Cracker Times and Pioneer Lives

Cracker Times and Pioneer Lives

The Florida Reminiscences of George Gillett Keen and Sarah Pamela Williams

  • Auteur: Denham, James M.; Brown, Jr., Edgar Canter
  • Éditeur: University of South Carolina Press
  • ISBN: 9781570035128
  • eISBN Pdf: 9781643364292
  • Lieu de publication:  South Carolina , United States
  • Année de publication électronique: 2023
  • Mois : Avril
  • Pages: 245
  • Langue: Anglais

Wild and wooly recollections from the Florida frontier

Cracker Times and Pioneer Lives brings together the reminiscences of two pioneers who came of age in antebellum Florida's Columbia County and the nearby Suwannee River Valley. Though they held markedly different positions in society, they shared the adventure, thrill, hardship, and tragedy that characterized Florida's pioneer era. With sensitivity, poignancy, and humor, George Gillett Keen and Sarah Pamela Williams record anecdotes and memories that touch upon important themes of frontier life and reveal the remarkable diversity of Florida's settlers.

Keen's story typifies that of many "Cracker" families. Born in Georgia, he moved with his parents to the Florida Territory in 1830 in search of a better life. He grew up in a dangerous yet exciting setting, and as an old man at the turn of the twentieth century recorded his colorful memories with a verve and vernacular reminiscent of the Georgia humorist, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet. Keen writes about subsistence farming, cattle grazing, the Seminole wars, marriage customs, medical practices, politics, the abundance of wildlife, and the paucity of educational opportunities.

Admittedly not a Cracker, Sarah Pamela Williams was the daughter of a nationally recognized man of letters. In 1847 she moved to Columbia County's seat of Alligator (Lake City) and later married into one of northeast Florida's prominent planter families. She recorder her recollections of a life brightened by social functions, travel, and cultural endeavors. Offering a rare glimpse into Florida's Civil War homefront, Williams tells of making clothes of homespun, tithing crops to the Confederacy, fearing hostilities just thirteen miles from her home, and surviving as a widow in the lean postwar era.

Cracker Times and Pioneer Lives features biographical sketches of more than 280 persons mentioned by Keen and Williams in their writings, many of whom subsequently pioneered settlement in the Florida peninsula.

  • Cover
  • CRACKER TIMES AND PIONEER LIVES
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • Dedication
  • CONTENTS
  • Illustrations
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction
  • PART ONE George Gillett Keen
    • I. Remembrance of a Crime Most Foul
    • II. Black Eye at Ketch All
    • III. 1830s Florida Frontier Life
    • IV. The Second Seminole War, 1835–1842
    • V. Response
    • VI. Getting Ahead in the 1840s and 1850s
    • VII. Alligator's Transformation
    • VIII. How Old Times Argue against a New Capital
    • IX. Tricky Politics and Gunfights as Humor
    • X. Reconstruction-Era Justice
    • XI. Lafayette County and the Murders of Lige Locklier and Jim Munden
    • XII. Studies in Cracker Character
    • XIII. Passing
  • PART TWO Sarah Pamela Williams
    • I. Childhood at Picolata
    • II. Moving to Alligator
    • III. Sojourn in Charleston
    • IV. Planter's Wife and Widow
    • V. Civil War and Its Aftermath
  • Appendix: The Cast of Characters
  • Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index

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