sandy bottom had been increasingly covered with silt due to the widening of the Okeechobee Canal. Under Governor Napoleon Broward (who would die that same year on October 1) widespread canal dredging had been resumed, and big sales campaigns had started up for the sale of Everglades land.
The Monroe County census taken in May listed Green Waller, 53, and Mrs. Smith (cook), 40, at Chatham Bend, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Watson and their two young children-the third child was born later in this month. There was also Lucius Watson, age 20, a fisherman, and another white man, 'John Smith, age 33.'
Early June brings warm and cloudy weather, with mosquitoes. 'I have been here twenty-four years and have never seen the fruit trees so near dead as now, near the first of June… don't know what the effect will be when the rain comes, if it ever does… We see the comet in the west now, but not so brilliantly as in the east…'
His brother Horace from Marco visits Walter Alderman. He will move onto the island in July. (Horace Alderman became notorious in later years for his exploits in the rum-running and Chinese-smuggling trades. He was hung at Fort Lauderdale in the mid-twenties for the murder of two Coast Guardsmen who had detained him.)
Mr. George Storter, his two sons, and Henry Short have 'fair luck' on a gator hunt and go again.
Game laws protecting alligators are passed in Lee County, since in the dry season the gators dig out water holes used by the cattle.
'Mr. C.T. Boggess and family have moved on the island to dwell among the righteous for a while.'
At the end of June, the rainy season arrives at last, nearly two months late, with lots of Indians, mosquitoes, and 'blind tiger' (moonshine).
Walter Alderman, Henry Smith, C.G. McKinney, Jim Howell, Willie Brown, D.D. House, Charlie Boggess all growing vegetables for the Key West market.
In early July (as Admiral Peary claims discovery of the North Pole) McKinney teases the preacher Brother Jones, who chronically defers his visits due to the torments visited upon him by the 'swamp angels' (mosquitoes).
Henry Smith and Tant Jenkins go to dig clams at Pavilion Key until the fishing improves.
Charlie McKinney and Kathleen Demere are married at the schoolhouse on July 28 by Justice George Storter.
In early August, the Rosina, which now sails twice a month, leaves for Key West with Mr. and Mrs. John Henry Daniels.
'Green peas and beans are being harvested; fish are fat.'
'Mr. Walter Alderman has a (chronic) infected foot.'
McKinney reports lots of rain, thunder, and lightning for late August, also 'low bush lightning.' The 'truckers' (truck farmers) are setting out their crops. McKinney is getting in his pepper crop while fighting rabbits.
A baby girl is born on the island to Andrew Wiggins and his wife on August 20. She is the former Addie Howell. His father, William Wiggins, has moved to Fort Myers, but his younger brother, Raleigh, is on Chokoloskee.
Bill House and Miss Nettie Howell are wed at the school-house on the last Sunday of August, 'just as we have been expecting for two years.' They have their honeymoon at Key West on the Rosina, and will live on the boat. Dan House now plans to acquire his own boat.
In early September, Miss Lillie Daniels, daughter of Jim Daniels, marries Capt. Jack Collier at Caxambas. 'Lucius Watson was here [Caxambas] Sunday for the first time since April.' (One may guess that he was visiting the Daniels-Jenkins clan, including his young half-sisters Pearl and Minnie.)
Henry Short has gone back fishing. The fishing is good but the hens are not laying.
School reopens. Gregorio Lopez and sons have gone to Honduras hunting alligators, while Lovie Lopez and the younger children move to Chokoloskee 'for the school season.'
Somewhere around October 10, Mister Watson brought his family up to Chokoloskee. His wife and children visited commonly at Chokoloskee after the baby's birth in May. She told my sister and Alice McKinney she could not tolerate Chatham Bend with Leslie Cox there. She would never let on what she knew about Cox, she only said that wherever that man was, trouble would follow.
Mister Watson had one of his outlaws with him. The men liked Dutchy Melvin, what they seen of him, they was leery but allowed as how he was full of fun. That October day at Chokoloskee, there was some tension between him and Watson, something to do with Cox. Dutchy got drunk and foul-mouthed, sneered at Mister Watson to his face, in front of everybody. Pretended he was fooling but he wasn't. Even dropped the 'Mister,' called him 'E.J.,' even 'Ed.' Said, Don't know what's eating on you, Ed, but how about let's you and me settle this fucking goddam thing right here and now.
Mister Watson explained calmly to that young feller that no man, not even E.J. Watson, could draw as fast out of his coat pocket as a feller drawing from a holster. You want me dead as bad as that, you better shoot me in the back, Mister Watson said. And Dutchy said, I heard back-shooting was your specialty. Mister Watson raised his eyes and cocked his head. After a little while he said, You're not careful enough for a feller who talks as smart as that. And Dutchy said, I'm getting more careful all the time. But under Mister Watson's gaze, his eyes shivered just a little, the men seen it.
When Mister Watson turned his back on him, there come a gasp, but Watson knew his man. Dutchy was no back-shooter and never would be. What was needed was another drink, Ed Watson said. They got some more booze from the Lopez boys and drank together, took the jug along for the trip to Chatham Bend. That's the last we ever seen of Dutchy Melvin.
Henry Daniels likes to tell about the day when Mister Watson come in to see Pearl and Minnie at Pavilion, maybe visit a spell with Josie Parks while he was at it. And Tant Jenkins yelled some teasing at him by way of telling him hello, and Dutchy Melvin, hearing that, made the bad mistake of figuring, Well, if that fool Tant could do it, he could, too. So what he done, he teetered Mister Watson off the plank that led across the mud flats to the shore, done it to show them clam diggers and whatnot that Dutchy Melvin weren't afraid of E.J. Watson. Got Mister Watson's good boots wet in the salt water, and the pant legs of his city britches, too, and hooted just to see him slog ashore. Nobody else who seen it laughed at all.
Dutchy Melvin thought a heap of Mister Watson, he was like a barking pup jumping around, trying to play with a quiet dangerous dog. He was excited to see what that man would do, and looked kind of crestfallen, Henry said, when nothing happened.
Mister Watson never once looked back, he kept right on going. But Henry Daniels seen Mister Watson's face as he went by, said he knowed right then that Dutchy's days was numbered. Would of bet money on it, Henry Daniels said.
If Mister Watson killed them Tuckers for that Lost Man's claim, there weren't nothing to keep him from coming farther south, kill a few Hamiltons. Grandpap James Hamilton figured Mister Watson might suspect we had some money saved, might demand them savings as due rent, on account he'd paid the Atwells for the claim at Little Creek but we was farming it. That goes to show how fear grew in the rivers. Fear was always in the air, like the
