A recent interview with W. Gettis
Driggers of
DeSoto City, the youngest and only living child of Jacob
Driggers, Jr., and his wife, Ella (
Underhill)
Driggers, disclosed they were early pioneers into
Polk County prior to the last
Seminole War. Gettis tells a most interesting story of experiences as a young man one I shall relate.
In 1906 while in Key West, J. Edd
Watson, known as the “Notorious Watson” of the Ten Thousand Islands, came to the city to recruit labor to make up his crop of sugar cane into syrup and the skimming’s into moonshine whiskey.
Watson offered him a job. He replied, telling him he was a first class steam engineer. (His former experience firing a coffee pot sawmill.) The pay offered was good. Being large and much of a man, full of vim and with a craving for adventure and with much self-confidence, he accepted the challenge to match wits with
Watson and took the job as chief engineer.
With a 45
Colt pistol and a cardboard suitcase, he and the other recruits went aboard the boat and headed for Watson’s island on
Chatham River. Except for a few fishermen and some escapees of the law, the only settlement for miles was on Chokoloskee Island, 16 miles to the north.
On Watson’s Island built upon a shell mound, was a large two story house painted white, where
Watson resided. There were also houses for laborers; a large shed for the steam boiler and steam engine; a steam-powered cane mill, a syrup house with a 250-gallon open kettle fired by buttonwood. Also on the inside of the kettle was a steam coil used as an auxiliary in the process of syrup making. There were ten acres of cane and one acre used for gardening.
The boiler was fired up and syrup making began. The skimming’s were saved and made into moonshine whiskey. In three and one half months the job was completed. 10,000 gallons of syrup had been made, and much moonshine whiskey was stored away in quart fruit jars. The hardest season was over - - and payday. Those wishing to go to Ft. Myers were
Cox,
Waller,
Walker and
Freeman (the syrup maker.)
After spending the night on the boat,
Watson went to the bank the next morning, got the money and paid them all off. Watson and
Gettis who had worked hard with no questions asked won the admiration of
Watson. When paid off he gave him a ten dollar bill extra, telling him to visit his people and then come back and work for him; that he would give him an attractive interest in the business. He never went back.
Gettis stated that from previous stories and hearsay he heard about
Watson, in fairness to him he had never been better treated by an employer. However, four years later, in 1910, the tragic climax of murder on the island happened. A woman was found, who had been killed, with some iron boiler grates tied to her body, by some clam fishermen. They went immediately and reported it to the residents of Chokoloskee. A party was formed to investigate. They also found the bodies of two men who had been killed. The evidence seemed conclusive to them as to who was the killer.
Watson, at the time, had gone to
Marco to have
Capt. Collier do some work on his boat. He started home the following day, going by Chokoloskee to pick up his mail. He was met at the dock by the residents. He was asked to surrender his gun by
McKinney, the storekeeper. His reply was shooting
McKinney.
Almost instantly, a volley of bullets from the enraged islanders riddled his body killing him instantly, so ending the role in life of the mystic man of the Ten Thousand Islands. The only evidence left of this once famous farm and hideout is a large Poinciana tree marking the site of Watson’s home. A tree of beauty; a sentinel of peace in the islands for almost a half century.
Albert
DeVane