TALK ABOUT SPOOKY, now this is just plain HALLOWEEN SPOOKY. A woman on the Old Dothan Facebook site responded about this post concerning the 200th anniversary today of events during the 1st Seminole War where she remarked that her relatives had served during the Indian Wars and that many of the important sites weren't even marked. I thought to myself,"Yeah, those innocents deaths started a lot of cemeteries." I was thinking of the Albersons family and how their massacre in 1836 at their home on the east back of the Choctawhatchee in 1836 above Geneva and their buriel was the beginning Wesley Chapel Cemetery where many of my Register kin are buried. AT THAT VERY MOMENT, I received a Facebook friend request from an ALBERSON WOMAN from Hartford in Geneva County, the town where my Daddy was born.

http://www.usgennet.org/usa/al/state2/counties/geneva/cemeteries/wesleymethchcem.htm

THIS IS THE 1858 STORY FROM WHICH THE MURAL ARTIST IN DOTHAN BASED HIS PAINTING.
from pages 52, 53 & 54 of WOODWARD'S REMINISCENCES:
"In 1816 and 1817, the Florida Indians were doing mischief, and the Government found it necessary to keep troops quartered on the borders of Florida. Fort Scott and Fort Huse (Hughes) were erected to protect the settlers in Early County, Georgia. That was then a new and thinly settled country. The command of the troops was given to Colonel Arbuckle. He had frequent skirmishes with the Indians, under the control of Chitto-Fanna-Chula, or old Snake Bone, but known to you and the whites generally as old Ne-he-mathla. The present gallant General Twiggs was then a Brevet Major in the 7th Regiment of Infantry, and was generally the foremost in those skirmishes. Supplies for the troops had to be carried from New Orleans and Mobile by water. A very large boat with army stores was started from Mobile Point under the command of Lieut. Scott. Mrs. Stuart was among those on board; her husband, a Sergeant, and a fine looking man at that, had gone with the troops by land. The boat, having to be propelled by oars and poles, was long on the trip, and by this time the war had completely opened. The old hostile Creeks, from various portions of Florida, were engaged in it; among others the two Chiefs you saw hanged at St. Mark's- Josiah Francis and Ne-he-mathla Micco. They headed a party and watched the boats. As those on board were hooking and jamming (as the boatmen called it) near the bank, and opposite a thick canebrake, the Indians fired on them, killing and wounding most of those on board at the first fire. Those not disabled by the first fire of the Indians made the best fight they could, but all on board were killed except Mrs. Stuart and two soldiers- Gray, and another man whose name I have forgot, if I ever knew it; they were both shot, but made their escape by swimming to the opposite shore. I must here mention a circumstance that occurred on board the boat at the time, which I learned from one of the men who escaped, and also from some of the Indians who were present. There was a Sergeant named McIntosh, as Scotchman, on board, whom I knew well. He was with Colonel, afterwards General Thomas A. Smith, before St. Augustine, Fla., in 1812, and was a favorite among officers and soldiers. He was an own cousin of the Indian General McIntosh you knew, whose grave you say you not long since visited. Sergeant McIntosh was a man of giant size, and perhaps more bodily strength that any man I have known in our service. When he found all on the boat were lost, and nothing more could be done, he went into a little kind of cabin that the Lieutenant had occupied as his quarters, in which was a swivel or small cannon; loaded it, took it on deck, and resting the swivel on one arm ranged it as well as he could, and (the Indians by this time were boarding the boat) with a firebrand, he set off the swivel, which cleared the boat for a few minutes of Indians. At the firing of the swivel he was thrown overboard and drowned, and this clearing of the Indians from the boat gave Gray a chance to escape. Mrs. Stuart was taken almost lifeless as well as senseless, and was a captive until the day I carried her to your camp. After taking her from the boat, they (the Indians) differed among themselves as to whose slave or servant she should be. An Indian by the name of Yellow Hair said he had many years before been sick at or near St. Mary's, and that he felt it a duty to take the woman and treat her kindly, as he was treated so by a white woman when he was among the whites. The matter was left to an old Indian by the name of Bear Head, who decided in favor of Yellow Hair. I was told by the Indians that Yellow Hair treated her with great kindness and respect. I never asked her any questions as to her treatment, and presume she never knew me from any other Indian, as Brown and myself were both dressed like Indians. We knew long before we re-captured her what band she was with, and had tried to come up with them before."

