The Florida Historical Quarterly
Volume XXVI  -  July 1947  -  Number 1
July 1947-April 1948
http://fulltext6.fcla.edu/DLData/CF/FullText/fhq_26_1.txt
(Pages 1  43)

The Everglades Before Reclamation

by J. E. Dovell

NOTE. This account of the Everglades and their early history is one result 
of the author's extensive research into all available sources.


Within our own generation a scientist who always weighed his words could say 
of the Everglades:

Of the few as yet but very imperfectly explored  regions in the United 
States, the largest perhaps is the southernmost part of Florida below the 
26th degree of northern latitude. This is particularly true of the central 
and western portions of this region, which inland are an unmapped wilderness 
of everglades and cypress swamps, and off-shore a maze of low mangrove 
"keys" or islands, mostly unnamed and uncharted, with channels, "rivers" and 
"bays" about them which are known only to a few of the trappers and hunters 
who have lived a greater part of their life in that region. 1

This was Ales Hrdlicka of the Smithsonian Institution, the author of a 
definitive study of anthropology in Florida written about 1920 ; and it is 
not far from the truth today.

After crossing the lower Everglades in 1897, Hugh L. Willoughby commented :

It may seem strange, in our day of Arctic and African exploration, for the 
general public to learn that in our very midst, as it were, in one of our 
Atlantic Coast States, we have a tract of land one hundred and thirty miles 
long and seventy miles wide that is as much unknown to the white man as the 
heart of Africa. 2

These words ably describe the veil of obscurity which covered the interior 
of Florida below the twenty-seventh parallel from its discovery to the 
twentieth century. It seems almost incredible that Lake Okeechobee and the 
Everglades should be the objects of exploring expeditions as late as 1897. 
The military records of the Seminole wars, and even the Thomas Buckingham 
Smith report of 1848, failed in large measure to dispel the mythical fancies 
popularly and naturally ascribed to the region.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

The Everglades of Florida occupy an irregularly marked shallow slough 
thirty-five to fifty miles wide and a hundred miles in length-an area of 
approximately four thousand square miles, all south of the twenty-seventh 
parallel of latitude with the exception of a small strip bordering the 
shores of Lake Okeechobee. 3

Bounded on the east by a coastal fringe of sand dunes and on the west by the 
Ocaloacoochee Slough and the Big Cypress Swamp; the Everglades extend to the 
southern and southwestern coast, where salt water marshes and mangrove 
swamps form the southern border. 4 The line of demarcation between the 
glades and adjoining areas is extremely irregular: the actual boundary 
between the Everglades and the contiguous prairie is where the sedges are 
met by grasses, cypress, salt marsh or mangroves. The soil of all is of 
organic origin.

This whole area constitutes the third or downstream unit of the watershed of 
the interior of the Florida peninsula below the twenty-eighth parallel. The 
first or tributary section of this drainage area, the Kissimmee-Okeechobee 
Everglades watershed, comprises some five thousand square miles. 5 The 
drainage elements of the first area are the Kissimmee river and numerous 
smaller streams. The second or middle unit of this watershed is Lake 
Okeechobee, a shallow body of fresh water of seven hundred and twenty square 
miles whose surface elevation was often twenty-two feet above sea level, but 
now by drainage it is regulated between fourteen and eighteen feet. The 
total area of the three units approaches ten thousand square miles. 
Formerly, under natural conditions, the outflow of the waters of the first 
two units passed onto the third unit. 6

GEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND

"Taken as a whole," wrote Samuel Sanford, "the topography of the [southern] 
Florida mainland has all the aspects of infancy. Drainage is defective, 
sloughs, shallow ponds and lakes abound." 7 These infantile aspects are due, 
insofar as the Everglades are concerned, to the gradient of one-tenth of a 
foot per mile over the hundred miles from the southern shore of Okeechobee 
to the Gulf. This vast basin has been the scene of the growth and slow decay 
of vegetation in an area of low elevation enjoying a warm climate and heavy  
rainfall. 8

Scientific interest in the geology of the Everglades began after the middle 
of the nineteenth century. The first Florida state geologist, E. H. 
Sellards, brought together the geological investigations of the peninsula 
prior to 1908 in a section of his first report. He states that in 1825 James 
Pierce visited "Central Florida" and described its great savannahs, one of 
which, seen by Colonel James Gadsden, was a hundred miles in circumference, 
but, "The existence of a large permanent lake located by maps in the 
southern part of the peninsula is doubted." 9 As late as 1838 Henry Whiting 
was inclined to doubt the existence of both the Everglades and Lake 
Okeechobee. 10 But the publication of Thomas Buckingham Smith's documentary 
report on the Everglades in 1848 established the existence and general 
location of both.

Smith believed the geology of the southern portion of Florida to be similar 
to that of the sea-coasts of Georgia and South Carolina. "Oolitic lime-rock, 
filled with the shells and corals of species that still exist, forms the 
great geological feature of the country. 11 He found the rock floor to be 
porous and susceptible of easy excavation ; exposure to air hardened the 
rock and made it useful for building purposes. 12

In 1851 Michael Toumey examined the limestone at the falls of the Miami 
river leading into the Everglades. These rocks, he found, were identical 
with living shells in the surrounding waters. He regarded the glades as 
resting on a basin of what he termed Miami limestone, clearly distinguished 
from the Tertiary limestone at Tampa bay. 13 Because of their accessibility 
the fossil bearing beds of the Gulf coast and the Caloosahatchee river 
aroused the interest of geologists before 1900. But the investigations of 
early workers were restricted to the seacoasts and river banks. 14

Had the mass of data now at hand for geologists been available to Louis 
Agassiz in 1851, or to Joseph Le Conte in 1878, they would never have 
proposed their theory that the southern half of the peninsula was of coral 
growth. 15

Angelo Heilprin, exploring the Caloosahatchee and Lake Okeechobee in 1886 
found no evidence to support a coralline theory of growth of Florida; he 
decided that the growth had been through accessions of organic and inorganic 
material in the usual methods of sedimentation and upheaval. 16  Matson and 
Clapp expressed the belief that the deposition of the Pliocene rocks began 
with an encroachment of the sea which extended beyond the latitude of Lake 
Okeechobee. Following the deposition of the Pliocene the land emerged to a 
probable greater height than at present, and "It was during this period that 
the major features of the present topography were produced". 17

ORIGIN OF THE EVERGLADES

The gently sloping basin of the Everglades was originally Pliocene sea 
bottom, and Lake Okeechobee " . . . is an original hollow in the Pliocene 
sea floor." 18 This floor was subject to erosion, solution, and a series of 
depositions. Later the younger deposits were also subject to erosion and 
solution, and still later partly covered by sand. "The sea withdrew leaving 
a large area that became occupied by fresh water marshes and lakes in which 
solution and erosion were at first dominant, then deposition of . . . marl 
commenced. In Recent times deposition became dominant, and beds of fresh 
water marl with peat and muck were laid down. This association of 
principally organic soils is 8 feet thick near Lake Okeechobee but gradually 
thins out in all directions to the margins of the Everglades. The 
accumulation of peat and muck is still continuing in certain untouched areas 
of the Everglades where each year's growth of plants dies and sinks below 
the surface of the shallow water and is incorporated in the organic mass 
below." 19

SOIL DEPOSITS OF THE EVERGLADES

The Everglades almost everywhere have a rocky bottom on which are soil 
deposits " . . . the result of slow vegetative decay . . . and would 
continue to build up on a surface having even steeper gradient than that now 
existing" under natural conditions. 20 Much of this deposit has come from 
saw-grass. The northern and eastern sections of the Everglades are nearly 
devoid of trees, being covered with saw-grass (Mariscus jamaicensis), "which 
is not a grass but a large sedge with short sharp spines on the edges of its 
leaves. . . ." 21 The saw-grass covers most of the glades although bushes 
and trees of myrtle, willow and bay often appear in sporadic clumps or 
little islands. On the eastern and western edges many islands or hammocks 
appear in close proximity to the mainland. These hammocks consist of a dense 
growth of broad leaved trees and shrubs and appear as true islands during 
periods of high water. 22

A rank growth of herbaceous vegetation has occupied this large trough 
through the center of southern Florida, and from its decay and settlement 
has built up the ground level at the southern shore of Lake Okeechobee to 
fourteen feet above bed rock. This thickness of the cumulative soils at the 
southern shore gradually thins out to a feather edge at the sides of the 
Everglades. 23 An examination of thirty-five samples of soils taken from 
Lake Okeechobee showed an exceedingly high nitrogen content with 
comparatively small quantities of potash and phosphate. 24

A survey of the Everglades soils from the rock rim at the head of the north 
branch of New river at Ft. Lauderdale to Lake Okeechobee covering a strip 
five miles in width was made in 1915 by the United States Department of 
Agriculture. 25 The survey located three classes of soils. Along the lake 
shore for a width of one to two miles, the material was found to be black 
and well decomposed, and averaged sixty per cent ash content. Because of the 
growth of the custard apple tree on this type of soil, it has been called 
the custard apple muck. 26 "The best land in the Everglades is where the 
custard apple grows." 27 South of this is a belt of less decomposed material 
with a smaller percentage of mineral matter which is called peaty muck. 
Known as "willow and elder land," it is a transition strip between the lake 
border soils and the Everglades peat at its rear. 28 This peat averages up 
to ninety-three per cent combustible, and comprises sixty per cent of the 
area mapped. 29

The agriculturally important types of soils determined to 1943 are: custard 
apple muck, 25,000 acres; peaty muck, 30,000 acres; everglades peat, 350,000 
acres; and everglades peat over sand, 130,000 acres. 30 Between 1940 and 
1943, 5,800 of the 7,000 square miles in the general Everglades region had 
been surveyed and mapped by the United States Soil Conservation Service. The 
information obtained indicated that some 435,000 acres of the land examined 
was "suitable for long time use for crop production." 31

FLORA AND FAUNA

The Everglades are situated in a semitropical climate where the average 
yearly rainfall varies from sixty inches at Miami to fifty inches at 
Okeechobee. 32 The yearly variation is considerable, the distribution within 
the year producing wet and dry seasons. Temperatures vary from the summer 
high of 98o F. to winter temperatures far below freezing under conditions of 
very low water in the open glades. 33 "The region is . . . remarkable for 
the fact that it is a meeting place for many temperate and tropical types of 
plants and animals." 34

