Franklin County, Florida
History, Records, Facts and Genealogy

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Franklin County

Franklin County was created in 8 Feb 1832 and was formed from Jackson County. The County was named for Benjamin Franklin, the famous Founding Father, statesman, printer, and scientist.. The County Seat is Apalachicola.

The Port of Apalachicola did not exist until President James Monroe appointed a port collector in 1822. Before that time the area around the mouth of the Apalachicola River had been occupied by Indians for some 10,000 years. See also County History for more historical details.

Counties adjacent to Franklin County are Liberty County (north), Wakulla County (northeast), Gulf County (west).

Franklin County Cities and Towns include Carrabelle. CDPs Include Eastpoint. Communities Include Alligator Point, Lanark Village, St. Teresa, St. George Island

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Extended History

The Indians

The Port of Apalachicola did not exist until President James Monroe appointed a port collector in 1822. Before that time the area around the mouth of the Apalachicola River had been occupied by Indians for some 10,000 years.

The Indians came to eat oysters. There are Indian mounds west of town at "11 Mile," back of town in the Magnolia cemetery area, and in Eastpoint. The shell mounds served as religious and burial sites. Indian mounds may also be found up the Mississippi River and throughout the Southeastern United States.

The primary reason why there was no settlement at the river's mouth until 1821-1822 was because the lands at the mouth of the river were isolated from the hinterland by a large network of bayous and swamps. The river also empties into a shallow bay.

The Apalachicola River Indians probably came into contact with the first European expedition to reach the general vicinity of the river: the ill-fated Narvaes expedition of 1528 into Apalachee country. Apalachee country was east of Apalachicola River country.

The members of the Narvaes expedition killed their horses at a place called the Bay of Horses and used the skins for water bottles before building small boats and sailing toward the Southwest. The account of the DeSoto expedition tells of finding remnants of the Narvaes expedition on the coast. The Bay of Horses was probably somewhere around the St. Marks and Ochlockonee Bay area, near the head of Apalachicola Bay.

The name "Apalachicola" comes from the Indians and apparently described a ridge of earth produced by sweeping the ground in preparation for a council or peace fire. Such an area might be translated as an area of peaceful people or people on the other side. "Land of the friendly people" might be taken as a broad interpretation of the word. It was spelled with two "p"s in the Act of the Legislative Council of the Territory of Florida in 1821 which named the town.

The Spanish
In 1607 several Apalachee Indians sought help from Spanish missionaries, but 25 years were to pass before the Franciscan chain of missions would be constructed.

The Spanish mission period began in 1633 when the first priests reached the Apalachee. Spanish documents of 1655 and 1675 record that there were between nine and eleven missions in Apalachee country. These missions stretched in a line from St Augustine (1565) on the Atlantic Coast to St. Louis, near the present city of Tallahassee.

The missions were built twenty miles apart or one day's ride by horse. St. Louis, or San Luis, was the administrative center for a number of smaller missions built westward toward the Apalachicola River.

The chain of missions crossed the Apalachicola River near Bloody Bluff and went on to Port St. Joe. It must be kept in mind that the entire Spanish Empire was laid out on a military pattern. The Castle of San Marco at St. Augustine and the Moro Castle at Havana, Cuba, protected on two sides the Straits of Florida. Through this passage travelled the annual treasure fleet from the New World with gold from Colombia and silver from Potosi, Bolivia.

The area around St. Augustine was expected to act as a granary for the city and castle in the manner of a Castilian armed city. The missions were a buffer zone or area of "pacification," both to serve as an extension of the granary and as an early warning system of any dangers from the English operating out of Charleston, S.C. (1670-1672) or Georgia.

The fort at St. Marks, Florida (1677), was intended to protect the mission chain from attacks by sea. This military arrangement had emerged not only from the victory by the Christian Spanish over the Moors in 1492, but also because it was Queen Isabella of an autocratic and militaristic Castile and not King Ferdinand of an easy-going Aragon who had financed Christopher Columbus.

The Spanish Empire was a Castilian Empire and tightly administered.

The English
During the last part of the 17th century, the Spanish maintained their tenuous hold on Northwest Florida through the missions and the small fort at St. Marks. When Indian allies of the English at Charleston, S.C., raided Spanish territory, Indian allies of the Spanish desert- ed eastern Ceorgia in favor of the Chattahoochee River.

Dr. Henry Woodward, a soldier of fortune, led the English activities in this contest for the Indian trade. The Spanish tried to control their Indian allies by building a fort near the junction of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers known as Santa Cruz de Sabacola.

This lasted only a few years (1689-1691) because the Indians, incensed at the Spanish fort in their territory and preferring English trade goods, began moving closer to English settlements. They left the Chattahoochee River to settle on Ochese Creek of the Ocmulgee River. The name of Ochese Creek Indians was shortened by English traders to Creek Indians.

