Lostmans Heritage

Lostmans Heritage: Pioneers in the Florida Everglades follows the author’s journey as she searches for her ancestors from the slave country of Savannah to the wilds of Ocala and Arcadia, Florida, and deep into the Florida Keys and Everglades. This true story begins with Hamilton’s ancestor, Richard Hamilton, who was first introduced to the world in Peter Matthiessen’s novel, Killing Mr. Watson. Hamilton’s research follows Richard, a former slave, and other Everglades residents to the ending of an era when the National Park Service took over the islands. Along the way Hamilton uncovers secrets and stories, polygamy, bootlegging, fist fights, murders, gangsters, killers, and tales of tomahawks and missing schoolteachers. The Everglades was not a place for the average man at that time. You did what you had to do to feed your family.