Where was Etna? It is hard to imagine roughly ninety million acres of Longleaf pine forest stretched across the southeastern United States; due to turpentine, logging, and farming, those forests eventually vanished except for approximately three million remaining today. In Citrus County, Florida eight thousand acres, was purchased in 1897 to harvest Longleaf pine for the Naval Store industry, Etna, which was only one of many camps in the area. Today, most of the original acreage has been developed or farmed, but the whereabouts of the camp is located in the Withlacoochee State Forest. According to the US Postal Service application for Etna’s post office, dated September 19, 1899, it was five miles east of the Chassahowitzaka River, Mannfield was five miles northeast, and Oakdale was five miles northwest.
Where was Freeman? Owners of Etna changed over time, expanding acreage into Hernando County. Freeman, another turpentine camp, is on the list of ghost towns, but in 1903 the post office was listed three miles east of Bayport. However, like many communities, Freeman and Etna were abandoned to decay and disappear once resources ran out. People died or moved on.
Where did I find inspiration for the stories told in Song of Jaybird? “Everyone has a story,” and the characters who lived in Etna had personal experiences outside of camp or in it. They all came from somewhere and brought their stories with them. Chronicling America through the Library of Congress has newspapers from towns and cities that document the history of everyday life during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, these articles encouraged the creative characterization and life of Black laborers at Etna.
Where did moonshiners build their stills? Accounts vary as to where moonshiners hid their stills in Citrus County, but concealed from the law was the goal. They were camouflaged in fern quarries, covertly operated near phosphate mines, and veiled by draped vines near a farmer’s land. Citrus and surrounding counties voted to become “dry,” prohibiting alcohol. The vote only encouraged moonshiners and blind tigers to brew liquor and sell it to mines and camps, producing a product which ranged from good to ‘gut-rot.’
Where did the laborers go between 1900 and 1910? This was a burning question for me to investigate. I compared the 1900 and 1910 censuses for Etna in the Mannfield precinct. There were only three names of laborers listed in both. So where did they go and what happened at Etna during ten years (1897- 1907) was the heart of my research. I imagined the laborers’ possibilities in ‘Song of Jaybird’ based on investigating real people through census and ancestral research. By 1910, I found them in different communities, employed, some owning their homes and or business, or staying in turpentine.
Photo credit : 1914 Citrus County map http://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/323133
