ks at the proper point of departure for a portage to the Suwanee, it
became necessary to abandon all idea of ascending this river. I could
not, however, give up the exploration of the route. In this dilemma, a
kindly written letter seemed to solve the difficulties. Messrs. Dutton &
Rixford, northern gentlemen, who possessed large facilities for the
manufacture of resin and turpentine at their new settlements of Dutton,
six miles from the St. Mary's River, and at Rixford, near the Suwanee,
kindly proposed that I should take my canoe by railroad from Cumberland
Sound to Dutton. From that station Mr. Dutton offered to transport the
boat through the wilderness to the St. Mary's River, which could be from
that point easily descended to the sea. The Suwanee River, at Rixford,
could be reached by rail, and the voyage would end at its debouchure on
the marshy coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

Hon. David Yulee, president and one-third owner of the A. G. & W. I. T.
C. Railroad, which connects the Atlantic coast at Fernandina with the
Gulf coast at Cedar Keys, offered me the free use of his long railroad,
for any purpose of exploration, &c., while his son, Mr. C. Wickliffe
Yulee, exerted himself to remove all impediments to delay.

These gentlemen, being native Floridians, have done much towards
encouraging all legitimate exploration of the peninsula, and have also
done something towards putting a check on the outrageous impositions
practised on northern agricultural emigrants to Florida, by encouraging
the organization of a railroad land-company, which offers a forty-acre
homestead for fifty dollars, to be selected out of nearly six hundred
thousand acres of land along their highway across the state. A man of
comparatively small means can now try the experiment of making a home
in the mild climate of Florida, and if he afterwards abandons the
enterprise there will have been but a small investment of capital,
and consequently little loss.

The turpentine distillery of Dutton was situated in a heavy forest of
lofty pines. Major C. K. Dutton furnished a team of mules to haul the
Maria Theresa to the St. Mary's River, the morning after my arrival by
rail at Dutton Station. The warm sunshine shot aslant the tall pines as
the teamster followed a faintly developed trail towards the swamps.
Before noon the flashing waters of the stream were discernible, and a
little later, with paddle in hand, I was urging the canoe towards the
Atlantic co