Later, Upper Creeks came to mean those in Alabama, and Lower Creeks those in Georgia. An alliance between France and Spain at the time of the War of the Spanish Succession, when Louis XIV of France tried to place his grandson on the throne of Spain (1701-1714), upset Great Britain, Holland and other European states, and threatened British control of the Indian trade. This was successfully resisted by the British Governor in Charleston, James Moore, from 1702-1704. In the process, however, he transported several thousand Indians from the Apalachee and Apalachicola River countries to a town on the Savannah River.

This forced migration caused hard feelings. A large-scale Indian uprising momentarily threatened Charleston in 1715 and resulted in the Indians returning to the Chattahoochee River, the Creeks near Columbus, Georgia, and the Apalachicolas north of the forks of the Chattahoochee-Flint Rivers. The years 1717-1739 saw France allied to her former foes, Great Britain and Holland, against Spain, much dissatisfied over the losses from the War of the Spanish Succession.

The Spanish from St. Marks and Pensacola (1696) dominated most of the Lower Creeks and blocked French advances along the Gulf Coast. The settlements at Biloxi and Mobile (1702), while not thriving, were bases of French power which extended over the Upper Creeks in Alabama. The French attempted to control the Lower Creeks with a fort at St. Joseph Bay (1718), but this was successfully countered by the Spanish and abandoned.

Pensacola was captured and held by France from 1719-1723. The British steadily pushed westward from Charleston to establish hegemony over the Cherokee, some of the Upper Creeks, and several Lower Creek towns. The Seven Years' War, or French and Indian War, and the Treaty of Paris (1763) marked the end of French power in the New World, and,because Spain had assisted France after 1761, transferred the Floridas to Great Britain in return for British evacuation of Havana.

The War of the American Revolution (1776-1783) of the British North American colonies brought many refugees or Loyalists to Florida. As Spain was allied with France and the British North American colonies in 1781, the Spanish Governor of New Orleans captured Pensacola, and, although the British trading houses remained, most of the British left. By the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the Spanish once again occupied Florida.

The Scottish Traders
In 1784, Alexander McGillivray was named the Spanish representative among the Creek Indians. The son of a Loyalist Scotsman Lachian McGillivray and the half-French, half-Creek Sehoy Marchand, he carved out a large plantation near the Coosa River in central Alabama. He regarded himself as Emperor of the Creeks. William Panton was a close family friend.

When the British evacuated Pensacola, McGillivray turned to Spain to stop the advance of the Georgians into Creek country and urged that the Scottish firm of Panton, Leslie and Company, later known as John Forbes and Company, continue the lucrative Indian trade in Spanish territory.

Operating near the Flint-Chattahoochee junction, a license was issued to the firm in 1783. Another store was soon opened at St. Marks with headquarters in Pensacola. Other offices were at St. Augustine, Florida, and Edinburgh, Scotland.

Trading in furs and produce in exchange for credit or supplies, this firm became important to Spanish Indian policy. William Augustus Bowles, a bohemian Loyalist and soldier of fortune who had lived among the Creeks, was sent into Florida in 1788 to make contact with McGillivray in an effort to break the monopoly of Panton, Leslie and Company in the Creek trade on behalf of the trading house of Miller, Bonnamy and Company and their associate, John Murray, British Governor of the Bahamas.

Concerned that the Spanish, through Panton, Leslie and Company, would no longer supply him with arms and ammunition, McGillivray received Bowles. Bowles succeeded in attacking the store of Panton, Leslie and Company at St. Marks on his second try, and the alarmed Spanish continued to supply McGillivray through Panton, Leslie and Company. Spain also paid Panton, Leslie and Company for the damage done to their store by granting land.

These land claims, later known as the Forbes Putchase, were recognized as legal by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1835 and included the site of the future town of Apalachicola. Bowles was captured by the Spanish but escaped in Sierra Leone while being transported to Spain from the Phillipines.

He made his way to London and again gained support for his adventures in Florida. In 1799, he was shipwrecked on the east end of St. George Island. He made his way to the Ochlockonee River and moved inland to organize the State of Muskogee. This State defied both Spain and the United States.

A Spanish force destroyed the camp, and Bowles once again captured St. Marks. Benjamin Hawkins, the Indian Agent for the United States, succeeded in capturing Bowles in 1803. William Bowles died three years later in a Spanish prison. Panton, Leslie and Company sought and received compensation for losses sustained in defending Spanish territory and in payment of the debt owed to it by the Creeks through grants of land from the Creeks. In return, Panton, Leslie and Company, which had been reorganized as John Forbes and Company, agreed to open a store at Prospect Bluffs, eighteen miles up the Apalachicola River at what is now Fort Gadsden.

The Lower Creeks later granted the firm Forbes Island opposite Prospect Bluffs as payment for some more bad accounts. In all, the lands granted to the firm came to 1,200,000 acres.

The United States
Pressure by citizens of the United States desiring land was confining the Indians to the Chattahoochee River valley of Alabama and Georgia.

The once rich fur trade could not be replaced by a rich cotton trade until farmers replaced the nomadic Indians along the fertile lands of the river. The Creeks finally went into open war against the United States and were defeated by General Andrew Jackson at Horseshoe Bend in Alabama.

