About a year ago, I gave myself a project to research the land I live on; born out of curiosity, it was supposed to be a simple weekend endeavor. But as I clicked through the deeds of past ownership, I uncovered a history that I had no idea existed – a close-knit community, thriving industries and a dark chapter in Florida’s history – I realized I lived in a ghost town. The clues were peppered in the myriad documents that I uncovered hinting at what past lives existed here and what ghosts were (and are still) around; the essence of something that once was, an imprint, though literal ghosts aren’t out of the question, I just haven’t seen any. As I began to sift through and distill the information, many narratives began to take shape – the communal, the familial, the industrial, the environmental – and collectively these stories created the essence of the once town of Higley, Florida. It’s hard to envision now when you walk down Em En El Grove Road that any such community existed and since so few vestiges are visible, you must walk with the same vision of the founders, letting their ghosts guide you, seeing through their eyes the imprint of the past; the Higley House Hotel, the post office, the school, the church, the shops and the homes. The information and conclusions presented hereinafter is based on extant documentation including deeds, records from the Board of County Commissioners, the Bureau of Land Management, the Department of the Post Office, newspaper articles, census records and genealogies.  

When I started this research project, I didn’t expect to find much except that so and so bought the land from so and so and so forth. When I came across a deed from 1913 of the lot that I live on, there was a clause at the bottom of the document, “except a timber deed which was made to the Higley Turpentine Co, running eight years from July 1911.¹⁰” The land had been sold by Carlie A. and Ella Vaughn and I found that they had purchased the land from the Peninsular Naval Stores Company. I was confused by this assemblage of words. I understood what they meant individually – Peninsular. Naval. Stores. Company – but collectively? A Google search revealed that naval stores were the products derived from pine sap like turpentine and resin. Naturally I began to explore the turpentine industry in Florida and uncovered a dark chapter in the state’s history that stained the land I live on.

With its vast pine forests, the southeastern United States became a major production center for turpentine. Large companies bought up timberland or the right to use it and brought in large teams of workers to scrape the faces of the pine trees and channel the sap into cups for collection. The process was labor-intensive, but the companies often paid very little. Most turpentine workers were African Americans or convicts leased through the state or county jails. Whether you were free or a convict, the exploitation was the same; poor living conditions, disease, abuse and general lack of care plagued the turpentine camps. At the height of the Florida turpentine boom (1907 – 1909), 90% of the prison population was leased to private companies.¹¹ For those who were “free”, you were paid in company scrip which could only be used at the company’s commissary, and such was the set-up with Peninsular Naval Stores Company (PNSC). When the Vaughn’s purchased large swaths of land from the PNSC, they also purchased, “…six mules, 2 horses, three two horse wagons…one turpentine still…one coopers shop…one commissary building and stock of goods…”¹². The deed is 12 pages of land, leases and goods and it seems the Vaughns adopted the standard mode to their enterprise in the use of the commissary. In the 1900 federal census for Higley, of the 47 naval stores laborers, two where white – the foreman and the manufacturer. Also recorded as laborers were 16-year-old Lewis Foreman and his 14-year-old brother Ruben as well as 14-year-old Henry McKisel. In the 1910 federal census of Higley, we find Edward C. Poe as “owner turpentine farm” and on the following line is Carlie A. Vaughn listed as “woods rider”, another name for the foreman since they rode horseback overseeing the worked. In this census we see 33 laborers including 16-year-old Augustus Lastus, 13-year-old Isaac Tyson and his 11-year-old brother Elbert. It seems to have been a family affair because Isaac and Elbert’s father, Adam, was also a laborer for this turpentine farm; their mother Eva is also listed though not as a laborer. Women were an integral part of the system with cooking and cleaning being their main duties and we find Annie Tanner and her 15-year-old daughter Carrie listed as laundresses as well as Minnie Waits, her sister Lattie and Mary Butler. These were ghosts I didn’t know about, the ones that labored where I’m sitting writing this.  

A resident of Higley penned the following in a letter to the editor in 1909, “Oranges and grapefruits are moving off quite lively. The crop is abundant and ripening very fast…I think there will be shipped from this place ten to fifteen thousand boxes of oranges and grapefruits…Mr. Caldwell’s mercantile interests here…is prospering…Mr. Ed Poe is pushing his turpentine interests and is prospering…Last Tuesday night there was a social at Mr. Vaughns, attended by twenty or thirty young people…There are a lot of young men here, picking and packing oranges. Several of these attended and added to the pleasure of the occasion…Mr. and Mrs. Vaughn are splendid entertainers and made everything enjoyable for their guests. Long may they live to make the young people happy.”¹³ I can’t speak to Carlie Vaughn specifically but the extant documentation on the turpentine foreman is not positive as they were the driving force in production that started from sunup to sundown.