The Westside – Blair Rd.
In Jacksonville if you head west out Normandy Blvd, you will cross a line of demarcation. A boundary, a separation, a distinction.
The people that grew up in this area know that border. As you cross Fouraker Rd. you are on different terrrain than the other areas of Jacksonville. The land has now been quartered and re-quartered. Subdivisions have been built on what was once sprawling pasture land.
It is no longer recognizable as the majestic acreage that it once was.
Cattle grazed under massive oaks. They lumbered to the creek for their daily water. They gave milk and beef, complimantary to the garden vegetables. Biscuits were a staple. No one knows biscuits like people who were raised on the Westide.
Even in my life time it was not uncommon to see someone traveling on horse. ( That was me! )
Many of us, whose family’s have been there since the 1840’s know we have a different history.
Peculiar personal histories.
As large as this land mass was, Fouraker to Maxville, east to west, 103rd St. to Isaiah Hart’s plantaion bordering Marietta. There were few families.
We were farmers. Dairy people. We raised chickens. We had liquor stills hiddin in the woods. Some sold marijuana in the 70’s. We had succesful businesses . We were a presence in Jacksonville. Hidden on the outkskirts. We are still a presence in this city. Pioneer families are still there. Squeezed amongst the newcomers. Those who will never know.
This is an old family photo taken at the Blair Rd farm. My great-grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Lowe Peterson, was born the year the civil war started, 1861. She is in the center. Standing. My grandmother, Mary Elizabeth (Bess) Peterson McInarnay is on her right.
Right there at the family farm house they had black outs. They had to hide from angry Seminoles who crossed the river, seeking revenge. They murdered families, one being a Higginbotham. Yet, another family name.
My mother, Hilda McInarnay Eagerton was brought home to that little farm house. She became the family hero by waking in the early morning hours. A crackling noise disturbed her sleep. She saved her family from a sure, firey death. They escaped with their lives and little else.
They moved to Lackawanna, 3129 Phyllis St. The family was already established there. In town family memebers worked for the rail road.
The McInarnay’s rebuilt the farm house. It is still there. It looks nothing like it use to. As does anything else on Blair Rd.
The once narrow tar and oyster road is a highway.
As a matter of fact, Junior Anderson’s house, a once cracker shack hidden under a canpoy, looks better than my mother’s 4000 square foot block home that sat on 100 acres. The barn and horses gone. The pool filled in. The driveway as long as the family roots destroyed. Ripped apart by progress. Change.
In her life, no matter how much wealth she acquired, Hilda would never leave that land. She was born and died there. A Westside Matriarch. Loved by many.
My family has ties to most all of the old Westside famiies. Some were cowboys, some were gunslingers.
I’d like to think of my mother’s generation as being the grand finale. Yes, there were outlaws and in-laws. Alligators and moccassins. Snakes, Wakes and Whiskey.
We are now into a new age. A new time.
If anyone out there has more to add to this story, let me know. Add a comment. Don’t be lost in the fray of the city.
The Westside is the Bestside!
This is a post written for – If you grew up in Jacksonville. Relaying memories of days gone by. If you weren’t there, you wouldn’t know. It’s hard to listen to distant, city slickers, try to describe our lives. With misinformation and undue prejudice. I am trying to paint a picture of Westside people who were historical but left out of Jacksonville Historical Society stories.
No blue bloods here.
I am a Cracker by Birth/ A Redneck by Default/ A Peace Activist through Reading, Writing and Education
Fish Eye Farm 