More Tellable Cracker Tales
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“He is every bit the horse that I imagined he would be,” Squire finally said. “Yes, this one would improve anyone’s herd.” It was evident that Squire was troubled by his thoughts. Suddenly he said, “But the horse is not mine, son. He’s yours, and I cannot be so thieving as to take him from you.”
Now the tears did flow. Dell was so excited that he failed to thank Squire. He only cried for joy and repeated over and over, “Whirlwind, you are mine! You are mine!” He hurried back to share the good news with his parents. His mother wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron and gave Dell a big hug. But his father said, “If the horse is yours, we can no longer feed him from Squire’s silos.”
“Don’t worry, Papa,” said Dell. “Tomorrow I’ll find a way to earn his feed.” And he did. On Whirlwind’s back, he was able to go from farm to farm and perform odd jobs—shelling corn, peas, and peanuts for planting; weeding gardens; and watching young children while mothers helped their husbands in the fields. Anything he could do, he did in exchange for corn, oats, or millet for Whirlwind.
Each day as Dell returned home, he gave Whirlwind the reins, and day after day he ran faster and faster. Soon he ran with the speed of his namesake. Dell was no longer the little crippled boy whom people pitied but the proud owner of Whirlwind, the fastest and finest horse in all of Marion County.
Telling time: 12–15 minutes
Audience: 3rd grade–adult
Florida ranks second only to Kentucky in the breeding of racehorses. Marion County alone has six hundred horse farms ranging in size from ten acres to five thousand acres. While this story is set in Marion County, the incidents took place before the days of farm specialization, that is, before farms specialized in only one product, e.g., horses, cotton, etc.
Although this is rather a long story for third graders, I have found that children quickly identify with another child and usually have empathy for a crippled one. I have told “Whirlwind” when every child in the audience seemed spellbound—still and quiet for several moments after I finished.
Introduction
Historical Stories
The five historical stories presented here are about three colorful characters. Known by their nicknames—Pogy, Fingy, and Peggy—these movers and shakers left their mark on the Sunshine State. Pogy Bill was sheriff of Okeechobee County for fourteen years. He had no children of his own, but he was the unofficial daddy of every orphan in the county and a role model for every boy who knew him.
Fingy Conners was a “corned-beef-and-cabbage” man who wintered among the high-society gents and dames of Palm Beach. The road he financed from Florida’s east coast to Okeechobee brought Ford’s tinlizzies to the Everglades.
The attractive, witty, and vivacious Margaret (Peggy) O’Neale Eaton was Florida’s First Lady from 1834 to 1836. She was also, according to Gene Burnett in Volume 1 of Florida’s Past, “the object of gossip so scandalous that it caused a vice president to fall, a dark horse to succeed him, a national party to split, and an entire cabinet to resign.”
Do Tell!
William E. Collins
It seems that his name was William, but the “fellers” called him Bill—Pogy Bill. And the “fellers” included bank presidents and bean pickers and all those in between. William E. Collins was born of American parents on the twenty-fourth day of May 1884. His birth took place on an American vessel, which at the time was anchored in the harbor of Sydney, Australia. A child of the sea, Bill took on many of her attributes—wild and strong, with magnetism and grit.
Not much is known concerning his early life. He spent some of his teen years working on cargo ships. Tiring of this strenuous existence, he jumped ship at Buenos Aires and made his way across the Andes to Chile’s Pacific coast and from there to Florida. Somewhere along the way, he served a stint in the U.S. Navy. It was there that he was taught the sport of boxing.
He cleared land in central Florida before taking a job as a boilermaker in Tampa. Here, he became embroiled in some local politics. His convictions were strong enough that he became a force to be reckoned with. The opposition hired a professional boxer to knock him out, but Pogy Bill knocked the pugilist out. This gave rise to the erroneous report that he was an Australian prizefighter.
It was 1910 when Pogy Bill signed on as a fisherman on Lake Okeechobee. This wild, rough calling—plus the frontier spirit and excellent pay—were natural attractions for this twenty-six-year-old man of the sea. It was not long before he owned his own fish camp and was recognized as the undisputed top shark among the fishermen.
