Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 February 1902 — FLORIDA LETTER. [ARTICLE]

FLORIDA LETTER.

Stevensville, Flfl., Jan. 26. Another Sunday has come and finds us camped on the banks of the Steinhatchee River. Last Sunday, after writing to you, we drove on about four miles and came to Wekiva Creek where we camped and’staid until Tuesday morning. Wekiva Creek is one of the prettiest little streams we ever saw. It is formed from a large spring which comes right out of the limestone rock about a mile above where we camped. The water is clear as crystal and full of the most beautiful blfick bass, sunfish, and perch, and the mullet and sheepshead run clear to the head from the Gulf. Myers caught two black bass with a spoonhook and speared a mullet in the sunlight, so we had a fine mess of fish. From Wekiva Creek we drove to the town of Otter Creek. We had ordered our mail all forwarded from Ocala to Gulf Hammock, then to Otter Creek, and when we arrived there found there had been one letter for Myers & Myers and two for Mrs. Myers came in the day before, and the postmaster, being rather green in the business, had put them back in the mail and returned them to the writers, as he said he knew there were no such people lived anywhere around there. He felt so silly when Myers told him he should have held them 5 days that he never talked back, and I am sure he will not be in such a hurry again. We have had all the quail we wanted, and yesterday we went to a house for a drink of water and found a hunter had just come in with two fine deer on a horse, just killed, and another venison dressed and hungup, killed the day before. We bought a big hunk of steak at 10 cents a pound, and this morning the people who live in the bouse near whore we camp came out with another big chunk out of a deer brought in last night. A neighbor near us has killed 6 deer in the last week. So we feel as if we were near our journey’s end to the happy hunting ground. We will stay where we are a few days and rest up and hunt and fish a little. We have our wagon inside an enclosure to get away from hogs, and wood and water is handy and people very kind and neighborly, so we are as well off here as any place in the world. Have only had half an hour’s rain since we left Ocala, but it looks a little rainy this evening and sandflies are biting to beat the band.

The Steinhatchee is a much | larger river than we expected to, see and is a beautiful stream here, with high, rocky banks. We will have to go about 12 miles up to cross on a natural bridge of rock or wait for a flat boat which is sunk to be raised and put in running order. -It is a private ferry, used by the Turpentine Co., to put their gum across the river to the still, which is on the other side. The postoffice of Stevensville is just across the river from here, about a half mile away, which we can reach easily with row boat but can not cross with ferry without driving out and around about three miles. We crossed the Suwannee on a ferry at Fannin, the lowest ferry on that river. Its a very large river there and freight steamers bring up the supplies for all towns along it. We passed through the storm belt of five years ago, and a desolate piece of country it is. East of Fannin is an old turpentine strip that was dead before the storm, and the wind laid the trees in every direction all over the ground. It is high, dry country and the road is sand—sand worse than was ever seen in northern Jasper—for miles and miles. It is very dry here now. Even in the flat woods we hardly drove through water enough to wet the wheels. Hoping to report the killing of a deer and turkey next time, we remain as ever.

MYERS & MYERS.