The guest from the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville sat in our living room. He told the story slowly and with care. Our mother’s interest in regional history stemmed from her childhood and her native Palatka. It had been piqued months earlier when she stood arms akimbo at the edge of a large land-clearing project south of Corona Road, adjacent to the old Innlet, in 1972.
She had invited the speaker from her alma mater to visit with a subcommittee of the Ponte Vedra Palm Valley Garden Club on the subject of “What Was Here Before We Were Here.” It was a casual get-together. Alice Landrum from next door was there, and Sid Mickler from Our Lady Star of the Sea was there. He had graciously accepted her invitation after daily Mass one day and was always eager to talk about Palm Valley. It was a true Ponte Vedra-style luncheon: informative, enlightening and educational.
The conversation turned to the Canal, the Intracoastal Waterway dredged through Palm Valley in 1908, effectively cutting the heart of Diego Plains in two. It was part of the Florida East Coast Canal project to connect isolated northern and southern rivers and to make local transportation, logging and farming viable.
The earliest canal, Mr. Mickler explained, was a private enterprise, a channel measuring 50 feet wide and about five feet deep, half a dozen feet in spots. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would eventually take over and widen and deepen the project, but the ditch physically cut the historic community in half. As kids, we learned this from Mrs. Metz at Ponte Vedra/Palm Valley Elementary School. Mrs. Landrum filled in additional details, and the guest from Gainesville listened and took notes.
Mrs. Landrum and Mr. Mickler described a sprawling territory west of stretching from the beach inland and deep into Durbin Swamp. That western edge was a freshwater wetland and part of a floodplain system running along Durbin Creek and influenced by the St. Johns River. It was defined by scale. Tens of thousands of acres. Ol’ Florida Floridians understand acreage. Our great-great-grandfather, John King, lost 40,000 acres of cypress swampland somewhere south of Palatka in a card game in the 1890s. He had won the acreage in a similar game a week earlier; in the end it balanced out, with only slips of paper changing hands. Who would want to manage 40,000 acres of wet Florida peat-bog swamp and sunken-lake quicksand anyway?
Our mother knew a thing or two about growing up with stories of swamps and perceived land value in North-Central Florida. Her grandfather, W. A. King, and his wife, Gussie, kept the books through the Panic of 1910-11, and W. A. was a former chairman of the Putnam Board of County Commissioners, long active in political and business circles in the city and county. He was a director of the Peoples Loan and Savings Bank and played an important role in getting the State Farmers’ Market built in East Palatka, serving as a director of the market until his health caused his retirement. Genealogy always helps put family lore in context.
Today, the most protected and pristine core of historic Durbin Swamp lies within the Julington-Durbin Creek Preserve, with the main trailhead at 13130 Bartram Park Blvd. in Jacksonville. The remaining wetlands of eastern Durbin Swamp sit directly west-northwest of the Palm Valley Bridge and due west of the historic Willacoochee Landing.
The story continued to unfold. Before Spanish explorers arrived and founded St. Augustine in 1565, the entire First Coast region was inhabited by the Timucua. The local tidal and inland waterways defined a distinct Timucua-speaking chiefdom known as Mocama. The name translates directly to “The Sea.” Archaeological evidence in the region dates to around 2500 B.C.
The Mocama were hunters and fishermen. In the last century or so before the Spanish arrived, they also farmed maize, beans and squash. They engineered large, woven-framed fences called “fish weirs” across local creeks to trap fish.
Sid Mickler told the story of an old Spanish dam said to lie beneath the mud at the eastern end of Neck Road. He had held a piece in his hands before returning it to the place he found it. It’s still there, chest-deep underwater.
Because of their heavy reliance on shellfish, the Mocama left behind shell middens and mounds. As kids, on Boy Scout Troop 277 camping trips to the McCormick Ranch and the Lodge at the end of Neck Road, we were told to “stay away from the mounds.”
The guest from Gainesville explained that the Mocama crafted large dugout canoes from single cypress trees and had long used the creeks and swamps. Centuries before the Spanish, an exchange network in the region reached as far west as the Mississippi Valley.
Following Spanish colonization, the modern Palm Valley area transformed from a dense wilderness of Timucua villages into an established buffer zone in defense of St. Augustine. The Spanish crown began granting land, and the valley emerged as a northern outpost of a ranching network stretching toward present-day Gainesville. The valley sat on the northern edge of that network, running west-southwest, with cattle on the open plain.
Don Diego de Espinosa established his ranch in the heart of the valley, only a short distance from where the canal cuts through it. The site had long been favored by the Mocama, generations before he arrived. Few of the earliest settlers in the New World ever cleared pioneer settlements directly from dense wilderness or cut initial routes through thick, nest-like undergrowth. If the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail teaches us anything, it is that long-established indigenous roads and routes were followed and enhanced by pioneers and settlers. In other words, the electricity of discovery follows the path of least resistance. “What was here before we were here?”
When Spain ceded Florida to the United States in 1821, the military significance of Diego Plains faded. American pioneers began moving into the region, and the rest is history. The entire area would make a fascinating case study for proponents of the National Heritage Area Act, if it hasn’t already. Federally designated National Heritage Areas, administered by the Department of the Interior, are tools in a community toolbox. They were not available in 1972, but they exist today. The right tool for the right job makes all the difference in the world.
Alice, Sid, and the guest from Gainesville paused their stories as sandwiches were brought out from the kitchen. Nothing was catered, per se; ice for drinks had been donated by the Ponte Vedra Club. It was just lunch. Our living room at 556 Ponte Vedra Blvd. rarely sat more than nine. As kids listening, we could only dream of what it must have been like in the age of discovery. If archaeological research dates human habitation in the area to at least 2500 B.C., protecting and preserving take on increased significance once the real story gets out. And everyone loves a good story. Thank you, Alice. Thank you, Sid. So many miss you in this smartly casual place of all places, Ponte Vedra Beach.
Jackie Wilkinson’s Fruited Chicken Salad
3 cups cooked chicken, cut in thin strips
1 cup seedless green grapes
½ cup slivered toasted almonds
1½ cups diced celery
¾ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon white pepper
Combine the ingredients in a large bowl. Toss lightly and chill.
For the dressing, blend together:
¾ cup mayonnaise
½ teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon grated lime rind
2 tablespoons lime juice
Pour the dressing over the chicken and toss. Garnish with navel orange sections (two oranges), 6-9 slices of canned pineapple, and watercress. Serves 6-9.