The Treaty of Ft. Jackson (1814), signed by the Creeks, ceded a large tract of land in southern Alabama and Georgia to the United States. At the close of the War of 1812, the British representatives in the area argued by letter with Benjamin Hawkins that the Treaty of Fort Jackson was not valid because the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the "Seven Years War" called for the status quo antebellum, i.e., that things were to go back as they were before the war.

Hawkins argued that the Treaty of Fort Jackson ante-dated the Treaty of Ghent. The Creeks preferred the British position. Louisiana, ceded to Spain in 1763 and retroceded to France by a servile Spain in 1800, was sold in 1803 by Napoleon to the United States.

The insistence of the United States upon trading with France hampered the efforts of the British and allied powers in their war against Napoleon (1797-1815), and the British made Florida a center of operations during the War of 1812. The British prepared to take formal possession at Pensacola but were repulsed by General Jackson in 1814.

The British also landed supplies at St. George Island preparatory to fortifying the area of the future Ft. Gadsden, but, by landing and removing the same troops repeatedly, they created the impression of a force much larger. British agents also evacuated Pensacola with Indian allies and captured slaves of the Spanish and of the Forbes Company and fortified what was to become Ft. Gadsden.

Damage to Forbes property by British forces was the basis for another request for a land grant. Notice was sent, however, from the British fleet under Admiral Alexander Cochrane noted for his role in the Latin American wars of independence that the British were to withdraw.

After 1814, the area of the future Ft. Gadsden was armed by the British and used by Indians and runaway Negroes to harass United States settlers. A United States force under General Gaines from the Mississippi Territory and Commander Daniel Patterson, U.S.N., destroyed the fort. A single hot shot hit the magazine and the fort exploded. The Seminoles, seceders from the Creeks, who occupied Apalachee territory, also fought the United States bitterly in 1817-1818.

British trading activities continued in the area. The Indians ignored the Treaty of Fort Jackson, and General Andrew Jackson went to the area of Ft. Gadsden and built the fort, naming it for its designer. Ft. Gadsden was manned from 1818 to 1821-1822. General Jackson then proceeded to the Suwanee River, and failing to capture the Seminoles, continued to St. Marks, where he hung two British subjects for inciting the Indians against U. S. citizens.

When he received information that hostile Indians were in Pensacola, he took Pensacola on the grounds that the Spanish were encouraging the Seminoles. Pensacola and St. Marks were temporarily returned to the Spanish, but John Calhoun, Secretary of War, advised General Gaines that U. S. troops were to stay at Fort Gadsden. In 1821, Florida was transferred to the United States with Jackson as Governor of Florida.

The Settlements
The period 1814-1818 had been costly for Forbes and Company, and it passed into the hands of Colin Mitchel of Havana, Cuba, and others.

They reorganized it, after the Forbes Spanish land grant was declared legal in 1835, as the Apalachicola Land Company. The Indians no longer occupied the area of Apalachicola Bay nor the ceded lands of the Forbes purchase. Some seventy chiefs met at Moultrie Creek near St. Augustine and, having elected Neo Mathia their spokesman, negotiated a treaty with the commissioners from the U. S. War Department and Governor William Duval of Florida.

Small reservations were given to six chiefs near the Apalachicola River. In 1833, under pressure from settlers, attacks by other Indians, floods and disease, and with their annuity cancelled and no government protection, they sold these reservations to Florida and agreed to leave.

They were gone by 1838. In 1802, the U. S. promised the State of Georgia to relocate the Indians in that state elsewhere within a reasonable time. The Treaty of Fort Jackson opened for settlement all lands in the southern part of the state. Two additional grants in 1818 and the Treaty of Indian Springs in 1821 left the Creeks concentrated between the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers.

At Broken Arrow in 1824, the Lower Creeks seemed willing to move west of the Mississippi, but the Upper Creeks did not want to consider another land grant. At Indian Springs in 1825, the Lower Creeks named William McIntosh their spokesman and sold their land for five million dollars and an equal area west of the Mississippi.

The Lower Creeks later objected, and William McIntosh was subsequently killed. The Council for the entire Creek Nation repudiated this treaty. The Lower Creeks under Chilly McIntosh, son of the murdered chief, went to Washington, as did a delegation from the Upper Creeks.

The Treaty of Washington (1827) resulted. By this treaty, the Creeks in Georgia were moved west of the Mississippi. In Alabama, farmers encroached on Creek territory, and the Treaty of Cusseta (1832) resulted. Land was to be obtained by the Indians, sold, and the Indians were then to move west. Intruders flooded the area, and at one point Francis Scott Key was sent to Alabama to stop encroachments.

Frauds were widespread, however, and speculators started an Indian war to prevent an investigation. The Creek War (1836-1837) resulted in the Creeks moving west. General Winfield Scott, from the Seminole Wars, his force augmented by some 1800 Creeks, fought some 1500 hostiles. In 1837, some Creeks paid their debts by joining the U. S. forces in the Florida wars.

While there were some remaining incidents, the Indians were gone by 1843. The departure of the Indians saw the farmers and the planters move in. On the river, Columbus, Georgia, was started in 1828, Eufaula in 1833 and Albany by 1836.

