The Aucilla Rivermen

View of the Pinhook River

John E. Ladson III and George M. Cole
Aucilla Research Institute

The lower Aucilla River and its neighboring region have attracted human occupation for thousands of years. Its beautiful, mysterious waters, extensive forests and abundant fish and game first beckoned Native Americans, followed by European incursion, and eventually sparse settlement after Florida was ceded to the United States in 1819. The Seminoles were pushed out by the 1840’s, but it is hardly an exaggeration to describe the area as a frontier wilderness at the eve of the twentieth century. Names like Chancy, Brown, Ward, Swift, Kinsey and Lewis speak to some of the early intrepid souls who penetrated this land and stayed. It was not easy living. However, with determination, good luck and the requisite skills one could support a wife and family through fortuitous and lean times. Indeed, the difficult times did arrive with regularity in the form of floods, storms and all manner of swamp pestilence.
Various forces pulled men to this raw, isolated sector, the common thread being a vision of improved quality of life or in some cases, escape from a life filled with trouble. Benjamin Lewis saw opportunity in the logging of cedar trees. Ace Brown may have sought refuge from the law in the most remote setting he could find. The Great Depression also impelled men into the region as the Timber Boom circa 1900 – 1940 offered jobs and housing. A considerable number were lured from South Georgia. Whatever drove their migration, the river’s ambience had power, and that power captured most of them and their descendants. The lumber industry moved on but the true rivermen endured largely through commercial fishing, hunting, guiding and free ranging livestock, primarily hogs. Some would also act as caretakers for absentee landowners. Prohibition supplied the impetus for moonshine, and the fading evidence of that livelihood can still be found today. When questioned about the prevalence of illegal whiskey production, a Nutall Rise resident was quoted as saying, “Things got so bad around here at one time people used to have to wear a badge to keep from selling moonshine to each other.” (Lem Hartsfield, Tallahassee Democrat, Dec. 6, 1970).
On the lower Aucilla, the Nutall Rise community became most closely associated with these men and their families. Julian H. Padgett, Sr. was one of the early residents who developed a café, rental housing and a guide service catering to sportsmen. Pinckney Hartsfield also operated a small restaurant for a while at Nutall Rise. His brother, Lem, was a well known guide for many years. Julian Padgett’s son, Draden, was a part-time guide and commercial fisherman as was Benjamin Lewis’ son, Cephas. Eph Williams, Jr. and sons, Bill and Lawton, Frank Gill, Lum Lewis and others are remembered as well. Their heyday spanned 1920 to 1970 with sons and grandsons like Draden Padgett, Jr., Bud and Billy Hartsfield on the scene toward the end. All these men had copious knowledge of the area’s wilderness, great hunting and fishing skills and the highly valued ability to navigate the treacherous Aucilla river channel. The older generation lacked much formal education but were extremely independent, self-reliant and ingenious. They preferred an existence immersed in nature and its attendant freedom. Aaron Brown and Lee Jackson were different characters with dissimilar backgrounds. Nonetheless, their stories provide a glimpse into a riverman’s life experience.
AARON BROWN - While the Aucilla River and nearby streams produced a number of interesting outdoorsman, circa 1890 to 1940, perhaps the most widely known was Aaron Brown (1898 – 1984). Aaron’s father, Asa, (a.k.a. “Ace”) migrated to Florida from West Georgia around 1879 according to an interview with Aaron published in the Magnolia Monthly in 1974. According to the article, Asa first settled along the Econfina River and later married Margaret Stanley. However, Aaron’s sister, Collie, passed on a richer version to her son, Richard Williams, which he relates in Wacissa Riverman by Annie L. Giles. Richard states that his grandfather, Ace Brown, had Creek Indian blood and was probably from Alabama. He further says that for reasons unknown Ace walked into church one day in Macon, Georgia and killed his uncle. As a fugitive he found his way to one of the wildest and most isolated areas in Old Middle Florida. Maybe living first on the Econfina, he met and married Margaret, then moved their homestead to the bank of the Pinhook River.
The Pinhook, a small, obscure and extremely beautiful stream, lies in close proximity to the mouth of the Aucilla and flows into Apalachee Bay. Richard’s account places the Ace Brown family on the Pinhook living in a small home with a roof of thatched palmetto fronds. Thus the reader is given a choice of which story to adopt in following Aaron’s early family history. Without question he was raised on Apalachee Bay and in the flat lands and swamps adjoining the Aucilla, Pinhook and Econfina Rivers. It is also evident his parents moved him and his siblings about the territory and periodically down to South Florida where they farmed vegetable crops in season. Aaron recalled seeing Haley’s Comet in 1910 during one of the South Florida trips. By age 14 he considered himself a commercial fisherman, and as he advanced into adulthood he also became a market hunter selling venison and other wild game. Like his father, Aaron seasonally traveled to South Florida to farm.
