Guest, 1921

    When your columnist was very young, he thought his present time was the only time that had ever existed. With the addition of a few years, he abandoned his own age and time and believed that anything less than twenty years in the future was not worth the thought. Closer to maturity, he moved out of the "now" and "what might be" and concentrated on the distant past, refusing to accept anything less than a century old.

    In fact, anything from the decades of the twenties and the thirties depressed him.

    Pity...for that was one of our most interesting eras.

    It was probably in the twenties that the old way of life as many of us remember it passed away. The age of innocence, so carefully constructed and nurtured for the past couple of centuries was lost.

    The abandonment engendered by first truly world war and the influence of European avant garde styles and attitudes that returned with many of the doughboys helped remold America. She received the impetus to gain control of the social, cultural, political, and artistic movements of the day, and she blossomed out.

    This columnist is now thinking that we hit our apex in the thirties and have been rushing headlong downhill ever since, floundering but not hopeless, in several fields and disciplines of endeavor.

    Return with your columnist to those gentler times of the early twenties (the rest of them tended to be a bit wild...remember the "Roaring Twenties"). We shall present some choice bits gleaned from a May, 1921, The Household Guest we discovered whilst browsing through a stack of old periodicals.

    The Household Guest was a rural family-oriented magazine which contained some quaint items that we of the enlightened age tossed out of our 11ves back in the fifties. There were, for instance, poems and essays touting high regard for motherhood (can you Imagine?).

    One editorial addressed itself not to our modern problem, of self-sufficient, achieving folk not feeling guilty enough about the deprived...the deprived whose dignity demands they not be forced to work at anything even though they are physically able and that there are jobs scattered about that are menial and out of their trained fields and don't pay executive wages. It rather suggested the reader spend some time to "Root out the 'contrary streaks' in himself" and discover that the amiable personality is more productive than that of the habitual protester and complainer.

    The Household Guest quoted Carlyle: "Work rids us of three ills-tediousness, vice, and poverty.

    To our ears so lined with wild-eyed liberal (and hardly ever gainfully employed even in the days when there were plenty of jobs unless, of course, they were members and friends of a certain Massachusetts family who could well afford to preach liberalism as they lolled about Palm Beach in their Scotch whiskey-built compounds)...what were we saying? Oh, yes, to our ears so lined with the wild-eyed liberal preaching since the days of the sick sixties, that sounds like the pejorative term "Protestant Work Ethic."

    Your columnist could never figure out that little phrase. He knows many Roman Catholics, Orthodox folks, and even a couple of Copts who could present a pretty valid argument against work being the exclusive property of us Protestants.

    Well, once again your columnist has gotten off his subject (you've doubtless noticed that your columnist is wont to tangentize). Let us pick up again on The Household Guest and its tidbit.

    There were thinly veiled hints within the advertisements of the little magazine that the farmers and their families of the day either enjoyed being titillated, or at least, they tolerated suggestive material. There were ads for books full of "...dramatice intensity...love, passion, intrigue...sends the blood coursing like a mill-race through the tense arteries of a spell-bound body." Now, even a Harold Robbins effusion has never done that to your columnist.

    Women could increase their bust lines, remove wrinkles, be slender, rid themselves of superfluous hair, strengthen their blood, completely cure their "pelvic disorders", remove goiters, straighten kinky hair, and control fits simply by answering the ads and receiving, first, a free sample.

    Gentlemen could revitalize themselves with the genuine Sanden Electric Belt, or, if they preferred, could find a quick cure for those "despondent conditions" in Cumberland Chemicals. That last ad was buried in the personals.

    Of course, Just like today, everybody could get rich, get lucky in love, or buy anything with no money or with, at the most, a dollar. There was a plethora of "unsolicited testimonials" proving the efficacy of the advertised products and services.

    To which, this column states caveat emptor, cum grano satis, and baloney.

    Come to think of it, maybe this was the wrong decade to hold up as a shining example of how nice we once were.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, October 13, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    Historical potpourri

    Religious toleration has never been a strong point of religious people (please don't equate the words "religious" and "Christian" because, although Christianity is a religion, religion isn't necessarily Christianity.

    The pantheistic Romans chunked Christians to the lions. Jehovah's favored Jews thought nothing of slaughtering entire cities and selling the survivors into prostitution and slavery. Roman Catholics tortured Jews and staved Anabaptists to death during sieges, and Protestants seemed to delight in burning and beheading dissenters.

    Wasn't much different here in enlightened and God-fearing Baker County back in the good ol' days. Sometime back during the time of the turn of the century when the Mormons were getting started around Sanderson, one of the early converts, Dan J. Mann, received the following note from "The Committee": You and Wester has run Sanderson long enough now. We give you but a short time to get of Sanderson or you will have it to do." (sic)

    In March of 1898 the Mormon Elders at Sanderson were notified by presumably the same anonymous committee: "We have notified you damn rescals once to vacate this county and you haven't done so. Now you infernal dead beats let this be the last notice. We will give you all until Monday, March 28th and if you poor ignorant villains are not gone by that night, we committee of 8 will go up to Sanderson sometime and cowhide every one of you. Especially a certain man that is encouraging and feeding you dogs. Now remember this will be your last notice."

    The committee of 8 was McClenny-based and was composed of relatives of Mr. Mann. Canova was later shot to death. Although members of his church quite naturally believed that it was the result of his belief, others claimed that it was either envy of the man's wealth or dislike of his business practices.

    Olustee's Civil War battle (more properly known in the past and here in the area where it happened as "the Battle of Ocean Pond") is one of the three affairs, so we've been told, that is re-enacted annually on the actual authenticated spot on which it happened. A battle in Tennessee and the one at Gettysburg are the other two.

