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L. D. Watkins, of Manchester, wants me to pilot him to Florida this winter and I shall probably go.1 I intend to make the grand tour of the south end of the state, and among the hundreds of “keys” on that coast, perhaps as far as Key West.2 Manchester, Jan. 17.—L. D. Watkins went to Adrian on Monday afternoon, where he remained one night with F. R. Stebbins, and on Tuesday the two gentlemen started for Florida where they will stay until about the 1st of April. They have chartered a yacht and intend to sail down the Indian river to Key West, and anticipate having immense sport. They will visit Jacksonville, and numerous places on the St. Johns river, St. Augustine, etc., and we learn that they have gone prepared to open one of those mysterious shell mounds. We expect to hear from them often.3 FROSTY WEATHER IN FLORIDA We make the following extract from a letter sent by Mr. F. R. Stebbins to Mrs. Stebbins, in this city. The effect of the cold upon the orange crop, has been denied in some of the Chicago papers, but the statement of our intelligent and observant townsman, will settle the fact that great damage has been done, at least in the sections he has visited: Sanford, Fla., Wednesday, Jan. 22 We arrived here an hour ago. Monday night we stayed at Jacksonville. The ice formed there an inch thick, and laid in gutters on the shady side of the street all day. The unpicked oranges in the latitude of J., and many miles farther south, were all frozen and ruined in the earlier freeze, and most of the young orange groves are either killed, or almost ruined. Up here and through this section, little or no damage was done, the freeze was so light. We start up the river, to-morrow, for Rockledge, 135 miles to Indian river. The weather is warm to-day, and will probably remain so the rest of the winter. The swamp maples are blossomed out here, and are as red as peona [sic]. They are profuse, and look very beautiful. I saw other ®owers on the river side. I can hardly 8 1884 Where Summer Lives realize that we have not yet begun our cruise, it seems so long since we started, but it is only eight days. I have been well all the time.4 INTERESTING REMINISCENCE Sanford, Fla., Jan. 23, 1884.—Eight days from Adrian to this point, two hundred miles beyond Jacksonville, up the river, and down further south, may require explanation not without interest. Forty-eight years ago, two boys played together a week in Granby, Conn. They were cousins, and while their parents were having their visit in the house, the boys were busy playing “store,” with nuts and apples, in a little booth by the yard fence, or roaming the ¤elds, and feasting on the wild grapes of a beautiful October in Connecticut . The visit ended, and these two boys parted, never to hear from each other for nearly a half century. One settled in the south, and the other in the new west, and until this winter, we knew nothing of the existence of each other. And when we learned our locations, and that I was soon to pass through his city, he invited me to stop off on my way to Florida and pay him a visit in Macon, Ga. I gladly accepted, and met Henry L. Jewett at his elegant home, adorned most by his excellent wife, daughter, son and relatives. Mr. Jewett is the president and largely owner of one of the heaviest banks in Macon, and has been for many years a leading light in the best, and especially educational, enterprises, in his adopted city, notably as trustee and business manager of the Wesleyan college there, an institution of the Methodist church. We parted as happy boys in the years ago, careless of the coming years; we met with hairs greyed by the pares [sic] of those years, and looked into each other’s faces, beholding wrinkles made by the toils and battles of life’s experiences, but happy “boys” yet. Macon is a city of about twenty thousand inhabitants, nearly one-half colored persons. Much attention is paid to educational institutes. The Wesleyan female college is a large and I think prosperous one, and is said to be the ¤rst institution in America, and probably in the world, to...

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