J.D. Henry reflecting on Live Oak’s past - 1976
Susan Coleman Fennell
Contributor
Born in Chipman, Tenn., J.D. Henry came to Live Oak in 1908 when he was 14 years old. He remembers his uncle D.O. Henry telling him about how the city got its name. Back in the days of covered wagons, frontier Florida was traversed from Jacksonville to Tallahassee in about nine or 10 days with stops about every 25 miles. People used to stop at the old county seat in Houston, but cattlemen and railroad men liked camping under a group of huge oak trees where they could relax in the shade and drink from a nearby pond. The largest live oak tree was located just off West Duval Street and at the southeast corner of what was called the old Still Pond. All that remains of the old tree are a couple of cuttings displayed in the First National Bank. (The plaque and one piece of the tree is now at the Suwannee County Historical Museum.)
Henry originally intended to spend one school term in the community but his stay became an extended one and he’s witnessed a lot of changes in that time. A striking example of this is the size of his graduating class at Suwannee High. When Henry received his SHS diploma, he was joined in the honor by four girls. That was his graduating class, five people. Since then the ceremony has moved from the First Baptist Church and the graduating class has increased considerably.
Henry recalls the Cypress pond where the Suwannee Hotel was later built. That’s when virgin timberland was being sold for $1.50 per acre. In fact, just 40 years ago, he recalled, Standard Lumber Company sold several thousand acres of land in Lafayette County for 28 cents an acre. Henry said he was ashamed, at the time, for friends to know he was living in a $7,000 house.
In 1908 there was only one bank in town, the First National, which employed three or four persons, Henry said. He said later that bank and the First Commercial Bank were in strong competition to see which one could be the first to have $1 million on deposit.
While bankers were trying to build deposits, other people were out in the woods shooting cows. They’d skin and dress them there, place them on the floor of a wagon with some pine tree tops as cover, and ride through Live Oak selling the meat.
Henry remembered that passengers on the old LOP&G often had to disembark from the train to go into the woods for fuel to fire the engines (wood burners) to get back home. That’s when an automobile could travel from Live Oak to Dowling Park in two hours. It took practically all day to drive to Perry, he said.
Island cotton was stacked high at the Live Oak rail depot. “It looked like a sea of cotton bales,” he said.
Death and funeral announcements were delivered in what would now be considered a rather unusual way, Henry remembered. Boys would carry around town a printed form telling who had died, and when and where they were to be buried. As soon as someone had read the news the boys would run along to the next store or group of people so others could read it.
Henry died Nov. 9, 1985, and is buried in the Live Oak Cemetery in Live Oak, Fla.
Join us next week for more Suwannee County history!
Susan Coleman Fennell is a part of the Suwannee County Historical Commission & Museum located at 208 Ohio Avenue North in Live Oak. She may be reached at suwanneehistorical@gmail.com.