At that time, most fish camps had only tar-paper shanties with thatched roofs, but a rival camp owner invited Pogy Bill and his crew over to show off his new cypress wood camp. After the men consumed much of the victuals and drink provided for the occasion, they became cantankerous, and eventually a free-for-all fight broke out. Pogy Bill threw a rival right through one of the cypress walls. As others took up the fight, he threw them through a door, window, or wall, whichever was the handiest. When the last rival had been cleared from the room, a precariously hanging roof was all that remained of the cypress wood building.
No one was ever known to best Pogy Bill in a fair fistfight. Although he liked to drink, gamble, and fight—especially the latter—Pogy Bill had a code of fairness that Albert Berka, a Viennese immigrant, often attested to. Berka was the local baker, and more than once Pogy Bill came up with the restitution that kept him in business. Let me tell you about two of these incidents because they will give you a good picture of the type of justice meted out by Pogy Bill.
One day some soused fishermen robbed Berka’s errand boy and ate or destroyed all the baked goods he was to deliver. Berka rushed to the scene, filled with indignation, but was completely ignored by the perpetrators of the crime. Then Pogy Bill appeared and demanded each of the fishermen pay Albert Berka $5 for the merchandise they had taken. With $25 in his pocket, Berka returned to his shop and replaced the orders.
Another time, in the wee hours of the night, Berka was awakened by some drunk, hungry fishermen pounding on his door. Against his better judgment, Berka agreed to get up and prepare something for them to eat but regretted his decision when the drunks decided to use his canned fruit for target practice. Streams of fruit juice were spewing in all directions when in walked Pogy Bill. “Now yuh gotta help Albert,” Pogy Bill announced. “Will twenty-five dollars apiece pay for this mess?” he asked the baker. Before the destructive customers left the shop, Albert had $250 for his canned fruit.
Pogy Bill was usually in the forefront of the fishermen’s fun and devilment. Once, when some of the lake men were arrested, their friends decided to have a little fun. When the prisoners were brought into court, which was being held in the back room of Dr. Darrow’s drugstore, they disarmed the marshal and delayed Judge Hancock down the trail. Pogy Bill, barefoot as a yard dog, sat in the judge’s chair, appointed Barefoot Jim as bailiff, and declared that court was now in session. As each accused man was brought before him, Pogy solemnly found him guilty, whether he was or not, and fined him one quart of liquor, to be produced at once. Then court was adjourned to Mr. Bryant’s Roughhouse down at the creek.
Judge Hancock did not appreciate their humor and declared that the next time Pogy was brought before him, he would throw the book at him. Pogy sent word back to the judge that if he came before him, he would throw his honor into the lake. On Pogy Bill’s next visit to town, he was waylaid on the Tantie Bridge by Judge Hancock and a couple of his deputies. As the creek was much handier than the lake, Pogy Bill threw all three of them into it.
Judge Hancock then deputized several of the most fearless cowhunters, traditional opponents of the fishermen. The next time Pogy Bill came into town, he was outmanned and locked up in the boxcar calaboose. Next morning, in a courtroom packed with belligerent fishermen, Pogy Bill was brought before Judge Hancock, who found him guilty of every kind of skulduggery in the statute book. As the judge pondered the heaviest sentence he could impose, he th
umbed through a mail order catalog there on the druggist desk.
Expecting the worse, Pogy Bill exclaimed, “It’s enough to be arrested for a little innocent fun, but I’ll be dogged if I’m gonna be sentenced outten of a dadblamed Sears Roebuck catalog.” And with that he overturned the table, spilling a pitcher of water into the judge’s lap. This cost Pogy Bill $25 and ninety days in the Ft. Pierce jail.
Now, there are enough stories about Pogy Bill to keep telling them all night—many of them absolutely true, and some, no doubt, embellished. But I’m going to close now and invite you to join me when I tell you why Judge Hancock made a trip all the way to Ft. Pierce to see Pogy Bill. And why, many years later, a candidate for sheriff ran on the platform—“If I’m elected, I’ll try to run this county the way Pogy Bill would want it to be run” —and won the election.