    * *

    For those who thought the Baker County High School began only with consolidation of the county's three high schools in the 1960's, here is an interesting note. The class of 1923 of The Baker County High School announced its commencement exercises for Friday, 11 May, at 8 o'clock in McClenny. The motto was "Be square" (what a change from today's mottos of arrive stoned, get strung out, be laid back, and kinky forever). Class colors were green and gold, the flower was the white rose, and the graduating class consisted of Rubye B. Rhoden, Mary A. Williams, and Emma L. Powers. B.J. Padgett was the principal.

    The McLean House in Appomatox in which the terms of surrender were signed signaling the end of the War Between the States began suffering an ignominious end immediately upon the end of the quiet and sad (Jubilant to many others, we might add, on both sides) ceremony. Union officers began crassly bargaining for pieces of the furniture, and the owner crassly sold. Much was removed without benefit of sale typical of "liberators" the world over. Captain M.E. Dunlap of Niagara Falls purchased the house in 1894 and tore the house down with the thought of reconstructing it at the Chicago World's Fair or for display in a Washington City museum.

    The plans did not materialize, and the house went piece by piece to souvenir hunters and decay. By the end of the century, 1848 structure was gone without a trace, and a dense thicket had overtaken the site. Soon, the entire village of Appotomattox was gone, prey to progress and convenience. What one sees now is mostly reconstruction.

    Small wonder the PTA has all but fizzled out (please don't write in to disagree unless you were around to see the auditorium full of debating and earnest parents and teachers tending to the business of educating children) a copy of the MacClenny Elementary Parent-Teacher Association's by-laws claimed its purpose was to "promote the welfare of children and youth in home, school, church, and community."

    Can you imagine any self-respecting liberal allowing a group to be concerned about kid's welfare in respect to his church? Or accepting the fact that any group could meddle in the affairs at the kid's home? Or caring whether he was involved in his community as long as he was well adjusted with his peers, could work with a computer, and tote a protest sign when he grew up, took a job, and struck?

    J.M. Willson of the Seminole Nation of Florida wrote to Adjutant General J.B. Christian in May of 1917 that he and a goodly number of his tribe wished to be inducted into the American Expeditionary Forces for the purpose of fighting in World War I . Mr. Willson said, "They know how to shoot and I confidently believe could be of much service to our country in this crisis, and they want to help." President Woodrow Wilson and Florida Governor Sidney Catts extended appreciation to the Seminoles for their interest, patriotism, and offer.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, October 20, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    More.....potpourri

    We had quite a batch of stuff left over from last week's column, so we thought we would clean out our files a bit more and print the left-overs this week.

    Most folks have heard of James Bowie of the old wild west and of the legendary knife fame. But what most folks don't know is that he was born in Burke County, Georgia, along with a great many of the old-time Baker County families' ancestors. There is some disagreement on his actual birthplace, but the older heads there remember a house reputed to be that of his family home.

    Bowie was born sometime between 1796 and 1799, and when but a small child his parents moved to Louisiana (some think Missouri). As a young man he migrated to Texas, married the daughter of the Mexican governor, and was elected to the Texas legislature.

    Born also in that county and about the same time were William W. Alexander, Sr., and Mose and William Barber, Dan J. Mann (there is some question on Mann's birthplace), J.H. Davis, and John Harvey...all Baker County pioneers. The association doesn't make them any better, it just makes for interesting reading.

    * *

    Clem Worley was a barber by trade in McClenny, and was from South Carolina. He married Harriet Bair, daughter of an Indiana German family. He was a dashing popular young man who married into a small fortune (by Baker County standards) and managed his affairs well. Alas, while celebrating New Year's a little early-30 December, 1919-he entered into an altercation with John McClenny, nephew of the founder of the city, and died of a blow on the head from a Coca Cola bottle.

    * *

    Some historians are now beginning to believe that not all the American Revolutionary War activities in Florida were from the present Callahan eastward. There is a distinct possibility that Colonel Thomas Brown and his Florida Rangers (Loyalists),numbering around 150, scouted the upper Saint Mary's River into the present Baker County area in early 1778. His action along the river prevented the Rebels from crossing for a while but his troops were finally outnumbered and he withdrew.

    * *

    "The man who boasts only of his ancestors confesses that he belongs to a family that is better dead than alive." J. Gilchrist Lawson.

    "It is indeed a desirable thing to be well descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors." Plutarch.

    * *

    Until as late as the youth of this writer, there were unexplained open areas in the woods of Baker County. Up North they would be called meadows. Here they were known simply as "open places." Farther south they would be called prairies. The areas were usually a bit boggy and ringed by a heavy stand of cypress, cedars, and long leaf pines. They were hosts to flowers and ferns of a greatly different sort from that of the neighboring countryside.

    They have been attributed possibly to filled-in sink holes or dirt-filled pockets in underlying rock. Both might be correct, but a more plausible theory has come up...perhaps they were the results of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of years work by beavers.

    Beavers dammed up streams, lakes were formed) the beavers eventually moved on to other areas when the trees gave out, the dams broke, the lakes drained, the site filled in with rich dirt (often too much for some of our Florida trees), and thus our miniature prairies were made.

    * *

    The Florida Agricultural College at Lake City (a parent of the University of Florida) was established in 1870. Many Baker Countians attended there. It was later made co-educational, and in 1905 it was consolidated with other schools into the University at Gainesville.

    * *

    Yellow flags were hoisted at the edges of the cities which were in throes of malaria in 1888. After the fever epidemic, the Florida Medical Association was founded in 1889 in the home of Dr. A.S. Baldwin of Jacksonville. The city of Baldwin had been named in his honor when the railroad was built through there in 1859. The City of Baldwin was one of the hardest hit by the yellow fever.

    * *

    Your writer is fascinated by the idea of some folks setting themselves up as critics of the creative results of others. He is even more fascinated by the fact that there are those who will pay these folks to slice, chop, and crucify their works. (Your columnist is a frequently paid critic of art, but that is beside the point).

