florida crackers gold coins

[BuckleBoy]

Shortstack

Yep. You two. Bedfellows.

 

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[Shortstack]

Item 1: Sounds like there could be very good chances of finding a gold coin along some of those cattle trails in Florida. If a cowboy DIDN'T spend all of his money in the saloons, he might have lost his last coin out of his pocket while sleeping on the ground on the trail. Or lost it through a hole in his pocket while riding back home along the same trail.

Item 2: Not too many people know that some of the largest cattle ranches in the country were in Florida and today are in Hawaii.

Item 3: Mules are considered stubborn because they are usually smarter than the human driver. They will stop on the trail if they sense a problem and wait for the human to realize the problem and correct it. Where a horse will stumble on and get screwed up. LOL

Item 4: It's the "time of the tides" for Buckleboy.

 

[chkn]

You sure might want to track down some of the old family homesteads and do some detecting if you can.

 

[chkn]

Say, by the way, I think some of the Spanish (in my distant tree) started out there before settling up in Virginia. Did your Great Uncle say where these coins came from specifically?

 

[cpt scuba]

the coins my great uncle had were from his grand father how sold cattle at punta rassa one of the coins had been carried in his and his fathers pocket so long all most all the marking were worn off the other 2 coins he showed me from his dresser looked lik new ... the big question is where is the most likely place a cracker cow hunter might loose a coin or 2 .. i was thinking about the caloosahatchee river crossing they used near alva fl .. or the docks in punta rassa.. theres a condo built on one site now ..i can get permission to search several old homesteads ... just waiting on cooler wheather.. any one want to meet up and look

 

[sphillips]

The cows were marched to Punta Rass, then shipped to Cuba, who paid for the cows with doubloons.

 

[diggummup]

The alternate reference to "crackers" stemmed from a very distasteful thing done with a piece of rope with a large knot tied in the end. Set fire to that knot, let it burn for a minute, then extinguish it and you had a poorman's (read that dumba$$'s) mace. Swing that thing at someone's head and....................well, that's another version of who and what a "cracker" was.

I guess you learn something new everyday. I've heard the word cracker used and described in many ways both derogatory and as a sense of pride but i've never heard this one before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_cracker


As for any florida cracker caches, their is one story that is well heard of that I know about. Whether it's true is a different story. The mans name was Redding B Parker. He lived in Polk County until 1879. During the 1870's he raised cattle in the Kissimmee River Valley. In 1878, after the great hurricane he found most of his cattle were located east of the Kissimmee River. In 1879 he built a permanent residence on the Norwest corner of Lake Marian. He was known to have large amounts of cash at the ranch. It was hidden in several different places. Story goes; Parker's major cache was a large trunk full of valuables buried somewhere near his house that he had been adding to each year. He died Feb 18, 1891, in Osceola Co., after suffering from Bright's disease for several years. His hiding places died with him. Someone named Kyle Landingson supposedly found a small cache of gold and silver coins which Parker had buried near his ranch house. A few years later, another small amount of coins were supposedly found, but as far as it is known, the trunk has never been found.

 

[cpt scuba]

so who wants to get together this october .. any one near sebring or wauchula .. arcaidia

 

[ffej]

so who wants to get together this october .. any one near sebring or wauchula .. arcaidia

Not to outdo you I'm 7th Gen ( 9th ) if you count the grandkids.... Right on about the Florida Crackers and the cattle drive.... funny how this was on Rush Limbaugh the other day ( where the name Florida Crackers came from )..... I live near you and probabley know some of the same people.... I'm sending you a PM...ffej

 

[DOCC77]

Another place that was along that trail in those days was a city called PINE LEVEL It was the county seat and has a very long "wild History". Ive spoken with some real OLD timers in that area and researched it and found out that it during those times 1800's the town was just as rough as "TOMBSTONE".I visited there to look things over about a year ago.The Hanging tree had been knocked over by a hurricane but never cut up.It was right outside the courthouse.This town was on the route to Punta Rassa....just my two cents.

