and force him to accompany them. Particularly
retributive were the punishments visited upon Messrs. Mays and
Prevatt--generally recognized as the most vicious slave drivers of the
section.

Bellamy, Coker says built the road with slave labor and as an
investment, realizing much money on tolls on it for many years. A
remarkable feature of the road is that despite its age and the fact that
County authorities have permitted its former good grading to deterierate
to an almost impassable sand at some seasons, there is no mistaking the
fact that this was once a major thoroughfare.

The region that stretches from Green Cove Springs in the Northeast to
Grandin in the Southwest, the former slave claims, was once dotted with
lakes, creeks, and even a river; few of the lakes and none of the other
bodies still exist, however.

Among the more notable of the bodies of water was a stream--he does not
now remember its name--that ran for about 20 miles in an easterly
direction from Starke. This stream was one of the fastest that the
former slave can remember having seen in Florida; its power was utilised
for the turning of a power mill which he believes ground corn or other
grain. The falls in the river that turned the water mill, he states, was
at least five or six feet high, and at one point under the Falls a man
named (or possibly nicknamed) "Yankee" operated a sawmill. Coker
believes that this mill, too, derived its power from the little stream.
He says that the stream has been extinct since he reached manhood. It
ended in 'Scrub Pond,' beyond Grandin and Starke.

Some of the names of the old lakes of the section were these: "Brooklyn
Lake; Magnolia Lake; Soldier Pond (near Keystone); Half-Moon Pond, near
Putnam Hall; Hick's Lake" and others. On one of them was the large grist
mill of Dr. McCray; Coker suggests that this might be the origin of the
town of McRae of the present period.

To add to its natural water facilities, Coker points out, Bradford
County also had a canal. This canal ran from the interior of the county
to the St. John's River near Green Cove Springs, and with Mandarin on
the other side of the river still a major shipping point, the canal
handled much of the commerce of Bradford and Clay Counties.

Coker recalls vividly the Indians of the area in the days before 1870.
These, he claims to have been friendly, but reserved, fellows; he does
not recall any of the Indian women.

Negro slaves from the region aro