    * *

    From the Household Magazine of March, 1941, comes these comments from movie critic Leonard Hall: "Disney tried an even more grandiose stunt combining eight of his Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies as pictorial evocations of eight hunks of 'classical' music, some first-rate, some downright cheesy...so jumbled in quality and so hashed in mood and direction that they first floored us and then sent us wailing or screaming into the night. Small wonder that once their storms had subsided we welcomed with holy glee as entertaining a list of movies as Hollywood has ever shipped us..."

    What we beg and holler for is good entertainment...FANTASIA is a desperate adventure...I strongly advise you to take along a jug of Peruna if you ever attend this musical monstrosity...in this pompous attempt to fuse music and the screen old Walt has sacrificed his greatest charm, talent, and gift. I wish to Heaven Disney had never heard of Art with a capital A."

    Hall was speaking of, as we mentioned in the last paragraph, FANTASIA, one of the greatest filmfares ever given to us. Wonder if Mr. Hail is still around and would like to buy back all the Household Magazines of that issue and destroy them? Or he might do as many of the movie critics do now...just change from crucifixion to praise as soon as the public takes a movie to its heart.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, October 27, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    'Ain't no boogers tonight

    On a recent evening your columnist sat alone at the edge of his yard waiting for the very delinquent demise of a brushfire built earlier for the entertainment of guests. Hammocky woods towered in an interesting color combination of rich black and subtle oranges, all intensified by narrow stripe of foggy silvery moonlight. All was quiet as only fall can be.

    The last carload of merrymakers had been gone for a length of time sufficient to enhance the silence. There is no quiet like that created by the departure of revelers.

    The close air, yet to be touched by chill, was redolent with slow burning dead oak and pecan wood.

    A black and tan cur named Dee Dee cuddled up on the bench to gulp down bits of left-overs. Her coat was a microcosm of the surrounding night colors.

    A last cup of warm cider in the hand...your columnist was happy. He was programmed to reflect and dream.

    This was the time of year we used to rake the first fall leaves discarded by venerable giant grey trees preparing for their winter naps. Neon blue ribbons of Smoke would rise from dozens of small trash fires and join above our heads in a flattened diaphanous canopy.

    We roasted pecans and chestnuts in the dusty coals. We heard them pop loudly and dared each other to rake them out with our hands. The temporary burns were worth the rich flavor of the nutmeats and the admiration of our companions.

    Roasting pecans and chestnuts was an activity for gluttons. It wasn't like being rationed on baked goods or home-made candy - so many pieces per person, and then it's all gone - no, one could have as many nuts as one would gather and toss into the ashes. One could also have as big a bellyache as one would want.

    We made little pots from clay dug from a nearby road cut and baked them in the fires. It was an incentive to continue raking and piling leaves onto the fires. The pots usually broke in the flames, or, at best, they melted with their maiden filling with water.

    This was the season we played a hide, seek, and chase game called, in a chant of exaggerated meter, "Ain't no boogers out tonight; Daddy killed them all last night."

    Of course, as the last word was sung out, we either waited or advanced nervously, anticipating that deliciously surprising moment when the "boogers" would rush with wild and frightening growls and screams from behind trees and out of other imaginative hiding sites to capture us and make us part of the boogers' side.

    The game would continue until the boogers had swallowed up the very last of us intrepid non-boogers.

    Then, your columnist moved up North where he discovered those folks in their well-meaning way had vulgarized the word booger into something of a sexual aberration (that we Southerners had applied the same term to nasal excretions that little kids insist on removing with their fingers in the presence of company is beside the point).

    There were games of "Pleased or Displeased." In addition to being dirty-minded little brats ("I'm very displeased. I want Henrietta and Marvin to go to the very end of the lane and kiss one hundred-times.") we hoped the scaredy cats among us would panic when confronted with the prospect of being sent into dark and spooky woods.

    We usually insured at least one case of cardiac arrest a night by arranging for a "booger" to secretly station himself in the weeds near the couple's destination and then fling himself into their presence with all the fervor and sound effects of a dyspeptic banshee.

    The surprising part of our Pleased or Displeased game was that some of the little idiots sent on our sadistic tours of duty would actually kiss and count. However, we sometimes realized with disgust that some were growing up and moving out of our sphere when we noted that they cut the number of kisses down considerably and gave much more time to each one.

    We didn't play with them anymore.

    There were often plays written and Produced on the spot, all with ghostly theme. Costumes were planned for the upcoming Halloween carnival, and they were always elaborate beyond our actual means and intelligence...and energy.

    For a romantic like your columnist, the ghost story telling was the best part of an evening around a fire. There were tales of what we Crackers call "traveling lights" (elsewhere they are will o' the wisp or ignis fatuus), ol' rawhead and bloody bones (he ate bad children), witches who couldn't get back into their skins after a wicked night out because their skins had been peppered and vinegared by their mortal husbands, footsteps of the dead in houses, folks being buried alive, freaks of divers shapes and diabolical personalities, and other good ol' fashioned, clean cut horror subjects.

    As your columnist sat musing, he came to a sad and illusion shattering conclusion: there ain't no such things as ghosts.

    If there were such beings, and, also, if there were such beings as creatures from outer space, a romantic such as your columnist would be the most natural one for them to approach; he would welcome them...he would believe in them.

    But, alas, they've never appeared to the most likely sympathetic earthly mortal-your columnist-for afternoon tea (or for a midnight fright session either). And, if they've never visited him, they've never visited anybody.

    Or perhaps it is as your columnist's friend captain Will Hardy once offered: "Maybe, they've stopped by, but you; weren't home."

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, November 3, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    Crackers & nature's signs - PART ONE

    This week's effusion addresses itself to our ancestors' relationship with the plant kingdom-a mystical, beneficial, and sometimes dangerous relationship.

