Gaters, Skeeters And Malary: Recollections of a Pioneer Florida Judge

By Judge Ellis Connell May

A young man on the eve of his departure for Florida in the 1880’s would be met with something like the following from his elders:

“Well, ye prob’ly won’t git back. Them there bad men’ll kill ye, er the ‘gators’ll eat ye, er the skeeters’ll give ye malary an’ that’ll kill ye.”

Undaunted, and lured by the vast realm of unexplored territory to the south of him, Ellis Connel May struck out with the same resolve that had prompted his forefathers to pioneer the West a century before. He was twenty-four years old when he first arrived in Citrus County, there to begin a career which took him in successive stages from work as a common laborer to the legal profession, culminating finally in his election to the Florida House of Representatives.

All the courage, the humor and the romance of pioneer days come to life in these tales. They are told with a vividness of detail and a warm gusto that carries the reader along. For every American who would know the glory of our country’s heritage, here is a flavorful slice of authentic American folklore.

“Most interesting. One who has spent so many years in public life…will have many interesting incidents to relate and colorful situations to describe. Such books have always invited the interest and attention of a wide circle of readers.”—R. A. GRAY, Secretary of State, Tallahassee, Florida

“Judge May is a respected patriarch of his profession and a dean of Florida judiciary. I can think of no one better qualified to draw on the richness of his personal experience in relating recollections of a pioneer judge…An interesting contribution to this field of literature.”—JACK F. WHITE, County Judge, Pinellas County, Clearwater, Florida

“It is most gratifying to me and to thousands of others that Judge Ellis C. May has written this book….This volume may be read from the standpoint of history, sociology and genealogy.”—GEORGE A. DAME, M.D., Director, Florida State Board of Health

• Language: English
• Publisher: Papamoa Press
• Release date: Jan 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781787208339

Judge Ellis Connell May

Ellis Connell May (December 10, 1868 - November 16, 1957) was a pioneering Florida Judge. Born in 1868 in South Georgia, about a mile east of the bridge across the Tenmile Creek, five miles out from Nashville, his family moved across the Creek to the west bank when he was four years old. In spite of lifelong warnings about its dangers, May moved to Florida in August 1890, where he soon found that “some of the advice given to young Georgia men of that period was well-founded in fact, as some of the stories to follow will indicate.” He arrived in Citrus County in June 1892 and initially worked as a common laborer and merchant, before he turned to law, eventually becoming a renowned Judge. During his expansive career, he was a member of the Florida House of Representatives, a State Attorney, and then a county judge of Citrus County, until his retirement in January 1949. Thereafter he set up a successful insurance business, which he sold and then retired once more, but soon found himself bored by idleness, and so took the opportunity to finally write about his life—something he had never had time to do previously. Judge May died in Citrus County, Florida in 1957 at the age of 88.

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Text originally published in 1953 under the same title.

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Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

GATERS, SKEETERS AND MALARY

RECOLLECTIONS OF A PIONEER FLORIDA JUDGE

BY

JUDGE ELLIS CONNELL MAY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

DEDICATION 4

INTRODUCTORY 5

FOREWORD 6

SOME FIRST RECOLLECTIONS 7

HOEING RICE 14

MY ELEVENTH BIRTHDAY AND THE COTTON GIN 16

I GOT SNAKE BIT 17

I WON THE SPELLING BEE 21

LIAS 22

SCHOOL DAYS 28

LOU GREEN 33

I MOVED TO WILLACOOCHEE 35

PETE GARNER 44

HIGH SPRINGS 50

CITRUS COUNTY 51

DAN HEARN 55

I BECAME A MERCHANT 58

JOHN FIELDS 60

EARLY DIFFICULTIES 74

BUSINESS TROUBLES 78

THE DUNNELLON STORE 98

NO LAW 107

CIVIC PRIDE 110

CALIFORNIA 112

FIRST TASTE OF LAW 118

I ENTERED POLITICS 122

IN THE STATE LEGISLATURE 138

HORSESHOE DOOR KNOCKER 167

FIRST SHOW 175

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 182

DEDICATION

This book is reverently dedicated to the memory of my sainted mother. She lived out her life in obscurity and poverty, yet she did her job better than I have even been able to do mine.

