Shortstack said:
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.