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A History of Columbia County Florida (1996) Edward F. Keuchel 178/340

A Period of Growth and Development

railroads and other special economic interest groups to suit nu­
merous small farmers and small businessmen. Governor George F.
Drew had considerable personal business holdings, and his suc­
cessor William D. Bloxham was severely criticized for the large
transfers of state land to the railroads and to individuals. Hamilton
Disston, for example, received 4,000,000 acres at the price of
twenty-five cents an acre. Over 10,300,000 acres of public (state
and federal) lands were disposed of during the Bloxham ad­
ministrations.40
Strong grass roots opposition to the railroads developed in the
rural counties of northern Florida. High freight rates were es­
pecially vexing to small farmers who were becoming increasingly
dependent upon the railroads to market their products in distant
areas. Such high rates generated the first organized anti-railroad
sentiment in the state which was a forerunner of the Independent
movement. A group of Columbia County vegetable growers met in
Lake City on March 22,1881, to protest a sixty percent increase of
freight rates for peas, beans, and other vegetables. As the farmers
expressed it, the rate increase was “a direct attempt to throttle the
enterprise of raising early vegetables for market.”41
In 1884 the Independents made a bid for the governor’s office
by supporting Frank Pope, a Jacksonville attorney who was raised
in Madison County. The Independents sought a fusion with Re­
publicans and named Jonathan C. Greeley, a Republican attorney
of Jacksonville, as their candidate for lieutenant governor. Pope
was opposed to the land giveaways and pro-railroad policies of
Bloxham. Against Pope the Democrats ran General Edward A.
Perry of Pensacola who had the backing of the pro-business
elements within the party.
Pope was a strong campaigner. On July 30, he stood in the sun

40Tebeau, History of Florida, pp. 282-293.
41 Tallahassee Floridian, April 5,1881; Edward C. Williamson, Florida Politics
in the Gilded Age, 1877-1898, (Gainesville. 1976), p. 72.
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