8
There was one project in the state going on that nobody around here knew
anything about. That was at Lamont, Florida, which used to be known as
Lickskillet. That's the highway from Perry to Tallahassee. It's on the
Marsella River, but you go down the river just a few miles. Chase and Company
in the '20s put in a grove, and those were the largest trees I've ever seen.
I knew Chase and Company when I was on Terra Ceia Island, in '21. They had
a packing house. Of course, Chase and Company was a stock company, and the
big stock company was over at Sanford. 'That was where they warehoused.
They had groves and they packed and shipped the goods to a warehouse in New
York. It is not operating now, I think it's a thing of the past. They had
the last fertilizer plant down there, and they sold the old warehouse.
That was the first of any tung oil that I knew anything about, and that
was in the twenties. It looked good, so they started at Gainesville. Dr.
Newell went in heavy for it, and I think he lost his shirt. They just thought
it was going to be the thing. The China Tung Oil Co. out here even built a
plant downtown, I think Mr. Powers and somebody owns it over in northeast
Gainesville, going to the graveyard.
Tung oil was good for making varnishes and paints. West of Gainesville,
there's a big orchard out there just as you start out on 75 going out to
your right down in there, but they petered out.
K: Do you have any idea why?
M: Well, the trees have a short life, and I always thought they acted like the
citrus trees, declined as a result of nematodes or something. Also another
thing, because of the climate here, they bloomed early, and sometimes the
frost would get the crop, the trees would start declining, and would just go
down and down.
They had a press up at Brooker, there's a mill up there. Mrs. Bennett lives
back a couple of miles on this side of China Tung Oil there if she's not
dead. So does Mr. Edwards. The Edwards got the cows. They destroyed
most of the groves, and turned everything into pasture to raise cows. He
can tell you the history of it. I noticed the other day that another person
who had large holdings in it just died. That's north of Brooker, there was
a big field of it. N.G. Hayes, I'd been through that, when N.G. was living
and when I was working. I'd go into that orchard there on the farm. They've
ripped up most of that. I forgot the name of what it was, but anybody in
Brooker there will tell you that those were the three big places.
Now when I was in Perry, there was a big industrialist. He put in thousands
of acres above Lamont, where'd I tell you Lickskillet, on the hills, at
Capps, that was the headquarters at Capps, and you'll see the remains. They
have oil tanks and oil there now, a press, and a big generator. It went from
St. Marks right on up through to Capps. They bought out the Maize plantation,
the old Maize house is there yet. That's probably one of the first houses
built in Jefferson County and Buddy Bishop, I think, was the one that fell
heir to that. He sold out, and moved over on 90, between there and Tallahassee,
and he put one in there. I was through there the other day on 1-10, and it was
perishing.
K: It wasn't very successful then?