 

[Shortstack]

The alternate reference to "crackers" stemmed from a very distasteful thing done with a piece of rope with a large knot tied in the end. Set fire to that knot, let it burn for a minute, then extinguish it and you had a poorman's (read that dumba$$'s) mace. Swing that thing at someone's head and....................well, that's another version of who and what a "cracker" was.

I guess you learn something new everyday. I've heard the word cracker used and described in many ways both derogatory and as a sense of pride but i've never heard this one before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_cracker


As for any florida cracker caches, their is one story that is well heard of that I know about. Whether it's true is a different story. The mans name was Redding B Parker. He lived in Polk County until 1879. During the 1870's he raised cattle in the Kissimmee River Valley. In 1878, after the great hurricane he found most of his cattle were located east of the Kissimmee River. In 1879 he built a permanent residence on the Norwest corner of Lake Marian. He was known to have large amounts of cash at the ranch. It was hidden in several different places. Story goes; Parker's major cache was a large trunk full of valuables buried somewhere near his house that he had been adding to each year. He died Feb 18, 1891, in Osceola Co., after suffering from Bright's disease for several years. His hiding places died with him. Someone named Kyle Landingson supposedly found a small cache of gold and silver coins which Parker had buried near his ranch house. A few years later, another small amount of coins were supposedly found, but as far as it is known, the trunk has never been found.

I heard this definition of "cracker" was supposedly associated with Georgia. Someone told me about this many, many years ago. I'm not from Georgia, but it stuck with me in memory.

 

[diggummup]

The alternate reference to "crackers" stemmed from a very distasteful thing done with a piece of rope with a large knot tied in the end. Set fire to that knot, let it burn for a minute, then extinguish it and you had a poorman's (read that dumba$$'s) mace. Swing that thing at someone's head and....................well, that's another version of who and what a "cracker" was.

I guess you learn something new everyday. I've heard the word cracker used and described in many ways both derogatory and as a sense of pride but i've never heard this one before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_cracker


As for any florida cracker caches, their is one story that is well heard of that I know about. Whether it's true is a different story. The mans name was Redding B Parker. He lived in Polk County until 1879. During the 1870's he raised cattle in the Kissimmee River Valley. In 1878, after the great hurricane he found most of his cattle were located east of the Kissimmee River. In 1879 he built a permanent residence on the Norwest corner of Lake Marian. He was known to have large amounts of cash at the ranch. It was hidden in several different places. Story goes; Parker's major cache was a large trunk full of valuables buried somewhere near his house that he had been adding to each year. He died Feb 18, 1891, in Osceola Co., after suffering from Bright's disease for several years. His hiding places died with him. Someone named Kyle Landingson supposedly found a small cache of gold and silver coins which Parker had buried near his ranch house. A few years later, another small amount of coins were supposedly found, but as far as it is known, the trunk has never been found.

I heard this definition of "cracker" was supposedly associated with Georgia. Someone told me about this many, many years ago. I'm not from Georgia, but it stuck with me in memory.

Their are many definitions to the word "cracker" and a Georgia cracker is one of them. The word has been used to describe a "type" of person for hundreds of years, even Shakespeare used it in one of his plays. However the title of this thread is "Florida Crackers Gold Coins", not Georgia cracker or white cracker or whip cracker so.... as it applies to the subject at hand...................


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_(pejorative)

 

[cpt scuba]

yea pine level had a large hotel and saloon .. all made of wood like to many fla towns .. and all has long since burned down or rotted a way .. also all the old train stations can still be found most along us 17 ... SWR and jeff .. lets set a time for this oct .. or nov

 

[Jon Phillips]

You guys don't know how right you are!

I had this theory that there are isolated gold coins, as well as caches, all over the Fort Meade/Bowling Green areas after reading "Fort Meade 1849-1900" and "Florida's Peace River Frontier" by Canter brown, Jr., and "Edge of Wilderness" by Janet Snyder Matthews.

