the June Bug Club met every two weeks and planned activities that included hayrides, watermelon cutting, charades and tableaux.
For those who wished a wilder time Archer's three saloons stayed wide open on Saturday nights . Farm and ranch hands came to town and spent their money drinking and carousing. More than once the midnight calm of Archer's Main Street was broken with loud yells, riots, shootings and horse galloping, even through the stores. When Alachua County went into the local option column a couple of years later, the people of Archer that considered the saloons a nuisance decided to get rid of them. A movement was started to vote the saloons out of business. On election day the voting place was an old store building with a broad front porch. Inside a cook stove had been installed and the long counters were used as tables.
As soon as the polls opened the smell of hot coffee permeated the air. A rumor started that "if you vote dry, you can have plenty of good coffee, sandwiches and cookies". An organ was set up on the front porch and all day the black women who helped serve in the polling place, would come outside to play the organ and sing, attracting the black men who had come to vote. At sunset the organ was carried back to its owner and the store was closed. When the votes were counted Archer had voted the saloons out of business.
Trains came through Archer on a regular basis. There was a once-daily mail train and a three-times-a-week passenger train. However, the tracks were so poor that the F.C.&P. Railroad was facetiously called the "friends, come and push" and the triweekly train was jokingly said to be called that because no more than three trains a week made it between Fernandina and Cedar Key without breaking down. One Northern visitor wrote of a train wreck he observed near Archer in the following manner:
Going forward to see what was the matter, we
found the engine of the Eastward-bound train
lying on its side in the ditch below the line,
entangled in the broken telegraph wires: the
tender smashed to pieces, and the front wheels
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of the baggage wagon embedded in sand, while the track was torn up for a considerable distance.
The writer further commented that the crew of the wrecked train had encamped comfortably in a stand of pines near the derailment and had not taken any steps to clear the line or repair the tracks although the accident had happened the day before. Since no one had been injured or killed, no one was particularly upset about the wreck. After a delay of several hours the crew had repaired the track and the train continued on its way to Cedar Key.
During the end of 1885 and the beginning of 1886 Archer experienced the first of several disastrous freezes that occurred in the last fifteen years of the nineteenth century, Christmas 1885 was so warm that people spent the day in short sleeves and summer clothes. A week later on January 1, 1886 a blizzard roared down on Archer and the next morning dawned clear and cold. Horse troughs were iced over and temperatures were recorded at 11 degrees. Ice in shadowed areas didn't melt for five days. Although the groves were frozen down to the ground, many farmers decided to replant, thinking that the winter freeze was a singular rare occurrence.
The 1886 freeze did force some residents of Archer to leave, however. An 1886-1887 directory lists the following businesses in town: a post-office with a money order office, an express telegraph office, one school, five general stores, one saw and grist-mill. There were also three churches (Methodist, Presbyterian and Quaker) for whites and a Baptist Church used by blacks. The businesses in town were rounded out with a drug store and a carriage and wagon factory.
The 1886 freeze turned out to be a temporary setback. By late
1888 Archer's merchants had returned. There were two blacksmiths
and nine general stores. The number of churches had expanded to
two white and three black, and there was one white and two black
schools. Mail came through on the F.C.&P. (the old Florida
Railroad) on a twice-daily basis. In 1888 George Blitch was the
postmaster.
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Four distinct social groups could be found in Archer during the 1880's. The first social group was comprised of the descendants of the original settlers of Archer, such as the Bauknights; although most members of these families had either moved away or died, the few who were left constituted the social aristocracy of the town. Similar to the first group were members of families who had settled in Archer during the 1850's from South Carolina; an example of this group was the Fleming family.
The third social group was made up of the most recent wave of settlers, the Yankees, and included Quakers, carpetbaggers and other Northerners. The fourth social class was made up of the blacks, who provided the work force for the town. It was estimated that black Archerians outnumbered whites three to one, and while many blacks lived on homesteads or had small communities of their own, a large number lived on the southern and eastern edges of Archer.
Race relations were fairly stable during the 1880's in Archer. Many older blacks had been slaves and were still viewed by whites as being gentle, kindly and dependable. Many whites employed them as maids, cooks and gardeners; they were known by familiar titles such as Uncle Pauldo and Aunt Celia, and Uncle Henry Bell and Aunt Tillie. Uncle Pauldo had as one of his prized possessions the horn that the Yulees used to call the slaves in from the fields in the evening for supper; after his death the horn was given to the Gainesville Chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy.