In appearance he stood about 5’8” in height with medium build, brown hair and blue eyes. He was personable, well liked and a gifted storyteller who could play a guitar. Somehow in his childhood he gained a little education through the third grade. Although he lived in a thinly populated area with highly limited accessibility, Aaron had a social life as illustrated by one of his favorite stories about the “Wacissa Frolic.” As a young man his portal to the outside world for trade and supplies lay up the Slave Canal connecting the Aucilla and Wacissa Rivers. Consequently, he would pole his wooden skiff up the Aucilla into the canal and on to the head of the Wacissa where there was a fish house and store. Along the way he would stop to visit with friends and offer to bring back essential items as needed. Sometimes his kindness was repaid by a jug of moonshine. On one of these trips, he heard some gossip at the Wacissa store about a “frolic” planned at the Storey home not far away. Looking for a little fun Aaron traveled to the house to join the Storey children while they partied during the absence of their parents who were on a trip to visit Georgia relatives. Somebody supplied the music and the parent’s scuppernong wine livened the event. Aaron was given a key to the smokehouse containing a barrel of the wine and was delegated the task of keeping a bucket full on the back porch where everyone drank liberally from the same dipper. Aaron said he danced until the girls had to put him to bed. After several days of this non-stop merriment the sunlight reached his bleary eyes one morning, and he knew it was time to leave because no one wanted to be around when the parents came home!
In 1928, he married Mary Lee Strickland from a clan with a long history along the Aucilla. Residing mostly in the vicinity of St. Marks, their union produced four girls and a boy. Aaron commercially fished in the Aucilla, Econfina, Pinhook, St. Marks and Wakulla Rivers while occasionally working on barges in the Gulf and farming as mentioned above.
Particularly in the days before mobile radios and cell phones, a commercial fisherman could get into serious trouble with weather or accidents. Aaron survived close calls with five hurricanes, but nearly died from a totally unexpected incident. Having a fondness for figs he would often pick some from an old tree near Mandalay and store them in a recycled cooking oil can to accompany him onto the Gulf flats. On one of his trips to net mullet he piloted his boat to the waters near Rock Island where there was a crude shelter encampment. Mullet were often netted at night given their inclination to jump when a powerful light was cast upon the water surface thereby making it easier to locate the schools. At some point Aaron took a break and consumed some of the figs. Shortly thereafter he became violently ill with severe pain in his stomach. Almost debilitated, he barely managed to reach the Rock Island shelter where he crawled onto a make shift bed. Alone in the dark and convinced he was about to die, he heard a boat in the distance. Draden Padgett, Sr. was fishing that night as well and recognized Aaron’s boat at the island. Soon Draden found him and realized he must have somehow been poisoned. Forcing his fingers down into Aaron’s throat he induced vomiting which saved his life. It is not known how the figs became contaminated. Maybe the tree had been “dusted” with an insecticide by someone without Aaron’s knowledge or perhaps he picked up the wrong storage can which had previously held some poisonous substance.
Trouble could come in other ways as well. Rivermen like Aaron came along in an era free of game and fish laws and other limiting regulations. They took whatever they needed to support their way of life and never saw significant population declines. As human pressure on the resource mounted and degradation of the environment progressed, the need for more stringent regulation and conservation became apparent. The transition was a stretch for men like Aaron and while some made the leap to compliance, others fell short. There were gray areas as well in some of the early code sections. It can be fairly said that for quite a long period game wardens were not warmly received at Nutall Rise and vicinity. According to a newspaper article in the Tallahassee Democrat, Joseph A. Brown and H. H. Strickland were arrested one cold day in February, 1947 for illegal net fishing in the mouth of the Aucilla River. An altercation ensued, and Strickland received a gunshot wound in his leg. He survived, a Taylor County jury acquitted the accused, and they subsequently filed legal action for assault against the two arresting wardens. The case was heard in Jefferson County where the charges were dismissed so all the participants in that debacle walked, or in Strickland’s case, maybe limped away.
Aaron would roam the local woods and waters well into the future. In 1953 he witnessed a plane crash on the flats near St. Marks. He and a Coast Guard officer were the first to reach the tragic scene, and he assisted in the recovery of the deceased pilot and his wife. Most of his outdoor adventures were more positive, and his name appears occasionally in the 1950’s sporting section of the Tallahassee Democrat mentioning large catches of speckled trout and red fish. After his wife, Mary, passed away in 1981, Aaron spent his final days with his son, Joe, who lived on the Aucilla near Mandalay. His passing in 1984 marked the loss of one of the region’s most engaging and knowledgeable rivermen.
