Lee’s Reviews > Tales of Old Florida > Status Update

The essay A Visit to Death Lake Florida is about a lieutenant stationed at Fort Barrancas during malaria season who takes a day trip in search of fresh fish. An “old” man takes him to Death Lake which was apparently really a sinkhole opening to one of the underground caverns often found in the limestone aquifer. I can’t, however, find any Death Lake on any map.

I was enjoying the descriptive essay An Easter Outing in Florida, all about an aging Major and his orange grove plantation near Ocala in 1901, when the story took a wrong turn. The Major and his guest began discussing how the freedmen who worked his farm were inferior and unable to be educated. Apparently unaware that 400 miles north Tuskegee Institute had been successfully educating for 20 years.

I am skipping completely the essay on Turtling in Florida!

Reading this concurrently (and slowly) with Booker T Washington’s Up From Slavery and realizing the stories of Old Florida were written at the same time period but so distant from each other not only in physical miles but in attitude and situation. TofOF is essays by extremely wealthy white northern men spending leisure time in exotic locales. UfromS is thankful for each penny and kind word.