Apalachicola
Cotton was initially shipped down the Apalachicola River on flatboats. Two hundred sixty-six bales were shipped in 1822. The first steamboat sailed on the river in 1828. That same year, "cotton town" was named West Point by the Legislative Council of the Territory of Florida.

It was incorporated in 1829 with an Intendant and four councilmen. It was finally named "Apalachicola" in 1831, and in 1882 became the county seat.

The Port of St. Joseph was established in 1836 to escape the control of the Apalachicola Land Company. The Lake Wimico and St. Joseph Canal Company was formed to build what became a railroad (1839) from Iola to St. Joseph to draw the cotton trade from the Apalachicola River.

This was Florida's first railroad. Florida's Constitutional Convention was held in St. Joseph in 1838. St. Joseph was not able to compete with Apalachicola, however, and major storms in 1837, 1839, and 1844, along with a yellow fever epidemic in 1841, destroyed the town.

Except for turpentine operations, St. Joseph was abandoned until the 1900 's . The area did not recover until the coming of the Port St. Joe Paper Company. A number of homes moved by barge from St. Joseph in 1844 are still standing in Apalachicola. It is estimated that 150 people lived in West Point in 1828 and 2,000 in 1838. However, the population would fluctuate according to trade and yellow fever conditions.

In 1835, during the fever months, August 1 to November 1, the Apalachicola Advertiser estimated that there were no more than seventy people in town. Cotton was shipped from December through June, with most of it shipped from January through March. In 1836, 50,000 bales of cotton were shipped from Apalachicola. It became the third largest cotton port on the Gulf Coast, ranking after New Orleans and Mobile. Some 1S steamboats, on the average, plied the river to Columbus, Georgia. Cotton would be shipped down river, compressed at some 43 cotton warehouses in town, and taken across the shallow bay by lighter to three-masted sailing vessels off West Pass between St. Vincent and St. George Islands.

These vessels would go to New England, England, France, Belgium, or wherever there were cotton mills or lace manufacturing centers. They tended to sail a triangular route among Boston or New York, Apalachicola, and Liverpool or Le Havre. There were foreign consulates in Apalachicola. Goods were also shipped up river to towns and plantations.

Among the family names of the factors in the city were Orman, Raney, Porter and Chittenden from the Middle and New England states. Florida became a state in 1845.

The Civil War
With the outbreak of the War Between the States (1861-65), Apalachicola and the surrounding coastal area assumed a dual role of strategic military importance.

Sheltered by the chain of offshore islands and situated on the River which provided easy access to military and industrial centers in the interior, the city and port offered refuge to vessels carrying much-needed supplies to the Confederacy.

Scarcely less important was the area's ability to maintain a large number of salt-producing installations which gave the Confederacy the means of preserving meat and other food supplies.

Union operations in the area were concerned with the blockade of the port and the destruction of the salt-producing installations. Confederate counter-measures attempted to foil the Union's achievement of these objectives.

The establishment of a Naval Blockade was accomplished by Union forces on 11 June, 1861, with the arrival of the U.S.S. Montgomery. At times, the blockade employed a squadron of three or more vessels in the area. A landing at Apalachicola was achieved without resistance on 3 April, 1862.

At various times from this date until the war's end, the city was occupied briefly by Union or Confederate forces. No conflicts of signal importance took place. One incident took place approximately ten miles east of Apalachicola near the mouth of Crooked River. On 20 May, 1862, a boat, carrying 21 men left the blockading vessel and approached the shore, probably looking for fresh water. They were fired upon by a group of. Confederates under Capt. H. T. Blocker of the Beauregard Rangers. Seventeen of the boat's occupants were either killed or wounded. There were no Confederate casualties.

The Union forces constantly sought to increase the effectiveness of the blockade by various expeditions and raids into Confederate territory. In May, 1863, one of the most successful involved locating and taking the schooner Fashion at Scott Creek 23 miles above Apalachicola. Union sailors were able to tow their prize into the river and back to the blockading squadron. Several prisoners and fifty bales of cotton accompanied the captured vessel.

The most important installations in this area were rendered ineffective later this same year. A forre of sixty-five men was landed at Alligator Bay, where they destroyed 65 salt evaporation vats, 9 buildings in four separate areas, as well as scattering 200 bushels of salt. Salt works at St. Joseph Bay and St Marks, to the East and West of Apalachicola respectively, were also destroyed.

Smaller raids and expeditions continued throughout the rest of 1863. At least one other salt works was destroyed and small quantities of cotton confiscated. Again, no loss of personnel was reported for either side. In May, 1864, the crew of the Confederate gunboat Chattahoochee, damaged the previous year by a boiler explosion at Blountstown Bar, descended the river to Apalachicola in small boats with a plan to raise the blockade.

The expedition met with failure for, betrayed by Apalachicola Unionists, caught in a storm on St. George Sound, and pursued by Union landing parties, they were barely able to escape back up the river. Activities for the remainder of this year and into 1865 were of a "see-saw" nature, with neither side obtaining an advantage.

