On Jun 21, 8:57*pm, "Ima goodfellow" wrote:
wrote in message

...



In the early 1800s, ship captains trying to find the entrance to the
St Marks River in N. FL would be guided by a plume of smoke of unknown
origin that seemed to come from deep in the swamp somewhere NE of the
river entrance. *This plume was seen over many years and was sometimes
said to originate from something volcanic. *In the early 1800s until
about 1869, it could often be seen from rooftops of buildings on the
tall hills of Tallahassee by looking way to the SE. *It could not be
reached due to its being deep in the impenetrable swamps. *One party
tried to approach by boat and got about a mile NE of "Grey Mare Rock"
but could not get closer due to shallow water but they estimated they
were still 10 miles from it. *It went away by the late 1800s
supposedly coincident with the Charleston Earthquake that rang
churchbells in Tallahassee.
In the 1900s, some people said they new of its location and it was a
place of blackened rocks surrounding a hole in the ground. *Being a
5th gen N. FL native, I am sorta interested but it was never
volcanic. *The approximate bearings given and supposed approximate
locations seem to put it somewhere near the Aucilla Sinks area, a
bizarre area of Karst features where the Aucilla River goes
underground and up again numerous times and is strewn with large
limestone boulders, some of them blackened with fungus and lichens.
This area would look bizarre even to a native familiar with sink
holes.
So, what caused the smoke plume? *The best theory seems to be a long
smoldering peat bog although even this sounds odd in such a wet
place. *The area was never fully explored until this (1900s) century
when it was logged for cypress and pine and even then they avoided the
most difficult areas such as the Aucilla Sinks area.
I wish I could find some records of actual bearing to it from known
locations but have not found such. *After more than a century, I
wonder if evidence of a peat bog fire would still be evident.

Go here for archives dating back more than 100 years:

http://wakullavolcano.vashti.net/archive/Home.htm

I've seen that link before but still no bearings. When I go out to
Grey Mare Rock to find scallops in the Summer, I look to the NE
wondering where the plume might have been.
The descriptions of it being somewhere near where the Aucilla, Wacissa
and Pinhook Rivers meet puts it right at the Aucilla Sinks area.
Oddly, it was not that bad an area because in the 1840s they used
slave labor to dig a canal thru this awful snake and gator infested
morasss between the Wacissa River and and where the Aucilla rises the
last time in order to transport cotton from the north to the coast.
The Wacissa river flows full strength and suddenly disappears into the
swamps so the canal was necessary. Today the "Slave Canal" is
difficult to find if one does not know where to look and many people
get lost there in a meander of disappearing streams called "The
Warriors".
The area is filled with indian middens where they built up the ground
for dry areas and arrow heads are easy to find. The parts of the
Aucilla between sinks and rises are floored with fossils of extinct
fauna including mastadon bones and teeth and I have found fossil camel
or eohippus bones close to the edge. It is also a great place to find
agatized coral as long as you do not dig (illegal).