INTRODUCTORY

I was born on December 10, 1868, in a one-room log cabin in the great woods of South Georgia, about a mile east of the bridge across the Tenmile Creek, five miles out from Nashville. The Milltown that I knew is now called Lakeland.

When I was four years old, we moved across the Creek to the west bank and built the log houses in which I grew to manhood, and where many of the events chronicled in these pages took place. These houses still stand at the foot of the bridge and are much as I remember them. The old cow-barn is gone, and the horse stables look a little tired, the com crib has been moved across the road, but the kitchen and the big house have changed little.

All my life I heard warnings against Florida and was urged never to go there. People would say to their sons and their neighbor’s sons, John, whar ye gwine?

And John would reply, Oh, I’m gwine way down yander in Flurdy.

Well, ye probly won’t git back. Them there bad men’ll kill ye, er the ‘gaters’ll eat ye, or the skeeters’ll give ye malary an’ that’ll kill ye. Ye better git ye some land an’ a ox, er a mule, er some other creeter, an’ then git ye a gal an’ go ter work.

Perhaps I was born with an adventurous, or (pioneering, spirit, and the fact that I was so often warned away from Florida may have had something to do with my coming here in early manhood I landed in Florida in August, 1890, and I soon found that some of the advice given to young Georgia men of that period was well-founded in fact, as some of the stories to follow will indicate.

I came to Citrus County on June 13, 1892, and I have spent half a century within its borders since that time. I have been, successively, a common laborer, merchant, judge, lawyer, member of the Florida House of Representatives, State Attorney, and, again, county judge of Citrus County until my retirement in January, 1949. I stayed retired for several days, and then I went out and built up an insurance business, which soon grew to such proportions that I could not handle it alone. I sold this business and retired again, but I found idleness irksome, and thought I would write some of the stories that I had always wanted to write, but could never find the time to do so in a life that has always been full and sometimes overflowing. I hope you like them.

E. C. MAY

FOREWORD

While the hand of the artist may not appear in the preparation of the material for this book, it will have the virtue of being true, and in that sense it is hoped that it will add something worthwhile to the history of the period in which the events chronicled took place.

I shall not try to be classic. My life has been spent in an atmosphere of reality, and I do not pretend to possess talent as a writer. It has been my observation that when a man in public speech, or in the written word, departs from the style to which he is accustomed, he is apt to become tiresome instead of entertaining I do not ever wish to be tiresome, and I therefore kept within my limitations in preparing the text that follows.

This book has another virtue, not usual with most books popular with the public. There will be no plot and no mystery in any of it. Each story is true, not only in essence, but also in fact, and is set down only as it happened. I either saw the events take place and participated in many of them, or I have firsthand information from those who did see them, or they are the accepted version of stories based on local history, and when a story, or any part of it, is hearsay, I will so indicate. If I depart at any time from the recital of plain facts to arrive at conclusions, they will be based only upon the stories themselves and reflect the lessons I think they contain.

This book, in a sense, is my autobiography. I know such books can be dull, but I shall try to keep the interest of the reader by confining, it to individual human interest incidents that could happen to any of us. Another virtue that I hope I can claim for this, my first effort in producing a book, is that the reader may read any one of the stories individually, and find it complete in itself. And he will not have to read the whole book to discover its meaning, or any added entertainment it may afford him. In that sense, this is definitely a book of short stories, but taken together, they sketch a fair pattern of a long and, to me, interesting life.

E. C. MAY

Inverness, Florida.

SOME FIRST RECOLLECTIONS

The country was low and flat, and one of my first recollections is of falling into the clayhole in the yard, back of the stick-and-clay chimney. The water was a few inches from the top, and I was trying to scoop it up with a tin cup. Jessee screamed, and Pappy came flying I was on my back, and the water was just beginning to run into my mouth, and I was trying to drink it all. I had on a wool dress and did not sink at once. Pappy kept going, and as he lunged into the water and out again, he caught my dress and threw me rolling over and over in the yard.

