COASTAL COURIER (Hinesville, Georgia) 26 November 07 Native wildlife in Colonial Georgia (Marrgie Love) {Excerpts}
Did you ever wonder how strange it must have been for the people coming over to America from the foreign countries to see the animals on our continent for the first time?
We have some accounts from different people who kept journals of their trip and the first impressions of the land and its inhabitants. The travels of Lewis and Clark and John, and William Bartham and their journals about the new lands they explored over 200 years are very interesting to me.
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Another such journalist and explorer was Francis Moore who penned his thoughts in a journal in the spring of 1736. His journal was printed in Our First Visit to America: Early Reports from Colonial Georgia 1732-1740. He arrived on St. Simons Island in 1735 and was one of the settlers of the town of Frederica. Even though this is not in Liberty County, it is a coastal area and the wildlife would not be much different there than it was in coastal Liberty County in 1736.
Journal entry:
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Of reptiles, the crocodile, which seems to be the chief, abounds in all the rivers of Georgia. They call them alligators. I have seen some of these I believe to be 12 feet long. A number of vulgar errors are reported on them; one is, that their scales are musket proof, whereas, I have seen them frequently killed with small shot. Nay, I have heard from people of good credit, that when they found one at a distance from the water, they have killed him with sticks, not thinking him worth a shot. Mr. Horton more than once struck one with a hanger. The watermen often knock them on the head with their oars as they sleep upon the banks. They are very sluggish and timorous, though they can make one or two springs into the water with nimbleness enough and snap with strength whatever comes within their jaws. They are terrible to look at stretching open a horrible large mouth big enough to swallow a man, with rows of dreadful large sharp teeth. Their feet are like dragons, armed with great claws, and a long tail which they throw about with great strength and which seems their best weapon, for their claws are feebly set on and the stiffness of their necks hinders them from turning nimbly to bite.
When Mr. Oglethorpe was first at Savannah, to lessen the fear of crocodiles after one about 12-feet long was wounded and caught, he had him brought up to the town and set the boys to bait him with sticks. The creature gaped and blew hard but had no heart to move and only turned about his tail and snapped at the sticks until such time as the children pelted and beat him to death.
At our first coming they would stare at the boats and stand till they came up close to them, so that Mr. Horton killed five in one day but being frequently shot at they grew more shy.
They destroy a great many fish and will seize a hog or dog if they see one in the water, but their general way of preying is lying still, with their mouths open and their noses just above water, and so they watch till the stream brings down prey to them. They swallow anything that comes into their mouths; and upon opening them, knots of lighter wood have been found in their guts. They rarely appear in winter, then being in holes. They lay eggs which are less than those of a goose. Leaves and other trash are scraped together that will ferment and heat. Of these, they make a dunghill, or hotbed in the midst of which they leave their eggs, covering them over with a sufficient thickness. The heat of the dunghill, helped by the warmth of the climate, hatches them, and the young crocodiles creep out like small lizards.
Next to the crocodile is the rattlesnake, a creature really dangerous, though far from being terrible to look at. The bite is generally thought to be mortal, and certainly so, if remedies are not in time applied. The Indians pretend to have performed wonderful cures and boast an infallible secret but it is generally believed that the hot season of the year and the rage of the rattlesnake increase the force of the poison and that the bite is more or less dangerous according to the part of the body bitten. Those who are bitten on the least dangerous circumstances are cured by the outward applications of the Indians. Mr. Reeves, who was surgeon to the Independent Company at Port Royal, has by a regular course of medicine cured most of those who were carried to him and bit by rattlesnakes. Thank God there has not been one person bit by a rattlesnake in the Colony of Georgia. I have seen several of these snakes which were killed at Frederica, the largest above two yards long, the belly white, and the back of a brown color, they seem to be of the viper kind, and are of a strong smell somewhat like musk. The rattles are rings at the end of their tails of a horny substance; these shaking together make a noise, which with their strong musk smell gives cautious people notice of where they are. They are not so nimble as some snakes are, therefore do not move out of the way, which is generally the occasion of bites when they happen, for they naturally in their own defense snap at what treads near them. To prevent this, those that walk in the woods much, wear what they call Indian boots, which are made of coarse woolen cloths, much too large for the legs, tied upon their thighs and hang loose to the shoes.
Besides the rattlesnake, there are some others whose bite is dangerous. There are also many others whose bite are not dangerous such as the black, red and the chicken snake.”
Native wildlife in Colonial Georgia