My First Trip To the Okefenokee Swamp

By
W.L. McDuffie

I came to Charlton County in 1886 as a boy 14 years old. I would be in the field plowing and see people come by with unusually large strings and bags of fish they had caught out of the Okefenokee Swamp and I wanted to go in there some bad.

I had pictured this great swamp out to myself as a large swamp with lakes and runs with bluffs into them. So one day my uncle says “Get you a pole and make you a line and we will go fishing tomorrow.” There were no cane poles them days so I cut a bay pole about fifteen feet long and made a line about the same length and was all ready.

Well, I could not sleep that night for thinking of the good time next day nor eat breakfast that morning. About our starting time, along came a man named Ball with a Negro boy about my size going to the swamp too. And in going out there me and that Negro boy chased one another three times the distance.

Arrived at a big swamp with water six or eight inches deep at edges. There were bushes and some pine logs [log path to place where boats and push-poles were] with bark off of them. I had on a tight pair of shoes, the Negro boy had on none. Just a few steps and I slipped astride of a log, my feet up to my knees in red mud and water. The Negro boy just behind me jumped up and down laughing at me. My uncle says “ Son, do not fall that way, you’re liable to get hurt bad.” I told him I had walked on ice before, but had never tried no iced-poles.

The Negro boy was still laughing but it did not appear funny to my uncle and Mr. Ball, so we started going again. We walked the length of that log and about half the way on another log a little larger and I looked around from hearing a scramble behind me and both of that Negro boy’s feet had slipped forward from under him and he was rolling flat of his back into that nasty mud and water and his lips stuck out as far as he could get them. And lo, there was 1,000 yards or more of them slickers to walk. I do not think myself or the Negro walked over ten feet at a time without falling off. Mr. Ball and my uncle slipped off very few times.

We arrived at the boats, just a little water and a lot of moss and the boats setting in that, and three or four poles on end of them sticking in moss by the side of the boats. We walked a piece of board across to one of the boats and went to dipping water out of the boat. Mr. Ball did the same with another boat. Myself and the Negro boy was just a few feet from them. I was looking. There was a very large field or prairie out west of us. I felt the cool water on my feet. I looked down and the ground had sunk about 24 inches and clear water was up to my knees. When I stopped there, they [his feet] were dry. About that time my Negro pal said “Look, them trees are leaning towards us!” “Yes,” I said “and you are sinking!” The reader can imagine what had taken place. [They were standing on the “trembling earth”, peat moss that looked like earth, but could not support the weight of a boy.]

My uncle and Mr. Ball got over their laugh at us and said “Come on, get in. We are ready to go.” In we got. The boat would rock in the moss - I thought it should be steady. Uncle says “Pull up that pole by you and help me push the boat.” I took hold of that pole sticking about two feet out of that moss and I pulled up about eight feet more out of that moss and mud. I threw the pole down in the boat and grabbed the boat with both hands, one on each side. I looked across at the Negro boy. I do not know what he did with his push-pole but he had seized the boat like myself, with both hands and a good grip.

We made a start out in a kind of clear water, a run where boats had traveled. I picked up the pole as my uncle had asked me and steered for him. I made two trials and could not reach any bottom of that mud. So I thought if I fell out in that mud, I would be a goner. I was a good swimmer. If it had been water I would not have been scared. I looked back at the Negro and his lips were sticking further out.

So we started out in a boat trail making very poor time. Well it was the reverse of what I had pictured it out to be. It was a large open prairie with water on an average of 30 inches deep with water lilies all over it ñ some flat, like a plate lying on the surface of the water. I saw something about a mile ahead of us. It looked like a large sheet spread. I didn’t ask any questions and neither did the Negro. I knew my uncle wished I was home, but not as bad as I wished it.

