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The sweet taste of Independence Day, 1900s-style

Mary Jo McTammany
Posted 6/27/18

In the early decades of the 1900s, the Fourth of July was a big deal in Clay County.

Feelings of patriotism loomed large but it was also the perfect time for a break.

The date falls in the …

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The sweet taste of Independence Day, 1900s-style


Posted

In the early decades of the 1900s, the Fourth of July was a big deal in Clay County.

Feelings of patriotism loomed large but it was also the perfect time for a break.

The date falls in the middle of the hot Florida summer. It was an event to look forward to through the monotonous, first half of the summer and remembered with fondness through the dog days of July and August.

By today’s standards, the celebrations were not spectacular. Events of varying size were planned in all parts of the county to recognize the founding of the nation. Green Cove Springs, as the county seat and the most populated area, gathered the largest crowds and organized the biggest show.

As the date approached, merchants and town residents unpacked the holiday paraphernalia of assorted ribbons and bunting and American flags. Gradually, the town took on the theme of red, white and blue.

Churches and social clubs planned their displays, mostly game booths for children with prizes for all and special foods for judging and sale. Despite the heat, wood stoves in kitchens all over town stayed fired up for days in preparations despite the heat.

For rural women isolated at farmsteads on lonely dirt trails miles from neighbors with never ending chores that needed redoing almost before they were done the mid-summer break was a gift sent from God.

The streets of Green Cove Springs bustled even though most of the tourists and hotel staffs had packed up and headed North in April. Streets were crammed with wagons, horses and in the later decades backfiring automobiles. A circus could not have provided more excitement.

After some rural families shared a picnic lunch under the trees, the older children scattered and the men migrated toward the bandstand and parking area to lean against something, confer about politics and make deals. The women settled toddlers and babes on quilts to nap and commenced to revel in the real purpose of the day – simple conversation.

But, as peaceful and innocent as this scene may seem, there was always a tension in the air. In this time at the turn of the century, law enforcement was a fragile thing. Men were accustomed to looking out for their own. As Sheriff Weeks said when he and Arch Murrhee separated in the woods north of Green Cove Springs to capture a gang of bank robbers it was “every man for hisself.”

As harmless as the participants might appear, every man was more than likely armed with a pistol; some of the women too. A few who would later be returning home on lonely dark roads kept rifles or shotguns near to hand. The roads held danger from ambush by escaped turpentine camp convicts and assorted homegrown troublemakers.

In the afternoon, a fiddler would take the stage with rousing selections and assorted toe-tapper songs. As shadows deepened, families packed up and began to drift off home.

For one little girl in Orange Park, this was the best part – sucking a sugar soaked lemon half when the lemonade barrels were cleaned out at the very end.