The ecologist has divided the vegetation of the whole Everglades region into 
six broad types, with the general areas covered by them as follows: (1) 
custard apple and willow-elderberry zone along the eastern and southern 
shores of Lake Okeechobee-140,000 acres ; (2) saw-grass marsh plains of the 
northern and central glades -- 1,000,000 acres; (3) saw-grass and wax myrtle 
or bayberry thicket areas, along the sides of the central plain -- 240,000 
acres ; (4) slough and tree-island areas south and east of Lake Okeechobee 
-- 775,000 acres; (5) mixed marshes and wet prairies east and west of the 
central plain at the southern end of the glades --300,000 acres; and (6) 
bordering prairies with scattered hammocks and  strands of trees along the 
borders of the Everglades -- 145,000 acres. 35

A majority of the plants in this great partially submerged bog stem from 
aquatic families. Covering the larger part of the Everglades, the saw-grass 
has been the prominent growth which has impressed every traveler in the 
area. In the sloughs, on the islands, and along the borders of the 
Everglades where not crowded out by the saw-grass are found hundreds of 
other grasses, plants, shrubs, and trees. Among the latter, the royal palm 
is noteworthy for its clean, gray, and smooth trunk, crowned by ten or 
twelve shining and deep, dark green leaves rising as high as a hundred and 
twenty feet above the earth. Describing the royal palms on Paradise Key,  
Charles Torrey Simpson wrote:

Viewed from a distance of half a mile or more this forest is one of the most 
beautiful my eyes have rested on. The whole forms a superb emerald island 
decorated with splendid palms which everywhere cut the skyline with 
unsurpassed effect and it is set in a sea of green everglades. 36

The animal life of the region of the Everglades is equally as varied as the 
plant life. Safford wrote that "the insect fauna alone must certainly 
include thousands of species. . . ." 37 Simpson commented that one hundred 
twenty-eight species of birds had been sighted on or near Paradise Key and a 
considerable variety of small mammals, fish and frogs. 38  Of great interest 
to naturalists, the shell life of the Everglades includes many specimens of 
crustacea and gastropada. The tree snails found on the trees of the islands 
are among the most attractive oftheir species, with their shells of varying 
and beautiful colors. 39

Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades have been near perfect homes for fish, 
especially in times of high water. Without doubt, the most interesting 
species of fish in the region is the predatory alligator gar. 40 The black 
or big-mouthed bass is found throughout the region. Mudfish, catfish, 
shiners, kill fish, sunfish, bream, and numerous minnows are seen in the 
lakes, pools, and sloughs. 41

Perhaps the family of the fauna which most quickly comes to mind at the 
mention of the Everglades is the reptiles the largest of which are the 
alligators. "These huge animals are not at all dangerous, but will flee at 
the sight of a man and will not show fight unless brought to bay." 42 The 
Everglades are well supplied with a great variety of snakes. The cottonmouth 
or water moccasin, which is very poisonous, is the most unpopular and 
predominant of the snake population. Rattlesnakes, garter, water, black 
racer, gopher, coachwhip, and green tree snakes are additional members of 
the family encountered in the glades. 43

Virtually all of the birds which frequent the states of the eastern seaboard 
are found in or near the Everglades at some time of the year. The roseate 
spoonbill and the flamingo have almost disappeared and the parakeets are 
gone, but the snowy egret and the white ibis are present in large flocks 
throughout the area.

There are few mammals. Deer graze in open spots and an occasional wildcat 
will make his home on one of the islands. Opossum and raccoon thrive along 
the borders and sometimes on the islands. Perhaps the mammal best adapted to 
the glades is the Florida otter, whose trails Willoughby saw by the 
thousands. 44

THE ARRIVAL OF MAN

The Aborigines

The seasonally inundated shores of Lake Okeechobee, the grassy waters of the 
Everglades, the swampy isolation of the Ocaloacoochee Slough and the Big 
Cypress, and the tidal flooded islands of the mangrove coast could never 
have been habitations for a large population; but ancient campsites have 
been found on a number of Everglades islands. Diggings in a series of 
deposits at the fork of New river several miles west of Ft. Lauderdale 
revealed pottery of a primitive nature. 45 On Long Key, in the Everglades, a 
refuse deposit two hundred feet in diameter gave up numerous potshreds which 
bore shell-cut workings on marine shells. The inhabitants of the region used 
terrapin shells extensively as well as alligator, fish, and bird bones in 
their primitive handicraft. 46

Excavations in mounds near Opa Locka and Golden Glade unearthed a large 
variety of shells, beads, pottery, and other artifacts which indicated two 
distinct Indian cultures, one on top of the other. 47 These investigations 
definitely proved that an earlier race inhabited these village sites than 
the Tequestas or other Indians discovered in South Florida by the Spanish 
explorers.

Between Ft. Thompson, at the head of navigation on the Caloosahatchee river, 
and Lake Okeechobee Ales Hrdlicka could find nothing of importance in the 
way of Indian remains, nor could he locate anything in the vicinity of the 
lake itself. 48

A report on the location of ". . . a great plan of earthworks elaborately 
laid out in embankments and mounds, covering an area a mile square" at the 
very edge of the Everglades near the shores of Lake Okeechobee and  the 
present town of Belle Glade was made in 1931. 49 The central figure of the 
earth works consisted of a flat-topped rectangle thirty feet by two hundred 
and fifty feet, with earthen embankments enclosing a court at the front of 
the figure. A semi-circular bank, partially enclosing the rectangle and 
embankments, extended further forward. Matthew W. Stirling, chief of the 
Bureau of American Ethnology, found these Everglades constructions the 
nearest approach to the famous Fort Ancient earthworks in Ohio of any in 
North America. Excavations on a small scale disclosed potsherds identifying 
the locality with an aboriginal inhabitation long before that of the 
Seminoles. 50

In 1921 an idol carved to represent a human figure in a squatting position 
was found on the northern shore of the lake and lends additional strength to 
the theory that a race antedating presently known aboriginal tribes lived in 
the area. 51 J. Walter Fewkes, then Chief of the Bureau of American 
Ethnology, pointed out that this object possessed a remarkable similarity to 
a wooden idol found some years previously in Cuba ; both were approximately 
the same size, both had been cut from lignum vitae, and both had weathered 
to an identical color. Fewkes, comparing this artifact with others found on 
Key Marco and near Ft. Myers, regarded it as typical of a culture unrecorded 
in the past but opening a new phase of archaeological research in Florida. 
52

Early Explorers

The first white men to reach Florida discovered an area peopled by sedentary 
Indians. There exists no authentic evidence as to the origin, arrival, or 
blood relation of these aborigines, though they were found to have had some 
contact with other continental tribes and with Cuba. 53 Daniel B. Brinton, 
one of the earliest anthropologists to give serious study to Florida, 
divided Florida, as occupied by the Indians in the sixteenth century, into 
several districts. Two of these covered most of the Everglades: from Cape 
Canaveral to the tip of the peninsula on the east coast lay Tequesta; and 
the west coast area, at least as far as Tampa bay and into the interior 
around Lake Okeechobee, was inhabited by the Caloosa or Carlos. 54 The name 
Caloosa, defying interpretation, appears in the early French and Spanish 
records as Calos, Carlos, and Caluca; in the English records as Caloosa, 
Carloosa, and Charlotte. The name survives today in Caloosa village, 
Caloosahatchee river and Charlotte Harbor. 55

Scattered reports give a picture of the Calos as a savage and wily band of 
Indians and . . . they were noted among the tribes for their golden wealth 
which they had accumulated from numerous wrecks cast away upon the keys in 
passage from the south and . . . they were regarded as veritable pirates, 
plundering and killing without mercy the crews of all vessels, excepting the 
Spanish, so unfortunate as to be stranded in their neighborhood. 56

In the period from 1521 to 1565, Spanish attempts at colonization in Florida 
ended in dismal failure. France, sunk in a slough of "decadence and civil 
war, from which Huguenot leader Coligny dreamed of rescuing her "by 
snatching treasure and colonies" from Spain, sent out several expeditions in 
the 1560's. 57 The French Protestants turned to the Florida coast when Jean 
Ribaut attempted to plant, a colony on the St. Johns river in 1564. This 
colony was short lived, being destroyed by the Spaniard Pedro Menendez de 
Aviles in 1565. This is important to us because the settlement was twice 
visited by Rene de Laudonniere, who was accompanied by the artist, Jacques 
Le Moyne. 58 From the artist's narrative, published with his drawings, it is 
possible to glean something of Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades in the 
sixteenth century.

During the time of Laudonniere's second visit to the Florida colony stories 
were heard of white men living with some of the Indian tribes. The French 
offered rewards to the Indians who would bring such persons to them, and as 
a result two Spaniards were brought into the French village. When questioned 
as to how they arrived in Florida, they related that they had been wrecked 
on the Florida reefs and had fallen into the hands of the Calos. 59

According to these men, the village of the chief of the Calos lay on a river 
beyond the Cape of Florida. One of them told how he had acted as a courier 
to the chief and had been sent several times on a five day journey from 
Calos to a chief named Oathkaqua on the east coast.

Midway on this journey there is, in a great freshwater lake called Sarrope, 
an island about five miles across, abounding in many kinds of fruit, and 
especially in dates growing on palm trees, in which there is a great trade. 
There is a still greater one in a certain root of which flour is made, of so 
good a quality that the most excellent bread is made of it, and furnished to 
all the country for miles round. 60 On his crude map of Florida Le Moyne 
placed the territory of Calos at the southern end of the peninsula, a little 
to the west of the southernmost cape, the country of Oathkaqua at Cape 
Canaveral, and Sarrope lake nearer the Atlantic than the Gulf. Buckingham 
Smith held that the lake was Okeechobee and the island was situated in it. 
61

A series of canoe routes . . . began in the Ten Thousand Islands and 
extended northward through the Big Cypress probably along the Fakahatchee 
Swamp route. One branch route led from this swamp to Lake Trafford. . . . 
Another branch route went up the Okaloacoochee Slough to the Caloosahatchee 
River, then into Lake Okeechobee, and from it up to the Kissimmee River, or 
by the Allapattah marsh and other low areas north of it into the St. Johns 
River. 62

In 1566, the Spanish adelantado Menendez directed Francisco de Reynoso to 
erect a fort for the protection of Spanish interests in the country of the 
Calos, and to discover a waterway to "Lake Miami" through which 
communication by water might be established from the Atlantic to the Gulf by 
way of the St. Johns river. 63 The Calos were ". . . masters of a large 
district of country, as far as a town they call Guacata, on the Lake of 
Mayaimi, which is called Mayaimi because it is very large. 64

Escalente Fontaneda, born of Spanish parents in the service of the King of 
Spain in Peru, was on his way to the fatherland when the ship on which he 
was taking passage went afoul on the Florida reefs. 65 His Memoir, written 
about 1575, is one of the few records concerning the Everglades prior to 
1700.