That same year, Jessee and I decided to be doctors. There was a lot of nice, black mud under a small black-gum tree at the back of the corn field. Each of us took turns at having a bad stomach-ache and would rub mud on the other frantically, in order to save his life. Soon we could see nothing but mud, and the job appeared to be done, so we went to the house and reported to our mother that we were medical men and ready for practice. Her reaction was not favorable. When she did not smile and small up-and-down wrinkles appeared above her nose, we knew we were in for stormy weather. All these signs appeared in force, and we were escorted to the well in the yard.

Mamma drew cold water from the well and filled the washtub, which had been set on the well-block, by the curb. She plumped Jessee into the tub ungently, and he put his hands on top of the curb. When she poured the cold water between his shoulders, he let off a yell and sprang into the air. Hanging on to the curb with his hands, he began to turn over and disappear into the well. Mamma caught him by the heels just in time, and when she finished the preliminaries, he was warm enough for the cold water to feel comfortable to his skin We looked better when she was through scrubbing, but our enthusiasm for the medical profession had cooled.

That fall we had an accident that came near to being serious. Our parents and John and Calistia, our older brother and sister, had gone to Milltown for some purpose, and we were left alone. It was only about twelve miles from our home, but to make the trip on a horse attached to a two-wheeled cart was a good day’s work Jessee was six, and I was nearly four. We were too small to be required to do any work, but we wanted to be of help. At least Jessee did, so we went out into the cow lot and began to help our absent Pappy with his work. There was a rail pen, as high as a man’s chin, in which Pappy had been preparing compost to fertilize the cornfield. His way was to put pine straw in first, and then the cow fertilizer from the lot was thrown in for awhile, and then more pine straw. The pen was nearly full, and we were in a hurry to get it filled up before Pappy came home, so we could show him how smart we were. I was acting as foreman and claiming that I was a great help. Jessee’s legs were too short to allow him to throw the material over the top of the pen with the shovel, without jumping as high as he could He was getting along all right, but finally he jumped so high that, instead of landing on his feet, he fell flat on his side, and his head struck the jagged top of an old stump. He was badly hurt.

I was the doctor, and I made a thorough examination of the wound and found that his brain was in plain sight, and possibly in danger of running out at any moment. There were hair and bits of scalp on the stump, and I believed there was a large hole in his skull. We decided that he would not live long, and I sat down on the doorstep, watching him, to cry and wait for the family. Finally I had an inspiration I had never had a hat, and since Jessee was not going to need his anymore, I saw no reason why I should not inherit it. So I quit crying and suggested that in case he did not get well, I was to have his hat. He readily agreed, but made it plain that, if his head got well, the deal was off. Mamma came soon and fixed him up, and he did get well, and I sail did not have a hat. But I think Jessee carried the scar above his ear until his death a few years ago in Tampa.

We moved across the creek in April, 1873. The year before we had built the houses that were to be my home until I grew to manhood. And most of them stand today as I remember them. The same old plank shutter hangs at the kitchen door, and there is evidence, in the back of the kitchen logs left there by our mother in preparation to weave cloth to make our clothes. Some of the pegs on which she laid the warp are still there, and all of them show either intact, or where they were broken off. Pappy had cleared and grubbed the land in the seventeen-acre field south of the house and along the creek swamp, and had dug a ditch from the cypress pond on the west to the Tenmile across the field, to drain off some of the water and make the field better. The ditch was full of water snakes, but Jessee and I felt we could never be happy unless we floated down it with the first muddy water, so when the ditch was opened, we slipped in at the pond and made the trip. When we came to a snake, we would get out of the ditch and re-enter it further along. The old ditch is still there, although good-sized trees are growing on its banks.

I think I was more afraid of wildcats than anything else in the world. Life was hard with us, and we were wont to take things as we found them and keep going. There were not many wildcats, and I never heard of them eating boys, but I rather expected to be devoured by one. When I had to be out at night and on foot, which was not unusual, I think I could run faster than any boy in Georgia. But I was just sure Mamma would be short a boy if I met a wildcat.

