Cracker Cowboy

Moses Barber had simply had enough of his cattle going missing. He believed that David Mizell and his friends were periodically stealing from his herd. His rage reached a point where Barber publically declared that if Mizell set foot on his property again, he would be shot.

On February 21, 1870, David Mizell became the first casualty of the Barber-Mizell Family Feud. He was shot and killed on Barber property near Holopaw, Florida, in Osceola County.

Moses Barber first settled in North Florida in the 1830s. As the Seminoles were pushed to the south, Barber expanded his cattle operation into Central Florida. Some members of the Barber family built homes on the south end of the cattle run, near Fort Christmas. By the time the Civil War began in 1860, Barber was a prominent and successful cattleman.

During the Civil War, Florida was the primary supplier of beef to the Confederate Army, and the Barber family had one of the largest cattle businesses in the state. Once the war was over, some of Barber’s fellow cowmen were taking part in the Reconstruction government, which he saw as a betrayal.

David Mizell, who had fought for the Confederate Army, was named sheriff and tax collector of Orange County after the war. Moses Barber refused to pay what he believed were unfair taxes to the U.S. government. Mizell responded by taking some of Barber’s cattle to compensate for the unpaid debt. Tensions between the Barber family and the Mizell family escalated during the late 1860s, with other cattle families taking one side of the argument or the other.

Moses Barber believed that Mizell family friend George Bass had stolen some of his cattle, and confronted him about it. The Mizells controlled the sheriff’s office and the courts, so Barber and members of his family were charged with “false imprisonment” for holding Bass against his will. After decades of lawlessness on Florida’s frontier, Mizells charged Barbers with a series of crimes including arson, polygamy, and tax evasion. At the heart of the dispute was control over Florida’s cattle industry.

David Mizell ignored Moses Barber’s warning to stay off his land. Mizell, his son Will, and his brother Morgan ventured onto Barber property. As they crossed Bull Creek on their horses, shots were fired from behind some bushes, and David Mizell was killed.

As he lay dying, David Mizell asked that his death not be avenged. His brother John had other plans.

John Randolf Mizell, David’s brother, was the first judge of Orange County. Despite his position, Judge Mizell wanted swift justice for the men he was convinced were behind his brother’s death. Within weeks, Moses Barber’s son Isaac was shot and killed, allegedly while trying to escape arrest and Moses Jr. was drowned by vigilantes. Barber family friends William Yates and Lyell Padgett were shot and killed as fleeing suspects.

William Bronson, a family friend of the Mizells, was reportedly shot by Burrell Yates, a friend and relative of the Barbers. Allegedly, Yates was trying to prevent Bronson from burning evidence that would incriminate the Mizells and their associates in the wrongful deaths of the Barbers.

According to Barber family history, a total of thirteen Barber men were killed by the Mizell family during the Barber-Mizell Family Feud of 1870, but this claim cannot be verified by public records.

No one is sure what happened to Moses Barber during and after the feud. Some records indicate that he died in 1870, while others have him alive and living in Texas in 1877.

Remnants of this colorful chapter of Florida history remain today. The Mizell family homestead is located in what is now Harry P. Leu Botanical Garden in Winter Park. The oldest grave in the small family cemetery there belongs to David Mizell. The Yates family homestead, originally located on Taylor Creek, has been relocated to Fort Christmas Historic Park. Needham Yates and William Yates were both killed in the Barber-Mizell Family Feud. The rural Volusia County town of Barberville was founded by James D. Barber, a descendent of Moses Barber.

The Barber-Mizell Family Feud will be featured on the television series “Florida Frontiers,” airing locally on WUCF-TV, Sunday, October 2, at 11am.

Three sisters entertained Union soldiers in their St. Augustine home during the Civil War, carefully gathering information. While two sisters continued to distract the soldiers, the third, Lola Sanchez rode a horse through backwoods and marshes to relay Union plans to Confederate forces.

Poet Ann Browning Masters is related to the Sanchez sisters and writes a poem from Lola’s perspective in the new book “Floridanos, Menorcans, Cattle-Whip Crackers: Poetry of St. Augustine.”

Masters will be discussing her work Friday evening at 7:00 at the Library of Florida History, 435 Brevard Avenue, Cocoa. The presentation is free and open to the public.

The Spanish established St. Augustine on September 8, 1565, making it the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in what would become the United States. Descendants of those Spanish settlers are called “Floridanos.”

A twelfth generation Floridian, Masters can trace her lineage back to the early days of America’s first permanent European settlement, making her a Floridano.

“In St. Augustine on my mother’s side, her family records that are first there in the records with the Catholic Church are in 1602, when Elena Gonzales married Diego Alvarez,” says Masters.

“For almost a hundred years, her daughters, granddaughters continued to marry men who came to St. Augustine. They stayed there. Then in 1704, Juana Perez, one of those great-granddaughters, married Jose Sanchez. So my family line maternally, goes with the Sanchez family. My mother’s maiden name is Sanchez.”

The First Spanish Period in Florida ended in 1763, when the British took control of the region for twenty years. During the British Period, Scotsman Andrew Turnbull brought indentured servants to Florida to settle New Smyrna. The term “Menorcan” is used to describe these people and their descendants, although not all of them were from the island of Menorca.

“They are of Italian, Greek, and Menorcan descent,” says Masters. “Menorca is one of the Balearic Islands southeast from Barcelona (Spain) and at the time, Menorca was under control of Britain, so it made sense that a British land owner would recruit indentured servants from this Spanish, basically, island of Menorca.”