Fontaneda described the locale of the present day Miami and nearby south 
Florida as . . . a place of the Indians called Tequesta, situate on the bank 
of a river which extends into the country the distance of fifteen leagues, 
and issues from another lake of fresh water, which is said . . . To be an 
arm of the Lake of Mayaimi. On this lake, which lies in the midst of the 
country, are many towns, of thirty or forty inhabitants each. . . . They 
have bread of roots, which is their common food the greater part of the 
year; and because of the lake, which rises in some seasons so high that the 
roots cannot be reached in consequence of the water, they are for sometime 
without eating this bread. Fish is plenty and very good. . . . but when 
there is hunting, either deer or birds, they prefer to eat meat or fowl. I 
will also mention that in the rivers of fresh water are infinite quantities 
of eels, very savory, and enormous trout. . . . The Indians also eat 
lagartos (alligators), and snakes, and animals like rats, which live in the 
lake, freshwater tortoises, and many more disgusting reptiles. 66

Fontaneda commented that these Indians occupied a very rocky and a very 
marshy country; the latter cannot be mistaken for other than the glades. The 
lands of Florida, Fontaneda wrote, were abundant in pasturage and he 
recommended the Spanish government make stock-farms for the breeding of 
cattle, but he was not certain they were fit for settlement or the planting 
of sugar cane, although he had seen stalks of cane which had been set out 
and had begun to grow. 67

References to the Everglades during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
are vague. The Spaniards established missions at Tequesta on the Miami river 
and on the Caloosahatchee river on the west coast, but these did not 
prosper. Buckingham Smith refers to the traffic of the Indians of southern 
Florida at the turn of the seventeenth century, and quotes Barcia as saying 
that "the traffic with Cuba in the month of March 1698 was worth $17,000," 
68 which would indicate a considerable population and a thriving trade.

The pressure on the Caloosas from other tribes coming down from the north 
grew severe during the eighteenth century and after a protracted struggle 
for their homes, they were driven onto the keys and finally to Cuba. 69

Under the provisions of the Treaty of Paris of 1763 Florida became a British 
colony and with this change of sovereignty several descriptive volumes came 
off the London press relating to this newest acquisition. In William 
Roberts' An Account of the First Discovery and Natural History of Florida, 
published in 1763, reference is made to the "Laguna del Espiritu Santo . . . 
Situated between the islands, extending from north to south about 27 leagues 
. . . near eight leagues wide." 70 In Thomas Jeffreys' map accompanying this 
work this lake is represented as having communications with the bays on the 
south and west, and Roberts adds, "at the end of it [the peninsula] . . . 
are two shoals and six islands, called Cayos del Espiritu Santo: this large 
lake is as yet but  little known." 71

In his A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida, Bernard Romans, a 
Dutch surveyor employed by the British colonial government, mentions the 
Okeechobee-Everglades area, but was not sure that the big lake existed. He 
related a conversation held with a Spanish pilot who had been a captive of 
the Florida savages. 72 The Spaniard spoke of a lake, wrote Romans, 
"Mayacco, seventy-five miles in circumference by his account. . . . The man 
told me that he had formerly been taken by savages, and by them carried a 
prisoner in a canoe. . . to their settlements on the banks of the lake." 73

About the same time William Stork, describing the Shark river section behind 
the Cape of Florida and the sea coast eastward wrote that it consisted . . . 
of swamps and highlands, the latter not exceeding 28,000 acres, in coarse 
reddish land, containing much moisture, whose luxurious plants are the 
pomegranate, the arboreous grape vine, the Chicasau plumb, the opunita spice 
trees, and a variety of unknown shrubs ; the soil is as rich as dung, 
producing mangrove 50 and 60 feet high. . . . 74

A POSSESSION OF THE UNITED STATES

The best accounts of the Everglades prior to the Seminole wars are found in 
Charles Vignoles' Observations Upon the Floridas in 1823, and John D. 
Williams' Territory of Florida some years later. Vignoles made a lengthy 
trip around the peninsula and into the interior of the state. He wrote:

The Glade, or as it is emphatically termed, the Never Glade, 75 appears to 
occupy almost the whole interior from about the parallel of Jupiter inlet to 
Cape Florida, thence round to Cape Sable to which point it approaches very 
near, and northwardly as far as the Delaware river discharging into Chatham 
bay: its general appearance is a flat sandy surface mixed in with large 
stones and rocks, with from six inches to two feet of water lying upon it in 
which is a growth of saw and other grasses, so thick as to impede the 
passage of boats where there is no current. 76

Vignoles saw a number of islands and promontories in the glades, many of 
which were covered with hammock growth mixed with some pine and cabbage 
palm. These he believed capable of cultivation but they were located in such 
inaccessible positions as to repel most efforts at penetration. Vignoles 
felt that the Everglade morass had been exaggerated by the Indians, Negroes, 
and refugee whites and that a sectional survey would have shown rich pieces 
of land in detached spots. 77

Williams visited the lower east coast in 1828 and observing the Miami river, 
wrote: "The Miame River is a small stream that issues out of the glades and 
enters Sandwich Gulf behind Cape Florida. . . . The height of the glades 
above the tide has not been ascertained." 78 Local inhabitants told Williams 
that they reckoned the altitude to be all of forty feet, but Williams 
thought twenty feet was more nearly correct.

The fall of the Rattones, New, Hillsboro, St. Lucie, Miami, Shark, Delaware, 
Caloosahatchee, and other rivers emptying out of the glades led Williams to 
speculate on the possibilities and results of deepening the channels of the 
rivers which drained the central area between the Atlantic Ocean and the 
Gulf of Mexico. He describes the area as follows:

On reaching the level of the glades, a vast grass meadow is expanded, 
apparently as boundless as the ocean ; you then pass on the winding lagoons 
from six to twelve miles westwardly and the grass, by degrees disappears and 
you are left in an unexplored grassy lake to which you can discover no 
bounds. . . . The grassy border of this lake is usually covered with water 
during the winter season, not so deep, however, as to hide the grass which 
is very thick and tall. During the summer, the ground is often dry and hard 
for ten miles beyond the timbered land. This tract is at all times stocked 
with wild game, and would afford a superior range for cattle. 79

Reflecting, in the 1830's, upon the future development of the Everglades, he 
anticipated much of what has actually taken place. He said:

Could it be drained by deepening the natural outlets? Would it not open to 
cultivation immense tracts of rich vegetable soil? Could the waterpower, 
obtained by draining, be improved to any useful purpose? Would such draining 
render the country unhealthy?. . . . Many queries like these passed through 
our minds. They can only be solved by a thorough examination of the whole 
country. Could the waters be lowered ten feet, it would probably drain six 
hundred thousand acres ; should this prove to be a rich soil, as would seem 
probable, what a field it would open for tropical productions! What 
facilities for commerce! 80

After studying old maps of the interior of the peninsula which depicted the 
principal rivers connecting the coasts on both sides and talking with native 
Indians working in the Spanish fisheries on Charlotte Harbor, Williams came 
to the conclusion that the area had never been explored. "Not one of the 
writers who have described this country, since the change of flags, has been 
able to obtain any certain intelligence relating to this part of the 
peninsula." 81

What was general knowledge about the Everglades in 1840, together with the 
opinion of Colonel William Wyatt, prominent Floridian, is contained in an 
extended letter from him on the subject, published first in the National 
Intelligencer and reprinted in The News, of St. Augustine, April 16, 1841. 
He had seen a part of the region and ascended two of the outlets of the 
"lakes near the center of the Everglades which connect with one another," 
and described the rich soil and the native productions : the cotton plant, 
hemp, vanilla, coontie, and the prickly pear. Like everyone, he was all for 
drainage, which could be very easily carried out he was certain by deepening 
the outlets and confining the lakes to their beds.

THE SEMINOLE WAR

The Seminole Indian War in Florida was but a part of the general movement in 
the United States in the nineteenth century to push the Indian farther west, 
though here it was southward. Here, as in some other sections, it was the 
most difficult problem of the era, for the Indians were determined to remain 
on their lands.

Much of the good land of the state was occupied by the red men, so when 
settlement began it was inevitable that attempts would be made to remove the 
natives, a practice which had prevailed elsewhere since earliest colonial 
days. Various treaties were wrung from the Indians by more or less devious 
and dubious means, first to push them southwards, then to the West. 82 Grant 
Foreman, an authority on the Indians, wrote: "In the dishonorable record of 
our dealings with the Indians there is perhaps no blacker chapter than that 
relating to the Seminole people." 83

Many of the Indians refused to migrate and retreated to the fastnesses of 
the Everglades, where at length they had to be followed by the armed forces 
of the United States. 84 The resulting war was a series of raids, ambushes, 
guerilla warfare, and few pitched battles; but one of the most important of 
these was fought on the northern shore of Lake Okeechobee on Christmas Day 
1837.

Colonel Zachary Taylor had moved out from Ft. Brooke on Tampa bay the 
previous week with eight hundred regular troops, one hundred eighty Missouri 
volunteers, and seventy Delaware Indians. The Seminoles were well concealed 
in a dense hammock surrounded by a swamp which separated them . . . from the 
enemy, three quarters of a mile in breadth [sic], being totally impassible 
for horse, and nearly so for foot, covered with, a thick growth of saw-grass 
five feet high, and knee deep in mud and water, which extended to the left 
as far as the eye could reach, and to the right to a part of the swamp and 
hammock we had just crossed, through which ran a deep creek.

The soldiers were obliged to proceed on foot through this swamp to a 
disastrous engagement with the Indians who had skillfully planned the 
setting for it. The loss of the attacking force was twenty-six killed and 
112 wounded, a large portion of whom were officers. The bodies of ten 
Indians  were found and it was learned that four others had been killed. 85

Taylor and his men succeeded in routing the Seminoles, who fled to the 
deeper recesses and more isolated spots of south Florida.