After a time I saw we were coming to a lake covering ten or more acres with alligators of all sizes, just numbers of them. The Negro boy says to Mr. Ball “A big gator like dat un out thar could cotch both us!” His lip was not so long but his eyes were larger. After we got some 100 yards out in the lake we anchored the boat. He says “Get your fishing tackle in shape and let’s catch some fish.” So I was trying to fix mine just like his but he got ready first. Out he pitched and back he pulled with as fine a warmouth perch as they grow. Mr. Ball was catching ëem over his way. Well I just had the jim-jams by this time. Uncle had a dozen flipping on the bottom of his boat. My line fixed at last, out I tossed it. Nothing would bite. He would pull one out. I would put my hook in the same place ñ nothing doing. And they would not bite for the Negro either.

And Mr. Ball says to my uncle “ We have about as many of these perch as we can get out with. Let’s leave these two boys here in one boat, take the other one and go down in Trout Lake and catch some of them trout.” “O.K.” says Uncle, “Come over here so I can get in.” Mr. Ball and the Negro boy pushed their boat over by the side of ours. My uncle gets in theirs. The Negro boy gets up and attempts to step out of their boat into the one I was in, and in stepping he kicks back the one he was in and steps into the lake between the two boats. When he came out of the water, there was the biggest pair of eyes I ever saw and his mouth was as wide as he could get it. He grabbed my boat and I thought he was going to turn it over in spite of all I could do. And if it had not been for Uncle sticking a push-pole underside, he would have upset the boat and lost all the fish. “Well you boys push out to the bluff, dip the water out of the boat and we’ll be back after a while,” said Uncle.

I took the pole but I could not get the boat to move. Only around and around. Every time it turned it would be nearer the shore so we finally got out that way. I looked at the Negro boy. He looked at me. His eyes were small, but he had a nice pair still. He said “Misor Ball made me come in here - I didn’t want to come in here at fuss and if I’m ever in here any more I’ll be kilt and foch in.” I did not say anything but I had a lingering suspicion that I would not come in there any more either.

We sat there, days it seemed like, waiting for them to return. We could hear squawks, groans, howls and any kind of noises and see all kinds of birds. There was one kind of bird that looked and would fly something like unto a wood-pecker with a silvery-glittering large bill that was beautiful. That Negro boy broke the silence between us. He said “If da don’t come back, dem gators goin et we’uns tonight.” That put me to thinking about night in there too. We saw them about a mile away coming. When they arrived they had about fifty pounds of trout and jackfish, with a total of something like 150 pounds of fish. No even a bite to the credit of myself or the Negro boy.

“O.K., now let’s go out,” said the boss. Well, we put fish in bags as Mr. Ball and my uncle pushed us back to them ice-slicked logs. “You boys go on,” said my uncle. I had sat in that boat until I was tired out and wobbly anyways, so got on them logs and it was worse than going in that morning. And it was impossible for me and that Negro to walk those slick logs and there is what is called bamboo vines by the sides of them, with sharp thorns on them, and they scratched us plenty. And as we were slipping along, I heard that poor Negro fall by me in that mud and he hollered that he was snake-bit and was squalling worse than a billy goat with carbon disulphide poured on him. Said he would be dead in a few minutes. My uncle and Mr. Ball laughing to beat the band, but it was not funny to me. I was scared. I did not see any snakes, not even one, during the day. My uncle said to him

“You will be O.K. in a minute. A water chinch has bit you.” Sure enough, he was soon O.K.

We had not gone far till I had slipped off and one of them chinches was in my shoe, between my toes, and a coal of fire could not hurt worse. Since that day I have seen men sitting down in water up to their armpits, trying to pull their shoes off with one of them things in their shoe. I once saw a fellow praying while he was trying to pull his shoe off. Now, two minutes after one bites you, it is all O.K., even no after effects or signs.

Well, when we reached the hill, I had decided I had fine luck by not catching any fish, for I could not have got out with them without scaling them on them logs. Oh I was tired! Two miles to walk, hungry and thirsty. Me and the Negro boy did not chase each other going back that afternoon.

Well, I have been in there a number of times since and I always caught more or less fish and also killed ducks. I have never seen the Negro since. He is supposed to have run away to keep Mr. Ball from carrying him in there again.

That great Swamp is the highest place between the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico and is an interesting place for a stranger to go and see.

CHARLTON COUNTY HERALD
December 9, 1938

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