Nothing took place which had any major effect on events in the Southern theatre of the war. As the war ended, a squadron of five Union vessels maintained the blockade. The city of Apalachicola was formally occupied by units of the 161st New York Vol. Infantry and 82nd United States Colored Infantry, commanded by Major General Alexander Asboth. The Union force assisted in the area's return to normalcy by collecting and restoring the aids to navigation on the river and in the bay.

The port of Apalachicola thus achieved renewed activity as a clearing house for cotton and other"booty," shipped from the river system to the Gulf. Opinions in Apalachicola were divided during the War Between the States. Dr. John Gorrie, an early pioneer in the artificial manufacture of ice, refrigeration and air conditioning, and a southerner, may have wanted some kind of liquidation of the institution of slavery similar to that which occurred throughout the British dominions in the 1830's.

Dr. Alvin Wentworth Chapman, the botanist and author of The Flora of the Southeastern United States. was a Union man and simply wanted the institution abolished.

Cypress
The decline of Apalachicola came about, not because of the American Civil War, but because of the railroads. As railroads re-routed trade east and west, the north and south river traffic declined.

As Savannah grew, Apalachicola declined. Although 133,079 bales of cotton were shipped in 1860 from Apalachicola, the decline was in evidence in the percentage of the upriver cotton crop shipped.

The destruction of Southern railroads during the war and the cypress milling boom of the 1880's were enough to keep steamboats on the river up through the 1927s. As the Apalachicola River could not float towing barges year around, the use of the river declined after that. In 1877, Oliver Hudson Kelley, founder in 1867 of the Patrons of Husbandry known as the National Grange, an economic, political, and social force among Midwest farmers, bought almost 2000 acres of land in Franklin County and started the community of Rio Carrabelle. Kelley, with this wife and four daughters, lived in his Island House hotel managed by his niece, Carolyn Arrabelle Hall, known as Carrie, for whom Carrabelle was named.

The Crooked River lighthouse is often called the Carrabelle lighthouse. The swamp area northwest of Carrabelle has the name Tate's Hell from a legendary, frightened, lost traveler of the 1880's, Cebe Tate. Charles M. Harrison opened a sawmill in the late 1860's.

Other mill owners, including Snow, Richards, and Harris followed. In the early 1870's, A B. Tripler founded the Pennsylvania Tie Company. Renamed the Cypress Lumber Company in 1882, it had headquarters in Maine and was directed locally by August S. Mohr. Its lumber mill operations in Apalachicola were to become the largest in the South. James N. Coombs from Maine, a Union veteran and a Republican, came to Apalachicola in 1876. Expanding his local store to include a sawmill, he went into association with Caleb Emlen from Chester, Pennsylvania, and established a lumbering partnership with Seth N. Kimball of Mobile.

Purchasing a lumbering operation in recently founded Carrabelle. he obtained another partner in Charles H. Parlin. Maine born Charles Parlin married Elizabeth Grady, daughter of a ship chandlery family in Apalachicola, and became owner of the Long Lumber Pine and Cypress Company. Moving his family 22 miles east to Carrabelle, Parlin managed his and Coombs' newly-acquired Franklin County Lumber Company. In Apalachicola, Coombs sold out to Kimball in 1888 and set up his own firm, Coombs and Company, acquiring single control of the Franklin County Lumber Company.

He had become the single most important business man in Franklin County's lumber industry. Henry Brash, who had come as a Jewish emigrant from Germany in 1865, entered, over time, the dry goods, lumber, real estate, and sponge trade and took over Harrison's mill. Brash later sold the mill to the Cypress Lumber Company.

Hewn logs were exported to Europe and South America, railroad ties to Mexico, and sawn pine lumber and shingles were sent north, while businesses in New Orleans were the major purchasers of cypress. From 1878 to 1888 lumber was shipped through West Pass. C. L. Storrs and R. F. Fowler operated a sawmill in Carrabelle, and by 1890, Carrabelle was also the center of an expanding naval stores industry. Family turpentine stills could be found about the county until the 1940 's .

Although there were exceptions, to teach a negro to read and write was either illegal or regarded as unhealthy throughout most of the South before the American Civil War. However, school work was successfully undertaken by some of the blacks with the help of several white children who attended schools training business clerks.

During and after Reconstruction, several black churches were established, and by 1880, the blacks ran a number of businesses, including the two leading hotels in Apalachicola, The Jenkins and The Fuller. A prominent African American of the Day was Emmanuel Smith, who served as Postmaster, leaving the position on his retirement to Dr. Chapman.

Eastpoint was established in 1898 as an experimental, cooperative colony by a Quaker family named Brown, as a result of a combined economic, religious, and political effort known as the Populists. They were joined by Henry Vrooman, a Congregational minister and Harvard graduate, and brother of the founder of Ruskin Hall (a workingman's college at Oxford University, England).

The John Gorrie bridge across Apalachicola Bay between Eastpoint and Apalachicola was completed in 1935, replacing a ferry service. By 1920, the great stands of slow-growing cypress that had sustained the area's lumber industry had become significantly depleted.