The Turnbull Plantation failed, and the indentured servants from New Smyrna fled north to St. Augustine where they were provided sanctuary.

“The paternal side for me is the Menorcan side,” Masters says. “In my mother’s Floridano side, they married some Menorcans. So for me, it’s a blending of those two cultures.”

It is a popular myth in St. Augustine that hot datil peppers arrived in the area when Menorcan settlers brought them there. Extensive research and three trips to Menorca have convinced Masters that the legend is not true.

What is a fact is that Menorcans in St. Augustine have been cooking with datil peppers for many generations, as Masters explains in her poem “The Menorcan St. Augustine Litmus Test.” In the poem, she says that if you enjoy eating the burning hot peppers and ask for more, you can be called “a good Menorcan.”

The third group named in the title of Masters’ poetry collection, and the third part of her ancestry, is “Cattle-Whip Crackers.” The word “cracker” probably originates with the William Shakespeare play “The Life and Death of King John” where talkative Scotch-Irish people are called “crackers.” Those people eventually came to Florida as pioneers.

“There are so many origins for the word. We can go back to the Scotch-Irish, the craic, the talk at the pub and a good time. In America, the corn crackers, that’s another derivation. In this case though, what I’m talking about are people who owned cows, had ranches. In the South we would say they ‘ran cows.’ Growing up, that was my understanding of the term, although at the same time it did have that pejorative term of a racist that it has now. But that’s another usage for that term.”

In her book “Floridanos, Menorcans, Cattle-Whip Crackers: Poetry of St. Augustine,” Masters explores her personal heritage, but also addresses historical topics and perspectives.

“For me, the local language, the vernacular is poetic. When I hear this speech, I hear the voices speaking narrative poetry. That’s why many of the poems are almost like monologues with characters telling their story. That’s poetry for me.”

The clear, strong, almost operatic singing of Benjamin Dehart can be heard accompanied by his skillful acoustic guitar playing at annual events such as the Florida Folk Festival in White Springs, the Fall Pioneer Jamboree in Barberville, Patrick Smith Day in Holopaw, the Cowboy Heritage Festival in Kissimmee, and the Will McLean Florida Folk Festival in Dade City.

Dehart, known throughout Florida and beyond as “The Cracker Tenor,” sings original songs inspired by Florida history, Seminole life, cowboy culture, and a longing for a simpler time when the natural Florida was less encroached upon by urban sprawl.

“I’m a native Floridian, I’m a second generation Floridian,” says Dehart. “If you’re born here and have some history, you’re pretty much a Cracker. I’m a tenor singer, so it was pretty easy to put the moniker together and come up with that name. I’m getting to be recognized more as ‘The Cracker Tenor’ than by my real name.”

As a boy growing up in the small farming community of Oxford, Florida, Dehart played autoharp and sang bluegrass music with his two brothers at local events. Today, Dehart plays guitar and Native American flutes, and sings with a lyrical voice.

Dehart has recorded four CDs of his music, available on his web site at thecrackertenor.com. His second CD, “Takin’ Another Crack At It,” contains the introspective, autobiographical song “All I Really Ever Wanted to be Was a Cowboy.”

“I was raised in a very rural and small town in Florida, and I had the opportunity to work as a Cracker,” says Dehart. “I worked with cattle. My grandfather was a cowman and a farmer, and I worked for a number of the cattle people in the area. I’ve always just been enamored and in love with the lifestyle of the cowboy and the cracker cow hunters of Florida.”

That love of cowboy culture comes through vividly in Dehart’s music. He sings about how life’s obligations interfered with his dream of spending the rest of his life as a Florida cowman.

“The responsible side of me made me not stay with that vocation, as much as I wanted to,” says Dehart. “I moved away from my little rural hometown and moved to a bigger city to start working for a big corporation, but my heart was always still in the saddle, so to speak. You do what you have to do to make a living, but that’s not necessarily where your heart is, and your heart will sing out.”

Another song that is very personal to Dehart is “Papa Can You Hear,” the story of his grandfather’s request to have a bagpiper play “Amazing Grace” at his funeral.

“My grandfather moved to the Okeechobee area and settled there,” says Dehart. “He was a unique man and a unique individual. He was an alligator hunter and a fisherman and a woodsman. He spent a lot of time in the Everglades. He was also, in the other part of his life, a Primitive Baptist preacher. He was a very eclectic man.”

Many of Dehart’s songs on the album “Another Side of Me” focus on the indigenous people of Florida. Some of the songs in that collection are instrumentals, featuring Dehart playing Native American flute.

“There’s more history than just the Seminole Indians,” says Dehart. “They have a wondrous culture and they have a lot of history themselves, but there’s more to do with Florida’s indigenous people that goes back thousands of years, and a lot of people don’t know that.”

The Cracker Tenor’s primary focus is on Florida’s rich history of cowboy culture and the people who are keeping that tradition alive today. Dehart hopes that his music will help preserve the stories of Florida’s cattle families.

“A lot of people don’t realize that the cattle industry started in Florida,” says Dehart. “The symbolism of the cowboy is something that will never die. I’m fully convinced that several hundred years from now, even if cow culture itself died out, someone could dig up a spur or a saddle or a bit, and instantly they would recognize what it was and where it came from. I think the iconic image of the cowboy is here to stay.”