In the years from Dade's massacre in December 1835, to the cessation of 
hostilities in August 1842, the Indians were gradually hunted down; the 
majority of them were sent to the western lands; the remainder escaped into 
the area south of Okeechobee and the Caloosahatchee. General Thomas S. Jesup 
wrote the Secretary of War in February 1838 of the foolishness of seeking to 
transfer Indians from one wilderness to another, from lands not required for 
agricultural purposes, "when they were not in the way of the white 
inhabitants, and when the greater portion of this country was an unexplored 
wilderness, of the interior of which we are as ignorant as of the interior 
of China." 86

Criticism of the army's conduct of the long drawn-out Florida war spread 
from the local to the national arena. To 1838 it was estimated that the loss 
of men was as high as three thousand, and the cost as high as $30,000,000, 
all to subdue two thousand Indians who had held out against an army four or 
five times their number. 87 But those who criticised were not aware of the 
circumstances, as General Jesup pointed out:

I, and my predecessors in command, 88 were not only required to fight, beat 
and drive the enemy before us, but to go into an unexplored wilderness and 
catch them. Neither Wayne, Harrison, nor Jackson, was required to do this; 
and unless the objects to be accomplished be the same, there can be no just 
comparison as to the results. 89

The general knew whereof he wrote, for in early 1838 he led an expedition 
from the head of navigation on the St. Johns river to Jupiter Inlet, 
engaging the Indians in the Loxahatchee swamp at the eastern edge of the 
Everglades. One of his servicemen wrote:

All I can say is that it is a most hideous region, in which nothing but 
serpents and frogs exist. The Indians themselves say that they cannot live 
here after March. While you are freezing we are melting with the heat, which 
equals that of July in New York. 90

Jesup reported he had taken 1,955 Indians, while 33 escaped and 35 were 
killed between September 1837 and May 1838. 91  By that time the Seminoles 
had been driven to the glades and swamps of southern Florida, and the 
remaining four years of the war were fought largely in this remote region. 
92

In 1839 it was hoped and announced that the war was virtually over, but when 
on July 23 Colonel Harney with a detail of thirty-two was attacked at 
Charlotte Harbor on the Caloosahatchee river and eighteen men were killed 
and six captured, the war was renewed with vigor. 93 By April 1840 the army 
had five thousand officers and men at the various forts in south Florida of 
whom almost six hundred were on the sick list. 94

It was determined to follow the Indian to his fastnesses, and this policy, 
though it took several years, was the most successful one. The most 
noteworthy of the expeditions into the Everglades was that of Colonel Harney 
in December 1840, when he made a crossing through the lower glades to Shark 
river on the Gulf. There is a day-by-day detailed account of the expedition, 
evidently written on the spot, in the St. Augustine News of January 8, 1841; 
of which the editor says :

A passage across the Peninsula! . . . the grass-water connecting with the 
Gulf and the Atlantic. The numerous islands which dot the grass-water 
hitherto affording a secure retreat to the murderous savages are now 
positively known, as they have been long conjectured, susceptible of 
examination. . . . These abodes are no longer inaccessible to the white man.

And the diarist records:

15th Dec. We reached the head of the river which the Indians call Poncha 
[Shark] and hailed it with three cheers. . . . We have now accomplished what 
has never been done by white man.

Leaving Ft. Dallas at the mouth of the Miami river on December 4, 1840, 
Colonel Harney with ninety men had entered the Everglades at the headwaters 
of that river and followed a southwest course. They traveled in canoes, 
making every effort at silence, pitching camp every night on the nearby 
islands, and looking all the while for recent Indian signs. On the fourth 
day out they reached Cochickeehadjo's island in the southwestern glades, 
where they captured eight Indians, two of whom were warriors. These latter 
Harney summarily disposed of by hanging-he was not to be denied revenge for 
the Caloosahatchee massacre of his command the previous year. Then he 
surprised a small group of Indians on Chikikai's island, shot one warrior 
and captured two others and a number of squaws and children. 95 Later he 
hanged nine warriors, and killed an equal number in the skirmishes. Reaching 
Shark river the party went down to the Gulf and from thence to Indian Key, 
Ft. Dallas, and Ft. Pierce.

A second trip made by Harney and a detachment in January 1841 was important 
because of its further disclosures of the nature of the Seminoles and their 
habitat. Leaving Ft. Dallas on New Year's Day with four large canoes and 
fifty men, the party went up little Miami river to the edge of the glades. 
"We then moved forward swiftly and noiselessly, at one time following the 
course of serpentine channels opening out occasionally into beautiful 
lagoons, at another forcing our way through barriers of saw-grass." 96

After paddling several hours the party moved up on Chitto-Tustenuggee 
island, some twenty acres in extent with soil two feet deep and very rich. 
The center of the island was cleared, with the circumference protected by a 
wide fringe of live oak, wild fig, and mangrove trees. The Indians had 
located two towns, two dancing grounds, and a council lodge there in former 
times. All were now overrun with pumpkin, squash, and melon vines, 
occasional lima beans, and Cuban tobacco. Signs showed that the natives had 
been gone at least two weeks. 97 On a nearby island the soldiers found 
patches of green corn and sugar cane in addition to the usual vegetable 
vines.

After spending several days in scouring the islands along the eastern edge 
of the glades north from the Miami headwaters, the party reached a small 
island on which they flushed a group of four warriors, five squaws and two 
children. Three of the warriors were shot on the spot, and three squaws and 
a child taken, "the other [child was] drowned by its mother to prevent its 
cries leading to her detection." 98 Harney and his command reached the 
headwaters of New river at sunset on January 10 and were at Ft. Lauderdale 
by midnight.

By 1841 the Seminole War was being actively fought on Lake Okeechobee and in 
the Everglades. In a report to the Secretary of the Navy Lieutenant John T. 
McLaughlin, commanding the Florida Naval expedition, recited the part played 
by his command of ninety seamen from the barges Ostego and Wave and the 
schooner Flirt. The naval unit had cooperated with Colonel Harney in the 
latter's January trip. 99 Leaving Harney near the headwaters of New river, 
the McLaughlin command skirted the eastern edge of the Everglades on a 
south-west course, searching all the islands for Indians and arriving at the 
Gulf of Mexico through Harney river on January 19.

A joint expedition of the army, navy, and marines moved in October 1841 from 
Ft. Dallas, crossed the lower glades to the pine woods near the west coast, 
and thence to Punta Rassa. Leaving Ft. Myers on November 2, the expedition 
moved up the Caloosahatchee and into Lake Okeechobee and from there to the 
Loxahatchee and the east coast. The armed force saw a half dozen Indians on 
the whole trip but was not able to effect a single capture. 100

As illustrative of the peculiarity of the service to which these various 
corp were subjected, there was, at one time to be seen, in the Everglades 
the dragoon in water from three to four feet deep, the sailor and marine 
wading in the mud in the midst of the cypress, and the soldiers, infantry 
and artillery on the land, in the water, and in boats. . . . Here was no 
distinction of corps, no jealousies, but a laudable rivalry in concerting 
means to punish a foe who had so effectively eluded all efforts. Comforts 
and conveniences were totally disregarded, even subsistence was reduced to 
the lowest extremity. Night after night, officers and men were compelled to 
sleep in their canoes, others in damp bogs, and in the morning cook their 
breakfast over a fire built on a pile of sand in the prow of a boat, or 
kindled around a cypress stump. 101

Lieutenant McLaughlin was able to report in April 1842 that "every portion 
of the Ever Glades and water courses of the interior, from Lake Tohopekaliga 
south, have been visited . . . and examined and large fields and settlements 
broken up and destroyed." 102 One of the detachments had, with the exception 
of twenty days, been employed without intermission in their canoes since the 
previous October. The ships Flirt and Wave put in the Hillsboro river in May 
1842 and gave chase to two Indians to the head of Snake creek, where Indian 
fields of sugar cane, corn, and bananas were in cultivation.

The command was divided into two scouting parties: one entered the country 
between the Miami and the New rivers, and the other went into the glades. 
The second scout, composed of marines, was compelled to return to the post, 
before completing their mission, for want of water.

The fatigue and privation undergone by this detachment was so great that 
private Kingsbury fell in his trail and died from sheer exhaustion. The 
waters of the Everglades had fallen so low that it was necessary to track 
the boats at all times; and at some to make ways of the boats' seats for 
miles and miles to slide them over. 103

President Tyler in a message to Congress on May 10, 1842 announced that he 
had authorized the commanding general in Florida to declare the hostilities 
at an end when it was deemed expedient. Tyler estimated there were two 
hundred forty Indians left in Florida, of whom only eighty were capable of 
bearing arms. 104 In order to relieve the federal government of further 
expense for protection, the president suggested certain inducements to 
settlers in the form of land, arms, and subsistence to families settling the 
Florida frontiers.

Among the significant results of the Seminole War were the removal of the 
majority of the Indians to the western lands and the consequent opening of 
the peninsula of Florida to white settlement. The reports brought back by 
the men in the armed services regarding the hitherto unknown lands and 
waters of south Florida served, in some measure, to acquaint the public at 
large with the territory. Army troops had garrisoned forts over the 
peninsula and military roads had been blazed throughout the territory. Naval 
and marine units had cruised the inshore waters and carried out expeditions 
through the inland waterways. 105 Engineers had mapped and charted the area 
and all of the "exploring" soldiers and sailors had observed the fertile 
islands of the Everglades. They found many of the islands were covered with 
a very rich soil and had been intensively cultivated by the Indians, 
producing crops of corn, beans, sugar cane, pumpkins, squash, melons, 
bananas, and tobacco. 106  Many of the men who fought in the Everglades 
remained in the state and undoubtedly remembered the primitive homes and 
gardens on the little islands.

EARLY FEDERAL AND STATE EFFORTS TOWARD RECLAMATION

Action to Secure Title to the Everglades

The people of the territory of Florida recognized the need for government 
financed internal improvements some years before attaining statehood. In the 
St. Joseph constitution adopted by the convention which assembled in 1838, 
Article XI, Section 2, it was stated that a liberal system of internal 
improvements was essential to the development of the resources of Florida 
and should be encouraged by the government of the state.

