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Expenses of out trip to Manatee & back --
Frying pan -- $1.00 ham $2.18 Sacks for viotuals 6 -- $1 -- cup 30 corn in Tallahassee corn CharlesBucket at Waukeemah .75 -- ham 2.25 fodder at corn & meal 1.50 -- corn & fodder .50 toll ferry $1.00 -- corn & fodder $2.00 " ferry 1.75 corn $1 -- provisions Leesville $5.50 Toll bridge $1
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Bristol-; over 30 miles -- with detention with his sick family for often over a week at a time -- In 1867, two years later-; when my wife and children visited Apelachicola, I gave Bettie the accounts and told her to get what she could, & buy all she could at the store-; he sent me by her $46.00 in cash -- & some goods amounting to about $100.00 -- And when he died later on he owed me $700 or $800-; which was never paid, & left the support of his destitute family on my hands.
The result of my visit to Manatee was that I abandoned the idea of moving there -- I could not see how I could make a living for my family there; the pace was too much out of the world-; and too inaccessible to market -- The $400 worth of supplies, tools [&c?] [&c?] that I had bought in New York, for our start, were consigned to Dr Branch -- and reached there on the McKay steamer -- Col. Jno C. Pelot of Madison, and Gen. Cooper, had just moved there to the Branden place -- I had the utmost confidence in the former-; thought him a high toned Christian gentleman -- They expressed the wish to buy my things, [end?] I wrote to Dr B. to let them have them at cost-; Dr B. begged me to let him sell them at profit-; told me he could have made $100 for me on them-; but my promise was out-, & I wrote him to let them have the things -- which they did -- they took my goods-, insulted Dr Branch and wrote me aboninable insulting letters about the matter -- and finally never paid me one cent for them -- It was a hard lesson for me to swallow --
A few years later Genl Cooper died, and I saw in the Savannah news a column or two devoted to his memory-;
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a high sounding pangyrie on his superior virtues -- I thought, how empty and lying are most of these honors paid to the dead-; this man noted in a most dishonest insulting & ungentlemanly manner towards me -- "nil mortius nisi bonum" cheated me out of $250.00 -- I got a judgement against him for that amount (by default) but it was worthless -- I kept a cooking stove, and gave one to Ovan -- out of our things purchased -- 6 [Bbls?] of flour were spoiled-; these men took $250.00 of goods of mine with no intention of paying me-; and they never did --
On Thursday -- Dec. 14th 1865 -- Bessie Evans was born-; Bettie & I walked out to make an evening call on Sallie, and found her in labor --
On Dec. 19th Elisha Dismukes and Annie Forman were married -- We attended the marriage, and had a very pleasant time.
1866 We left the old Booth house that we had been living in for a number of years, and at the beginning of this year, rented the large two story house of Mrs I.R. Harris; up on King Street -- I rented it for $300.00 per annum-; an immense rent-; I will mention here that I had it for four years -- 2 of them at $300.00, and 2 of them at $200.00 per annum; making
$1000.00 for four years of use of this house-, all of which I paid up in cash -- same as cash. We hired for a long time as cook & washer woman, a yellow woman named Mary Ingraham-; a smart woman, but with her tribe of daughters-; all miserable thieves, they pilfered and stole from us clothing-; sheets -- pillow cases &c &c -- to a ruinous extent.
During this year we had a great deel of music -- Prof. Odens -- music teacher, kept his piano in my office in 1865 -- and taught in 1866 -- Prof. Hennsher also-, a Brass Band was organized -- with Hennsher as leader-; I had one of the leading horns -- (E. b-) Dr Telfair had the large Bass horn-; a German shoemaker, named Newman was a splendid performer-; & another named Louis-; and Mr Thombes also a superior musician -- We had 18 or 14 performers in our band, & were well drilled-; bought an excellent set of second hand instruments, that were very soft -- We used to play in the upper piazza of the old Nathens House on Saturday afternoons -- whilst ladies & children promenaded around the Court House Square enjoying the music -- We also had many musical evening gatherings at Mrs Harris' and other places --
I also played chess a great deal this year-; Rev. Oscar Myers, was our preacher-; he was very fond of the game, and we played often together -- I also played often with Jno Malone -- Elisha Dismukes -- Ches -- Allison &c &c. On Jan. 10th Robert Booth married Mary Smith-; a pretty, sweet little thing; daughter of old Tom Smith of Attapulgus, who was very much opposed to the marriage-; very properly so too, on account of Bob's habits, and poor record -- They lived for sometime in the old house, with Mrs Booth -- I rented
an office of E.M. Raleigh on the South side of the public square, up staris-; thinking it a better stand then my old one-; thinking it a better stand than my old one-; got a large bill of medicines, books &c. through [illegible] Munroe, who went to N.Y. for goods in the summer --
On the 20th of May -- Sunday evening-; a tragic event took place in Quincy -- Jesse Dickson -- our town marshall -- armed negroes -- The event came about in this way --
The negroes were intoxicated with their new born freedom, and imagined that they could defy the execution of the laws that put them in jail for petty offenses-, such as chicken stealing &c &c -- There was a sett of brothers on the Zeigler plantation-, who had formerly belonged to Mr Z-; they were Gabe -- Lewis -- Charles & Sam -- a chicken stealing fraternity -- Gabe was the ring leader, and the worst of the lot-; a bullet headed, bad fellow-; he had been confined in the jail in town for chicken stealing, and had managed to excape, as the jail was decayed, and very insecure-; and the Marshal, Jesse Dickson was on the alert, to chatch him -- one evening as I was going down town with my wife, as I passed Sam Stephens' office, this negro Gabe, closely pursued by Jesse came dashing up the street, and leaped nimbly over the high board fence at the office, ran through the garden and escaped -- This was only a few nights before the killing of Dickson -- On the Sunday evening spoken of; a brilliant moonlight night -- I had gone in the country visiting a