Video Script: Florida-s Fishing Traditions: Sebastian, Part 1
Florida Waterfront Communities’ Commercial Fishing Heritage
Video Script
- Title: Florida's Fishing Traditions: Sebastian, Part 1
- Type: Informational
- Length: 7:47
- Year: 2009
Charlie Sembler: To true fishermen, independent and rugged living mean more than any modern convenience. A true fisherman, a real salt, if you will, they like that independence. They like the solitude. They like the river. They like the ocean. It’s the thrill of the hunt. It’s the chase. It’s the pursuit. Most of the real true fishermen are self-reliant people. They fix their own equipment. They’re electricians, they’re plumbers, they’re welders, they’re fiberglass men, they’re carpenters. They very much don’t want to depend on anybody else. It’s really that rugged breed that you don’t see a lot of today.
Narrator: Stretching over 150 miles along Florida’s east coast, the waters of the Indian River Lagoon had been a source of food for centuries for the Ais Indians. During the winter months the Ais lived on the long barrier island that separates the lagoon from the Atlantic Ocean. While the swamps and mangroves that lined the island provided excellent habitat for the river’s fish, they also proved to be excellent breeding grounds for swarms of mosquitoes. So pervasive were the insects that even the hardy Ais Indians fled the barrier island in the summers.
The Spanish explorers also found the region intolerable, leaving the bug-infested area to the original inhabitants. By 1760, the Ais Indians had all but disappeared. The land was now open for the hearty folks who would brave the heat, the hurricanes and the mosquitoes.
During Reconstruction, The Southern Homestead Act of 1866 was passed. It offered public domain land to any citizen who would improve their plot with a dwelling and crops. In Florida, a few settlers began to lay claim to the land along the Indian River Lagoon. Attracted to the area by its abundance of wildlife and fisheries, the rugged and independent pioneers carved a living out of the wilderness, improving the land with everything from citrus groves to pineapple plantations.
Barbara Smith Arthur: My grandfather came from southwest Georgia, Stewart County, after the Civil War and got a job in the pineapple fields in Melbourne Beach. He worked and made enough money to send for his brother, Charlie. There were no roads. They came in by sailboat and, together, they started looking for land to farm. So they came in to see what the land was like here and found it was high and dry. And so they laid claim to a government homestead. They had to build a permanent structure, which was their house. It had a dirt floor; the walls were made out of palmetto cabbage palm trunks. And of course, the roof was the thatched leaves of the palmetto. And they had to also plant a permanent crop. They had collards and sweet potatoes. And, it took them 15 years to prove up on the land. And Teddy Roosevelt signed the deed to grant them almost 159 point-some acres of land.
Narrator: Without roads to the region, the settlers depended on the river for more than just fish. Steamboats became a vital life line for the Indian River Lagoon.
Barbara Smith Arthur: They came by water, and that was their mode of transportation. The mail came by water. They had supply boats that would come by the waters of the Indian River, bringing goods, flour, things that people would need. And the people would take their little boats out to meet the big boat in order to buy supplies from them.
Narrator: Though dry goods and supplies were brought by steamboats, the main export of the Indian River Lagoon area was fruit. While the name Indian River would one day be synonymous with citrus, it was another tropical fruit that put the region on the map. A seemingly endless supply of pineapple was shipped by riverboats to the nearest railroad at Titusville. The plantations were so successful that by 1890 the area was known as the Pineapple Capital of the World.
The steamboats that plied the Indian River were renowned for service and luxury. But the era of the steamboat was soon coming to a close. On Dec. 11, 1893, the long awaited railroad finally arrived at Sebastian. And with it arrived a new wave of people. With its warm winters and abundant sunshine, the Indian River Area became a sportsman’s paradise; hunting and fishing evolved from necessity to recreation. This easy life was best represented by the “No Sweat Club,” an association that charged its members if any of them broke into a sweat.
But in 1895, a devastating freeze changed life in Sebastian forever. The area’s pineapple and citrus crops were decimated and many people were left without work. To make ends meet, a number of residents turned to the waters of the lagoon. In September of 1895, the first rail shipment of salted fish out of Sebastian left on Henry Flagler’s new Florida East Coast Railroad. By the end of the year nearly 104,000 pounds had been shipped north.
The following year, an ice plant and barrel factory were built in Sebastian, opening up new markets for fresh Indian River seafood. As the industry blossomed, fishing families from across the country began to arrive in the Indian River Lagoon, building the profession that would become its hallmark for the next century, commercial fishing.
John Massey: My grandfather came down in 1910 and he gill net fished.
Richard Thomas: My grandfather came in the area around 1901, and they were involved in the fishing business.
Viola Judah: My dad moved down here in 1924.
Coolidge Judah: We moved down here in 1940.
John Devane Sr.: I probably sold my first fish in about 1946.
John Massey: Old man Oscar Hefling owned this land along here, and he come from Dayton. But he owes my grandfather $45. My grandfather got on the train, come down here and told old man, Hefling, he said, you’re either going to pay me, or I’m going to shoot you. And he gave him all this land along there, about a thousand feet along the river.