I never saw but one, and he jumped across the road ahead of us when my uncle Jessee and I were going to the mill in the ox cart. We were crossing a small bay head on the other side of John Clem’s place from our house. It was just coming day when a big cat hopped into the road, looked at us, and hopped right out again, disappearing into the swamp, and we did not see him any more I was surprised I had supposed he would attack us, and we would have to put up a fight. Uncle Jessee did not seem disturbed, and I felt better I was about six at that time.

The first year on the new place, when I was four and Jessee was six (I had both a brother and an uncle named Jessee), I had what I believed to be a run-in with a wildcat, or rather, a lot of wildcats. We had built the family home in the wilderness at the foot of the bridge on the Tenmile creek, about five miles southeast of Nashville on the Mud-Creek road. The kitchen, which still stands, was a one-room log cabin which, at that time, had no door; just an opening in the logs. The big house had not yet been built.

It was night and very dark outside. The land back of the house had been cleared, and cowpeas were planted almost to the logs. They covered the land completely and were as high as a man’s waist. It was a good place for wildcats. Our mother was getting supper, and her face was flushed from the heat of the log-fire in the fireplace. We had no stoves in those days, and cooking was done over an open fire, in covered ovens, and spiders.

Well, about the time the frying bacon began to smell good, the cats began to howl in the peapatch. There must have been a lot of them, from the din they were making, and I believed them all to be wildcats Jessee and I began to fear they had designs on our Mamma. So we held a council of war and laid the case before her. We told her we believed they would attack if we did not do something about it, and we pointed out that we were the only men present and offered our services in her defense Mamma, I think, understood boys, and she gave us a free hand, telling us she would follow our instructions, since she had full confidence in our judgment and valor. We sent her back to her cooking, marshalled our forces, examined our weapons, and prepared to keep the home fires burning, come what may.

Our arsenal was not very formidable. It consisted of a barlow knife, the one blade of which had been broken off to about three-quarters of an inch long and filed to an awl-point. But anyway, the point was sharp and would hurt a lot if we stuck it into a wildcat, which we believed was about to attack our doorless castle. This knife and the firestick were the only weapons we could lay our hands on I thought Mamma should be scared, but her brown eyes looked rather funny, and she just went on with her cooking.

I wanted the knife because I insisted that I was the best man, but Jessee was the biggest, and he overruled me. So I took the fire-stick. We took our positions on each side of the door and, as we firmly believed, between Mamma and the wildcats I drew the firestick and Jessee, the knife, and we waited for the attack. We would show these wildcats it was not safe to interfere with our Mamma when we were around I shall not forget the look in my mother’s eyes, when she could look at us without laughing. They shined, and I wondered why, when things were so desperate. It was not a laughing matter with Jessee and me. We waited, but nothing happened, and after awhile the din ceased and the wildcats went away We felt very brave and claimed we had driven them away, and Mamma agreed with us. Supper was ready, so she fed us and then put us to bed, kissed us good night, and tucked us in. And then it was morning, and we were not afraid any more.

I think my fear of wildcats came from an incident that made history among us. We were a simple people and by the time my mother came along, the worst of the wild animals and most of the Indians were gone.

My mother’s parents lived in the great woods, not far from the Alapaha river and on a body of water called Ocean Pond. I never did know exactly where it was. There were many bay-heads, caused by springs which rose in the pine woods and flowed toward the river, and the small branches which were surrounded by swamps were so thick that a man could not get into them except on cattle and game trails which led to the water. No one knew when these trails had been made, and so far as anyone could guess, they had been there forever. One of these bay-heads was about a mile from grandfather’s house.

The only way to get soap in those days was to make it. This was done by using potash lye and some kind of fat or grease. Usually the waste from hogs butchered for bacon was saved and dried in the sun, to be used when soap-making time came in the spring. No one had much money, and if there were money to buy with, there was often no potash to be had, so hardwood ashes were used.

The custom was to go into the woods just before soap-making time and cut hardwood, burn it, and save the ashes. Then these ashes were boiled in big washpots, and the result was strained of trash and dregs, leaving a strong potash lye. The hog-fats were melted down, and the lye and fats boiled together in the washpot to the right consistency. It did make soap which was plenty strong. It was not exactly kind to the hands and would not produce a velvety look, but with the aid of the wash-block, the battling stick, and the will to work, it would get clothes clean. And a good soap-maker was a celebrity. It was claimed that few people could make good soap.