Telling time: 8–10 minutes
Audience: 4th grade–adult
Sheriff Pogy Bill
After I finished telling you my first episode about Pogy Bill, several of you asked me about his name.
“Anyone with the name William usually ends up being called Bill,” you said. “But where and how did he get the nickname Pogy?”
That’s a good question, and, as with the nickname Cracker, there are several answers. The explanation most often repeated is that Bill earned it when he tried to sell a boatload of pogies. Now, pogies are fish that are small and so full of bones that they are used only for bait or fertilizer. They are what is known in the trade as a trash fish, so it would be ludicrous to try to sell them to a fish dealer. I agree with several of his friends who insist that Pogy Bill was never that dumb. It seems to me that almost any man who had spent his life on the sea would have known better, and Pogy Bill was definitely a cut above the average. No, I believe that he came to be known as Pogy because someone likened him to those bony fish, which have a lot of strength and fight for their size. Pogy Bill was no big, lumbering catfish, nor was he a docile mullet. He was more like the feisty, bony pogies. At any rate, he got the name shortly after he became a fisherman and carried it to the pages of history. Even to this day he is known as Pogy Bill.
When we left off talking about Pogy Bill, he was in Ft. Pierce serving a ninety-day prison term, which Judge Hancock had sentenced him to. Being thrown in jail for ninety days might have come as a surprise to Pogy, but Judge Hancock was in for a surprise too. He was surprised to discover how many friends Pogy had, and all of them wanted him to commute Pogy’s sentence. Members of the community, like Doc Anner (Dr.Anna Darrow) and her husband, exerted enough pressure that Judge Hancock agreed to go to Ft. Pierce and talk to the offender. Then the judge was in for an even bigger surprise. Pogy Bill agreed to give up his reckless fun and to help enforce the laws he had so often broken. The judge released him from jail, and Pogy Bill never broke his promise to Judge H. H. Hancock.
When Pogy Bill was released from prison and came back to Okeechobee City, it had been incorporated for nine months and had already lost two city marshals. There were no takers for third city marshal. Then Pogy Bill was offered and accepted the job. He was appointed city marshal on March 14, 1916, and held the job for the next two and a half years. Upon the death of Okeechobee County’s first sheriff, Smith Drawdy, in 1918, Pogy Bill moved into the sheriff’s office and remained there for the next fourteen years.
There has probably never been a sheriff who brought to the office a more comprehensive knowledge of the wily ways of lawbreakers than Pogy Bill. He knew all the nooks and crannies along the entire shoreline of Lake Okeechobee where the outlaws hid out. Only the foolish ever defied him. In the great 1928 hurricane, in which more than two thousand people perished, he was invaluable in identification since he knew everyone on the lake. When it was determined that he needed an assistant, he hired a rugged former Texas Ranger as his deputy. Deputy Charles Lee had fought with Teddy Roosevelt at the battle of San Juan Hill.
Pogy knew that any real improvements made in those around you had to start with you yourself. He gave up drinking and smoking and was soon married to a nice girl and settled into a new home. He collected a small library to begin a process of self-education, and once even took a fling at acting in a local amateur production of “Men’s Flapper Chorus,” staged as a benefit. Local ads urged readers to be sure to see “Pogy Bill’s $1,000,000 legs.”
Pogy not only cleaned up fighting, gambling, and other lawless activities, he saw the need for healthy outlets for energy and was soon organizing sports activities. He gently but firmly “coaxed” both natives and newcomers into joining and supporting the town’s baseball team. Later he bought boxing gloves and taught boys how to box. When a Boy Scout troop was started in Okeechobee, it soon had Pogy Bill as an active troop leader. He also helped raise funds to keep the troop active.