1528 The first recorded Spanish expedition passes through the area. The ill fated expedition of Panfilo de Narvaez. They recorded stopping at an Indian Village that may have been Tahiti Beach on St. Vincent's Island. The expedition had started from the Tampa Bay area and moved overland to an Indian village near present day St. Marks enroute to the Rio Grande in Texas. Here they decided to build boats in an effort to reach Mexico. Their situation was desperate, swords and armor were forged into saws and nails for the construction of their small boats. The details are sketchy as only four survived, one of them, de Vaca wrote the account of their eight year struggle to reach Mexico. Another survivor, a Moorish servant, started the fable of the "Seven Cities of Gold".
1683 On a map attributed to Alonso Solana, two Indian villages are located on the east bank of what appears to be the Carrabelle River. On his map he calls it Rio Chachave. The villages area assumed to be Tocobagas, who relocated here after a war with the Calosas in the Tampa Bay area.
1686 Juan Jordon de Reina mentions passing the mouths of three rivers before reaching the Apalachicola River. He was traveling from St. Marks to Pensacola.
1701 Father Antonio de Jesus of Pensacola landed on one of the islands off Carrabelle to take shelter from a storm. He was an investigator for the Inquisition.
During this period of time, mariners and travelers avoided the area. Spanish Slavers raided the coast for Indian slaves to replace those in Cuba who had died from disease and overwork. It is believed that pirates and smugglers were well aware of the area and the protection offered in St. Georges Sound. Dog Island and St. George Island were excellent staging areas for raids on the local ports. Pirates successfully raided San Marcos in 1677 and 1682, burning the fort, taking ships, and ransoming prisoners. The number of ships lost in this area will probably never be known. Pieces of old vessels continue to be found. Little is recorded of the Carrabelle River and the exploits of visitors to the area.
1776 The brigantine Tiger (Le Tigre) shipwrecked off of Dog Island during a winter storm on February 16th. Survivors eventually reached the swamp on the mainland near present day Carrabelle and began their trek slowly eastward toward Fort St. Marks. A best-selling narrative by survivor Pierre Viaud-Naufrage et Aventures de M. Pierre Viaud-shocked European audiences with its tales of disaster at sea, betrayal, death, murder, native savages, wild animals, cannibalism, and eventually, being rescued by the British soldiers garrisoned at St. Marks.
August 17-18, 1779 Apalachicola and the eastern Gulf of Mexico: The Spanish War Fleet, with 64 ships and 4000 men, under the command of Admiral Solano, set sail from Havana to attack the British base at Pensacola in an attempt to drive England out of the Gulf Coast. An intense hurricane crossed the Gulf directly into their path, destroying many of the ships and dispersing the others. The attack was canceled.
1799 H.M.S. Fox set sail from Nassau to the Apalachee region of Florida on September 4th, 1799. Caught in a storm very near its destination, the Fox ran aground in between St. George and Dog Islands, losing most of its cargo of supplies and munitions.
Early 1800's There were roving bands of Indians and sea captains avoided the uninhabited coasts, landing only when they had no other choice. Most people of the time had heard stories of the North Florida Wilderness that was full of bears, wolves, wildcats, deer and alligators. This became an area to be avoided. Sportsmen began coming from St. Marks to fish in the nearby New River and to hunt big game in the area that became known as Tates Hell Swamp. There was an old road that ran along the coast from St. Marks to the Apalachicola River.
1819, Spain ceded Florida to the United States in the Adams-Onis Treaty. The actual transfer did not occur until 1821.
October 18th 1823 , During his trip from Pensacola to St. Marks, Pensacola attorney John L. Williams encountered a hurricane. He and his party took shelter near the mouth of the Crooked River until the storm had passed. He met with Dr. William H. Simmons at St. Marks. Acting on authority from William P. Duval, the Florida Territory Governor, they selected the old Indian settlement at Tallahassee to be the territory capital.
1830's Dr. Alval W. Chapman settled in Apalachicola. He was a physician but his interest was botany and he earned a vast reputation for his work until his death in 1899.
1828 to 1831 Piled high with cargo (cotton bales), there were well over a hundred steamships on the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system. Apalachicola developed an extensive inland trade.
1837 The last Indians are removed from the Carrabelle area and Dog Island to be "moved" to Oklahoma. A large segment of St. George Island was breached by extreme surge/wave action. The "New Inlet" remained open until sediments closed it in the early 1900's.
1837 to 1850 The Port of Apalachicola is the third largest on the Gulf Coast after New Orleans and Mobile. Cotton was king and trade flourished. The waterfront in Apalachicola is a busy place with ships departing to points around the globe. Most ships took cotton to Europe.
1838 Dog Island Light was built on the western tip of Dog Island to mark the "middle entrance to St. George's Sound." The lighthouse was first lit in February 1839. This marked the first known permanent human habitation on the island.
1840 Apalachicola has a population of 1,562.
1842, October, a hurricane destroyed keeper Latham Babcock's dwelling and a portion of the Dog Island lighthouse. A temporary wooden tower was used until the brick tower could be repaired.