A fourteen-year-old boy lived in my mother’s family. His name was Jimmie Stewart, and I think he was a relative, but I never learned just how. One bright morning in the spring, when soap-making time was near, this boy was sent into the woods with other children, all younger than himself, to cut and burn hardwood for soap-ashes.

They took the axe, went along the road, and crossed the branch made by the bay head. The only roads we had in those days were just trails through the woods The road through a thick bay-head was just a tunnel in the impenetrable tyty swamp, little more than ten feet wide, the trees often meeting over the road to form a canopy. The tyty is not a true tree, but rather is a large bush, growing fifteen to twenty feet high, with spreading limbs which produce a thicket from the ground, and in its natural state is impenetrable for man. On this morning, long ago, these children went across the branch into the pine woods on the other side and were about a mile from home.

Their dog ran into the swamp and began to bark, and then to yelp in fear. It broke out of the swamp and raced toward the children in the open woods. A big tiger came bounding after the dog and straight at the children. Jimmie Stewart saw it coming, and knew what it was, and he knew that all of them could not escape. It would be certain to kill one of them. He screamed to the other children to run for home and turned with ax drawn to face the charging beast and certain death. It crouched and came creeping slowly until, with a roar, it sprang into the air straight at him. The boy struck with all his might, but a blow from the paw of the feline sent the ax spinning, and Jimmie went down.

At that instant the children disappeared into the swamp road and saw Jimmie and the tiger no more. They ran home and told my grandfather. He believed, of course, that the boy was dead and nothing could be done for him, and that alone, he would also be killed by the tiger. So he sent runners for his neighbors and prepared to go after the beast, but before they could get together and start, they saw Jimmie come staggering and crawling through the woods toward the house. Before the men could reach him, he collapsed. My mother, who was a small child at that time, was one of the first to see Jimmie coming. She, with the others, ran to him. She said the boy’s back had been eaten off, that all the flesh, from near his neck to below his waist was gone, and his ribs were bare and when he breathed the bloody foam would gush from between them.

There were no doctors in those days, so they took him in and did what they could do for him, expecting him to die in a few hours. The men then gathered forces—dogs, horses, and guns—and went after the tiger. They knew he would be in the bay-head swamp, because there was no other cover in the neighborhood.

As soon as the dogs got into the bushes, they found the big tiger and attacked it. Then there was pandemonium. By the noise, the men knew the animal was killing their dogs. Two of the men, Tip Padget and Hamp Guthrie, went into the swamp, following a cow trail. The place was so thick that the sun could not shine through, and there was semidarkness. The trail was just a hole in the thicket and mostly open only as high as a cow’s back, so that the men had to stoop to get through. Both had guns. Tip had a shotgun, but Hamp had a flintlock rifle, the barrel of which was made of a stick-steel rod, with a hole hand-bored into it for a barrel. It was a formidable weapon, even when it was not loaded, and it could be used as a club. Hamp was ahead when he suddenly came face to face with the tiger, which had left the dogs and was slipping along the cow trail. Hamp fired and wounded the beast, but did not kill it.

The tiger sprang at Hamp and knocked him down. Both Hamp and the tiger went into action in the half-light, and Tip could not fire for fear of hitting Hamp instead of the tiger, but he knew Hamp would surely be killed unless something was done at once. He grabbed Hamp’s rifle and beat the tiger over the head until it died on top of Hamp. When it died, it had Hamp’s head in its mouth, but it was too far gone to bite hard enough to break his skull and kill him. One of its claws was fastened under a leader on the back of Hamp’s hand. The man was badly mauled and bitten, and his life hung by a thread, but after a long time he got well. Then he found that when Tip had beaten the tiger with Hamp’s rifle, he bent the barrel, and the gun was ruined. It was currently reported that Hamp argued that Tip could just as well have shot the beast with his shotgun, and he had no business to ruin his rifle. The price of a gun like that was ten dollars, good American money, and Hamp demanded that Tip pay, right then. Tip refused, and Hamp sued and got judgment and threatened to sell Tip’s farm. So Tip paid, both for the rifle and the court costs. Or so the story ran.