The attention of the citizens of Florida was directed toward the Everglades, 
even before the territory became a state. On December 30, 1842, Florida's 
territorial delegate to Congress, David Levy, offered the following 
resolution and it was adopted:

Resolved, that the Secretary of War be directed to place before this House 
such information as can be obtained in relation to the practicability and 
probable expense of draining the everglades of Florida. 107

On January 7, 1843, the Secretary's reply to the resolution was referred to 
the Committee on Territories. The reply contained a report by the colonel of 
the corps of  topographical engineers that there was no information in the 
department on the matter of Everglades drainage, ". . . and all that has 
come to my knowledge is speculation, supposition, reasoning from supposed 
facts, verbally communicated by officers and others who have been in that 
region of country." 108

The state was only ten months old when the legislature passed a resolution 
concerning certain land which had hitherto been considered valueless in 
consequence of its being covered by water at stated periods of the year, 
adding that it was . . . reported by respectable sources that the Everglades 
. . . at a comparatively small expense, can be entirely reclaimed, thus 
opening to the habitation of man an immense and hitherto unexplored domain 
perhaps not surpassed in fertility and every natural advantage by any other 
on the globe. 109

This resolution of 1845 was pushed into the Congressional arena by Florida's 
senator James D. Westcott, Jr., in 1847, when he wrote a letter to the 
Secretary of the Treasury noting the repeated demands made to the state 
legislature and its resolutions on the matter, and asking that an agent be 
sent to make a reconnaissance and to submit reports as to the practicability 
of draining the Everglades, such reports to be laid before Congress at the 
next session. 110 He asserted that it would not be a chimerical idea to 
anticipate a channel from the Gulf of Mexico through the Everglades to the 
Atlantic Ocean for the use of small coasting vessels in the navigable waters 
of that part of the peninsula.

The Buckingham Smith Report

Secretary Walker did not delay in taking action onWestcott's request to 
secure information on the Everglades. On June 18, 1847, Walker sent a letter 
of instruction, detailing certain services to be performed, to Buckingham 
Smith of St. Augustine. 111 The letter directed Smith to examine the land 
offices at Tallahassee, New-nansville, and St. Augustine, in the capacity of 
auditor, and serve as an agent in ". . . the procurement of authentic 
information in relation to what are generally called the `Ever Glades' on 
the peninsula of Florida." 112

In the letter to Smith, Walker cited the representations which had been made 
to the treasury department that there were several million acres of public 
lands that could be reclaimed at a comparatively small expense and that 
great advantages would result from such a measure.

"It is represented that these lands can be drained by two or three small 
canals from the lake into the rivers opposite to it, emptying into the Gulf 
of Mexico and into the straits of Florida." 113 Walker further urged Smith 
to obtain information in writing from citizens acquainted with the subject.

Among bills submitted to the first session of the thirtieth Congress in 1848 
was one introduced by Senator Westcott which would have given Florida all 
wet lands, lakes, and watercourses south of Township 36 South. 114 The 
Westcott bill was, in part, the result of an 1848 resolution which had been 
passed in the Florida legislature asking the federal government to cede 
large tracts of pub- lic lands south of Lake Okeechobee to the state so that 
they might be drained and made valuable for the cultivation of tropical 
produce. 115 The grant was asked for on the condition that the state drain 
the lands and apply the proceeds, after defraying the expense of draining, 
to the purposes of public education.

By resolution of August 9, 1848, the United States Senate, then considering 
the Westcott bill, requested the Secretary of the Treasury to communicate to 
that body any information in his department relative to reclaiming the 
Everglades or of the expediency of ceding them to Florida for that purpose. 
116 Walker responded with the report made by Buckingham Smith and 
accompanying documents. He also called attention to Smith's estimate that 
$500,000 would be necessary for the drainage and to the divided opinions on 
the probable worth of these lands after their reclamation; he concluded that 
"The test of experience can alone solve the doubt." 117

The report on the Everglades by Buckingham Smith as submitted to the Senate 
in 1848 represents the first authentic publication on the area and remains 
today a monument to the resourcefulness and ability of the man who gathered 
the material. The fact that the Everglades received their surplus waters 
from the overflow of Lake Okeechobee, which in turn received most of its 
water from the Kissimmee river, was probably known, but Smith was the first 
to publicize it. He estimated the average elevation of the glades to be 
twelve feet above sea level, and that they were covered with water in the 
fall of the year to a depth of six feet. 118

Smith advanced the idea that by cutting the rim of the Everglades on the 
east and west coasts at the heads of the various streams that received their 
initial waters at low places in the rim some four or five feet of water 
might be drained off the area. It was his belief that the land so reclaimed 
would be made profitable for the cultivation of coffee, sugar, rice, corn, 
cotton, and tobacco. The soil deposit under the water he found to be 
exceedingly light when dry, and an impalpable powder when broken.

The Ever Glades are entirely below the region of frost, and the 
meteorological and barometrical statistics . . . prove that the climate is 
as favorable to the cultivation of tropical fruits as that of any country 
between the twenty-eighth and twenty-fourth parallels. 119

Smith concluded his report with the following statement:

The Ever Glades are now suitable only for the haunt of noxious vermin or the 
resort of pestilent reptiles. The statesman whose exertions shall cause the 
millions of acres they contain, now worse than worthless, to teem with the 
products of agricultural industry; that man who thus adds to the resources 
of his country . . . will merit a high place in public favor, not only with 
his own generation, but with posterity. He will have created a State! 120

With his report Smith submitted a number of letters, some of which may be 
noted. From Colonel R. Butler, surveyor general of Florida, came the dictum 
that the Everglades could not be surveyed until drained. He advised the 
granting of the area to the state of Florida, since the Everglades were in 
the interior of the state and were without navigable rivers, and their 
reclamation by the federal government would conflict with the sovereignty of 
the state. He advocated the grant to the state of one moiety, conditioned 
that the state cause the glades to be drained within a given period; thus 
the United States would realize for survey and sale the other moiety and 
there would be opened "a large fertile surface for the habitation of man, 
cultivating sugar and tropical fruits extensively thereon." 121

General Thomas S. Jesup wrote Westcott, The swamps are generally peat 
swamps, which if drained, would soon be converted into olive, lime and 
orange plantations and would be cultivated by a numerous white population, 
which would be interposed between the sugar plantations, cultivated by 
slaves and free blacks of the West Indies. This in a military point of view 
would be highly important, and add greatly to the strength of the south. 122

General W. S. Harney, who doubtless had seen as much or more of Everglades 
than any one else, wrote Buckingham Smith that canals from Lake Okeechobee 
to both the Caloosahatchee and the Loxahatchee should be dug, as well as 
canals into the Ratones, Little, Arch Creek, Miami, and Shark rivers. He 
further advocated that the two chief canals should be ten to fifteen miles 
long, thirty feet wide and five to fifteen feet deep. "No person can say 
with positive certainty what the soil of the Everglades when drained would 
or would not produce; but it is my opinion it would be the best sugar land 
in the south and also excellent for rice and corn." 123

One of the correspondents from whom Smith sought information regarding the 
Everglades was Stephen Russell Mallory, Collector of Customs at Key West. 
Mallory had lived in Key West since his childhood and had fought in the 
Seminole War.124  Mallory, later to become a United States Senator and 
Confederate Secretary of the Navy, had closely observed that particular part 
of the state in question. He wrote:

My own impression is that large tracts of the Glades are fully as low as the 
adjoining sea, and can never be drained; that some lands around the margins 
may be reclaimed by drainage or diking, but that it will be found wholly out 
of the question to drain all the Ever Glades. As the country now is, healthy 
and mild, with its good lands in small parcels, with water at hand anywhere 
for irrigation, I think it offers inducements to small capitalists, men with 
from one to ten hands, to go there and raise fruits. Fruit will grow well 
there. 125

Captain John T. Sprague, whose volume on the Seminole War appeared in 1848 
and remains today a definitive study, was astounded at any proposal to drain 
the Everglades. He informed Smith that he had . . . never supposed the 
country would excite an inquiry, other than as a hiding place for Indians, 
and had it occurred to me that so great an undertaking, one so utterly 
impracticable, as draining the Ever Glades was to be discussed, I should not 
have destroyed the scratch of a pen [notes used in composing his book] upon 
a subject so fruitful, and which cannot be understood but by those who have 
waded the water belly deep and examined carefully the western coast by land 
and by water. 126

THE SWAMP AND OVERFLOWED LAND GRANT ACT

Senator Westcott introduced his bill seeking the cession to Florida of all 
lands, lakes, and watercourses south of Okeechobee on August 1, 1848. The 
bill was read twice and referred to the Committee on Public Lands. 127 This 
Committee made a report on the Everglades bill on August 12 in which it was 
agreed that if the proposed improvements were carried out, the United States 
would benefit, at no expenditure, in the bottom lands of the Kissimmee river 
and its tributaries which were then valueless by reason of their annual 
overflowed condition. The bill was reported without amendment and its 
passage was recommended. 128 The Smith report and accompanying documents 
were submitted at the same time. On a motion by Senator Westcott, the Senate 
ordered  five thousand copies of the report and documents printed for the 
use of the Senate. 129 Westcott had the large number of copies printed, it 
was reported, "for distribution . . . where it may be of service." 130

Westcott procured "extra copies" of this Senate Document, The Report of the 
Committees, Number 242, 30 Congress, 1 Session, which was a report of the 
Committee on Public Lands and has been referred to above. 131 He added some 
letters and several tables relating to the Florida mails. His object, he 
wrote, was to obtain a "favorable opinion as to . . . the grant of the 
Everglades to Florida, to have them drained, and the encouragement of the 
cultivation of exotics" upon the reclaimed lands as well as to "attract 
attention to other suggestions contained in these papers." 132

With respect to the draining of the Ever Glades, he deems it due to others 
to say that the project is not an original "hobby" of his. If any credit is 
due for the earliest suggestions of its practicability and expediency, Gen. 
Gadsden, of S. C., Col. J. P. Baldwin, of South Florida, Col. J. G. Gamble, 
of Tallahassee, Gen. Mercer, of Va., and Col. W. Wyatt, of Manatee, are the 
best entitled to it. They were its advocates when he was skeptical. 
Convinced by full investigation they were right and that he was wrong, he 
has yielded his judgment to theirs. 133

On December 20, 1848, Senator Westcott moved that the Senate proceed to 
consider his bill, and stated that in the Commissioner of Lands' report, the 
area was classed as follows: 134

Swamps 4,300,000 acres ; overflow 1,000,000 acres, pine barren 1,000,000 
acres; sand barren 1,500,000 acres ; total 7,800,000 acres.