    Southern frontier folks were a primitive people, only slightly removed from their nature revering ancestors. Like primitive peoples everywhere, they were keenly observant of nature and wondered about her. They stood in awe of the heavens, spoke in whispers of things suspected but unseen, and they felt a strong kinship with Mother Earth and with her other offspring, the plants.

    Times to plant, even times to first break the soil were determined by signs. from very distant space. The New Testament admonition against the use and study of "signs". was largely ignored when it came to working with dirt and plants.

    Deep South Crackers liked to plant white potatoes when the moon was in the sign of the twins to insure a fuller or double crop, and they hoped that the time coincided with the darkening (waning) of the moon so that the richer growth would be underground rather than above. A compromise date of February fourteenth was chosen in the 1600's, adding the generosity of Saint Valentine to the crop (in many and sundry matters, old timers never left the Mother Church any more than they left the more ancient mother faith of Earth worship).

    Old tales among Deep-South blacks spoke of Br'er 'Mater Bush and Br'er Sweet Gum. They, like many American Indians, especially of the eastern and southern attributed physical feelings to plants. Br'er 'Mater Bush complained that her hair was beinq pulled whenever someone plucked a tomato.

    In this columnist's youth, he heard the older heads caution younger ones against cutting holly trees or planting cedars. They offered no reasons about the holly cutting except that it was unlucky, but they had solid cause agains planting cedars; when a planted cedar had grown to a height to cast a shadow sufficient to cover the planter's grave, the planter would surely die.

    Uncle Hance "Hayball" Raulerson reluctantly placed a cedar Christmas tree in the corner of this columnist's parents' yard in the early forties. Uncle Hance said, "Well, I'll do it, but I'm a' sealing my fate." The cedar has been topped often by the electric company (and threatened for removal in the past by the same folks) and severely abused by crews building highway 228, but it is still thriving. Uncle Hance has been gone many years.

    Your columnist recalls when he, as a very young child, walked in the hammock behind his grandfather's house with old Aunt Julie and heard her speak of plants. Aunt Julie was a tiny negress of wizened face and stooped shoulders. She attributed her long life to sipping sweetened water that had to be made from the crystals of cane syrup (she just poured water into the syrup bottles empty except for the bottom sugar crystals) rather than that imitation stuff bought in stores. Aunt Julie claimed that her sweet'nin' had to come from the sugar cane plant to do any good. Aunt Julie also doted on strawberry wine.

    "If you got a enemy," she advised while fondling the leaves of a sprawling shrub, "you jes mek eem a tea a' leavs fum dis myrkle bush, an' if you say deh rat (right) wuds over eem, e'll die f' sho."

    Aunt Julie spoke of the wax myrtle (Myrica cerifera), sometimes known outside this areas as bayberry (of candle scent fame). Here, it is called myrkle.

    Whether or not myrkle leaf tea is deadly with the proper incantations remains moot. Nothing about M. cerifera is listed as poisonous in the botany books we searched, but a Florida Department of Agriculture bulletin (No. 14, "Important Medicinal Plants of Florida") mentions its bark as a minor medicinal ingredient.

    The product of another plant did poor Aunt Julie in forty some-odd years ago. She had a weak heart and needed the boost of a bit of strawberry wine (made by Grandmother Barber for the Baptist Church's Lord's Supper..Oh, no, we haven't always used Welch's grape juice). The wine had turned to vinegar and Aunt Julie drank her fill. That night she passed away.

    Grandmother Barber never made another drop of wine. That might have been the start of Welch's grape juice in our church.

    Next week we'll go nostalgic and treat that good ol' subject of purgatives and fever-breaking.

    Small wonder we've never been awarded the Pulitzer Prize.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, November 10, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    Crackers & nature's signs - PART TWO

    As your columnist took leave of you devoted readers last week, he mentioned the prospect of treating the subjects of purgatives and fever breakers. No doubt, the more astute among you, in the midst of clinging to the edges of your seats waiting for the next exciting installment of this topic of Southern folk and their relationships to plants, wondered why those other two of the mighty quartet of frontier folks medicines-vermifuges and tonics-were omitted.

    We have a very good reason for that-stupidity.

    Old-timers were strong on purging everything and everybody in the spring, a sort of pagan annual purifying process. They had plenty of plants sitting around willing to do the job-aloe vera (although some swore it had the opposite effect), several of the cassias (kin to the common pea and bean), castor beans (who doesn't remember the sadistic glee with which mamas and grannies forced the evil smelling and tasting viscous stuff down us with either root beer or orange juice making us hate both the chasers for life?), flag (wild iris), pennywinkle (periwinkle or Vincarosea), and plantain seed (sometimes called rattlesnake plant and still used today in some commercial laxatives).

    If things got out of hand (and they always did) when purging, an anti-diarrhetic dose of tea made from bear grass roots (related to Spanish bayonets) did the trick. Bear grass roots were steeped in whiskey to give the whiskey an anti-arthritic power also. Not only that, but bear grass was also used in leaf form to hang hams in the smokehouse or to plait into stout ropes. We've even heard of a candy made by boiling the roots in sugar water.

    After a good purging (was there ever such a thing as "a good purging?"), it was time for spring tonics. Made from a variety of barks and peels, they toned up the blood and added life to sluggish children. Bitter orange peel, certain soft-prickled thistles, greybeard root, partridge berry, queen's root, and wild cherry were among the most frequently used.

    Two other abdominal problem's - worms and gas - were addressed by older heads with a variety of plants. Many of the mints, including catnip, took care of uncomfortable gas. They were either chewed or brewed into teas. In olden times they were called carminatives.

    One of the best vermifuges was Jerusalem oak. Not an oak at all but a weed of open fields, and it was possessed of a foul odor. Old-timers boiled down the millions of tiny green seeds each plant produced with sugar into a syrup or until it became a hardened mass of candy. It did the job and acted as its own purgative.

    Root and stem bark of pomegranates were used as remedies for tapeworms, and the very attractive fruits were believed to have an aphrodisiac effect.

