Civil War Articles by Julian WilliamsCapt. John Willcox Probably Didn't Build One Boat He Was Asked To Build
This article was compiled by Julian Williams.
Captain John Willcox was a river man. He lived in a beautiful place and anyone who has ever been up around Spring Lake between Jacksonville, Georgia, and Rhine, Georgia, can tell you that's the truth. Spring Lake also has some cold, cold water. Anyone who has ever swum in the Cold Shoot (Chute?) can tell you the water is so cold you'd just about have to throw ice in there to warm it up. That might not be the truth but if you've been in there, you will say it's close.
But even the ice-cold water of that place could not cool down the fuss that was about to heat up after the Burch campers were scalped and John Willcox and his boys went across the river hunting the guilty parties. As you remember from last week's article, they found the offending Indians eating breakfast in a branch and shortly thereafter history had something it could call the Battle of Breakfast Branch.
The settlers were not exactly on the winning end of that bloody encounter and several of the wounded were lucky to get back across the river to the safety of Fort Adams at Temperance. And some were killed. And they weren't killed with arrows either. They had bullet holes in them. And that fact had some connections with the ensuing set of events.
John Willcox, a prominent member of the community, a boat builder, a mechanic, a planter, an Indian fighter and more or less a jack of all trades, had, in 1816, been appointed as one of the river commissioners along the Ocmulgee. The purpose of the committee was to remove obstacles in the river (trees, logs, etc.) so that people could travel up and down the river. These activities probably also made it easier to cross the river. In any event, the Indians were crossing more and more and the same could be said for the settlers. This was bound to lead to calamity.
This Burch event with the Indians, Breakfast Branch that followed, and the grisly ones before, were stimulating the settlers to ask for help from their Governor, William Rabun. Rabun quickly agreed that something had to be done.
The Governor sent a messenger immediately looking for General Andrew Jackson who had just left Hartford and the Ocmulgee in search of hostile Indians. He was really heading for Florida because his ultimate aim was to drive out the Indians and the Spanish. And he didn't really want anyone delaying him in carrying out those ambitious plans.
And the messenger from the Governor of Georgia was a glaring example of this type of interference. At Fort Scott, almost at the Florida line, Old Hickory read the tidings of invitation back to the Ocmulgee frontier. He got so puffed up he did not even afford the Governor the courtesy of a reply. No one ever mentioned what became of the messenger. Maybe they at least fed him and sent him on his way back to the Ocmulgee.
The General thought he was just too far down to turn back for what he deemed to be an insignificant priority, if even that. No, by jinks, he would not go back because he was on his way to run some Indians out of the area around St. Marks, Florida, and hang a couple of Britishers while he was at it. Of course, he didn't know about the Britishers at the time. What he did know - he just didn't have time for John Willcox and those river people.
You might have guessed. Governor Rabun did not receive this rebuff from the Hero of New Orleans with an exaggerated amount of effervescent glee. In fact, his temperature hit an all-time high, just as Jackson's had. He was not a happy chief executive. He would take his own steps to correct the situation. And he did.
Governor Rabun called upon a military officer from Chatham County, a Captain Obed Wright, to cross over the Ocmulgee and redress the wrongs done by the Indians. He believed, in giving these orders to Capt. Wright, that you could not hem up a few bees darting around and stinging the daylights out of you but you could go to the hive and kill every one of them.
This was the logic he pursued as he instructed Capt. Wright to go after two reputedly evil Creek Indian chieftains, namely Chief Hopaunee and Chief Philemmee. It was said that these two hostile fellows were trouble when they had the war paint on but the presence of General Jackson in their neighborhood the last few days had taken some of the fire out of them. Now that he had gone on down into Florida, the fire was coming back and the locals said they were indeed up to their naughty ways again. At this point, this should be understood by all interested in justice and fair play - Indians killing settlers was wrong to settlers and settlers killing Indians was wrong to Indians. Notwithstanding justice and fair play, this paradox led to inevitable war between the two types of people.
These reports resulted in the Governor and Captain Wright agreeing on a tangible target - Hopaunee and Philemmee. As Capt. Wright was about to leave on his mission of destruction, another warrior showed up to give his assistance to the cause - a fellow by the name of Capt. Jacob Robinson (sometimes called Roberts). Robinson had first appeared in the literature when we saw him, apparently on orders of Governor Rabun, "forted in" around the site of where the Burch campers had met their cruel fate. As officer-in-charge it really was his duty to remain at the garrison he and his men had constructed and carry out his military duties.
Either because of a personal desire, or a love for boating, or maybe he was just wanting some good home-cooked food, he decided to abandon his post, leave his men, and do a little exploring on the other side of the river. Really what he was doing was going to the home of Captain John Willcox to see if the Captain would build a boat for him - not a military boat, but a personal one.
Later, Captain Robinson would be cited for un-officer-like conduct for doing this, among other things, and getting himself into a bunch of trouble. Of course, John Willcox was charged with nothing because he had nothing to do with inciting the young man to come over seeking a boat in the first place. Again, we are not told whether he ever got his boat built or not. Probably not.
So, the combined forces of Captain Obed Wright and Captain Jacob Robinson, numbering some 270 troops, head toward hostile Indian territory. Their first stop is Fort Early on the Flint River near what we know today as the Lake Blackshear area.
Here they meet Captain Bothwell and true to form, another disagreement ensues, and the plot thickens, and worsens, and we will see about that next week.
Credits:
Telfair History Book, 1807-1987;
Willcox Family History by Martha Albertson;
John Willcox (1728-1793) by Historical Research Company;
Pioneer Days Along the Ocmulgee by Fussell Chalker;
History of Telfair County (1807-1987);
info furnished by Gertrude Wilcox Williams and Diane Williams Rogers and others;
various other sources.