One of the better known desperados in Florida in the 1880's-
1890's was Harmon Murray who gained notoriety starting in 1888.
A black man, he was arrested that year and sentenced to three years
in the State Penitentiary for stealing a horse from his employer
in Gainesville. Murray contended in his trial that he hadn't
stolen the horse, but only 'borrowed' it so that he could go see
his girlfriend who lived in Arredonda. After spending several
months locked up, he and five others escaped from a turpentine
camp, or 'turpentine hell' as they were called, and formed a gang
that operated between Tampa and Jacksonville and terrorized the
central part of the state with a number of robberies and murders.
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By early 1891 the gang had relocated to Gainesville, boyhood home of Murray. A February shootout with police near the F.C.&P. depot led to the capture and subsequent lynching of two gang members; Murray escaped capture and spent the next several months on the run. He stayed in Fernandina with his sister for part of the time; while there he reportedly killed a man. From there he moved to Jacksonville and worked as a police officer. On his way back to Gainesville he was involved in a shootout with police in Starke, which left the police chief and one deputy dead. Murray hid out in small black communities throughout Alachua County, the people too terrified of him to notify police. A number of posses were organized to capture him; even in Archer blacks and whites alike went armed in search of Murray,
In September Harmon Murray was in Long Pond, a small black settlement three miles east of Archer; he had come in order to kill several people in Archer he thought were informing police on his whereabouts. Not trusting anyone Murray also threatened the man he was staying with and his friend, Elbert Hardy, with death if they did not help him. At midnight Murray started out with Hardy on a walk to Archer. Hardy was somehow able to get behind Murray and shoot him. News that the famous outlaw had been killed spread quickly from Long Pond to Archer, and from there to Gainesville via telegraph. Harmon Murray's body was brought to Archer by wagon and loaded on a boxcar which was sent to Gainesville. Elbert Hardy was an instant celebrity; Murray was embalmed and displayed on the old courthouse lawn for several days.
In 1888 members of the Gainesville Guard returned from
Fernandina; after getting home some of the young men became sick.
Yellow fever was diagnosed, which sent a panic throughout
Gainesville. Families were bundled up and sent out to relatives
and friends in the country. Others got into any kind of
transportation they could find and headed out from the town.
Archer became alarmed about the reports of yellow fever in
Gainesville and so posted armed guards at the railroad to insure
that no one got off the train. Other armed men were stationed at
the crossroads leading into town from Gainesville with orders to
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turn everyone back. On the other side of Archer, Levy County also imposed a quarantine against Alachua County, and sealed off the county line with armed deputies. Fortunately, there was a cold snap in late September or early October that stopped the epidemic. Slowly, by the end of that year, when no fresh cases of yellow fever were reported, things returned to normal and people were able to freely pass through Archer once again.
One of the first major developments of the 1890's was the creation of new rail lines through Archer. Until 1890 the F.C.&P. was the only railroad through town. Service included a passenger train from Cedar Key at 9 AM and one from Jacksonville which stopped at 6 PM; a freight train each way completed the daily schedule. In 1890 Ambler Lumber Company began cutting the pine forests in western Alachua County; a track was constructed from Archer to Morriston, a distance of twenty miles. By 1892 phosphate was being mined near Ocala, and a spur line was built from Archer southward down Gibson Avenue past the Presbyterian church to the Eagle Mine.
New buildings continued to be erected in town. The Goodwood
Hotel was built on McDowell Street; the hotel was constructed with
double-floorings to cut down on noise from upstairs rooms. Around
the corner was the new two-story Town Hall. In 1890 the Methodists
decided to build a new church to take the place of the small log
one. J.S. and J.F. McDonnell, Wade Geiger and Frank Bauknight were
able to get title to the property on the corner of Church and
McDowell Streets from Samuel Swann, director of the Florida Town
Improvement Society. The corner stone for the new church was laid
May 13, 1890 and the bell added June 22, 1891. Money was raised
for the new church and bell by a unique project, members of the
church donated ten cents each to have their names embroidered on
a "friendship quilt". This quilt is still displayed during special
occasions. The minister of the church in 1891 was W.S. Richardson.
After the new church was built the old log one was used as the
town"s jail.
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Part 1.... Part 2.... Part 3.... Part 4.... Part 5.... Part 7.... Part 8.... Archer History Page 1