    Several plants were known as fever-breakers, but sassafras was the most famous among Crackers. A tea brewed from the root bark was used to bring the measles to the surface.

    It suited this columnist just fine when the 1960 possible-cancer-from-a-substance-found-in-sassafras scare laid that tea to rest. The best thing about sassafras tea was its rich orange red color.

    Other fever-breakers were bone-set, prickly ash, and wild cherry bark.

    Wild cherry and several products from pine trees went into colds and coughs medicines. Turpentine, in the form of a few drops on a spoonful of sugar, halted coughs, removed small worms from the stomach, and opened the respiratory system.

    Kids chewed the exudations from wild cherry and pine trees just for pleasure. Older folks smoked certain weeds (the names of which we shan't reveal here) for their euphoric pleasure. Everybody, in the absence of tobacco, smoked Indian- cigars, the seed pod of catalba trees, for what little high they could drag from the cussed things (they wouldn't stay lit).

    Ink was quickly made from pokeberry juice, but it wasn't permanent. A better ink came from boiled pine knots smut gathered from the back of the fireplace. Moss (called Spanish moss elsewhere) went into mattresses and other upholstered furniture, and it made for little comfort. Cornshucks made better mattresses, and they were light and bouncy in ladies bustles.

    Coffins were fashioned from chestnut, cypress, and cedar, most folks picking out their favorite wood long before their passing on time. While they were living, they used furniture made from the white oak, hickory, and heart pine (all three almost exterminated from this county).

    Ladies chewed oak branches as snuff sticks or to clean their teeth after enjoying the delights of the brown powder. They parched acorns or corn for a coffee substitute. They also grubbed such grasses as 'Mudy (Permudy or Bermuda), smut, carpet, and water from their yards, and swept down the sandy yards with "fresh" brooms made of gallberry stalks.

    And, they knew that when the dog fennels began blooming (as they just did here back around the fifteenth of October), the first freeze was but six weeks away. Better get your wood in now. Maybe you can make some ink with the smut your fireplace will collect.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS Thursday, November 17, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    Boost Christmas downtown

    We've written our columns at home, on the beach, in coffee shops, in the woods, and in other divers places, but we had never composed one while situated in downtown McClenny until this one. We had begun a subject quite different from the one you are about to read. Circumstances sent us in this direction.

    It was Sunday afternoon, and the weather had gotten down to some serious chilling. Hunting season had started and football season was still in full swing (does it ever end any more?). By all intelligent reasoning, these facts should have led one to the conclusion that there would be practically no one stirring in town. Therefore, being possessed of halfway decent reasoning ability, we concluded that.

    Wrong. We've seen less yellow jackets at a cane-grinding than there were joy-riders along 90 and 228 Sunday afternoon. There were even people walking!

    These thoughts came to mind:(1) if the economy is bad, it doesn't apply to McClenny; it's just going in a different direction, and (2) there is no reason why McClenny, and especially downtown McClenny, cannot be a center of prosperous activity.

    There had to be no less than three-quarters of a million dollars represented in chrome-embellished low-slung or high-riding vehicles, gasoline, beer (we're certain it was purchased quite legally on the Saturday before and kept for Sunday afternoon),designer jeans, mudgrip tires, and gentlemen's coiffures. And it was all riding and riding and riding.

    Your columnist has said it oft before (and has been totally ignored as many times)...the market, both in number and dollars, is here (riding and riding) and the only ingredients we need more of to capture it are imagination, cooperation, effort, sometime, and community loyalty that transcends basic individual greed, i.e. each merchant and purveyor must be willing for other merchants and purveyors - even his or her competitors - to make some money too.

    You can see that the whole thing we're leading up to is impossible before we begin. We shall pass out some Daisies to Downtown Doers because many business folk joined us in a cooperative sale during the recent centennial celebration (the weather, however, did not see fit to be clement that day). Others, bless their civic-minded hearts, spent small fortunes on renovations and cosmetic work on their business bulidings.

    Seems, then, what we need is a frequently recurring excuse to pull our efforts together in attracting local patronage, and then must make certain our customers are happy about what we're attracting them to. We can not crowd too many centennials into a short span of time, but we can use other ready made occasions -Shine Day (we've heard the rumor that it might be moved, happily, to some time other than the Fourth of July weekend), fair days (oh, when, dear Fair Association, will you move the fair back to fair season - the fall- when most people want it?), birthdays for some of our other little communities, and the spring arts festival.

    Now, you public-purchasing-types, don't wax overly snide over our remarks about merchants; we have a few questions for you: Why do you drive sixty miles round trip to a Red you-know-what chain restaurant for seafood when several local establishments have repeatedly tried to serve you seafood that is comparable to, or better than, you can purchase at most restaurants in Jacksonville (not to mention a whole heap cheaper)? How come you drive out of your way to out-of-county chain filling stations to save a couple of cents when the lack of regular attention your vehicle receives makes for a much more expensive experience later at the repair shop? Why is it you pass by local auto dealers in order to save a few (alright, maybe many) dollars but cut your own throat when you've knocked a local out of a job (all our jobs here at home are interlocked), and that whizbang, advertise-on-the-TV, liehole of an out-of-town dealer you bought from refuses to repair your vehicle?

    We could go on for hours but we know the common answers to all the questions along this line...lack of community loyalty, refusal to believe anything from home is any good, an all consuming desire to knock anything and anyone who was here before you arrived, and the wish to be among the glitter of our sister city of Jacksonville where you hope the excitement will rub off on you.

    We hear you preach a great shop-at-home sermon, but we just don't see you practice it.

    A great opportunity to introduce and re-introduce folks to the pleasure and economy of shopping at home is upon us, and it isn't too late to jump on it with concentrated cooperative effort and all four feet - the arrival of Santa Claus in Downtown McClenny.

