(Monster Monday) Two-Toed Tom, Alligator Monster of FL & AL

Florida Indians Battle Monster Alligators
Two-Toed Tom is said to rival the size of these gators.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the monster story I posted here last Monday, so I thought we might make Monster Monday a regular feature for awhile.
Today we focus on Two-Toed Tom, the legendary red-eyed, demon-possessed alligator Monster of Northest Florida and South Alabama. The story has echoed through the swamps along the border for more than 100 years and is still well-known today.

The monster first came to prominence in South Alabama where he terrorized farm communities just north of the Florida line. Described as red-eyed and demon-possessed, he gained his unusual name after an attempt to capture him left him with only two toes on one foot.

Alligator in North Florida

Tom was shot, dynamited and otherwise attacked but could not be killed. He eventually tired of the constant battles in Alabama and moved across the line to Florida. He soon appeared in Sand Hammock Lake in the little town of Esto in Holmes County, Florida. After driving out the other bull alligators in the area, he turned his focus on people.

I had the unique opportunity in 1989 to interview one of the survivors of an authentic Two-Toed Tom attack. She then lived in a retirement home in Pensacola and had been attacked by the monster when she was a little girl some 70 years before.

Reptilian mile

She described how she had been walking with her mother along a sandy path near Sand Hammock Lake. When she skipped ahead in the playful manner of most kids, she suddenly heard her mother scream. Turning around to see what was wrong, she was stunned to see that the feared alligator monster had come out into the path between them. It stood up on its hind legs and roared at both of them.

Their screams soon attracted the men of the community, including one who showed up with a "war rifle" to shoot the monster. Blasted with the high-powered rifle, the monster fell still but as the men gathered around to inspect it, the beast suddenly reanimated and swept them all down with the fierce lashing of its tail and escaped back into the swamp.

This is just one of the stories that have grown up around Two-Toed Tom, who is said to still inhabit the swamps of Washington, Holmes and Walton Counties in Northwest Florida. If you would like to read more about him, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/alligator2.

Elijah Clark State Park - Lincolnton, Georgia

Elijah Clark State Park in Lincolnton, Georgia

Georgia's Elijah Clark State Park pays tribute to one of the most remarkable men in American history: General Elijah Clarke.
The famed frontiersman and soldier had just moved to the back country of Georgia when the American Revolution erupted in 1775. Over the years that followed he proved himself to be an extremely competent commander and took part in such battles as Kettle Creek, Augusta, Musgrove's Mill, Blackstock's and Fishdam Ford. He was wounded twice while fighting for the independence of the United States.

After the war, Clarke went on to become a successful politician before leading an effort to establish yet another independent country - the Trans-Oconee Republic - in the back country of Georgia. Unhappy with the progress of both the fledgling United States and his own State of Georgia, he decided just to build a country of his own!

Learn more about this remarkable man and the park that pays tribute to his legacy by visiting our new page at www.exploresouthernhistory.com/elijahclarke.

Bigfoot Attack in the Okefenokee in 1829?

Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia

It is a little known fact that one of the earliest written accounts of the creature we now call Bigfoot or Sasquatch actually originated from Georgia's Okefenokee Swamp, not from the Pacific Northwest.

The 1829 newspaper report tells of how giant footprints were found in the swamp, where Indian legend held a race of giants lived. After explorers found the footprints, a party of hunters worked its way into the Okefenokee hoping to find the man or animal responsible for the tracks. They got more than they bargained for, when the 13-foot tall creature charged their camp. A fierce battle ensued in which both men and the monster were killed.

Thick Growth in the Okefenokee Swamp

Is the story true?

That's an interesting question and one that is impossible to answer. The tale was widely reported in U.S. newspapers in February of 1829 and the correspondent emphasized that people living on the margins of the swamp in Ware County, Georgia, swore to its truth.

I've just added a new page on the 1829 incident to the main site at www.exploresouthernhistory.com. It includes numerous quotes from the original report on the Okefenokee Bigfoot Attack as well as detail on the legends of mysterious creatures in the swamp.

Please click here to access the story page: www.exploresouthernhistory.com/okefenokeebigfoot.

No Battle of Marianna Reenactment This Year in Florida

Battle of Marianna Reenactment, 2011
Courtesy Ashley Pollette

The Marianna Day Committee tells me there will not be a reenactment of the Battle of Marianna in Florida this year.

The small reenactment had been a feature of Marianna Day observances over the last few years, but was expensive to produce and difficult to coordinate. As a result, last year's event will be the last, at least for now.