(General Woodward , who was part Indian, was in command of the Indian troops under Jackson along with the Indian General William McIntosh and Captain Isaac Brown)

Extract of a letter from George Graham, acting Secretary of War, to Brevet Major General Edmund P. Gaines ~ Fort Hawkins, Georgia(Macon) , dated October 30, 1817.

 I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the lst instant, covering a copy of the reply which was made by ten of the Seminole towns, to the demand made by you on them for the surrender of the murderers of some of our citizens. These papers have been submitted to the President, and I am instructed by him to inform you that he approves of the movement of the troops from Fort Montgomery to Fort Scott; the appearance of this additional force, he flatters himself, will at least have the effect of restraining the Seminoles from committing further depredations and perhaps of inducing them to make reparation for the murders which they have committed. Should they, however, persevere in their refusal to make such reparation, it is the wish of the President that you should not,on that account, pass the line, and make an attack upon them within the limits of Florida, until you shall have received instructions from this department. You are authorized to remove the Indians still remaining on the lands ceded by the treaty made by General Jackson with the Creeks; and, in doing so, it may be proper to retain some of them as hostages until reparation may have been made for the depredations which have been committed. On this subject, however, as well as to the manner of removing them, you will exercise your discretion. McIntosh, and the other chiefs of the Creek nation, who were here some time since, expressed then, decidedly, their unwillingness to permit any of the hostile Indians to return to their nation.
P. S. The authority to remove the Indians will, of course, not extend to those Indians and their families who have claims to reservations on lands under the treaty. . .

When the sun came up in present-day Houston County 200 years ago today, on October 30, 1817, there weren't any families of American pioneers living on this land but that was ALL about to change. On that day, President James Monroe authorized his Secretary of War to send a letter to General Edmund P. Gaines (namesake of Ft. Gaines, Georgia & Ft. Gaines on Dauphin Island along with the Gainesvilles in Florida, Georgia, Texas & New York. Gainesville, Alabama is named after his brother. ) authorizing him to move more troops from Fort Montgomery on the Alabama River to Fort Scott near present-day Bainbridge. The stage had now been set for THE END OF THE FRONTIER. The Indian Treaty Line  had been marked  and the word had gone out that every Indian was expected to begin packing their bags and make a decision either to move north to the reservation that began just below Thomas Mill Creek on present-day Lake Eufaula or to head south across Ellicott's Line, our present-day Alabama-Florida line below Madrid. Of course, even with their gruesome defeat at Horseshoe Bend a little over three years earlier, the Indians weren't prepared to leave their native homeland quietly. One month later, on November 30, 1817, the bloodiest battle of the ENTIRE FIRST SEMINOLE WAR occurred on the Apalachicola about 60 miles below present-day Dothan when the Indians attacked a supply boat coming upriver on a voyage that originated from Mobile Point (present-day Fort Morgan).  Appropriately, Dothan commemorates this horrific, landmark event with a mural on East Main. It is one of THREE MURALS dedicated to the first Seminole War in the Circle City.

For the first time today I found where the author of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD used the actual LAST NAME & actual PROFESSION of a person from Dothan for one of his characters in his fictional town of AVEN, ALABAMA. At the opening of CHAPTER 20, Lota Kyle visits Buck for the second time in his new mayor's office in Aven City Hall. The sound of hammering can be heard from the men working on the new police station next door. Buck liked what he saw when he met 19 year old Lota earlier and had promised to help her get a teaching job. During their conversation Lota reveals that she hasn't gone to college. Buck lets her know that lack of education disqualifies Lota for the city schools. Lota immediately becomes upset but as always Buck has a plan. Buck didn't want a beauty like Lota working in town anyway. In fact, he could have gotten her a job as a bookkeeper at the dispensary (like an ABC Store~ Dothan was the first town in Alabama to close saloons and only sell liquor from a dispensary) that was "too close." Buck calls in his city clerk and tells him to go tell the county superintendent of schools, PET TOLLESON that Buck plans on hiring one of his teachers to fill the dispensary position and that Buck has the perfect replacement (county schools did not require college education at this time) in the person of Lota. Well,  in the March 9, 1916 DOTHAN EAGLE we find that the superintendent of the county schools around Dothan at the time of this scene from DEVIL MAKE A THIRD was a Tolleson.

