Lucky's Legacy

By Clarence Harding

Follow the adventures of Dave Lucky and his family as they settle in southwest Florida. Like other pioneers of the late 1800s, Dave and his wife, Dorcas, proved resourceful and resilient. Used to hard living, they were thankful for what little they had and made the most of the skills they’d learned from their parents and neighbors. Whether they were killing and skinning gators, plowing and planting in swamplands, or surviving hurricanes and disease, the couple and their children frequently faced hardships but were thankful for what they had. Even in the face of adversity, they refused to give up their dream of cultivating their own little piece of land that they thought of as paradise.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barbara Cutrera
• Release date: Apr 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310433528

Clarence Harding

Born in 1898 in Brandon, Florida, Clarence Harding was an integral part of his community. He loved promoting Florida history and appreciated the pioneer spirit that led to its settlement and development. A married father of five, he was a commercial fisherman who longed to share his tale of Dave Lucky with the world.

Book preview

Lucky’s Legacy

A Tale of the Pioneer Spirit in Florida

by

Clarence Harding

Copyright © 2016 by On My Way Up, L.L.C.

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the photocopying, scanning, uploading and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property.

NOTE: The characters and businesses mentioned in this work are purely fictional. Any resemblance to actual businesses or real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Published by On My Way Up, LLC at Smashwords

Editor’s note

Born in 1898 in Brandon, Florida, Clarence Harding was an integral part of his community. He loved promoting Florida history and appreciated the pioneer spirit that led to its settlement and development. A married father of five, he was a commercial fisherman who longed to share his tale of Dave Lucky with the world. However, he was unable to see his dream come to fruition during his lifetime.

Clarence died in 1974. Over forty years later, one of his daughter’s, Carleen Brameister, approached me at an event, asking whether or not I would read her father’s manuscript. I did and then agreed to edit it. Clarence was obviously devoted to the preservation of history, and the story of the Lucky family is a compelling and informative one. Because of Carleen’s persistence, Clarence Harding’s dream has now become a reality, and others can both share in and learn from the adventures of Dave Lucky and his family.

Enjoy!

Barbara Cutrera

Table of Contents

Dave's Story Begins

An Unexpected Twist

A Frightening Encounter in the Night

Traveling through the Wild Country

Making Camp

Looking for the Right Place

An Opportunity

Settling In

Gator Time

Strangers at the Cabin

Off to Work on the Farm for a While

Homecoming

The First Lucky Tator Patch

A Busy Time and the Loss of an Old Friend

Uncovering Hidden Treasures

A Visit from Friends

Little Dorcas and the Big Bear

Making a Living

A Family Visit to the Simpsons

Disaster Strikes and Change Comes to the Lucky Family

Going to Tampa

Getting Closer to Town

Excitement in Tampa

Returning Home

Tragedy Strikes

A New Beginning for Dave Lucky

Dave’s Story Begins

Dave Lucky, the son of a runaway English sailor and a Seminole Indian chief’s daughter, was born on the northern fringe of Okeefenokee Swamp in southern Georgia not long after the end of the Civil War. After fleeing the British ship on which he served, Dave’s father, Jim, had wandered into the area and joined a band of Indians and escaped Negro slaves who lived in a cluster of slave huts near an old, deserted plantation.

Most of the plantations in South Georgia had been abandoned when the Civil War ended. Upon returning to their homes, the remnant of the ragged Confederate Army found that their mansions and slave quarters were in ruins or had been burned to the ground. Their stock had been either slaughtered or stolen, and many of them could not find their loved ones, most of whom had died or fled in an attempt to find safety. Some planters had tried to hold onto their homes and land, but they found it impossible because of their missing stock and the liberation of the slaves. Many of them packed their meager belongings and traveled southward to what sounded like a better place.

The cluster of a dozen or so huts in which the renegades, Negroes, and Indians lived had been part of a large plantation. The manor house, stables, and barns had been destroyed. Most of the inhabitants of the huts, which lay close to the great swamp, hunted and fished for a living. Seldom did one of them seek employment at the few nearby farms.

