Ocala Star Banner Ocala Florida    Sunday, January 30, 1955
Page 16

How the white fly came to Florida

Former Marion County resident tells of the early days in North Marion County

(Editorial note: James Purdie Richardson, who resides at 1607 Cleveland St., Tampa, where he is in the floral business, has written the following account of early days in the Orange Lake – Macintosh section. Mr. Richardson will be remembered by many of our older residents.)

By James Purdie Richardson

In January, 1986 my father, Dr. William M. Richardson, gave up his practice of medicine in Jenerette Louisiana, and moved to Boardman, Florida, a small station and post office on the a. C. L. A. Railroad, 20 miles north of Ocala, with his wife, two daughters, Louise and Ella, and one son Purdie.

My father purchased a 25 acre orange grove in farm, much of the land still in heavy hammock. This grove was a young seedling and we worked hard for nine years to get this grove to where it would become a paying proposition. I was raised on this farm in North Marion County, and know much about its history and people from 1886, up to the present date. Why I am writing this article is that some historic events occurred in this neighborhood in the early 90s which would be especially interesting to citrus growers over the state.

First, I want to mention before we get into the citrus business. In 1888, my father and a few other good Methodist organized and built the first Methodist Church in the neighborhood. This church was named “Marvin” in memory of Bishop Marvin. It stood and prospered for several years in a beautiful wooded section, I located on what was known as the old wire road, just one quarter mile from our home.

There being no Methodist Church or any other church for that matter, at McIntosh, two miles south of us, the Methodist of this prosperous little village talked us into the idea of moving “Marvin” to Macintosh. This building was then rolled up and down hill to its final resting place. And today it stands as a monument to early Methodism in this section of the state, in good preservation, with a live membership in the center of this beautiful little hilly town on the East side of the state highway, and whenever I go back to the old neighborhood of my childhood, am glad to attend the church I joined when I was nine years of age.

Adjoining my father’s grove on the North was Judge Means’ grove and home which was only a few hundred yards from our house. Judge Means had a wife and three sons, George, Charley and James. They were wonderfully good neighbors in every respect.

How the fly came

A few miles from the Means home the Judge had a farm on Orange Lake, near Evanston Station. And on this lake, he had a dock from which he sent his boat through Orange and Lockloose the lakes to the Ocklawaha and St. John’s rivers to the port of Jacksonville. There he produced supplies of merchandise of different kinds.

On one of these trips in 1889, through merchandise from some foreign country, he brought to his home and orange grove one of the greatest tests the state has ever known- a little whitefly with the most beautiful little pink eyes you ever saw. This fly creates a black smut over the leaves and on the fruit, which closes the pores. This fly, as all citrus growers of the state know, has caused the loss of many millions of dollars to the citrus industry. This is where and when the whitefly started in the state of Florida. My father’s grove was the second grove to be attacked by this pest. This fly, we found, thrived on some forest trees, china berry trees, as well as bamboo briars, etc. So while we were holding the fly down to some extent with sprays, etc., In the groves, it was thriving at large and spreading everywhere.

Another good and prosperous neighbor we had whose home and orange grove with one half mile east of Boardman station, was Frank G. Sampson, who at that time had one of the finest country show places in the state. His home was a large two-story house built of the best heart timbre and much of it was of beautiful curly pine, and as beautiful floors as one ever saw. His packing house was on a rail road siding at Boardman, as were several other large packing houses of that day. From these packing houses, ran tram tracks through the groves and cars of citrus were pulled from groves to the packing houses by mules.

Wrapping machines

At this time of the citrus industry in Florida, the Sampson Grove was known as one of the finest and largest in the state- one hundred acres- all budded from wild sour stock. At about this time, Mr. Sampson procured wrapping machines for his packing house. The machine did not work satisfactorily and by perseverance he perfected these machines. And as far as I know, these wrapping machines are still in operation in the old Sampson packing house, and it takes a good, fast packer to keep up with one of these machines which wraps as tight and thoroughly as it could be done by hand. This is the only house in the state which Wraps oranges by machinery.

Now another item of great interest is the greatest freeze that ever hit the state of Florida February 14, 1895. We had a very warm winter up to the above date and everything was growing like springtime, even the forest trees were growing nicely with their spring leaves. Then this great calamity came upon the state. The temperature fell to 10 above zero in Marion County and many big forest trees of all kinds were frozen and when the sap falls out they burst open and sounded like cannons all over the country. Of course, orange trees did likewise. There was not an orange tree left even in the Tampa District. All oranges were frozen as hard as stone.

Mr. Sampson conceives the idea immediately and wired Jacksonville for a train load of refrigerated cars. He hired all the help he could obtain, picked his fruit in this frozen state, shipped to New York and got a fancy price for his crop while the rest of the citrus growers waited to see what was going to happen and lost everything. Now, one of the remarkable and historical facts in this connection is that this was the first and beginning of shipping fruits and vegetables by refrigeration in the state of Florida.

Albert Farmback of Boardman and myself are the only two men mentioned above who are now living.