Jimmie lived through the night and the next day, but his wounds were so frightful that it seemed impossible that he could ever get well. He lingered on for month after weary month, and finally his back began to heal. Tender and grateful hands did all that they could do for him, but there were no doctors, and it is probable that no doctor ever saw him.

Scar tissue formed and grew over Jimmie’s ribs and joined them together again. My mother said that his back looked like a washboard, and there was no semblance of human skin. When, after agonized weeks, Jimmie was able to speak, he took up the story where the children left off, when they had disappeared into the swamp on their way home. Jimmie said that when he went down under the first attack, the tiger was upon him before he could rise again, and it sank its teeth into his back. Of course, there was no hope for him, but with courage and presence of mind not to be excelled, he held his breath and lay still. He said that he knew if he moved the beast would crush his skull, or turn him over and tear out his throat. He breathed when the tiger was eating him so that it would not notice the movement. It would eat the flesh from his back, and scratch with its claws, and would then put its ear to his mouth to see if he was breathing. Jimmie would hold his breath, and it would go on with its dinner. After awhile the beast had finished its dinner, and after the fashion of all cats, it raked up pine straw and trash into a great pile, and completely covered what was left of him.

The boy waited a long time and then peeped out from under the straw toward the way the tiger had left. The tiger was standing twenty feet away and looking back, evidently undecided as to whether he was dead. It did not see him move, and Jimmie lay still again. After another eternity he looked again, and it was not in sight. He crawled out of the straw and stumbled to his feet and ran staggeringly toward the branch crossing. When he got to the branch, the tiger was lapping water in the road. It did not look up, and Jimmie hid again. He knew there was no hope of getting through the swamp and escaping again, and it was two miles home around the bay head, but with the superb courage that he had shown before, he started around the head of the bay, walking, and crawling when he could not stand, until he came in sight of the house. He did not remember when help got to him, nor anything, for many weeks afterward.

Jimmie got well and grew into a tall and handsome young man, and was popular. When he was less than twenty years old, he was feeding a sugar mill one day, and his left hand got caught between the rollers. And before the mill could be stopped, it had ground his hand and arm to pieces nearly to the elbow. There was nothing to do but to run the mill backward until the hand and arm ground out again. The hand and arm was only a bloody pulp and worse than useless. Again there were no doctors, and he had no medical attention, and the hand and arm became a useless claw.

When he was in middle life, Jimmie had a fight with a cobbler. The man struck at Jimmie with a chair, but Jimmie dodged under the blow, and with the same movement he grabbed the cobbler’s knife and lashed out. The knife cut the man’s body open, and he died. Then Jimmie was sentenced to hang, but after weary months in jail, he was pardoned, the courts and the governor holding that, because of his infirmities, he was entitled to defend himself.

I had heard these stories since I could remember, and of course I had thought that Jimmie Stewart had been dead a long time I knew that my mother had not heard from him in my lifetime. We did not travel much in those days, and people living twenty miles apart seldom heard from each other. One day, long after I had grown up and lived in Florida several years, and in California nearly nine years, and been back in Florida several years, I asked my mother if she knew what became of Jimmie Stewart. This was around 1917 or 1918 She said that, about ten years before that time, an old man came down the road on a hot day and stopped at the gate, and asked for a drink of water As was her custom, she invited him in, drew cool water from the well, and brought it to him where he sat on the edge of the porch, with his feet on the ground. He drank deeply and gratefully, and sighed his contentment. He finally said, Annie, don’t you know me? She answered that so far as she knew, she had never seen him before. He then said, I am Jimmie Stewart He was an old man, but was still able to walk the distance from his home which was many miles away.

She never saw him again, and years later she heard that he had died. So one of the world’s bravest men passed unsung, as had many before him, and as will many hereafter, as long as men are born, strive, and die in this troubled world.

My mother was too young to be sure of the size and more than a general description of the tiger, but the Hon W. Henry Griffin, who was born and lived all his life in the neighborhood where this event took place and was a leading citizen and officeholder for many years, wrote in the Nashville Herald, as follows:

The men tied the tiger together and