LEE JACKSON - Vester Lee Jackson was born on a farm in rural Cobb County, Georgia, in 1902. His early years were undoubtedly hard and denied him any formal education such that he never learned to read or even write his name. As he approached adulthood in 1920, he was still at home with his family. But not long thereafter, he moved to Brooks County, Georgia just North of the Florida line where he married Verta Clyde Hamner circa 1927. Lee, Clyde and their two children primarily lived in Brooks County until 1940. During that period Lee worked as a farm laborer and probably as a tenant farmer later on. However, by 1942, they had relocated to Taylor County, Florida, residing at Nutall Rise while Lee worked for the Wilson Lumber Company. The area suited him well as he was accustomed to outdoor life and loved to hunt and fish. His labor took him into the area forests and swamps adjoining the Aucilla, Wacissa and other streams in the region. Soon he was familiar with all of them and could navigate the Aucilla and Gulf flats beyond its mouth.
In the meantime, J. E. Ladson, Sr. a Moultrie, Georgia, lumber company owner, acquired a large tract of land having considerable frontage along the Aucilla River and the Wacissa Slave Canal with its main entrance at Nutall Rise. Cephas Lewis managed the property in the early to mid-1950’s. He then moved on to pursue other opportunities. Circa 1956 Ladson hired Lee Jackson to oversee the tract, and he and his wife, Clyde, moved into the caretaker’s house near the Ladson cabin situated at the final rise of the river named for William Nuttall, an early and prominent Jefferson County plantation owner and entrepreneur. Lee’s duties included controlling trespass, guiding Ladson family members and their guests, maintaining the cabin, fences, gates and other rudimentary improvements, keeping the property’s crude road system cleared and running a series of hog pen traps. The latter provided a continuous income stream which was split 50-50 between Lee and Mr. Ladson, a.k.a. “Old Man J.E.”
In the meantime, J. E. Ladson, Sr. a Moultrie, Georgia lumber company owner, acquired a large tract of land having considerable frontage along the Aucilla River and the Wacissa Slave Canal with its main entrance at Nutall Rise. Cephas Lewis managed the property in the early to mid-1950’s. He then moved on to pursue other opportunities. Circa 1956 Ladson hired Lee Jackson to oversee the tract. He and his wife, Clyde, moved into the caretaker’s house near the Ladson cabin situated at the final rise of the river named for William Nuttall, an early and prominent Jefferson County plantation owner and entrepreneur . Lee’s duties included controlling trespass, guiding Ladson family members and their guests, maintaining the cabin, fences, gates and other rudimentary improvements, keeping the property’s crude road system cleared and running a series of hog pen traps. The latter provided a continuous income stream which was split 50-50 between Lee and Mr. Ladson, a.k.a. “Old Man J.E.”
Various members of the Ladson family would spend time on the place hunting and fishing. Included among them were some of J. E.’s grandsons. One of them in particular, a ten year old boy found Lee Jackson a most interesting character. In his mid fifties Lee was 6’2” tall, long in stature with a slender lithe build, bald, gray-eyed, “long in the tooth” and whose countenance somehow reminded the boy of a horse. Always clad in blue overalls and frequently wearing a red leather baseball style cap, he was an imposing figure moving through the woods in his brogans or boots. Although suffering from a chronic respiratory problem he remained a strong, tough man who could still wrestle a wild hog out of a trap (they were sold live), and paddle a 14’ cypress fishing boat all day long with ease. He possessed remarkable skill with both rod and gun and as a boatman, all of which attracted the Ladson boy who frequently sought his company. In the opinion of many who knew him, Lee was considered a bit ornery and taciturn. Defensive might be a better description, and perhaps this was rooted in his lack of education and trouble with those who used that to his disadvantage. Nonetheless, he was the same man who brought Spring wild flowers, gathered in the swamp to his wife Clyde and who occasionally exhibited a sense of humor, often mischievous. He also had the sensitivity to recognize a boy who admired him and was eager to enter his world and learn. During the boy’s periodic family trips to Nutall Rise, Lee would find time to spend with him. Noting his interest in firearms he would take the boy into his house and show him his most cherished possessions, a Browning Auto Five, 12 gauge shotgun, a lever action Model 1894 Winchester rifle in .25-.35 caliber, a Browning Semi-Automatic .22 rifle and a .32 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver he often carried. The little Browning .22 was his favorite, and his accuracy with it was widely praised. He loved to squirrel hunt with the Browning rifle and his small Feist dog. The .25-.35 Winchester had the ability to deeply penetrate water with special metal cased bullets which Lee used to shoot large fish and alligators. The boy was learning to shoot his Remington bolt action .22 rifle so to provide some practice, Lee took him to “Skimmy Sink” one afternoon and hoisted him onto the top of a large, old cross cut sawed cypress stump at the edge of the sink. He handed the boy his rifle and a box of ammunition with instructions to shoot every garfish he saw. The sink was full of very large gars marauding about just under the surface, and every time the boy fired they would roll as though hit. Quickly exhausting his cartridges the boy proclaimed this foray the most fun ever, claiming to have killed 32 of the toothy predators. Subsequent examination of the sink by Lee did not reveal any casualties, a fact never revealed to the boy whose marksmanship he consistently extolled. He also passed along tips on how to catch bass and bream in the dark tannic waters of the Aucilla and the many sinkholes on the property including which lures to use and their best colors. He gave him a homemade bass lure he often deployed in the Slave Canal to land bass weighing 8 to 10 pounds. It was made from a “meat skin”, as Lee called it, with two sets of treble hooks. Modern fisherman would refer to it as a pork rind lure. Whatever, it was deadly when worked off Jackson’s bait casting reel and rod.