It seems that the cattle industry was extremely profitable after the Civil War, and these weren't the typical, "old west" type of towns....so there wasn't a whole lot to spend the money on other than more land and cattle. There was a large population of English settlers, and some large hotels and mercantile stores...as well as a jockey club, and horse racing.

The Fort Meade area was set back by floods, fires, and the late-arriving railroad, that still ended too far out of town, but they did have the telegraph from Lake City to Punta Rassa in 1867.

According to most accounts, they were quite casual with their gold...and they were paid with Spanish gold from Cuba.

I was in the Fort Meade area at the end of this winter detecting on the land of a business associate. He has property that borders a very old post office, with some homes around it. Unfortunately...a LOT of the land in that area has been totally ravaged by the phosphate industry....even if it looks promissing, it is apparent, soon enough, that it is reclaimed land with no signals other than Coke cans, and fence wire.

As we were talking to his tennants to let them know what we were doing there, and make sure we weren't going to be in their way (or get locked up in the gate!), one of them related a story to us....totally on his own with no prodding from us....about a relative (or friend...I can't remember) of theirs that got permission to detect on a local homeowners land that was the site of one of the old homesteads, and they found a spanish gold coin about the size of a half dollar! I don't know if it was that big or not, but I bet it looked that big to the guy anyway! They showed it to the homeowners and were allowed to keep it, but promptly asked to leave, and told "If I had of known you would find something like that, I would have never let you out there." Typical response of some people unfortunately...

The guy was in a hurry, and I wasn't able to pick him for more info...but I plan to go back, and try to get more details. It did confirm my theory that they are out there from Bartow, all the way down to the gulf! It's just as easy to drop a gold coin as it is a clad!

The fact that the guy said "spanish" gold....instantly set off bells in my head! It ran the moths out of there!

 

[centfladigger]

captscuba, I too have done some searching as to what your talking about years ago. I am a 5th gen Floridian and my ancestor had a fort on the east coast, Ft Capron, I`m Capron. There was a Capron Trail that went from Ft. Brooke inTampa to Ft Capron just above Ft Pierce, the trail was for the settlers to travel on with some military escort across the state.

Im in Plant City and found some old homesteads from the 1800`s just south of me but they have been leveled and cleared and now mined by the phosphate industry. Found a turn of the century house way. out in the woods and behind it was an even older log home, there was a clay lined well and all, an old fallen in barn and some other structures inthe scrub. I moade a note to come back and explore and when I did I found it all cleared. there was another house they just took away near Ft green, cracker house, state took it to rebuild for some display. I love florida history and would love to get with ya on it. Its something that has slowely died, I am all the time getting asked if I`m from Ga. or Tn I always ask why and they say its my southern accent, tell nope from Plant City

A friend here intown bought some property on the north side and when the cleared the old barn found some jars that were sealed and they were stuffed with confederaqe currency, so there is still stuff being found here but its usually construction/destruction that uncovers it

 

[cpt scuba]

sounds good guys .. met jeff the other day .. he stoped by my sears store in wauchula ..if you guys get by that way stop ..,maybe we can all get togeter for a bar b q ..and shoot the breeze about lost cracker gold

 

[colorado14ers]

ok here are what facts i know between 1845 and 1860 ..and after the civil war florida cow hunters as they were called rounded up cattle and drove them to punta rassa and tampa for shipment to cuba then a colony of spain .. they were paid in spanish gold and silver coin .. when i was a child of ten my great uncle showed me several coins given to him by his father he was 82 at the time and i was 10 ..it was 1970 .. i spent summers at my grandmothers farm in ft meade .. so what are the chances a least a few of these coins were lost ... or buried as was common practice with florida crackers .. is there any other florida locals out there how would like to get together this fall and do some looking ... or am i wrong about my facts

Do you know if it is legal to detect in Punta Rassa? Is it On privite property? I was going to metal detect there and dont want to get in trubble. If you know anything about Punta rassa please let me know

 

[Connecticut Sam]

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