Carol McClain

Florida Fandango: Okefenokee Pt. 2

     We continued our search for alligators along the car route and were rewarded with three juveniles swimming in a little pond as well as a young one sunning himself with head resting on a log. But our main objective was to see the Chesser Island Homestead.

     If you ever heard of this place, you would have read a much copied, word for word version of the settlement of Chesser Island. (Has anyone ever heard of plagiarism?) Our boat guide told us another tale.

     W.T. Chesser shot a man in a brawl. He did not want to go to jail, so he fled to the swamps and built his homestead. Forty years later he discovered a judge ruled the shooting a justifiable homicide. Therefore, W.T. essentially jailed himself for forty years in a mosquito plagued swamp known as “Trembling Earth” or the Okefenokee.

     This begs the question: Isn’t it better to admit our failings and accept the consequences? Although the homestead is charming, I’ve been in enough swamps to know there’s a reason people don’t settle in these places.

     And an aside that has nothing to do with history, the water pump to the left intrigued Callen and the rest of the Swamp Monkeys. They all drank from it until the water ran green. At that point we all agreed, perhaps we shouldn’t drink the water.