Program will put the facts with your finds

By ROGER LANDERS, Hernando History
Published October 29, 2007

Have you ever found an item that might be from a time when Indians and early settlers inhabited our county?

Through the decades, many articles of personal importance have been lost, and later found. For we modern residents, it might have been a coin, a ring or a pocketknife. For the aboriginal Indians, the Seminoles or early settlers and soldiers, the lost items might have included a stone knife, an arrow point, a shirt button, gunflint, a sword blade or a coin.

People often find items in gardens, yards, on walking trails or along a riverbank. Did you wonder how old a trinket, piece of pottery or arrowhead could be? Where did it come from? Why is it in Hernando County?

The Historical Advisory Commission, with assistance from the Florida Public Archeology Network of Tampa, is sponsoring an Artifact Identification Day to help answer those questions. The event will take place from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the Moose Lodge at 17129 Wiscon Road, south of Brooksville. Representatives of the network will be available to identify, catalog, photograph and locate on a Hernando map the site where the item was found.

Those wishing to bring items for identification and evaluation are encouraged to attend. However, there will be no appraisals given.

Should anyone wish to donate an artifact for a future display, the gift will be accepted by the commission. The donor's name and address will be confidential.

However, the location of the "find" is of great importance to the commission. The information will add to the base of knowledge about our earliest inhabitants.

Why is this important in present-day Hernando? For one thing, there is a real potential for positive economic impact. Just ask Sue Rupe, the county's tourist development director.

Few residents realize the long history of American Indians in our area. The Indians have lived along our coast and in much of our upland regions for 15,000 years or more.

Old Hernando County - Hernando, Pasco and Citrus counties - became the center of the area reserved for the Seminole Indians from about 1823 until their relocation to Oklahoma. The site of the "relocation center," Fort Dade, is in the northern part of present-day Pasco, near where U.S. 301 crosses into Hernando.

Most of the Indian names we see throughout our part of Florida are of Creek and Seminole origin.

According to William A. Reed, in his 1934 study of Florida Indian language, Weeki Wachee is of Creek origin and translates as "little spring." Chassahowitzka is from the Seminole words translated as "hanging pumpkins."

Most of the ancient artifacts, arrowheads, spear points and clay pots found in Hernando date from the period before the arrival of the Spanish. The Seminole artifices may be much different and more modern in appearance.

However, the Seminoles often settled in the same locations as the ancient inhabitants. The old Seminole village name at Chocochattee translates as "red house." Reed refers to this area as Chuccucharts Hammocks, an area he described as about 13 miles long and 8 miles wide.

The spelling of this hammock name, now called a prairie, has varied over the years. Some old-timers also call the area Griffin Prairie, after the Griffin family who lived in the region.

Stories of Seminole attacks dot the history of Hernando County. In 1842, the McDonnell party was attacked, and Indians killed Charlotte Crum. The attack on the Bradley family in southern Hernando in 1856 sparked the beginning of the Third Seminole War. This was the last Indian attack on a settler's homestead east of the Mississippi.

After the Seminole Indians were all but eliminated by war and relocation, the 1870 census listed only a few small family groups of Indians living in South Florida. However, the 1870 census of Hernando listed one Indian in the county. The child, Nancy Hay, a 10-year-old Indian, was living with a white family, Alfred and Martha Hay, and perhaps had been adopted.

Indians did visit Hernando during the late 19th century. F. Ion Robertson mentions in a 1930s letter to the Brooksville Herald visits of Indians from Polk County. Indians often came to sell their pelts and to trade with Frank Saxon.

Fred Lykes, son of Dr. H.T. Lykes, said that when he was young, he and his brothers would often find Indian arrowheads in the family orange groves.

In 1947, he told a story about his encounter with Indians when he was young. During summers, he would spend time with his father's business partner, W.H. Towles, hunting, fishing and camping.

On one camping trip, about 11 p.m., some Indians came into their camp. Fred had found a large wooden spoon earlier in the day. Realizing it was the property of the Indians, he had left a red handkerchief in trade for the spoon. Fearing that the Indians were looking for their spoon, he was somewhat reluctant to meet with them. It turned out that the Indians only wanted to trade some chickens.

The last account of any Indians in Hernando came in 1965 and was a bit humorous.

Pearl McNeal, a longtime seventh-grade math teacher at Hernando High School, reported 26 "wild Indians" in her homeroom.

It's a true story. It was noted in the first of many formal reports of race and ethnicity required of public schools throughout the United States.

Upon investigation, principal Ralph Diggs determined that the report was a description of classroom behavior and not of ethnic origin.

Roger Landers is retired from the Hernando County School District, where for nearly 33 years he was a teacher, principal and district administrator. He is the historian for the county's Heritage Museum, historical adviser to the new Hernando County Historical Advisory Commission and a member of the Florida Historical Society. He can be reached at roger58@gate.net.

[Last modified October 28, 2007, 19:37:59]