1) Daniel Boone lived in Pensacola;
2) "Numerous visitors from English colonies to the north touted the Floridas for their natural beauty and abundance of plant and animal species. Notable was the thirty-five-year-old Quaker naturalist from Philadelphia, William Bertram, who toured the region in 1774 and published a glowing account of his travels that became an inspiration for later Romantic poets such as Wordsworth and Coleridge." (p. 44) That's right, Florida inspired high Romanticism.
3) From the first British governor of "East Florida": "There is not so gay a Town in America as this is at present, The People (are) Musick and Dancing mad.' During Grant's first year in office he and his houseguests consumed 236 gallons of rum, 216 gallons of wine, 1,200 bottles of claret, and 519 bottles of port. In May 1771 Grant sailed home to England, thoroughly pickled and gouty." (p. 49) Already, Spring Break was a thing.
You funny, Jones. I like "Musick and dancing mad" and "pickled and gouty"
ReplyDeleteFrom a craft perspective, I admire your use of the italic.
ReplyDeleteYes, Bertram's book is a classic. One of the best travel books. I've used it in classes. He actually offers one of the few accounts of the natural history of the area that became a kind of template on how to write about land and place and the sense of a place as a character. He had several encounters with Native Americans and he records objectively and empathetically his observations of their culture. Indeed, it was an inspiration to those poets as his sense of awe and emotion is honest and directed to precise observation of the land and its creatures. There is a scene of him escaping hundreds of alligators that is funny and terrifying.
ReplyDeleteI'm just about to crack into Bertram, an excerpt from a book on Florida writers (or writing specifically on Florida anyway). So far, the pieces I've read have been disappointing. Hopefully his will inspire.
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