    Last year, the old fellow and his assistants stirred up quite a storm of happiness as they blew down the main drag. Then, it was over. Simply over. Sadly, anticlimatically, duddishly, dead over.

    People (and there were many) stood around on the streets for awhile, and, with nothing to do, drifted away right past stores, both open and closed. All that ready-made market just...went...home.

    We could have kept the spirit alive...cooperative Christmas sales, concerts in Darbyville Mall, dancing in the bank parking lot, of Saint Nick hanging around and talking with the kids, and just one heck of a Christmas kick off.

    It isn't too late to toss it together. It. would take time, effort, and...but that means being away from TV, a little less boozing, exhibiting an interest in one's town...oh, well, forget it.

    But, it was a good idea.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS Thursday, December 1, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    The Tarnished Tinsel Trophies

    Seems as how every organization or person of any importance (both genuine and self-claimed) assumes an annual privilege of passing out awards to other organizations and persons of importance.

    Senator Proxmire, for instance, has been giving out his Golden Fleece awards to governmental agencies who throw away the most money or spend money for ludicrous reasons. It was, we believe, Esquire magazine that passed out Dubious Distinction labels. And, of course, every one of the entertainment and news media has its big night of scores of awards.

    Well, sir (or is that "well, person"?), this column wishes to place itself in the above mentioned august company by doing something on the same order. We shall push the Christmas season a bit (actually, we're a couple of months late, by today's standards and practices) with our Tarnished Tinsel Trophies.

    Our first Tarnished Tinsel Trophies go to the merchant who puts up a Christmas tree on the earliest date and the radio station that first begins playing holiday music.

    Other TTT's go to the ad company thinking up the most tasteless suggestions for Christmas gifts, putting up the earliest holiday billboard (we don't think August has been used yet), or touting the most horrid smelling men's cologne.

    A big TTT for the family that most believes the invented quaint Christmas customs from America's past or from foreign countries as pushed by the ladies monthly magazines or the family section of the Sunday newspaper. An even bigger TTT for the family that uses the invented quaint Christmas customs.

    Another TTT for the creator of the most tasteless jokes about Santa, the three wise men, or the virgin birth and still another for those who re-tell the same old tired ones for the most years.

    A very special Tarnished Tinsel Trophy is waiting for the creator of the most repulsive doll this season, and there should be separate categories for most repulsive appearance and action, i.e. "Precious Poo Poo, Wanda Wee Wee, and Tessie Throw-up" or something either named for a fruit or supposedly coming from a vegetable patch of some sort.

    How about a Tarnished Tinsel Trophy especially blessed for those who refer to Hannukah as "the Jewish Christmas" the churches who rail against Catholicism but who work hard to emulate that church's Christmas practices more and more every year, and churches who refuse to cooperate with other religious bodies in the celebration of the birth of the one they all claim to be their founder.

    A TTT for those who complain that it doesn't seem like Christmas without snow.

    Tarnished Tinsel Trophies for the most ridiculous "decorator" Christmas tree, the use of any combination of holiday colors except red and green, and the earliest decorated residence.

    Tarnished Tinsel Trophies for the most effective means of erasing names from last year's Christmas cards which will be re-signed and re-sent to friends of the "erasor", those who can for the most years get away without criticism for sending Christmas cards made from paper torn from Reader's Digest, and people who can send the most Christmas letters with homey little bits of news such as how they repaired the chicken coop last July to the most people they hardly know.

    More TTT's for people who have a goose rather than a turkey for Christmas and then talk about it for months at their cocktail parties boring the most people, people who brag about the size of their last year's tree, and those who send the most holiday cards accompanied by the most griping about the cost of postage.

    To the network with the most depressing (they'll call it "heartwarming") special on TV, a great big tear-spattered Tarnished Tinsel Trophy

    TTT's to the deprived family who begins calling the earliest to the most organizations for requests for Christmas baskets and then follow them up with the most calls of "when are y'all going to get here?", to the deprived family that gripes the most about having its beer-drinking and TV watching interrupted by the basket-deliverers who were so thoughtless as to stop by during prime time, and to deprived families who give their kids computers for Christmas.

    A few TTT's are left for those who complain (really "boast") about what their kids insisted on having for Christmas, people who spend as much or more on the wrapping as the gift, and folks who tell you what they want for Christmas.

    Our last Tarnished Tinsel Trophy goes to the newspaper column that gives you its first Christmas effusion at the beginning of December.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, December 8, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    Edging into Christmas

    Bare pecan trees and open grounds are teeming with thousands of raucous robins. The first Japonica blossoms have eased out of their year-long hiding sheaths. Home chain saws whine throughout the neighborhood. One cannot get onto Interstates 75 and 95. And your columnist's electric blanket has quit working...ah, the sights and sounds of the true arrival of winter.

    Bake sales are proliferating around the bank's entrances. Yard sales spring up even on non payday weekends. Fruit vendors have multiplied. One cannot get to a cash register to purchase even a pound of nails or a can of pork and beans because of the onslaught of shoppers. And your columnist cannot find his treelights...ah, the sights and sounds of the true arrival of Christmas.

    Which brings us to another, but related, subject of the "seems like your ol' columnist has done it again" theme. There were those who took umbrage at his Tarnished Tinsel Trophies effusion of last week.

    Now, we ask you: has every vestige of a sense of humor vanished out there in newspaper reader land? Has the reading public just totally evolved into a pile of paranoia that waits around in hopes of being offended? Doesn't anybody understand wit that's possessed with a slight edge to it anymore?

    Some nice folks asked, "Don't you ever do anything outside of tradition at Christmas, O self styled arbiter of excellence?"

    To which we were forced to answer, "Well, yes."

    For a starter, we send out tacky home-made Christmas cards once in about every twenty years. We don't eat fruitcake unless all the citron, citrus peels, pineapple, cherries, prunes, raisins, cocoanut, and currants are totally removed. We hang up socks on the mantle for animals (you hang up socks for your animals...pardon us...children don't you?).