There's a classic August 1902 photograph of Nix's Corner (northeast corner of Main and Foster) on page 14 of the book DOTHAN & HOUSTON COUNTY- YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW. from the Saturday, February 8, 1908 DOTHAN EAGLE

On Thursday, February 20, 1908, THE PANAMA CITY PILOT published the official December 28, 1863 report of the destruction of the salt works at St. Andrews Bay and "Lake Ocala" (a.k.a. Phillips Inlet/Lake Powell). The Yankees estimated that they did $3 million damage, allowed 31 "contrabands" (slaves) to "escape" and burned 32 houses in old St. Andrews. Ella Lonn, a Goucher College professor from Baltimore, who wrote the classic book, SALT AS A FACTOR IN THE CONFEDERACY, stated about St. Andrews Bay, “Nowhere perhaps was a greater persistence manifested than in St. Andrews Bay in rebuilding the works so continually destroyed by the Federal fleet. It is difficult to explain whence the Richmond authorities found the means and assembled the materials for this really remarkable feat.”

History of the Barrier Islands of St. Andrews Bay from SAND IN MY SHOES by John A. Burgess (1986~ with information provided by Marlene Womack)

1827: John Lee Williams described three islands off the peninsula south of Grand Lagoon. SAND ISLAND, a one mile long grassy barren, was separated from the east end of the peninsula by a narrow 8 foot channel and a shoal. East of that was six mile long HUMMOCK ISLAND with dunes on the west end that made a safe harbor on its north side. The third one, CROOKED ISLAND, was said to be the largest, six miles in length and covered in pines.

1851: A hurricane washed away all three islands, leaving only two mile long HURRICANE ISLAND.

1855: A map of Hurricane Island by Bach and Gerdes shows a similarity to the old Hummock Island. The east end contained 40 foot high dunes known as the Saddle Hills. In 1986,their eastern tip location of 30 degrees, 4 feet and 23 inches corresponded with a point in the open ship channel one mile east south-east of Land's End (present day filled Old Pass on Tyndall). This appears to be the location of the Union Navy's blockading squadron camp established during the Civil War. In the late 1800s , a pilot house was built on the east end of Hurricane Island. Continued erosion of Hurricane Island resulted in the island going from two miles in length to one and one-half miles. In 1917, the pilot house was moved to bay side of the island.

1926: A hurricane washed Hurricane Island clean.

1934: HURRICANE ISLAND had ceased to exist.

This passage is the beginning of CHAPTER 18 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD. This chapter is set right in the middle (page 186 of 383 pages) of a novel which spans 25 years (1890-1915) of Aven's (a.k.a. "Dothan's") formative years. CHAPTER 18 (circa 1908) could be considered THE END OF THE FRONTIER chapter in Aven history. Buck and his Mama have come back from New York City and Buck is ready to build a structure architecturally identical to one he'd seen in NYC which had been designed to fit a triangular lot. That building was the Flatiron Building and it would be the basis for the HARRISON HOUSE (a.k.a. Dothan's Hotel Martin ~The opening of this Dothan hotel transformed the town's commercial landscape.) At the end of Chapter 18, the author reintroduces his two Interlude characters, railway brakemen, Jake and Bass, who periodically inform the reader about Buck's progress in Aven. Jake is drunk and can't get Miss Edie down at the Aven Telephone Company. When she finally gets on the line, Jake insults her and she immediately hangs up. Jake then has a fit and tears the telephone off the wall, walks down the street from his location at Dean's Livery Stable (a.k.a. Holman Mule Co.) , goes into Aven Telephone, hollers, "Miss Edie, here's number twenty-five." & tosses the remains of the telephone into Miss Edie's office. So inquiring minds want to know,  who had "number twenty-five" in 1908?

ROBERTOREG Family tree website https://www.myheritage.com/site-family-tree-260317891/register