Marianna Day, 2011
Courtesy Ashley Pollette

The Committee does plan to host other events to commemorate Marianna Day, which honors the anniversary of the 1864 battle. The William Henry Milton Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) will continue to hold its annual memorial ceremony at the Battle of Marianna Monument downtown, the Blue Springs Chapter of the Children of the American Revolution (CAR) will provide information on the numerous noteworthy people buried at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, scene of heavy fighting during the battle. The Committee will also announce other events over coming weeks to commemorate the anniversary of the battle.
Fought on September 27, 1864, the Battle of Marianna was a small but highly significant action. It took place at the culmination of the deepest penetration of Florida by Union troops during the entire War Between the States. On their way to and from Marianna, the Federal soldiers covered more land miles than did Sherman on his March to the Sea through Georgia.

To learn more about the Battle of Marianna, please visit www.battleofmarianna.com or consider my book, The Battle of Marianna, Florida (Expanded Edition). It is available in both print and Kindle editions by following the links below. You can also find it on iBooks.

Book:  The Battle of Marianna, Florida: Expanded Edition - $17.95
Kindle:  The Battle of Marianna, Florida - $9.95

Paddlewheel Steamboat Montgomery - Pickensville, Alabama

U.S. Snagboat Montgomery

Many residents living along the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers in Florida, Alabama and Georgia can still remember the days when the paddlewheel riverboat Montgomery used to churn its way up and down the waterway. The historic steamboat is now on permanent display in Pickensville, Alabama.

The historic snagboat was built in Charleston for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1926. For nearly sixty years it worked to keep the channels of a number of Southern rivers free from snags and debris. By the time the Montgomery was retired in 1982, it was one of the last original paddlewheel steamboats of its kind in the United States.

Pilot House of the Montgomery

In 1984, after its days of use as a snagboat were over, the Montgomery doubled as a Mississippi riverboat in the made for tv movie Louisiana. Starring Margot Kidder, that film ended with a steamboat race and a boiler "explosion" aboard the Montgomery.

Once its starring role was over, the steamboat was restored by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and placed on permanent display at the Tom Bevill Visitor Center in Pickensville, Alabama. It has since undergone a second restoration and been placed on display in a dry slip adjacent to the visitor center.

To learn more about the historic U.S. Snagboat Montgomery, please visit http://www.exploresouthernhisotry.com/montgomeryboat.

The Ozark Howler: Monster Cat in the Ozarks?

Ozarks of Arkansas

One of my favorite stories from my years of living in different parts of the South is the tale of the Ozark Howler in Arkansas. (It is also said to live in Missouri and Oklahoma, maybe even in Texas).
Now let me be clear from the start that this mysterious animal or beast or monster or whatever it is has been the focus of an incredibly large number of hoaxes and false reports. One hoaxer even admitted to a researcher that he spread as many false stories as he could to poke fun at the Chupacabra craze that swept through Texas a decade or so ago.

Small Waterfall in the Ozarks

That said, there are real stories from sincere eyewitnesses of a strange creature roaming through the Ozark Mountains. Its nightly cries are said to sound like a the screams of a woman.

I first heard reasonable eyewitnesses talk about the Arkansas Howler in 2004 when I was living in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Several people that I talked to who had seen or heard it or found its prints did not believe it to be a real "monster," but instead thought that a mountain lion or cougar was loose in the Boston Mountains that stretch between Fort Smith and Van Buren on the south and the booming Northwest Arkansas corridor.

Wildlife authorities maintained at that time that there were no native cougars left in Arkansas. Nevertheless, residents who lived in and along the fringes of the Boston Mountains, which are part of the Ozarks, were serious in their claims that a large animal was roaming their neighborhoods.



Cougar as seen in a USDA Photo

The most convincing evidence I saw during my time in Arkansas were photos from a trail cam belonging to a couple that lived north of Van Buren in Crawford County. The photos without doubt showed a large, tawny cat that looked just like a cougar to me. State wildlife officials did not dispute that it could be a big cat, they simply point out that there is no evidence of a breeding population of such animals in Arkansas.

Be that as it may, they do agree that there could be cougars or other large cats roaming the wild areas of the Ozarks, just believe that if they are there, they were someone's pets that either escaped or were released by their owners when they got too big and dangerous.

The Ozarks from White Rock Mountain

Now to be fair, other eyewitnesses claim to have seem something much more monstrous than a cougar in the hills and hollows of the Ozarks. Sightings ranging from a cat much bigger than a cougar to a cat-like monster with glowing eyes and horns growing from its head have been reported.

Whatever it is, and a recent investigation in Newton County, Arkansas, obtained plaster casts of what a biologist identified as possible Puma tracks (Puma is another name for a big cat like a cougar), the Ozark Howler is very much part of the modern folklore and tradition of the Ozarks.

To learn more, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/ozarkhowler.

Tennessee Williams Boyhood Home - Columbus, Mississippi

Tennessee Williams Birthplace & Boyhood Home
Columbus, Mississippi

The famed American writer Tennessee Williams was born in this Victorian home in Columbus, Mississippi. The house today serves as the city's official welcome center.

