Caren Schnur Neile - Florida Lore: The Barefoot Mailman, Cowboy Bone Mizell, the Tallahassee Witch and Other Tales

Published by The History Press
Charleston, SC
www.historypress.net

Copyright 2017 by Caren Schnur Neile
All rights reserved

Front cover bottom: Courtesy of Mark Stevens at postcardroundup.com.

Front cover, top middle: Seminole Chief Osceola, by George Catlin. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Front cover, top left: Al Capone. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

First published 2017

e-book edition 2017

ISBN 978.1.43966.352.3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017953977

print edition ISBN 978.1.46713.782.9

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For my first storytellers: my parents, Gloria Lees Schnur and Sidney J. Schnur, and my sister, Randi Jones

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My gratitude goes out to all those who accompanied me on the memorable journey that resulted in this book, especially my husband, Tom Neile. If you do not see your name below and know it belongs there, please note that like this research, I, too, am a work in progress. I sincerely appreciate you.

Carrie Sue Ayvar, Laurie Berlin, Todd Bothel, Tina Bucuvalas, Peggy Bulger, Mij Byram, Kaye Byrnes, Robert Carr, Cori Convertito, Winnie Edwards, Florida Humanities Council, Paul George, Susan Gillis, Carol Goad, Dave Gonzales, Lucia Gonzalez, Tamara Green, Amanda Hardeman, Amanda Irle, Susan Kirby, Kristin Lachterman, Liliane Nrette Louis, Lucrece Louisdhon-Lounis, Gary Mormino, Vanessa Navarro, Hilary Parrish, Bob Patterson, Tina Peak, Monica Drake Pearce, James Powell, John Shipley, Linda Spitzer, Brian Stoothoff, Ingrid Utech, Rodney Welch, Butch Wilson, Kuniko Yamamoto, Pedro Zepeda

INTRODUCTION

THE REAL FLORIDA

My grandfather, Ben Buxton, was born in 1900. He grew up in a time when most of South Florida was rural and unsettled. His father and mother at one point lived close to present-day Fort Myers. One of the main industries in Southwest Florida at that time was commercial fishing. My grandfather and his brother, Jack, would mingle with some of the fishermen when they brought their catches to a local fish house.

One day, some of the fishermen were setting around the fish house swapping tales. One old man described an old, abandoned, two-story house that stood on a desolate stretch of beach. It had what was termed up north a widows walk, basically an area on the roof that had a porch around it. The homeowners could access this area to view the ocean and catch the cool evening breezes.

The old man described how on some nights a man could be seen walking along the upper-story porch of the abandoned home. This wasnt strange, but the fact that the man had no head was! My grandfather was intrigued with the story and sometime later elected to pay the home a night visit. He coerced his brother to accompany him on this trip. They both rode a mule, bareback, numerous miles before arriving at the lonely and forsaken homestead that faced the sea. The immediate yard was covered in shrubs, while a forest of pine and other trees infringed around the outer perimeters of the house. They dismounted and made their way silently to the edge of the woods, where they could clearly see the upper-story porch.

Map of Florida. National Atlas.

My grandfather and great-uncle waited patiently for several hours, but failed to see anything. Just before they decided to leave, a man emerged on the porch and stood facing the sea. They watched in awe, because the man had no head projecting from his shoulders. Jack had a cold and suddenly started coughing. My grandfather said the man turned and faced them. The sight terrorized both young men, who hurried quickly to the tethered mule. It is no surprise that my grandfather noted that the once slow-moving mule was driven through the night like a racehorse, as they headed for the safety of their home, miles away.

Butch Wilson

Welcome to the home of the headless man. Of the Wakulla Pocahontas, the snake that made Lake Okeechobee and the ghost of Bellamy Bridge. Welcome to the real Florida: a land of stories old and new, true and partly true and flat-out whoppers created long beforeand long afterthe land was acquired by the United States from Spain in 1821 and became the nations twenty-seventh state nearly a quarter of a century later.

It has often been said that the explorer Juan Ponce de Leon came to Florida in the first place on the strength of a story, that of the Fountain of Youth. In fact, that belief is a story as well, invented by a political opponent for the purpose of discrediting the Spaniard years after his death. So with knowledge of a legacy like that, how can I suggest that such tales represent the real Florida?

As I write these words, I am surrounded by dozens of books by resident journalists and itinerant researchers and millions of digitized words from interviews, e-mails and other documents, all of which reflect a wide range of attitudes toward and reflections on this extraordinary place. Many of these observers of our state, the nations first to be occupied by Europeans, lay claim to knowledge of, if not connection with, the real Florida. Some claim that the real Florida can be found only among the Seminole and Miccosukee peoples, representing the Creek, Timucua, Calusa and others who were supplanted, and mostly decimated, by European colonization. Others insist that the real Florida is found only among Cracker culture, reflecting those native-born Floridians boasting multiple generations of white ancestors with roots that are southern and, prior to that, Anglo and Celtic. Then there are those who say the term real Florida can solely be applied to those born in Florida, whatever his or her ethnicity, whose family has resided here a significant amount of time.

One thing that these definitions and their ilk have in common is their firm reliance on the facts on the ground. The history: native peoples lived here for at least twelve thousand years, and the Spanish landed in 1513. The geography: 8,462 miles of tidal coastline, more than thirty thousand lakes and that one-of-a-kind Everglades ecosystem. The climate: sub-tropical (north and center) and tropical (south). The population: 20.5 million. Then there is the industry. The foodways. The economics and demographics. In short, we are inundated with information.

Such facts are extremely important. And yet I am a storyteller, and we storytellers tend to have a slightly different idea of what is important. First off, we are interested at least as much in the unconsciousthe playful, the desired and the fearedas in the measured and managed. Human beings, after all, are as right-brain irrational (or a-rational) as we are left-brain logical. One could argue that our emotions are as real as our observations. In fact, one could also argue that our emotions actually influence our observations.