[Clipping: Bombers land at Keystone Airport] Part: 3 of 40
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Sesquicentennial Series: Middleburg - Whitesville
Commerce, Coins and Bartering
in Clay County: 1858-1871
By Wayne Spivey
Staff Writer
Commerce was flourishing in central Clay County and that jingle in your pocket weighed
plenty 150 years ago. A walk to the store from Whitesville to Middleburg, a distance of
only two miles, may have burnt a hole in ones pocket. These two pioneer centers were
the heart of Clay's booming economy in the 1850s - with plenty of places to spend coins
or barter for goods and services.
Coins of that era were a bit strange. Large Cents of 1857 weighed more than five times
the weight of a modern Lincoln penny, nearly twice the diameter and much thicker.
Even the U.S. half-cent was hefty. And the English "cartwheels" (two-cents) still in cir-
culation - were larger and weighed more than a silver dollar.
The U.S. coinage act of February 21, 1857 produced a smaller and lighter "flying eagle
cent." The law also recalled all Spanish and Mexican coins and half-cents circulating in
the US.
This was a time before the Indian Head Penny and Lincoln Cent. Other unusual Ameri-
can coins were on the horizon, including two-cent pieces and three-cent pieces made of
copper and silver. The twenty-cent piece also circulated. And for the wealthy merchants
and plantation owners, there was the glitter or gold.
The Indian Princess gold dollar and three-dollar coins were small but powerful. The
gold Eagles were larger and in a series of four coins: the 2 Y-dollar gold Quarter Eagles,
5-dollar Half Eagles, 10-dollar Eagles and the heavy 20-dollar Double Eagles, contain-
ing nearly a full ounce of pure gold. The female face of "Liberty" was the revered theme
on most gold coins dating back to George Washington's time. There was one other gold
coin: an unusually rare four-dollar gold "Stella" which most likely never made its way to
Clay County.
Prosperity in 1858 had led to the creation of Clay County - carved from the much larger
Duval County and a small portion of Putnam County. Middleburg became the first
temporary county seat. Within months an election moved the center of government to
Whitesville. Both were thriving commercial centers with many places to shop and trade.
Downtown Whitesville had a drugstore, stable, hotel, two blacksmith shops, ferry, car-
riage house, sawmill and school. Middleburg boasted two hotels, two drugstores, nine
general stores, three steam sawmills, two blacksmith shops, stable, two taverns, three
churches, a grocery store, a doctor's office, several large warehouses, two ferries, a
school house and two coopers shops, reported Arch Blakey in his bicentennial book Pa-
rade of Memories - A History of Clay County. Middleburg was a "thriving cotton port,"
with large plantations all around.
Bartering for goods and services, without a monetary exchange was still a common prac-
tice among rural folks. But downtown, American coins and currency were paramount,
along with surviving French, Spanish and English silver coins. Primarily, higher denomi-
nations circulated at inns and taverns: favored among seafaring and river folks. Sill, the
prize coins were the tiny gold dollars.
As for pocket change, a full-figured female "Seated Liberty," holding te US flag and a
shield, was the common portrait on most of the early silver coins. Two types of three-
cent pieces - shining of silver or nickel - circulated in Middleburg. There were "half
dimes" (no nickels until after the Civil War), dimes, twenty-cent pieces, quarters or "two
bits," half-dollars and spectacular silver dollars.
For more than a decade, money flowed with commerce on the St. Johns River. Black
Creek was deep and navigable. Middleburg and Whitesville were perfectly situated - a
vital trade route to Florida's interior. With few overland roads, riverboats were the pre-
ferred mode for personal travel and commerce.
Middleburg warehouses overflowed with cotton, oranges, barrels of liquid spirits and
naval stores (tar, rosin and turpentine). Hardwood timber was big business. Before the
railroads, all were transported by steamboats. Riverboat stops were made at the docks of
Hibernia (Fleming Island) and Magnolia (north of present day Green Cove Springs). And
mail in the 1840s was ferried to Whitesville until the post office was moved to Gary's
Ferry on July 18,1843.
However, progress was fleeting. Inland Clay County thrived for only a few good years
after it's founding. With Civil War on the horizon, most Clay Countians wanted to remain
in the Union. It took multiple votds to succeed with the rest of Florida. This polarized the
county. The interior county seat became a no-mans land. While Union forces were sta-
tioned at Magnolia and controlled the St. Johns River, the Confederacy controlled areas
of Middleburg, Black Creek and Doctor's Inlet.
The Civil War (1861 to 1865) interrupted big business between Jacksonville and
Middleburg/Whitesville. During those years, Clay County and the South slid into a war
ravaged economy.
Copper, silver and gold went underground. Coins became hidden treasures. Paper frac-
tional currency, penny stamps, and large Confederate bills began to circulate as money.
Commerce in Confederate bonds was hurt by inflation and an inability to pay. Coinage
all but disappeared during the era of the American Civil War and for almost two decades
that followed. The promise of Confederate coinage never materialized for the common
man.The effect: Civil War and Reconstruction became a bitter aftermath. It tore the county
apart. Shops in Whitesville and Middleburg closed. Businesses went bankrupt and
citizens that remained, returned to subsistence living. Plantation owners and dirt farmers
returned to the time-honored system of bartering.
It took decades for Middleburg and Whitesville (renamed Webster) to recover. Dur-
ing the US recession of the 1970s, Clay County's population and tourist trade shifted to
coastal St. Johns River towns. By 1871 the county seat moved to Green Cove Springs.
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Old coins and fractional currency of the 1850s and 60s rest on an old leather trunk.
Confederate coins replaced the US large cents shortly after Clay County was created
in 1858. Paper money of 3, 10 and 15 cents - as well as postage stamps - circulated
when the copper, silver and gold coins disappeared.March 2008
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[Clipping: Bombers land at Keystone Airport], clipping, March 2008; Middleburg, Florida. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth887615/m1/3/?q=%22~1~1%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting National WASP WWII Museum.