    Also, we never search out the perfect Christmas tree, but, rather, choose the one that puts us in mind of Thelma Mae Hunklemeir from back in the fifth grade...lop-sided and wanted by nobody. And we sic the dogs on anybody who stops by our house to sing Christmas carols (first time your columnist went a' caroling, somebody did the same to him, and he has thought of it as such a neat idea ever since)

    Referring back to paragraph three, we continue. Seems like we cannot write about the crass and gross commercialization of a holy day (it has become bad taste to do so), so we shall go on to a subject that usually elicits much less response (in fact, just about none), i.e. what shall we do about downtown McClenny?

    Your columnist harkens back to his effusion of two weeks ago and the subject of the Santa Claus parade. Even if the time is too short for an organized cooperative sale and really big function to be staged, this column challenges each individual merchant to plan and publicize his own holiday sale to coincide with that Jolly occasion.

    There is a strong rumor that Saint Nick will be stopping by Darbyville Mall behind Bob Moskovitz' Raynor's Pharmacy at the end of the parade. Rumor or not, this column hopes so, and it also hopes locals will stir around that day and give their hometown merchants a try...they might be pleasantly surprised at the selection and cooperative service (although they shouldn't be, because we're talking about McClenny folk).

    And, in time, perhaps the cheerily decorated Darbyville can be the setting for a combined church choir or a succession of individual church's choirs. It can happen. It just takes doing.

    Late Flash: There will be a free concert of the old-fashioned country type on stage in Darbyville Mall at the end of the Santa parade Thursday, December 15th, Come down and re-live the old days in good Christmas spirits.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, December 15, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    The Yule tree ordeal

    Your columnist really has nothing against Christmas trees. He harbors no ill will toward them. He does not, in spite of rumors to the contrary, wish to have them declared illegal.

    He does view them with a Jaundiced eye.

    Consider how much of a person's life during any one year is taken up by Christmas trees...to the exclusion and sacrifice of everything else.

    Average time spent...

    -searching for a tree in the woods-4 hours,
    -searching for a tree on the sales lots after you've discovered all the good ones have been cut from the woods-6 1/2 hours,
    -removing ticks after having been out in the woods searching for a Christmas tree-2 hours,
    -putting the tree into the Christmas tree stand (including the time spent sawing off the bottom, bit by bit, making it fit and cussing)-3 1/2 hours,
    -searching for another tree after getting carried away with the above-5 hours,
    -filling empty spaces with the superfluous branches you've lopped off-1 hour,
    -finding and buying another tree to replace the one you've lopped too many branches from-2hours (by this time, the entire process has become tedious, and you don't care how it looks),
    -finding Christmas tree decorations stored in a place where you just knew would be convenient to find come the jolly Christmas season-4 days,
    -untangling Christmas treelights-2 weeks,
    -testing and getting all the strings to burn-never (you wind up-tossing all of them away and buying new ones),
    -testing and getting all the new ones to burn-4 hours,
    -hanging the silver icicles-15 seconds, or less,
    -replacing bulbs to keep all the lights burning throughout the season-4 hours,
    -being optimistic that you can find the burned out bulb-4 hours(this can run concurrently with hunting the burned out bulbs),
    -replacing bulbs to keep all the lights burning on those tiny Japanese jobbies throughout the season-18 hours,
    -remembering Pearl Harbor-days and days,
    -replacing fallen ornaments throughout the season-2 hours (you finally just let them lie there under the tree and let your guests believe your tree was done by some wierd interior decorator from over on San Jose Boulevard),
    -vacuuming up broken ornaments and replacing fallen icicles-4 1/2 hours,
    -wondering why you do this to yourself every year-8 hours-(this can run concurrently with vacuuming, picking. up, and replacing things),
    -chunking the whole thing out (lights, ornaments, the works) the door as soon as Christmas is over. (or maybe before), 8 seconds
    -vacuuming and picking up tree needles, 8 months,
    -removing silver icicles from the lawn and shrubbery-13 months,
    -vowing to never again put up a tree-8 months (can run concurrently from when the ornaments began to fall until picking up the last needle from the carpet).

    Your columnist has always heard it said that if one doesn't put up a Christmas tree, one will have bad luck. Your columnist shudders to think, considering all of the above (taken from this own experiences), at the risks he would be taking by not having a tree.

    If you will pardon him, he is off to the woods to search out a tree.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, December 22, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    The 'magic' of Christmas

    We think it is high time we settle down. and become serious about the holiday season. Sometimes, however, it is difficult to get serious about an event that has evolved into the world's most widespread and longest running carnival.

    But buried deeply within this veritable orgy of spending, and garish spectacle is a magic that cannot be denied. It is the magic that turns a Scrooge into a person of concern. It is the magic that makes even the most insensitive grouch leave his fireside to traipse through the cold to a church pageant with an unruly cast of scores of primary Sunday Schoolers.

    Those, of us who are old enough remember the magic that made good women like Aunt Leona Knabb and "Miss" Ida Knabb into saints at Christmas (actually, no more so than through the rest of the year) as they furtively delivered ample baskets of food and toys to people for whom misery was a daily way of live (for those of you who bemoan the current deprivation and, poverty, you don't know anything as compared to the old days in Baker County).

    We recall Uncle Clem Frasers secretly buying Christmas dinners for his old WW I veteran buddies who were down on their luck. We remember the magic when Granddaddy Barber spent heavily on candy and toys for the kids of impoverished sharecroppers, but, he never allowed them to know from where it all came.

    There was magic when Mr. Chessman opened the doors of his movie house to the poor kids (even at nine cents a ticket, many never saw a movie except at the annual free Earle Theater Christmas Parties). Shopkeeper Uncle Charly Hodges displayed some of the Christmas magic when kids buying presents for their mothers were a little short of cash and he said, "That's okay, Here, take it and go on."