1845 Florida becomes a State.
1850 Apalachicola has a population of over 1,900.
1850 to 1860 the Port of Apalachicola declined in use. Many factors contributed to the decline in commerce. River conditions and railroads being the primary reasons.
1851 All of the coast south of Tallahassee was flooded with up to a 12 foot storm surge. The fort at St. Marks was completely destroyed as were three lighthouses nearby in Apalachicola. Dr. John Gorrie's ice machine was issued patent no. 8,080.
1852 A hurricane washed away railroad tracks and flooded much of what is now Wakulla, Franklin, and Gulf Counties.
1855 Early settlers near Carrabelle were carving small homesteads out of the virgin forests. Among the first was a family headed by McCagor Pickett.
1861 With the election of Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans, Florida is the third (3rd) State to secede.
1861-1865 Throughout the Civil War the Port of Apalachicola was blockaded by Union Warships. The blockade was largely ineffective at first, but with the arrival of shallow draft steamers, the blockade tightened. Capturing a blockade runner was not only their duty, it was profitable. The ship that captured the blockade runner sold the ship and cargo. The profits were divided among the crew. The Confederates and most of the population evacuated the town of Apalachicola leaving it open to Union occupation. The Confederate artillery was moved up river to Ricco's Bluff. The citizens of Apalachicola declined to take the a loyalty oath when offered by the Union Commander. The town was occupied by Union forces for about 36 hours. The town had been captured and abandoned at the same time. With Apalachicola neutralized, military action shifted upriver. During the Civil War the Crooked River area was defended by C. S. A. Captain H. T. Blocker of the Beauregard Rangers. Their Headquarters was located several miles away at Camp Gladden. The U.S. Gunboat Sagamore made several references to the location. The Gunboat was on Blockade Duty. There were two plantations two miles up the Crooked River. On May 20th a Union Cutter brought troops to the area. Captain Blocker had seen the Union Cutter and waited in ambush on Carr's Hill (now Coombs Hill). When they attacked, the Yankees jumped into the river, fled into the swamp or swam along side the cutter for protection. The Confederates killed or wounded 17 of the 21 men. Although the Yankees returned fire from their vessel, no one on the Confederate side was injured. The Confederates burned the stairway and damaged the lens in the Dog Island lighthouse to prevent its use as a lighthouse or lookout tower. Dog Island and St. Vincent Island were of strategic importance to the Union Navy during the Civil War, and they were used as staging points for the blockade of the Port of Apalachicola. On 20 February 1864, Union Forces were defeated by the Confederates at the Battle of Ocean Pond (called Olustee by the Union) near Lake City. Tallahassee was the only state capital not occupied by Union forces during the war.
1865 to 1866 Apalachicola was a broken and decaying town by the end of the war. Franklin County was occupied by Union Forces from Pensacola. The Eighty Second Colored Infantry was stationed in Apalachicola. The city made an easy transition to peacetime and began to prosper. In 1866 the city was again shipping cotton.
1868 St. Vincent Island was sold at public auction for $3,000 to George Hatch.
1869 The brief post war economic boom in Apalachicola is over. It is a time of hard work and little money for most of Franklin County.
1870 The beginning of the area's timber industry starts with several small lumber mills. The supply of timber seemed endless and the industry began to grow. The timber industry would be the mainstay of the area's economy for many decades.
1872 The Dog Island Lighthouse is destroyed by a hurricane. The United States Government did not replace it as there was no commerce in the area. The remains of the lighthouse should lie about 100 meters off the island.
1876 Geographic explorer Nathaniel H. Bishop navigated the Crooked River through a low pine savanna country to the Ochlockonee River. To him the entire region appeared destitute of the habitation of man.
1877 Oliver Hudson Kelly, from Massachusetts, came ashore with a few others. He founded the town and named it "Rio Carrabelle". There are many stories and legends about the exact source of the name Carrabelle. Kelly purchased 920 acres from Benjamin Curtis who also owned Dog Island.
1878 The first U.S. Post office is established and it's address was Rio Carrabelle.
February 1881, A steamboat is being built in Carrabelle to run a regular mail route between Carrabelle, St. Marks and Apalachicola. Her speed will be such that the trip from Carrabelle to Apalachicola should take a mere three hours.
September 1881 there are between 500 and 600 people in Carrabelle
1882, the town of Carrabelle is five years old and no longer called "The place at the mouth of the Carrabelle River." Plans are being made by the railroad to build a rail line to Carrabelle. The nearest saloon is in Apalachicola.
September 8th 1882 , The new town of Carrabelle experienced it's first hurricane. No lives were lost and no homes were destroyed. Most of the damage was to the two sawmills and about 1 million feet of lumber was strewn along the waterfront for some two miles.
