Something Big Happened

Chapter 1

In 1792 something big happened.

Col. Eric Arthur Blair Cross, a a proud southern gentlemen and veteran of many Indian and Spanish battles, made neighbors with the lazy North Florida sun and finished construction of a 55 acre cotton and indigo plantation. It was certainly not the biggest, but probably the best compound in the whole of the South. The main house, with its tall white Ionic columns and fine crafted furniture was the toast of the county and held court for many annual galas. The out buildings and Negro quarters were so fine that it was nearly impossible to be anything but happy in the fields of cotton and tobacco.

For almost 50 years, time stood still in Cross City, as it was affectionately known. The good Colonels descendant's lives of leisure were only surpassed in happiness by that of the West Indian slaves who gladly worked day and night. It was an idyllic existence for all parties and, if nature has his way, it would have continued that way for a thousand years. But Gods way soon gave pass to man's impulses and new ideas replaced the old. Outsiders came in and the War of Northern Aggression lay waste to so much fine architecture that Nero himself cringed. By 1864, Cross City was as pitiful as it once was spectacular. Less than a year later, every male inhabitant was dead, every women destitute and the land was abandoned completely.

As recompense for killing their whole family and destroying their homes, the newly reunified government bought the area for seven pounds of silver, which was then promptly returned to the treasury as a "Reconstruction Tax." Within two years, ninety percent of the land had been transformed into Northern Florida Reformatory and Insane Asylum (which soon housed five times as many Negros as Cross City) and the remaining ten percent was left to return to its prehistoric state.

It was somewhere in that 10% that 3 families cleared a small area and established Freetown, or Cross City, as it was mockingly known. It was an area no larger than a 2 football fields and was surrounded on three sides by impassable swamp. Prior to the Freetown founding fathers, the land was devoid of all bipeds except for an ill-fated 1860 slave escape which led to 4 deaths and ten thousand satiated red ants. Day and night the families worked to build homes out of whatever scrap they could find, procured slightly damaged chairs from still smoldering mansion and even found an original George Stubbs painting, which was hung in the 'town square' for all to see.

Without the benefit of white oversight, the town completely fell down 3 times in the first several months but was eventually built well enough to withstand the strongest of monsoons. Between 1865 and 1868, 8 children were born in Freetown; 6 people died of malaria and the population leveled out at 14. The townspeople were spread amongst 3 homes, each with an indispensable duty. The Young's were the farmers, the Taylors kept and slaughtered the pigs and the Martins minded the corn mash still. The system worked well and time forgot Freetown for decades.

In 1930 (some say 1931) Henry Taylor found a $2 bill under a skeleton and was told by his father that it was probably the remains of the 1860 expedition that ended in failure. Henry accepted this explanation but it ignited a desire in him to learn about life outside of Cross City. So, over the next several months he and 2 others managed to make it all the way to Hamilton, 20 miles away. Once there, one of the three smiled at a white woman and only 2 returned to Cross.

Over time, the town became more and more efficient and, out of boredom, Henry started a formalized economy wherein, every Monday, a Martin would take the $2 bill to the Taylors and buy swine. On Tuesdays, a Taylor would take that bill to the Lewis and buy corn and greens and on Wednesday the bill was returned to the Martins for moonshine. On Thursdays all three families would come together with the finished meat, vegables and moonshine and distributed the spoils according to need. The families spent the remaining days of the week indulging in the surplus of their individual labor. Consequently the Taylors got fatter, the Lewis' began to wear flowers in their hair and the Williams' got drunker. So drunk, in fact, that by 1949 all the Williams', save 2, had died of the shakes or drown in the swamp.