Award-winning author, Patrick D. Smith brings to life a story of dirt-poor Florida farmers in early pioneer days. Theirs is a tale of determination, hard work, and sacrifice, fraught with peril and danger.
Modern-day Florida is filled with luxury hotels, beach-front resorts, tourists, orange groves, and a collection of residents that usually come from other places. Few realize the raw nature of its existence before the railroad brought commerce to the area.
Rampant with alligators, snakes, marshy swamps, and mosquitoes, this land, in its original state, was home to the Seminole Indians. With razor-sharp saw-grass, devastating hurricanes, and treacherous flooding coupled with sudden crop-killing freezes, early settlers had a full-time job trying to stay alive.
During his research for this novel, Patrick D. Smith ran a trading post to learn about the lives of the native people of Florida. He describes the evolution of the state from its roots as a swamp and prairie to its explosive growth in population and major industry in a fictional story that captures the true spirit of early settlers.
Most people have little idea of what it was like scratching out an existence living on roots, berries and raccoon stew. In his novel, A Land Remembered, Smith gives the reader plenty to think about.
Hardships after the Civil War included a serious shortage of even the most basic supplies. Groceries like flour, sugar, fabric for clothing, shoes, ammunition for hunting and cookware needed to prepare meals were hard to come by.
He tells of the "Cow Cavalry," a group commissioned by the state's governor to round up stray cattle. Their job was to drive the cows to Georgia to feed the remaining Federal troops. Along the way, they also collected and conscripted male settlers to run the cattle, whether willing or not, to travel through the harsh land with its collection of predators and diseases like malaria and dysentery. Federal troops were known to raid villages, taking "everything they could get their hands on" leaving settlers without their horses, mules and cows with no recourse. Buzzards would collect those who objected.
Confederate deserters, hiding out in the swamps to evade arrest, preyed on the families of isolated settlers, killing and devouring even their work animals.
Native Seminole Indians, that were also hunted and pursued, moved deeper into the swamps of the Everglades to avoid those who wished them harm.
Schooners traveled down the rivers carrying supplies for the local trading posts where settlers would bring animal furs to trade for their basic needs. There, they could occasionally get items they couldn't make or grow like coffee and flour.
Legal tender following the war was limited to Spanish gold doubloons carted around in wagons pulled by oxen. With the peril of extreme storms like hurricanes came the ever-present swamp creatures hungry and waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting.
As early cowhands pushed their herds towards the nearest marketplace, they crossed treacherous prairies and uncleared land filled with quick sand and hordes of mosquitoes. Often those dangers were enhanced by cutthroat cattle rustlers ready to kill for a profit and personal gain.
The story opens with a narrative by the elder Sol MacIvey who is at the end of his life. He has decided to defy his doctor's orders and return to his old home on the prairie of Southern Florida.
His earliest memories come flooding back as he reconnects with his Native American friend, Toby Cypress, who formed a lifetime bond with Sol's father through mutual need and respect. Sol's ancestors struggle to grow crops on their homestead while trying to keep their work oxen safe from deadly creatures that lurk in nearby woods.
They flourished despite the odds by capturing, branding and driving herds of cattle across the state to market.
A Seminole family of Cypress Tiger at their camp near Kendall, Florida in 1916. Photographer: Botanist John Kunkel Small, 1869-1938 - Image Public Domain
The text weaves its way past a series of events through three generations of MacIvey's trying to establish a homestead. The author introduces their hired hand, Frog, whose dedication and respect for the family convinces him to stick around for a lifetime. Others join the small establishment in the scrubs to become an integral part of the family and its endeavors.
A mixture of "Bonanza" with its Ponderosa, and an impoverished post-Civil War “Gone With the Wind” existence, this tale keeps the reader engaged as they grow to care for and understand the characters portrayed.
The story provides insight into the erosion of the hard work ethic that prompted patriarch Tobias MacIvey to leave his roots and seek out a new existence in the developing south as life becomes easier with the passage of time.
Coming out of Georgia in 1858 with a horse-drawn wagon, his wife and their small baby crossed into Florida with "a sack of corn and a sack of sweet potatoes," and the tools to clear the land and build a house.
His forty-acre farm in Georgia's red clay soil had failed. Seeking more nourishing soil and a new start, he sold the land in exchange for the goods to stock the wagon - "a few packets of seeds, a shotgun and a few shells, a frying pan and a cast-iron pot" which would have to serve the family for years to come.
He traded the wagon horses for a pair of oxen they named Tuck and Buck. As part of the trade, they got a guinea cow, a strangely diminutive animal which would provide milk for all of them.
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Photo Attribution - University of Washington, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Their journey through the wilderness, finding and establishing their first isolated homestead, losing it to disaster, then moving farther south to again, seek out richer soil leads them into a whole new world of experiences and eventual enrichment as their family grows and adds members.
With each generation, existence grows easier with successful crops, acres of producing orange groves and ready-made housing for the offspring that come along. When they found a way to earn bushels of money, they finally had it made.
This story has all the appeal of a grandfather's tale, mixing pioneer adventure with a slice of history told by a seasoned storyteller.
This is a saga that will stay in your mind as a keen reminder of what the frontier held for our ancestors. It tells of hard work, sacrifice and reward that comes, but not without its share of loss and grief.
Patrick D. Smith Talks About the Book in this YouTube video
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