1885 A tale that has been told for many years recounts how Tate's Hell Swamp got its name. Local legend has it that a farmer by the name of Cebe Tate, armed with only a shotgun and accompanied by his hunting dogs, journeyed into the swamp in search of a panther that was killing his livestock. Although there are several versions of this story, the most common describes Tate as being lost in the swamp for seven days and nights, bitten by a snake, and drinking from the murky waters to curb his thirst. Finally he came to a clearing near Carrabelle, living only long enough to murmur the words, "My name is Cebe Tate, and I just came from Hell!". Ever since, the area has been known as Tate's Hell, the legendary and forbidden swamp.
1887 Elizabeth Hatch, widow of George Hatch, sold St. Vincent Island to the former Confederate General Edward Alexander. First Carrabelle city map is drawn.
1890 United States Census reports that Carrabelle has 482 residents.
1891 The C. T.&G. Railroad was projected along a route extending from Carrabelle through Tallahassee north to the Florida-Georgia line. The railroad was incorporated on 5 January, 1891 with a capital stock of $1,000,000 and a land-grant of 206,370 acres. The company had 3 locomotives and 50 assorted cars. It was later sold and the name changed to the Georgia, Florida and Alabama Railroad.
1893, 11 May, Carrabelle becomes a city.
1895 The Crooked River Lighthouse was built to replace the Dog Island Lighthouse destroyed by a hurricane in 1872. The tower, two dwellings, oil house and other outbuildings cost $40,000 to build. The 103-foot tall square skeleton tower sits on the mainland at the mouth of the Crooked River in St. George Sound.
1898 A Post Office is opened in Eastpoint.
August 1, 1899 , A hurricane destroyed most of the homes in Carrabelle and claimed several lives. Only nine homes remained standing. Two hundred destitute families were left without shelter. The storm blew the C.T.&G. passenger train, near Lanark, more than a hundred yards from it's tracks. The docks and wharves in Carrabelle containing about 400,000 feet of lumber and 50,000 barrels of rosin were all swept away. 15 vessels were tossed high and dry on St. George and Dog Islands. Mast's from the wrecked vessels washed ashore all along the coast for years. A total of 40 cargo ships and sailing vessels in the area were destroyed by the hurricane. With telegraph lines down, a man was dispatched by horseback to Tallahassee with the news of the devastation of Carrabelle. The center of town was moved to it's present location.
1907 The Franklin Hotel was built.
1923 The sisters Annie Gibson Hayes and Mary Ellen "Sunshine" Gibson purchased the Franklin Hotel and changed the name to the Gibson Inn.
September 30 1929, A storm with 75 mph winds struck Carrabelle. No other reports available.
1930's The depression of the 1930's brought even leaner years for the city of Carrabelle. Money was in short supply. During this period Mrs. Cliff Miller, also known as Miss Tilly, moved to Carrabelle from Louisiana. She brought with her much-needed medical skills and a generosity to match. The Bridge over the Carrabelle River was named the Tilly Miller Bridge in her honor.
1933 The Crooked River Lighthouse is converted to an electric light.
1935 The John Gorrie Bridge is opened. The bridge linked Apalachicola and Eastpoint.
1939 A storm crossed the northern half of the Florida peninsula and briefly emerged in the NE Gulf of Mexico, just long enough to intensify into a Category 1 hurricane before coming ashore SW of Tallahassee, near Carrabelle.
1940 The new courthouse in Apalachicola opens. The seafood industry begins to flourish.
World War II German U Boats operated in the Gulf of Mexico near Franklin County in the early days of the war. Carrabelle was an important port for shipping of oil. The oil was shipped from Texas through the Intercoastal Waterway to Carrabelle and then through a pipeline to Jacksonville where it was loaded on ships for Europe. The pipeline began at what is now know as Three Rivers. Nearby Camp Carrabelle was renamed Camp Johnston in January of 1943 and trained thousands of soldiers for amphibious assaults. The history of Camp Gordon Johnston is a subject all it's own. Suffice to say it brought money and construction to Carrabelle which had been devastated by the depression of the 1930's.
2002 Like many cities along the Gulf Coast of Florida, Carrabelle is growing past the description of "a small fishing community" Progress is to be seen everywhere. As the population increases so does the demand for goods and services. The Southern charm is still found here along with the friendly smile. The Carrabelle River is still home to the Shrimping and Fishing industries. One can only hope that the pains of growth will not be felt worst by the industry that has kept Carrabelle alive for so many years!

Courthouse History

Franklin County, formed in 1832, honors Benjamin Franklin. The original county seat at St. Joseph (now in Gulf County) was destroyed by an earthquake. The seat is now Apalachicola, probably a Choctaw word (apalachi = allies). This scenic waterfront community was the home of Dr. John Gorrie, sometimes known as the "man who invented Florida." His actual invention, designed to comfort yellow fever patients, was a room cooling system - the forerunner of air conditioning. The community is today famed for the oysters which are farmed in great quantities in the surrounding waters.

The picture shown on the left is the Franklin County Courthouse built in 1892. It was located in Apalachicola at the site of the present day hospital. Torn down in 1957, this brick building was actually the county's second courthouse, the first having been destroyed by fire in 1887. The present day courthouse was built in 1939.

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Franklin County, Florida History, Records, Facts and Genealogy

Records at the Franklin County Courthouse

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Franklin County, Florida
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