Accompanying Lee onto the Gulf flats was also an exciting time. The boy learned to drift fish using a long, sturdy cane pole with a short line and cut shiner (pinfish) bait. Lee showed him how to slap the water’s surface with his pole to simulate a baitfish strike and attract the attention of speckled trout hiding in the grass on the ocean floor. Perhaps the most memorable day was an afternoon spent bream fishing on the tract’s “Little River” section of the Aucilla. The boy had never heard anyone who could whistle like Lee Jackson. It was strong and clear and featured old tunes like those by Stephen Foster. “Beautiful Dreamer” was a favorite which, along with others, created a serene experience as Lee quietly paddled his boat and cast a small rubber “Schumann’s” bug toward the banks and under the overhanging vegetation. The rhythmic whistling seemed to aid Lee’s respiratory system which labored from what was probably Mesothelioma, a condition caused by exposure to asbestos he may have encountered while working in the Jacksonville shipyards during World War II. His whistling must have appealed to the fish as well because the boy watched him pull in numerous large, beautiful redbreasts. After a while he put his makeshift fly rod, consisting of a collapsible fiberglass pole and fly line, into the boy’s hands, and following a little instruction, told him to cast it, knowing that he would frequently hang the line on every limb and vine in its path of travel. The result confirmed his expectations but he patiently endured the learning experience. When the boy tired, he summoned him to his side on the rear seat adjacent to the transom mounted 10 horse power Evinrude outboard motor. After discussing the motor’s controls and how to crank it, the boy was thrilled to run the boat down river and back to the landing under Lee’s guidance.
The Jacksons remained on the Ladson place until around 1965-66. They kept a small garden behind the caretaker cottage and enjoyed their life on the river. Grown children and grandchildren would visit during special occasions. Lee had ample time to fish, hunt and ramble out to the flats. While he knew the Aucilla’s hazardous channel, even a proficient riverman could make a mistake if distracted on a very low tide. One Fall afternoon returning from the Gulf, he hit a rock pile badly damaging the foot of his motor. As to the rocks, when teased by a neighbor, he just grunted “they move.” Sadly, it all came to an unpleasant end in a dispute with old man, J. E. The circumstances have never been clear but it is believed the misunderstanding was centered in the wild hog business. Both men had stubborn egos and strong personalities. As a result, the Jacksons moved a short distance down the river to property owned by Dr. and Mrs. Bill Bippus for a while before finally returning to Brooks County.
The boy greatly missed his mentor but by chance encounter during his college years in the Summer of 1967 they would meet for a last time. Fishing with a friend on the Slave Canal he heard the unique sound of Lee Jackson whistling, then saw him approaching in his boat casting his “fly rod.” Although it had been several years, Lee recognized the boy, and they paddled their boats to a quiet rendezvous where they talked for a while. The boy remarked on the odd absence of water moccasins in the Canal. Lee chuckled and said, “That’s cause I’ve killed ‘em all.” He further mentioned he had been diagnosed with cancer but was getting along reasonably well with his treatments. Observing the boys’ fly rods he imparted some advice on how and where to fish and took a close look at the popping bugs they were casting. Taking one of their small lures in hand he reached in his tackle box and pulled out a diminutive hook. He then ran the barb of the hook on the boys’ lure through the eyelet of his tiny hook so as to create a trail hook which would make the little rig more effective. To keep the trail hook in place he forced the barb on the lure through a fish scale. It was an ingenuous arrangement and typical of the many “trade secrets” possessed by an Aucilla riverman. Lee survived until 1979 and was buried in Brooks County. His wife Clyde was burried next to him after her death in 2003 at age 94.
The era of the old line Aucilla rivermen has long since passed. The forces that shaped them and the environment in which they flourished no longer exist. Their ingenuity, self-reliance and independent spirit were not far removed from the pioneers of the American wilderness. They linger on in the memories of those who knew them and pass on the stories of their arduous but colorful lives.

The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Mary Lou Bennett, local historian and daughter of Cephas Lewis, who provided some of the material and photos utilized in this article.