Tennessee Williams was born as Thomas Lanier Williams on October 26, 1911. His grandfather, Rev. Walter Dakin, was rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Columbus and his daughter and son-in-law were then living in the rectory as well. Thought to have been built in around 1875, the charming and colorful Victorian home served as home for the future playwright and writer for three years.

The Pulitzer Prize winning writer lived here for 3 years.

Adopting the name Tennessee, Williams of course went on to write two Pulitzer Prize winning plays, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "A Streetcar Named Desire." He noted in a letter to his grandfather once that much of his writing was based on Columbus, Mississippi. Scholars also agree that he relied heavily on his own family for the characters in his plays and books.

Columbus is unique in that it has had close associations with two Pulitzer Prize winners. Novelist Eudora Welty attended what is now Mississippi University for Women (lovingly called the "W") in Columbus. She received a Pulitzer in 1973 for The Optimist's Wife.

When the Tennessee Williams Birthplace was threatened with demolition in 1993, the community came together and the home was relocated to 300 Main Street in the city and beautifully restored to its 1911 appearance. It is now open to the public and has been designated a Literary Landmark by the Friends of Libraries, U.S.A.

To learn more, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/tennesseewilliams.

Stephen D. Lee Home & Museum - Columbus, Mississippi

Stephen D. Lee Home in Columbus, Mississippi

Stephen D. Lee was a remarkable soldier, political leader, preservationist and educator. At the age of thirty, he became the Confederacy's youngest lieutenant general. Wounded twice in combat, he fought on fields ranging from Second Manassas and Antietam to Tupelo and Nashville.
His home is a treasured museum today in Columbus, Mississippi. Inherited by his wife, the beautiful old brick residence was General Lee's home after the War Between the States (or Civil War) when he did some of his most noteworthy public service.



Lt. Gen. Stephen D. Lee, CSA

Born in Charleston in 1833, Stephen Dill Lee entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point when he was 17 years old. He graduated in the Class of 1854 alongside J.E.B. Stuart, G.W. Custiss Lee and John Pegram. An outstanding artilleryman who had served in the Third Seminole War, he resigned his commission and entered the service of the South after his home state of South Carolina seceded from the Union.

Serving in the East until 1863, Lee rose to the rank of Brigadier General while fighting with noted heroism at Malvern Hill, Second Manassas, Antietam (Sharpsburg) and Fredericksburg. Ordered to Mississippi to assist in the defense of Vickburg he was wounded at Champions Hill and was captured when Union forces took Vicksburg on July 3, 1863.

Stephen D. Lee Home & Museum

Exchanged after four months, he was promoted to major general and then to lieutenant general. In July 1864 he fought alongside Nathan Bedford Forrest at the Battle of Tupelo. He went on to serve under John Bell Hood in the Franklin and Nashville Campaign, during which he was wounded again while commanding a rear guard action during Hood's retreat out of Tennessee. He recovered in time to take part in the Carolinas campaign and was among the officers and men surrendered at Bennett Place in North Carolina.

Still in his early 30s when the war came to an end, Lee went on to serve his adopted state of Mississippi with great distinction. He was the first president of today's Mississippi State University, a leader in the effort to create Vicksburg National Military Park, a state legislator and the President of the Board of Trustees of the Mississippi Department of Archives & History. From 1904 until his death in 1908, he was national Commander of the United Confederate Veterans (UCV), of which today's Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is a successor. The Official Charge of the SCV is taken from one of his speeches.

To learn more, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/stephendlee.

Waverly - Mississippi's Haunted & Historic Mansion

Waverly Mansion

An architectural wonder, Waverly Mansion was once the center of a vast Mississippi cotton plantation. Still a private residence, the home is open to the public daily and is located between the Mississippi cities of Columbus and West Point.
Designed during the 1840s, the house took several years to construct and was finished in 1852. The octagonal cupola, its distinguishing architectural feature, offered Col. George Hampton Young a 360 degree view of his plantation and the surrounding countryside. It also was part of a unique 19th century "air conditioning" system.

The Gates of Waverly

The interior of the house is open from the cupola down to the ground floor and when the windows are open, it generates airflow that moves warmer air up and out of the cupola as cooler air flows in through the downstairs window. The resulting "breeze" helped cool the house during the hot Mississippi summer and was a remarkable innovation for its day.

Waverly also had interior lighting powered by gas manufactured on the grounds and then piped into the house. An exterior ice house was dug 20 feet deep and provided storage for blocks of ice brought in from Northern climes. The natural insulation provided by storing the ice so far underground helped keep it from melting for weeks at the time and allowed the residents and their guests to enjoy chilled beverages.

