A Pine Castle Anthology
The Collected Writings of Will Wallace Harney
by
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[Excerpt from a letter to The Cincinnati Commercial, 18 May 1875:
An anecdote in point. Scene, Dr. Duke's office in Orlando, Monday. Enter Cracker. “Dr. Drake, I want to borrow that little gun of yours.”
“There it is, what do you want with it?”
“I want to shoot some of the big fish in the lake. I can catch the little ones with a bob, but them big fellows are too heavy.”
It was no joke; the man was serious, and I learn it is a habit to go a-gunning for fish. Think of shooting a big bass on the wing, oh, you sportsmen. A few weeks ago, a party took sixty pounds in a forenoon, and one of those leaped into the boat. The water is very low and the lakes just lousy with them. Major Preston and Mr. Montague, two neighbors, borrowed my boat the other afternoon and in less than an hour were back with sixteen fish ranging from the length of an arm to a man's hand, but mostly large fish. They are caught with a hook and line, bob and spinner. It was tried with a hand net at Orlando; but it was too much like work for sport. The game is as plentiful; the garden almost always in season. For every tree in his grove that survives, the man has a good servant which pays from twenty-five to a hundred dollars a year for the privilege of adorning his life. If a man is not willing to rough it a little for that, he is a Sybarite
"Die of a rose in aromatic pain.”
But the settlement labors under a serious deficiency.
You see, it is made up mostly of young men, married or single, and the prosperity has grown faster than the girls. In a word, we want a lot of pretty Ohio and Kentucky belles down this way to set the colony up. I was struck with it the other evening. You see the Commercial correspondent, being a widower with but one child, a boy, and having a large barn-house with double [illegible] is a sort of public property. A pretty little neighbor came in a week ago with her attendant and pretty soon the great middle room was aflush with flowers in arches, wreaths, hangings.
“What are you going to do?” asked the--the steward of the public property.
“Going to have a dance, to be sure.”
And they did. The house was brilliant as a castle with lights, greenery, roses, and girls as pretty; but multiply themselves as they would, five or six girls will not go round twenty gentlemen. The boys had to sand back and wait their turn while the brisk negro fiddler made the bare pine rafters jar with music and the dance. I wish you would tell me where I could order a nice stock of pretty girls for the next dance. But the few that we have are precious; and the brides, of which we have two or three, and the young married ladies, direct and contribute to the fun. Ten days ago they had a picnic and fish frolic at Bay Lake.
This is a beautiful pool at one corner of the Pinecastle lands, in the cool shadows of thick, clustering sweet-bay, from which it takes its name. It is hard to picture a scene more pleasing or characteristic. The lake is deep, cool and shadowy; a round basin bordered by the delicate cut paper foliage of the beautiful trees. There was a nice haunch of venison, bird pie and the flakey fish fresh from the lakes, the white, delicate flesh melting in the mouth like snow; the Atlantic and Howells' charming story of Southern Italy to read,
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About the Book
Will Wallace Harney (1832-1912) came to the Central Florida frontier in the years immediately following the Civil War, and established a homestead south of Orlando on the shores of Lake Conway. There he used the native timber to construct a magnificent home which he dubbed, Pine Castle. Within a few years, the name was being applied to the entire neighborhood. Beyond Pine Castle, Harney was better known for his skills as a writer, though he only published one thin volume of poetry during his lifetime. Most of his works appeared in regular submissions to popular magazines and newspapers. In the century since his death, his words have occasionally appeared in local publications. But no comprehensive collection of his writings had ever been published before this present anthology. The collected poetry, fiction, and letters of Will Wallace Harney reveal the important regional writer as a complex character, as inconsistent and difficult to define as the times in which he lived.
About the Author
William S. Morgan, V, was raised in a military household that took him from one Air Force Base to another in rapid succession. This made connecting to his family's roots all the more important and at an unusually young age. While preparing for a career in finance and accounting at Texas Tech University, the University of Central Florida, and Rollins College, he maintained a compelling interest in genealogy and history. He has previously published a book on the Macy family; co-authored a history of the town of Pine Castle, Florida; and had his genealogical gleanings printed in various periodicals. He works at his family's construction business in Orlando, and lives in the nearby town of Apopk