OKEFINOKEE SWAMP 599 



1878, and a list of them in a pamphlet describing this exhibit seems to 

 be the first authentic botanical information about the swamp ever 

 published. The descriptions of this region in Dr. Loughridge's report 

 on cotton production of Georgia, in the sixth volume of the Tenth 

 Census, are derived from the author's connection with the same ex- 

 pedition. 



Several years later, at a time when public interest in everything 

 pertaining to the Okefinokee was heightened by circumstances to be 

 mentioned below, Mr. Louis Pendleton, brother of Col. C. E. Pendle- 

 ton, combined the historical incident of the deserters with his brother's 

 experiences in the swamp into a story quite true to life, entitled " In 

 the Okefenokee," which was published in six chapters in the Youth's 

 Companion in August and September, 1894. (In the same paper a 

 year later there appeared a short story entitled " Life in the Okefeno- 

 kee," which must have been written by some one who had never seen 

 the swamp.) 



Until the last decade of the nineteenth century the greater part of 

 Okefinokee Swamp was included in the public lands of Georgia, never 

 having been claimed by private parties. In 1889 the legislature de- 

 cided to dispose of the state's remaining interest in it, and in March, 

 1890, it was sold for 26-| cents an acre to a S3Tidicate organized for the 

 purpose, headed by Capt. Henry Jackson, of Atlanta, and styled the 

 Suw?nee^ Canal Company. This company's purchase from the state 

 amounted to about 380 square miles, and the remainder of the area was 

 gradually acquired from private parties who held it. The object of 

 this company was primarily to convert the timber in the swamp into 

 cash, and the necessary surveys having been made, work began in the 

 fall of 1891. From Camp Cornelia (named after Capt. Jackson's 

 daughter), near the middle of the eastern margin of the swamp, a canal 

 about 45 feet wide and 6 feet deep was gradually cut by dredges, work- 

 ing day and night by the aid of electric search-lights, and progressing 

 toward the middle of the swamp (see map) at the rate of about three 

 miles a year. At the same time an enormous ditch was dug from the 

 same place to the nearest point on the St. Marj^'s Eiver, about six 

 miles away, by which it was intended first to float logs out to the river 

 and finally to drain the swamp. This ditch was practically completed 

 by 1894, but the company then found it more feasible to erect a saw- 

 mill at Camp Cornelia and ship the sawn lumber, by a railroad con- 

 structed for the purpose, to Polkston on the Savannah, Florida & 

 Western Eailway (now Atlantic Coast Line) and Bull Head Blufl on 

 the Satilla Eiver. 



While this work was going on Capt. Jackson visited the Okefinokee 

 about once a month, sometimes staying a week or more at a time, and 



" Suwannee is usually spelled with two n's, but in the oflScial designation 

 of this company it had only one. 