Young Dave and his father trapped furs and skinned alligators, selling the product to traveling fur buyers in their spring trips through the area. They frequently spent weeks in the swamp during the winter trapping season, living off the land and occasionally going home to Dave’s mother. The squaw tilled a small patch of land with a homemade hoe and a piece of old garden rake she had found on one of the plantation fields. She grew sweet potatoes, casaba, and maize.

Dave never went to school, never wore shoes, and did little courting with the local girls. At age twenty-five, his devotion was to his father, his dog, Lady, and his little mare, Molly, which he had caught in the woods. Dave considered his mother, now growing old and wizened, someone to wait on him and his father when they were home from a trapping trip.

Dave Lucky was a large, muscular man who had bronzed skin and the coarse, black hair of a Native tribesman. Years passed, but Dave was content. When his father was killed by a panther in the Okeefenokee Swamp, Dave left his home and his aged squaw mother and joined a wagon train headed south to the Florida West Coast. He rode Molly, his mare, while Lady, the gyp dog, trailed behind. Dave had inherited a shotgun from his father, which he carried across his saddle.

An Unexpected Twist

Late one evening, Dave arrived at a settlement called Peru near what would later be named Riverview on the Alafia River. He obtained a broken-down old wagon by helping some settlers with cane grinding for a few days. While staying with the family and sleeping in the corn crib, Dave met Dorcas, one of the settler girls. The small, slim, blonde young woman had obviously enjoyed some doings with at least one of the local boys, since she already had two brown-haired children, a five-year-old boy named Charlie and a two-year-old girl named Annie, about whose paternal responsibility there was some doubt. That, plus the fact that he was fifteen years older than Dorcas, didn’t seem to bother Dave. Within a week of his arrival at the farm, he prevailed upon the local preacher to marry him and Dorcas. There may or may not have been a legal license issued for the union.

Dave Lucky had never seen the inside of a school or owned a Sunday suit. He still seldom wore shoes. He had a long moustache and shaved his beard only occasionally with an old straight razor he’d traded for years earlier. He had a shock of tangled, black hair that reached almost to his shoulders. It was typically kept under a black, broad-brimmed hat.

Dave rarely took off his hat. When he did remove it at night, it lay close to his bed and was the first thing he put on in the morning. He didn’t know what underwear was and slept in his shirttails. He carried a long-bladed pocketknife and a piece of whet rock he’d picked up at a general store when the merchant wasn’t looking.

Dave wasn’t exactly a common thief. He simply appropriated small things that he needed when the occasion arose, explaining to himself that they – those who had more material possessions than he did – had plenty and he was entitled to some of his own in this world. His outlook was that it wasn’t fair for them to have everything, while he worked hard yet had to do without.

As Dave and Dorcas began their life together, they agreed they needed to find a permanent place in which to settle. This meant they would have to use the wagon. Molly was a saddle horse, but her love for Dave overcame her fear of being hitched to the wagon. Dave loaded his bride, her two children, the dog, his shotgun, a few ragged quilts for camping, and some meager supplies into the wagon. He climbed up on the rickety wagon seat, picked up the lines, and spoke to the mare.

Charlie and Annie sat on a thin, old mattress with a couple of homemade quilts on top that made a suitable seat or bed, depending on the family’s needs. Under the seat there was a wooden box with a hinged lid which held a sack of flour, some coffee, sugar, and a side of fatback, along with a few cracked cups, plates, and some spoons and forks. In a corn sack beside the grocery box were a smutty frying pan, a tin coffee pot, and a grits pot kept company with a cast iron Dutch oven for biscuit or cornbread baking. An axe and a broken-handled shovel completed the earthly possessions of the Lucky family as they set out on their journey.

The family had to cross the river at Bell Shoals because there was no bridge at Riverview. Fortunately, the river was down, and the mare had no trouble pulling the light wagon across the stream. Dave, Dorcas, and the children camped that night scarcely more than two or three