Senator David L. Yulee declared that he had not been consulted in relation 
to the bill and found it so objectionable that he doubted that he would give 
it his vote. A similar measure was proposed, Yulee continued, in relation to 
the wet lands of the state of Arkansas, and it was his opinion that the 
latter measure would grant all of the swamp and overflowed lands to the 
states within the limits of which they happened to be located. 135 It was 
reported that Yulee "excited general astonishment" in opposing the Westcott 
bill and that the differences of opinion of the Florida senators were enough 
to prevent its passage. 136

On January 9, 1849, the Senate Committee of the Florida legislature on 
Internal Improvements, to whom had been referred so much of a message of the 
governor as related to drainage, made a report. The committee expressed 
belief that from all opinion available, there appeared to be little doubt 
that the Everglades could be drained. This drainage would render the region 
valuable, but the committee favored the introduction of private enterprise, 
and could not consent to involve the state in the expense, especially when 
there was some uncertainty of the success of the undertaking 137

The act which gave the Everglades area to the state of Florida, ". . . to 
enable the State of Arkansas and other States to reclaim the swamp and 
overflowed lands within their limits," was signed by President Fillmore on 
September 28, 1850. 138 Its only provision was that the proceeds of the sale 
of any of the lands so granted should be applied exclusively to the purposes 
of reclaiming the swamp and overflowed lands.

CREATION OF THE INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT FUND

The Florida legislature, in session in January 1851 accepted the grant from 
the nation. The legislature created and constituted a Board of Internal 
Improvement for the state, the ex-officio members of which included the 
governor, attorney-general, treasurer, comptroller, and the register of 
public lands. The elective members included one member from each of the 
judicial districts of the state, to be elected by the General Assembly for 
two-year terms. 139 At the 1855 session of the legislature an act was passed 
by the legislature creating a new Board of Trustees of the Internal 
Improvement Fund of Florida.

The new act consolidated the land grants made to Florida in 1845 with those 
secured under the swamp and overflowed lands act of 1850, together with all 
proceeds that had accrued from their sale, in a separate classification from 
other state lands. 140 All lands, and funds arising from the sale of such 
lands which were a part of this fund, were irrevocably vested in the same 
five state officers as had served on the 1851 board. In addition to making 
stipulations in regard to sale, transfer, or investment of proceeds from 
lands sold out of this fund, the act provided for aid to railroads, canals, 
or other works of an internal improvement nature. The trustees were given 
power to fix prices of these lands and to make such arrangements for the 
drainage of the swamp and overflowed lands as in their judgment appeared 
most advantageous to the Internal Improvement Fund.

In the decade before the Civil War the main concern for internal 
improvements in Florida was the development of overland transportation, with 
waterways and harbors assuming a secondary position, and land reclamation 
purely incidental. The reason for this is found in the fact that the 
settlement of the state had extended only to a little below Ocala, whereas 
the largest part of the swamp lands were south of that point.

After the Seminole War, Indian troubles, while existent, were negligible, 
and the small remnant of red men remaining in Florida took to swamp and 
glade for habitation. But in 1851 Governor Thomas Brown requested the 
Secretary of War to remove the Indians from the Everglades, for  . . . the 
most interesting and valuable part of our state . . . is cut off from any 
benefit to the citizens and sealed to the knowledge of the world, to be used 
as a hunting ground for a few roving savages. 141

Despite the threat of occasional Indian forays, gradual settlement took 
place along the coasts and in the interior of Florida, and was accompanied 
by military operations of surveying and exploring the southern part of the 
state. Military posts at Ft. Brooke on Tampa bay, at Ft. Myers on the 
Caloosahatchee, at Ft. Lauderdale on the New, and at Ft. Dallas on the Miami 
river gave protection to the pioneers on this southernmost frontier. The War 
Department maintained garrison forces at these posts, and at the same time 
employed the soldiers in surveying operations.

THE LAST SEMINOLE WAR

In 1854, a detachment of eleven men under Lt. George L. Hartsuff was ordered 
to survey a part of the swamp region southeast of Ft. Myers and to make 
topographical reports. 142 The Hartsuff command was ambushed and four of its 
number were killed. This incident renewed actual warfare with the Seminoles. 
Most of the action was of a desultory nature, resulting in the capture and 
shipment of a majority of the remaining Seminoles to join their brethren 
west of the Mississippi river. Opinions differed as to the federal 
government's policy of attempting to rid South Florida of the red men by 
offering rewards for the capture of the elusive Seminoles. Prices on 
captured Indians ran from $500 for warriors, $250 for squaws to $100 for 
children. One of the soldiers who took part in the campaign felt that there 
was ". . . . Something remarkable about moving the Seminole Indians from the 
Everglades, as they are not suitable for the white man. The Indians want 
them and should be allowed to remain." 143

Economic activity in southern Florida before the Civil War was limited in 
the main to the cattle industry. During the ante-bellum period many families 
settled in the Manatee-Caloosahatchee river valleys, and devoted their 
efforts to cattle grazing. "Until the rebellion of the slave States, south 
Florida supplied the Havanna market with beef at the rate of one thousand 
head per month; besides considerable quantities were shipped to the Bahamas, 
Key West and Tortugas." 144 In the drier months of the year the cattle could 
be kept on the flats bordering the Everglades, where the lush grass added 
pounds to the beeves that were shipped to the Cuban markets from the docks 
along these two rivers. 145

The conflict between the states from 1861 to 1865 put a temporary end to all 
plans for internal improvements in the southern end of the state. But with 
the end of the war, the Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund received 
many proposals to ditch and drain land in or near the Everglades. On April 
6, 1866, William H. Gleason addressed the Board in regard to draining 
certain portions of the Florida wet lands. The Board approved Gleason's 
proposition and offered to sell him tracts of 640 acres at $40 each for 
every 50,000 cubic feet of ditch or drain excavated. 146

In the same year the Trustees contracted with Silas L. Niblack and others to 
drain and reclaim lands adjacent to the Caloosahatchee and Kissimmee rivers 
as well as Lake Okeechobee and any or all tributary areas. The contractors 
were to receive one-half of all such lands reclaimed if the work were begun 
within one year and completed in seven years. 147

These various proposals relating to the drainage and reclamation of the 
state's swamp and overflowed lands came to naught. The Trustees of the 
Improvement Fund employed agents to promote their land sales, who in the 
years from 1872 to 1880 traveled over the United States and Europe in search 
of buyers with little success. 148

From 1875 to 1880, the Trustees received several offers to purchase large 
tracts of the wet lands at prices as high as twenty-eight cents an acre on a 
part cash, part credit basis; but they were forced to reply that they could 
sell land for cash only as it was impossible to secure the consent of their 
creditors (who had placed the Fund in receivership in 1870) to make contract 
sales. 149 In 1881, Hamilton Disston, of Philadelphia, and his associates 
drew up articles of agreement with Governor William D. Bloxham and his board 
which provided for the drainage and reclamation of all swamp and overflowed 
lands south of Township 23 East and east of Peace creek. 150 But it was 
discovered that under the court decree which had put the Fund into 
receivership no binding agreement of this nature could be signed by the 
Trustees. Then Bloxham induced Disston to purchase outright 4,000,000 acres 
for $1,000,000, a deal which enabled the state officials to pay off their 
debts and to assume an independent position with regard to further land 
disposition, and to proceed with the Disston drainage contract. 151

Thus, in a small way, drainage and reclamation began the long story of which 
is told elsewhere. 152

LATER EXPLORATIONS

Several books were published in Florida in the following years after some of 
the more remote portions of the state were partially explored. In 1878, 
Maurice Thompson published a manual of archery in which he included several 
chapters of adventures in Florida. In the winter of 1868, Thompson and four 
companions spent five weeks on a trip across country from the St. Johns to 
the Kissimmee and into Lake Okeechobee, ". . . formerly called Mayaco, or 
Macaco," which "has slept in a sort of poetical fog of mystery. 153 Thompson 
noted that "during the stay of the United States troops in the Seminole 
country" the region had been crossed and recrossed by the soldiers ". . . 
but it so happened that no one connected with the army cared to publish any 
very satisfactory account. . . ." 154

The explorers cruised along the southern shore, near the "grass marshes of 
the southern end of the lake, beyond which the everglades stretch away to 
the chain of little lakes whence a number of streams creep down to the 
coast." 155

F. A. Ober, in his description of Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades, noted 
that the region was as little known as it had been a hundred years 
previously. Ober pointed out that Fabulous stories of beautiful islands, 
picturesque ruins, and pirate haunted glens, have been much in vogue with 
writers upon Lake Okeechobee, and to lift the veil that has so long hung 
over it, and narrate the plain facts, is to deprive them of a seemingly 
in-exhaustible fund of romance. I must confess that it pains me to do so, 
but fidelity to truth compels me to write of the lake as it is, not as it 
should be. The beautiful groves of tropical fruits, the monkeys, spiders of 
gigantic size and ancient ruins are among the things that are NOT. 156

The south shore of the big lake he found was an unbroken marsh, deeply 
indented with sloughs or blind creeks. Ober decided that the surplus water 
drained from the south end, but he could find no discernible streams. 
Another traveler entered the Everglades in the late 1870's from the Miami 
river. James A. Henshall, dispelling what he called the popular supposition 
about the Everglades, wrote that  . . . the Everglades is not an 
impenetrable swamp, exhaling an atmosphere of poisonous gases and deadly 
miasma, but a charming, shallow lake of great extent, with pure and limpid 
waters from a few inches to several-feet in depth, which grow curious water 
grasses and beautiful aquatic plants; while thousands of small islands, from 
a few rods to a hundred acres in extent, rise from the clear waters, clothed 
with never-ending verdure and flowers; while cypress and crab-wood, 
sweet-bay and palmetto, cocoa-plum, water and live oaks, grow in tropical 
profusion, and rear aloft their emerald banners, from which depend garlands 
and festoons of innumerable vines and air plants, gorgeous with blooms of 
every  hue, and exhaling the sweetest of fragrance. 157



1. The full story of the Everglades including reclamation is the subject of 
an unpublished dissertation by the author which was accepted as partial 
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at 
the University of North Carolina. Ed. Ales Hrdlicka, The Anthropology of 
Florida (Deland: The Florida State Historical Society, 1922), 5.

