334 
July, 1919 
The famous “Watson Place” on the shell mound on Chatham Bend River. They 
tell of black deeds enacted here and the entire locality has an unsavory reputation. 
sunshine. The oysters were sampled and 
were of excellent quality. 
Mr. King guided John up a slope to 
a sort of little plateau, grown over with 
.stringy brush and trees. 
“There,” said he, “is a fairly repre- 
sentative type of the manguey. It is a 
species of tropic cactus and seems oddly 
out of place in this part of the country. 
And yonder is sisal and Spanish bayonet. 
This can mean only one thing: our birds 
of the West Coast migrate southward, to 
Cuba and as far as Yucatan. As they 
come back, in the spring, the droppings 
of seed on these occasional keys, brings 
the sort of vegetation that belongs to 
distant lands. You will not find these 
plants inland. 
“On the East Coast, however, there are 
traces of many trees and plants that are 
natives of the Amazon and Orinoco 
region. The birds are also responsible 
for this.” 
A coon, plump and sassy, was discov- 
ered in a tree, but John’s rifle choked 
and while he was fumbling with ob- 
stinate cartridges, Mr. King had a pot 
shot at the little animal. It dropped to 
the ground and Hendry skinned it. The 
pelt was fine. 
Swimming in the shallow tidal waters 
over the oyster bars were many strange 
and even beautiful fish. All in all, they 
did not regret stopping at Pavilion Key 
— a wild and primitive place, storm- 
beaten and alive with romance. 
But time was passing, and they must 
continue their journey, for it was ab- 
solutely necessary to make the shelter 
of Chatham Bend River before nightfall. 
The going was slow, because of the still 
cranky engine — a woe that had followed 
them these many days, and the Mae did 
not run through the complex channels 
and into the mouth of the stream until 
late in the afternoon. The river was 
choked with mangrove islands and it re- 
quired the best that Hendry had in stock 
to negotiate safe passage. Despite the 
shoals and the tide and the trailing boats, 
however, it was accomplished and they 
came upon a very wide and very wonder- 
ful stream, at least 100 yards wide, con- 
tinuing so, as far as eye could reach. 
To the right they spied an immense 
shell mound, covered with luxuriant veg- 
etation, but the predominant sky-line was 
one of mangroves. One mile further on, 
Hendry pointed to a dim light ashore, to 
the left, and the shadowy outlines of a 
human habitation were visible. 
The guide had heard of this place and 
it was interesting to watch him, as he 
shrugged those big shoulders of his and 
grimaced. 
“Old Watson plantation!” he grunted, 
“very bad. He get men to come work 
on his place. They stay mebbe one, two 
year. No pay. When debt get big. Old 
Man take ’em on hunting trip and shoot. 
Then bury in mangrove swamp. Debt 
paid easy — see.” 
And everyone saw. 
It was at this juncture when they were 
almost opposite the ramshackle dock, to 
which a motor boat was fastened, that 
the engine went dead and the lively cur- 
rent began to sweep them up-stream. 
A man suddenly appeared on the shore, 
waving his arms. 
“Anything I can do for you?” he 
shouted, curving his hands over his 
mouth. 
“Guess we can make it,” answered Mr. 
King, “is it all right to anchor off shore 
here for the night?” 
“You bet,” was the rather cheery re- 
ply- 
It should be mentioned in passing that 
Old Man Watson, long famous in that 
w’ild country has long since passed into 
the happy hunting ground of Bad Men. 
We wish to diverge a moment and quote 
from a Forest and Stream reader who 
sent in this significant paragraph a 
month or so ago: 
“The stone over the grave of that 
Audubon Society warden on Cape 
Sable is a very pretty piece of bnown 
stone. I visited it last year. But 
what do you expect — he butted in 
on the local plume-hunting industry. 
If Lamed wants a story tell him 
to get it from George Storter, of Al- 
lens River — the sbjry of Watson, 
who lived on Lostman’s River (the 
correspondent is in error here, for 
Watson lived on Chatham Bend 
River) , and made a business of kill- 
ing for the pure love of the thing. I 
visited the stand from which he shot 
his victims and found the skeleton 
of the old women he killed and which 
one of my friends helped to bury. 
Watson died facing a bunch of men 
at Chokoloskee. They buried him on 
Rabbit Key, waking Storter up in the 
middle of the night to pronounce him 
officially dead. This was easy. He 
had twenty-one bullets in him.” 
All of which is according to Hoyle. 
Another correspondent whose interesting 
notations appear in a letter on page 
353, tells more in detail of this same 
rascally old murderer, and we will there- 
fore refrain from repeating the Watson 
life narrative. Watson left these parts 
for an even hotter climate some six years 
ago, and his plantation is now owned 
and operated by D. H. Whitton. 
The present owner has gone in for 
sugar cane and has thirty acres under 
Pompano and oysters furnish fresh, clean food for the cruiser in southern waters. 