    The local lions Club continue to practice the magic every year as they fete the kids with Santa and fruit. We personally know of one ol' Scrooge, who has been leaving grocery bags of junk for not particularly poor kids, but for kids whose parents never understood that a kid needs magic, junk, and frivolity at sometime in his life and that Christmas is about the best time for it.

    These were, and are, not the only ones; they were, and are, representative of many. And we can say with firm conviction born of experience that the magic only brings out what is buried within those folks already.

    We experienced some of the magic this morning in that people who usually avoid giving greetings of any kind gave us a nod and a smile...hesitantly and nervously, but it happened.

    We feel the magic of Christmas when your writer who, as a rule, is a respectable self-centered (to the extreme) type, begins to melt at the sight of a kid selling mistletoe outside the doors of big department stores, a little ol' lady peddling her handmade dolls on a street corner, a smiling old gentleman pushing hand-made toys...and it is even more effective if the merchandise is poorly but sincerely done.

    It's the one time of the year when your columnist becomes a Salvation Army member.

    The magic of this time of year makes us nostalgic. We remember the few skimpy strings of lights in downtown McClenny and Baldwin at the city limits and at the center of town. We recall tinfoil and cellophane wreaths. We remember when a white paint sprayed tree was just about as uptown as one could get, but we still put up the same old fresh green type each year.

    We've gone on for years at this time of year about Christmases past in Baker County, and anything we say this year would be redundant to the point of boredom. But one thing which we recall and report cannot be, and never will be, redundant or unnecessary, or overly country, or mushy. It is when we hear over and over, and when we return..."Merry Christmas."

    Your columnist has counted it among his greatest pleasure to have written for you this year. Thank you for reading.

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    THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS, Thursday, December 29, 1983
    THE WAY IT WAS-Gene Barber

    Thoughts on the new year

    This end-of-the-year effusion marks eight and a half years we have been at what began as a Bicentennial year project of local historical columns. We have brought you all the historical dirt that was fit to print (and some that wasn't). We have continually hoped to help you kind folks become aware of your rich heritage as Americans, Southerners (and those of you who were intelligent enough to have become Southerners by choice), and Baker Countians (after reading about us and our area it's easier to see why everybody wants to become one isn't It?).

    We have written from the perspective of being a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant of a somewhat conservative nature. Our thoughts have been modified by those genetic memories of our distant AmerIndlan and Mediterranean ancestors, our root in the Mother Church and the high church of the Anglicans. We have tried to write with the view that our heritage is also rich with the influences of our black friends.

    If It seems that we sometimes write from out of another time, it is probably because that is exactly what we are sometimes doing.

    We still have stacks of historical material, and there is little danger of running out any time soon, but we sometimes like the respite from the past that commenting on current events and attitudes gives us. There are few subjects we don't have an opinion on, and there are few topics we won't tackle...and there are very few we know anything about.

    This week, as is our wont at the end of the year, we shall comment on the year past, make known some of the better reviews from our readers (you don't, for a moment, entertain the thought that we would tell you of the bad ones?), and leave you with a touch of kindly homespun didactic philosophy.

    Nationally, all went predictably. Critics from the opposition nitpicked about the man in the Big Office making slips of the tongue and fibbing about dyinq his hair; bleeding hearts cried loudly about man's inhumanity to man as the law and courts sent a murderer to the chair, but the bleeding hearts remained strangely silent about the murderer's act and his victim; terrorism increased at an alarming and understandable rate as the country continued to soften attitudes toward terrorists; and the economy took an upswing, but only in the media.

    Internationally, all went predictably. The U.S. was damned if it didn't and damned when it did. How unusual.

    Statewide, things were as dull as ever. Florida's population continued to explode, costs to take care of the ever-expanding population soared, most of the newcomers preferred a free ride, and Governor Graham looked as undignified as ever.

    But here in the county...ah ha...the past year was another matter. While the county hospital controversy raged on, businesses folded up, new businesses gave it a short try, and sour grapes persons chuncked rocks at self-sufficient little Glen Saint Mary...all quite predictable ...some things were happening in a little-dreamed-of way.

    For instance, George Hodges Road got paved. Hallelulia, perhaps we have heard the last of that for a while. This column couldn't think of a project that needed attention more than that one, but we wonder at how much sooner it might have gotten done had there been a bit more civility between the parties involved (firmness and shouting are not the same).

    McClenny and a handful of its citizens, most of whom had never been involved in any kind of civic work, tossed a gigantic one hundredth birthday party for the little city and bravely faced down adverse weather, some initial inertia, and even a bit of opposition (anything worthwhile must have opposition to help prove its worth).

    Out of that celebration came a renewed look for downtown McClenny and a renewed effort to salvage downtown. It is continuing. The spirit is not dead.

    The award-winning- television documentary "McClenny-A Place in History" was an artistic piece" that gave stronger definition to the word "heritage" and also made us aware that TV does not have to be the boring and insulting wasteland it tends to be.

    And one small incident which has been untouted and might be seemingly insignificant for 1983 is especially meaningful to your columnist-McClenny was chosen to be the site for one of the deep South's largest arts centers. Since his beginnings in art twenty-three years ago, he has hoped, against all reasoning, for this event.

    Dear readers, we have also had comments directed toward us. As we think we declared last July, putting stuff together for the ol' column sometimes gets old... tedious even...and we have edged a tad toward thanking our editor and hanging it up, but along comes someone like, for instance, Jimmy Hartley who says, unsolicited, "I sure enjoy reading your column. Don't ever stop."

    Then, we put the ol' felt tip to the old bond paper (or napkin, or paper sack or back of a cash register slip) whenever inspiration hits us and knock out a few more articles.

    In fact, his statement was so good, we think we'll stop while we're ahead and not quote any more.

    We shall instead, wish you a good and peaceful 1984.

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