The home's original owner, Col. Young was a friend of Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest and the "Wizard of the Saddle" once spent three weeks at Waverly recuperating from battlefield wounds.

And then their are the ghosts! The 20th century restoration of Waverly apparently awakened quite a collection of them, ranging from a young girl who cries for her mother to a mysterious horse and rider that appear in the yard. Waverly is traditionally said to be one of the most haunted houses in the South.

To learn more, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/waverly.

The Battle of Kings Mountain - Blacksburg, South Carolina

Ferguson's Cairn (right) and the crest of Kings Mountain

Thomas Jefferson called the Battle of Kings Mountain the "turn of the tide of success" in the cause for American Independence.

Outraged by threats made against their lives, homes and families, a large force of "Overmountain Men" came across the Blue Ridge from Tennessee and trapped 1,100 British soldiers on the top of Kings Mountain in South Carolina. By the time the fighting was over, 225 British soldiers and Loyalist allies had been killed, 163 were wounded and 716 were prisoners of war.

Kings Mountain National Military Park

The bloody battle ended the threat of Major Patrick Ferguson and his Loyalist (Tory) Battalion to the Patriot settlers in the Carolina backcountry and the frontier families living across the mountains in what is now Tennessee. The disaster dealt to Ferguson's command also proved to the British commander, Lord Cornwallis, that he could not pacify South Carolina by force. He had hoped to suppress the Revolution there by forcing residents to either swear their loyalty to King George III or suffer the consequences.

Rocky Slopes of Kings Mountain

As Thomas Jefferson noted, the Battle of Kings Mountain was the first in a series of bloody disasters handed to Cornwallis and his army by Patriot forces in the South. It was followed three months later by Daniel Morgan's stunning victory over Banastre Tarleton at the Battle of Cowpens and a few months thereafter the bloodletting at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. Combined these battles put Cornwallis on the road to Yorktown, where he was trapped and defeated by George Washington.

The site of the battle is now preserved at Kings Mountain National Military Park near Blacksburg, South Carolina. The park features a paved interpretive trail that winds through key areas of the battlefield and across the crest of the mountain. It also has monuments, the stone cairn where Patrick Ferguson is buried and a recently remodeled museum that includes outstanding displays on the battle.

To learn more, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/KingsMountain1.

The Battle of Fowltown - Decatur County, Georgia

The exact site of Fowltown has never been identified.
Military reports placed it 3-4 miles south of modern Bainbridge.

Most people today associate the Seminole Wars of the 19th century with Florida, but the series of three conflicts actually began near what is now Bainbridge, Georgia.
On November 21 and 23, 1817, U.S. troops attacked the Lower Creek Indian village of Fowltown. Headed by Neamathla, a chief who would figure prominently in early Florida history, the town was located three or four miles south of the site where Bainbridge would later be established.

Neamathla

Neamathla was not a signer of the Treaty of Fort Jackson, which had ended the Creek War of 1813-1814. That treaty ceded most of what is now Southwest Georgia to the United States. Neamathla, however, lived on the land and refused to give it up. When Major David E. Twiggs, who commanded Fort Scott on the lower Flint River, told the chief that he and his people must move, Neamathla replied that the land was his and that he was "directed by the Powers above to defend it."

Gen. Edmund P. Gaines
(Late in Life)

To overcome the chief's determined resistance, Maj. Gen. Edmund P. Gaines ordered Major Twiggs and 250 men from Fort Scott to march on Fowltown and bring Neamathla back to the fort. The troops marched on November 20, 1817, and arrived outside the village before daylight the next morning.

Twiggs attempted to surround Fowltown in the darkness, but the movement of his troops was discovered. A party of warriors opened fire on the American lines as others helped get the women and children away to safety in the surrounding swamp. The U.S. troops responded with a single volley of fire, killing five of Neamathla's followers, one of them a woman. No U.S. casualties were suffered.

This first skirmish did not rise to the level of battle and the soldiers failed in their mission to capture Neamathla. Unwilling to let the matter end there, Gen. Gaines send a second force back to Fowltown two days later.

Lt. Col. Matthew Arbuckle

On the morning of November 23, 1817, a command of 300 soldiers from the 4th and 7th Infantry Regiments arrived at Fowltown under the command of Lt. Col. Matthew Arbuckle. The soldiers found the village abandoned and began to load corn from the Indian storehouses into a wagon they had brought along.

As this operation was underway, however, Neamathla and around 60 of his warriors suddenly emerged from the swamp that nearly surrounded the town and opened fire. The U.S. troops responded and this time a pitched encounter broke out.

Remembered today as the Battle of Fowltown, the firefight was the first battle of the Seminole Wars. You can learn more about it and what happened next by visiting www.exploresouthernhistory.com/fowltown.