Pogy’s special concerns were children and the needy. It was said he never had a dime because he gave all his money away. Having no children of his own, he was the unofficial father of every orphan in the county. Every widow or family in distress was likely to find some groceries, clothes, or shoes on the doorstep, and everyone knew the anonymous party who had left them there.
In 1988, the late Wade Walker recalled with fondness the man he considered his friend. “I played on the ball team.… He thought the world of us boys. He took care of us just as though we were his own boys. He was a good man. He’d take us kids everywhere.… He had a big Lincoln. He’d load us up in his big car and take us with him and it never cost us a dime. If he knew of someone out there who didn’t have anything to eat, he didn’t ask them if they had anything. He’d just go into the store and buy a bunch of groceries and carry them out and set them on their steps. That’s the kind of man he was.”
In his Cracker History of Okeechobee, Lawrence Will quoted an old-timer: “Mister, I’m telling you what’s so. For a heap of years, hit was Pogy Bill who kept Okeechobee County from going hongry.”
In 1934, on the way to a fire, the fire truck overturned, pinning Pogy Bill beneath it. A few days later William E. Collins was dead. But Pogy Bill? Well, Lawrence Will continues his account:
“Not too long ago, whilst in a restaurant in Okeechobee, I heard a man a-telling how Pogy had influenced his early life, how he’d discouraged him from smoking cigarettes and drinking, how he’d found him jobs when he needed work, and how he’d get him to deliver packages to all them folks in need.
“‘I’m a-going to run for sheriff,’” this man declared. “‘There’s things going on here that ain’t just right. Now if you folks will elect me sheriff, I’ll try to run this county the way that Pogy Bill would want it to be run!’”
He was elected!
Telling time: 8–10 minutes
Audience: 4th grade–adult
Fingy Conners
Well, now, if you are a young sprout—that is, if you haven’t celebrated at least sixty birthdays—chances are good you have never read the comic strip “Bringing Up Father.” Between the 1920s and 1950s, George McManus created this comic strip, which appeared in more than 750 papers worldwide in 27 different languages. It spawned seven stage shows that toured the United States for eleven years, was dramatized on radio, and was made into a movie five times. There is no way of knowing how many tellers and writers were inspired by this popular real-life story.
It seems that when McManus was a young artist, he fell in love with the blond, beautiful daughter of the millionaire W. J. “Fingy” Conners. While Fingy had no objection to the proposed marriage, his society-minded spouse found that McManus was not on the social register and squelched the romance. But McManus got his revenge. In his comic strip, he gave Conners and his wife the names Jiggs and Maggie and was able to capture the essence of real people, which made the humor believable and endeared his comic characters to millions of readers. Okeechobee historians A. J. and Kathryn Hanna, after some research, concluded that the likeness between Fingy and Jiggs is startling. Fingy was a ringer for Jiggs, right down to his corned-beef-and-cabbage diet.
In February 1917, Conners attended a swanky dinner celebrating the opening of the Palm Beach Canal and first heard about the Everglades. He couldn’t stand still until he got a boat to take him to Lake Okeechobee. No sooner did he get there than he spent $40,000 for four thousand acres of sawgrass muck. And since Conners still had some money left, he bought the town site of Okeechobee and a few thousand acres of swamps and prairies thereabouts. Then, to round out his holdings, he bought all the lakeshore land still lying loose between Okeechobee and Canal Point. This twelve thousand acres cost him another $700,000.
Conners stood on the shore at Canal Point and exclaimed, “I own all the property from here slam to Okeechobee City, and yet I can’t even get to the cussed land. Why, dagnabbit, I can’t even set foot on the property to see what I’ve bought!” So he decided he’d build a road. He hightailed it up to Tallahassee, where the legislature was in session. It took the lawmakers two hours and twenty minutes to pass his highway bill. It authorized him to build a toll road from Twenty-Mile Bend on up to Okeechobee, nineteen miles of it along the Palm Beach Canal and thirty-three miles on soft muck that no such road had been built on before. Conners wanted the job finished yesterday, but he must have been pleased when such an undertaking was completed in eight month. On June 25, the road was opened and Conners began to collect tolls.