2. Hugh L. Willoughby, Across the Everglades (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott 
Company, 1898), 13.

3. Samuel Sanford, "The Topography and Geology of Southern Florida," Florida 
Geological Survey, Second Annual Report (1909), 189; C. Wythe Cooke and 
Stuart Mossom, "The Geology of Florida," Florida Geological Survey, 
Twentieth Annual Report (1928), 43; E. H. Sellards, "Geologic Sections 
Across the Everglades," Florida Geological Survey, Twelfth Annual Report 
(1919), 67-68; J. C. Stephens and C. C. Schrontz, "The Principal 
Characteristics of the Kissimmee-Everglades Watershed," The Soil Science 
Society of Florida, Proceedings, IV-A (1942), 14, 24; Garald G. Parker and 
C. Wythe Cooke, Late Cenozoic Geology of Southern Florida, With A Discussion 
of the Ground Water, Geological Bulletin No. 27 (Tallahasee : Florida 
Geological Survey, 1944), 46-53 ; John H. Davis, Jr., The Natural Features 
of Southern Florida, Especially the Vegetation and the Everglades, 
Geological Bulletin No. 25 (Tallahassee : Florida Geological Survey, 1944), 
240-294.

4. Parker and Cooke, Geology of Southern Florida, 46.

5. Stephens and Schrontz, "Characteristics of the Kissimmee-Everglades 
Watershed," loc. cit., 14.

6. Cook and Mossom, "The Geology of Florida," loc. cit., 43-44.

7. Sanford, "Topography and Geology of Southern Florida," loc. cit., 179.

8. John H. Davis, Jr., The Peat Deposits of Florida: Their Occurrence, 
Develoment, and Uses, Geological Bulletin No. 30 (Tallahassee: Florida 
Geological Survey, 1946), 17-18.

9. E. H. Sellards, "Geological Investigations in Florida Previous to the 
Organization of the Present Geological Survey," First Annual Report of the 
Florida Geological Survey (1908), 56.

10. Ibid.

11. Thomas Buckingham Smith, "Report of Buckingham Smith, Esquire, on His 
Reconnaissance of the Everglades, 1848," Senate Documents, The Reports of 
the Committees, Number 242, 30 Congress, 1 Session, 15. Hereinafter cited as 
"Smith Report."

12. Ibid.

13. Sellards, "Geological Investigations in Florida," loc. cit., 58-59.

14. Garald G. Parker, "Notes on the Geology and Ground Water of the 
Everglades in Southern Florida," The Soil Science Society of Florida, 
Proceedings, IV-A (1942), 53.

15. Ibid.

16. Angelo Heilprin, Explorations on the West Coast of Florida and in the 
Okeechobee Wilderness (Philadelphia : Wagner Free Institute of Science, 
1887), 65.

17. George C. Matson and Frederick C. Clapp, "A Preliminary Report of the 
Geology of Florida with Special Reference to Stratigraphy," Florida 
Geological Survey, Second Annual Report (1909), 167. See also Garald G. 
Parker and Nevin D. Hoy, "Additional Notes on the Geology and Ground Waters 
of Southern Florida," The Soil Society of Florida, Proceedings, V-A (1943), 
37-55.

18. Parker and Cooke, Late Cenozoic Geology of Southern Florida, 51

19. Ibid., 49-50. See also Davis, Natural Features of Southern Florida, 
244-248.

20. Parker, "Notes on the Geology and Ground Water of the Everglades," loc. 
cit., 52.

21. Davis, Peat Deposits of Florida, 88.

22. John K. Small, From Eden to Sahara: Florida's Tragedy (Lancaster, 
Pennsylvania: The Science Press Company, 1929), 14; M. H. Gallatin and J. R. 
Henderson, "Progress Report on the Soil Survey of the Everglades," The Soil 
Science Society of Florida Proceedings, V-A (1943), 95-104.

23. Sanford, "Topography and Geology of Southern Florida," loc. cit., 
190-191; Charles Torrey Simpson, In Lower Florida Wilds (New York: G. P. 
Putnam's Sons, 1920), 119.

24. Rufus E. Rose, "Analyses of Everglades Soils," Florida Department of 
Agriculture, Florida Quarterly Bulletin, XXXIII (January, 1913), 11.

25. Mark Baldwin, H. W. Hawker, and Carl F. Miller, Soil Survey of the Fort 
Lauderdale Area, Florida (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1915), 
1-4.

26. Ibid., 16.

27. John C. Gifford, The Tropical Subsistence Homestead (Coral Gables: 
University of Miami, 1934), 89.

28. Charles B. Evans and Robert V. Allison, "The Soils of the Everglades in 
Relation to Reclamation and Conservation Operations," The Soil Science 
Society of Florida, Proceedings, IV-A (1942), 43.

29. Baldwin, Hawker, and Miller, Soil Survey, 35.

30. M. H. Gallatin and J. R. Henderson, "Progress Report on the Soil Survey 
of the Everglades," The Soil Science Society of Florida, Proceedings, V-A 
(1943), 97-100.

31. Ibid., 104. See also Davis, Natural Features of Southern Florida, 261 et 
passim., and Peat Deposits of Florida, 116-129.

32. Stephens and Schrontz, "Characteristics of the Kissimmee-Everglades 
Watershed," loc. cit., 24.

33. Robert V. Allison, "The Soil and Water Conservation Problem in the 
Everglades," The Soil Science Society of Florida, Proceedings, I (1939), 38.

34. Wallace Edwin Safford, "Natural History of Paradise Key and the Nearby 
Everglades of Florida," Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution (1917), 
377

35. John H. Davis, Jr., "Vegetation of the Everglades and Conservation from 
the Point of View of the Plant Ecologist," The Soil Science Society of 
Florida, Proceedings, V-A (1943), 105. See also Davis, Natural Features of 
Southern Florida, 244-272 and Peat Deposits of Florida, 105-112.

36. Simpson, Out of Doors in Florida, 241. See also Safford, "Everglades 
Natural History," loc. cit., 275, et passim.

37. Safford, "Everglades Natural History," loc. cit., 390.

38. Simpson, Out of Doors in Florida, 241.

39. Ibid., 243.

40. Simpson, In Lower Florida Wilds, 128.

41. Safford, "Everglades Natural History," loc. cit., 411.

42. Zane Grey, Tales of Southern Rivers (New York: Grosset and Dunlop, 
1937), 75-76.

43. Safford, "Everglades Natural History," loc. cit., 416-418.

44. Willoughby, Across the Everglades, 160.

45. Mark Raymond Harrington, "Archaeology of the Everglades Region," 
American Anthropologist, XI (January-March, 1909), 139-142.

46. Ibid., 142.

47. Florida State Archaeological Survey, Second Biennial Report to the State 
Board of Conservation (1936), Part IV, 145.

48. Hrdlicka, Anthropology of Florida, 52.

49. Matthew W. Stirling,  "Explorer Finds First Traces of Unknown Everglades 
Tribe," Science News Letter, XIX (May 23, 1931), 325.

50. Ibid.

51. Jesse Walter Fewkes, "Aboriginal Wooden Objects from Southern Florida," 
Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, LXXX (March, 1928), Number 9, 1-2.

52. Ibid.

53. James Mooney, "Calusa," Handbook of American Indians, Part I, Bulletin 
30, Bureau of American Ethnology, 1912, 195-196.

54. Daniel Garrison Brinton, Notes on the Floridian Peninsula, Its Literary 
History, Indian Tribes and Antiquities (Philadelphia: Josephin Sabin, 1859), 
112.

55. John R. Swanton, Early History of the Creek Indians and Their Neighbors, 
Bulletin 73, Bureau of American Ethnology, 1922, 29-30.

56. Mooney, "Calusa," loc. cit., 195.

57. Kathryn T. Abbey, Florida, Land of Change (Chapel Hill: University of 
North Carolina Press, 1941), 26-27.

58. Jacques Le Moyne, Narrative of Le Moyne, An Artist Who Accompanied 
Laudonniere (Boston: J. R. Osgood and Company, 1875), 1-11.

59. Ibid., 10-11.

60. Ibid., 11.

61. David O. True (ed.), Memoir of Do. d'Escalente Fontaneda Respecting 
Florida Written in Spain, about the year 1575, Translated from the Spanish 
with Notes by Buckingham Smith, Washington, 1854 (Coral Gables: Glades 
House, 1945), Notes 15S, 15Sw, 42-43. See also Woodbury Lowery, The Spanish 
Settlements Within the Present Limits of the United States, 1513-1561 (New 
York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1911), 63.

62. Davis, Natural Features of Southern Florida, 21. See also Jeannette 
Thurber Connor, Pedro Menendez de Aviles (De Land: Florida State Historical 
Society, 1923), 205-206, 219, for an account of the route south from the St. 
Johns river.

63. Lowery, Spanish Settlements, 263, 276.

64. True, Fontaneda, 13. "This name, of which Miami is a variant, may be a 
compound of Choctaw Maiha, `wide' and Mih, `it is so.' By Laguna de Mayaimi 
Fontaneda meant what is now called Lake Okeechobee. Aviles on his expedition 
up the St. Johns River in 1566, called this lake Maymi." William A. Read, 
Florida Place Names of Indian Origin and  Seminole Personal Names. Louisiana 
State University Studies, Number 11 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University 
Press, 1934), 17-18.

65. True, Fontaneda, 19.

66. Ibid., 13.

67. Ibid., 21.

68. "Smith Report," 20.

69.  Ibid., 19-20; James Mooney, "Calusa," loc. cit., 196.

70. William Roberts, An Account of the First Discovery and Natural History 
of Florida With a Particular Detail of the Several Expeditions and Descents 
Made On that Coast (London: T. Jeffreys, 1763), 18.

71. Ibid.

72. Bernard Romans, A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida (New 
York: R. Aitken, 1776), 285.

73. Ibid.

74. William Stork, A Description of East Florida with a Journal Kept by John 
Bartram of Philadelphia, Botanist to His Majesty, for the Floridas, Upon a 
Journey from St. Augustine up the River St. Johns as far as the Lakes 
(London: W. Nicoll, 1769), 12

75. Undoubtedly a typographical error as on pp. 52-53 the term Ever Glade is 
used, as are Great Glade and Eternal Glade on pp. 49 and 53.

76. Charles Vignoles, Observations Upon the Floridas (New York: Bliss and 
White; 1823), 50.

77. Ibid., 53, 83.

78. John Lee Williams, The Territory of Florida or Sketches of the Civil and 
Natural History of the Country, the Climate, and the Indian Tribes from the 
First Disovery to the Present Time (New York: A. T. Goodrich, 1837), 50.

79. Ibid., 151.

80. Ibid.

81. Ibid., 61.

82. John Titcomb Sprague, The Origin, Progress, and Conclusion of the 
Florida War (New York : D. Appleton Company, 1848), 24-28.

83. Grant Foreman, Indian Removal: The Emigration of the Five Civilized 
Tribes of Indians (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1932), 321.

84. William A. Croffut, Fifty Years in Camp and Field: Diary of  Major 
General Ethan Allen Hitchcock, U. S. A. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 
1909), 320.

85. New York Observer, January 20, 1838, quoted in Foreman, Indian Removal, 
356-357.

86. Sprague, Florida War, 201; see also Joshua Giddings, The Exiles of 
Florida (Columbus : Foster and Company, 1858), 182-183.

87. Frederick Marryat, A Diary in America, With Remarks on its Institutions 
(Philadelphia : T. K. and P. G. Collins, 1840), 289-290.

88. The list of army commanders is long and imposing. It is as follows: 
Edmond P. Gaines, Duncan Clinch, Winfield Scott, Richard Keith Call, Thomas 
S. Jesup, Zachary Taylor, Alexander Macomb, Walker Armistead, and William J. 
Worth.

89. Sprague, Florida War, 196.

90. Theodore F. Rodenbough, From Everglade to Canon with the Second 
Dragoons, an Authentic Account of Service in Florida, Mexico, Virginia, and 
the Indian Country, including the Personal Recollections of Prominent 
Officers (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1875), 30.

91. Foreman, Indian Removal, 363.

92. Charles H. Coe, Red Patriots: The Story of the Seminoles (Cincinnati : 
Editor Publishing Company, 1898), 35-40. See also Sprague, Florida War, 
99-100; Foreman, Indian Removal, 373; Rodenbough, Everglade to Canon, 36.

93. Sprague,, Florida War, 243, 277.

94. Ibid., 261.

95. Rodenbough, Everglade to Canon, 507.

96. The News, St. Augustine, Fla., April 2, 1841.

97. Ibid.

98. Ibid.

99. Senate Documents, Number 242, 30 Congress, 1 Session, 106-108.

100. Sprague, Florida War, 333-335; Senate Documents, Number 242, 109-112.

101. Sprague, Florida War, 354.

102. Senate Documents, Number 242, 116. A day by day account of a sixty day 
expedition into the Everglades, Lake Okeechobee, the Kissimmee River, and 
Lake Tohopekaliga is found in George Henry Preble, "A Canoe Expedition into 
the Everglades in 1842."
Tequesta: The Journal of the Historical Association of Southern Florida, V 
(1946), 30-51, reprinted from United Service, A Quarterly Review of Military 
and Naval Affairs (April, 1883), 358-376.

103. Sprague, Florida War, 389. Preble wrote that after a sixty day canoe 
trip he was " `on the sick-list, foot badly inflamed and legs ulcerated; 
poisoned by the saw-grass of the Everglades and exposure to the mud, through 
which we dragged our canoes, and the effects of the sun.' " "A Canoe 
Expedition into the Everglades in 1842," loc. cit., 49.

104. James D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the 
Presidents, 1789-1897, 10 vols., and Sup. (Washington: Government Printing 
Office, 1897) IV, 155.

105. Joseph C. Ives, Memoir to Accompany a Military Map of the Peninsula of 
Florida South of Tampa Bay (New York: M. B. Wynkoop, 1856), 1-42.

106. Rodenbough, Everglade to Canon, 507-508; Sprague, Florida War, 389.

107. Congressional Globe, 27 Congress, 3 Session, XII, 102.

108. Home Documents, Number 43, 27 Congress, 3 Session, 2-3.

109. Senate Documents, Number 35, 29 Congress, 1 Session, 1-2; Acts and 
Resolutions of the First General Assembly of the State of Florida, Adjourned 
Session, 1845, 151.

110. Senate Documents, Number 242, 30 Congress, 1 Session, 66-69.

111. Thomas Buckingham Smith (1810-1871), lawyer, politician and 
antiquarian, was born on Cumberland Island, Georgia. He moved with his 
family to St. Augustine, Florida, during the second period of Spanish rule. 
He graduated from Harvard law school in 1836. In 1839 he was secretary to 
Robert R. Reid, governor of Florida, and in 1841-43, a member of the 
territorial legislative council. He later entered the diplomatic service of 
the United States and was stationed at different times in Spain and Mexico. 
While in Spain he did much research in the national archives, from the 
results of which he published narratives of various documents concerning the 
history of Florida. James Alexander Robertson, "Thomas Buckingham Smith," 
Dictionary of American Biography, Dumas Malone (ed.), 20 vols., Index and 
Supplement (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1937-194-) , 402-403

112. "Smith Report," 71.

113. Ibid.

114. Ibid., 7-8.

115. Laws of the State of Florida, Passed at the Third Session of the 
General Assembly of the State, 1847, 80-91.

116. Senate Journal, 30 Congress, 1 Session, 551.

117. Senate Documents, Number 242, 30 Congress, 1 Session, 3-4.

118. "Smith Report," 16-17.

119. Ibid., 31.

120. Ibid., 34.

121. Executive Documents, Number 2, 30 Congress, 1 Session, 155.

122. "Smith Report," 43.

123. Ibid., 44-45.

124. Kathleen Bruce, "Stephen Russell Mallory," Dictionary of American 
Biography, XII, 224-226.

125. "Smith Report," 55.

126. Ibid., 58-59.

127. Congressional Globe, 30 Congress, 1 Session, 723, 1025.

128. Senate Documents, Number 242, 30 Congress, 1 Session, 2.

129. Senate Journal, 30 Congress, 1 Session, 580-581.

130. Senate Documents, Number 89, 62 Congress, 1 Session, 5.

131. James D. Westcott, Jr., Ever Glades of the Peninsula of Florida 
(Tallahassee : n. p., 1848), cover.

132. Ibid.

133. Ibid.

134. Congressional Globe, 30 Congress, 2 Session, 69-70.

135. Ibid., 69, 87, 120.

136. Florida Sentinel (Tallahassee), January 9, 1849.

137. Journal of the Proceedings of the Senate of the General Assembly of 
Florida, 4 Session, 1848, 11.

138. 9 United States Statutes at Large, 519-520. The grant was received with 
some misgivings at Tallahassee as the editor of the Florida Sentinel 
questioned the value of the Everglades, even if capable of being drained. 
Florida Sentinel, September 17, 1850.

139. Acts and Resolutions of the General Assembly of the State ofFlorida, 
Passed at its Fifth Session, 1851, 93.

140. Laws of Florida, Chapter 610, 1855.

141. Journal of the Proceedings of the House of Representatives of the 
General Assembly of Florida, 1851, 27.

142. Francis C. M. Bogges, A Veteran of Four Wars (Arcadia: The Champion 
Press, 1900), 43; Andrew P. Canova, Life and Adventure In South Florida, 
(Tampa : Tribune Printing Company, 1885), 5; Thomas A. Gonzales (ed.), The 
Caloosahatchee: Miscellaneous Writings Concerning the History of the 
Caloosahatchee River and the City of Fort Myers, Florida (Estero: Koreshan 
Unity Press, 1932), 32.

143. Bogges, A Veteran of Four Wars, 63. Rerick, op. cit, I, 228.

144. L. D. Stickney, "Tropical Florida," Report of the Commissioner of 
Patents for the Year 1861 on Agriculture, Senate Documents, Executive 
Documents, Number 39, 37 Congress, 2 Session, 404.

145. Lillie B. McDuffee, The Lures of Manatee (Nashville: Marshall Bruce and 
Company, 1933), 197.200; Gonzales, The Caloosahatchee, 28-30; James A. 
Henshall, Camping and Cruising in Florida (Cincinnati : Robert Clark and 
Company, 1884), 198-199.

146. Minutes of the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund of 
Florida, I, 276-277.

147. Ibid., 361-364.

148. Report of the Joint Commission Created by the Legislature of
1907, (Chapter, 5632, Session Laws of 1906) to Investigate the
Acts and Doings of the Trustees of the Internal Improvement
Fund, 37.

149. Minutes of the Internal Improvement Fund, II, 67-68. In 1875 the 
Trustees fixed the prices of wet lands at twenty-eight cents an acre in 
blocks of 100,000 acres, and twenty-five cents an acre for blocks of 
2,000,000 to 5,000,000 acres. Ibid., 91.

150. Rufus E. Rose, The Swamp and Overflowed Lands of Florida: The Disston 
Contract and Sale. (Tallahassee: T. J. Appleyard,1916), 90-94. Minutes of 
the Internal Improvement Fund, II, 433, 473, 480, 503.

151. Rose, Swamp and Overflowed Lands, 3-4.

152. Vide, J. E. Dovell, "A Brief History of the Florida Everglades," in 
Proceedings, The Soil Science Society of Florida, IV-A, 1942, 132-161; also 
"The Everglades-Florida's Frontier," Bureau of Economic and Business 
Research, College of Business Administration, University of Florida, 
Economic Leaflets, vol. VII, nos. 5 & 6, 1947.

153. Maurice Thompson, The Witchery of Archery: A Complete Manual of 
Archery. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1878), 100.

154. Ibid., 104.

155. Ibid, 118.

156. Fred Beverly [F. A. Ober] Camp Life in Florida: A Handbook for 
Sportsmen and Settlers, Charles Hallock (compiler) (New York: Field and 
Stream Publishing Company, 1876), 246-247. For a description of the 
Caloosahatchee valley and the marshes above  Ft. Thompson, see Chares J. 
Kenworthy, ibid., 298-299.

157. James A. Henshall, Camping and Cruising in Florida, 106.