What A Catface..

Turner River Terror

Best many Taylor County old timers have ever seen.
Got this one maybe 200 yards from a main road. Went in a real thick Bottom on a Planted Pines Lease and thought at first it was an old Climber.
We figure the Long Leaf was about 200 years old and the cuts made in the late 18's , Early 1900.s.
Over 7 ft' tall top to base.
For sure a once in a lifetime find. :banana
All you oldtimers will know what this is and how special. :USA
You young bucks think you got a Secret Spot in the woods best remember 100 years ago somebody else was standing there making a living...

will someone please rotate...

ANUMBER1

Nice, very nice.

AllenR

That's a good one. There is a spot on my lease with old timber I want to explore, as I think there are some in there

Skunk Ape

Was it upright when you found it? That really is am awesome find.

Turner River Terror

Still standing.
Peeled it off with my Machede and it was loaded up with Carpender ants.
Had to slam it a few times to get most of them off

Batemaster

Turpentine?

Deathtodeer

Great find

Florida Bullfrog

Batemaster wrote: »

Turpentine?

Yes. That cup that looks like a clay flowerpot was a specially made cup for resin collection. I've never seen them or any turpentine equipment on a tree, but I have seen the broken cups in the dirt before. I used to have some property near Rosewood that had an old turpentine camp buried in it.

drgibby

They do not get any better than that one! Nice find.

Skunk Ape

I have two perfect clay pots I found out in Richloam, I've seen some stumps with metal on them and broken pots around. I need to go back out there and look a little harder, I bet I could find some.

Mojito

Turner River Terror wrote: »

Best many Taylor County old timers have ever seen.
Got this one maybe 200 yards from a main road. Went in a real thick Bottom on a Planted Pines Lease and thought at first it was an old Climber.
We figure the Long Leaf was about 200 years old and the cuts made in the late 18's , Early 1900.s.
Over 7 ft' tall top to base.
For sure a once in a lifetime find. :banana
All you oldtimers will know what this is and how special. :USA
You young bucks think you got a Secret Spot in the woods best remember 100 years ago somebody else was standing there making a living...

will someone please rotate...

Ill bite, I think I know that is but am not sure?

flydown

That's a treasure for sure.

Lunch Money Surf

Very cool. I've got piney woods in my blood running back several generations but have never found an old teppentine tap like that.

gator4ever

I was on my horse in a swamp near Cedar Key in the early 70s and I was thinking to myself: I must be the only human being to ever step foot in this swamp. Then I turned my horse around and saw a set up just like this one. Got chill bumps knowing that I was not the first.

Skunk Ape

Have you ever found an old survey marker deep in the woods, or rails?

gator4ever

Skunk Ape wrote: »

Have you ever found an old survey marker deep in the woods, or rails?

yes in the sawgrass. The marker was wooden with a metal seal on it. Would have taken a picture but back then we didn't have cameras on our phones. Hold on a minute we didn't have phones either. Heck beepers weren't even invented yet.

Turner River Terror

Got several Boundry Markers on my fence line that are poured Concrete.
You can see the Cocinia seashells in the mix as they wash away.
Bout 2 ft. high posts.

cypress

Skunk Ape wrote: »

Have you ever found an old survey marker deep in the woods, or rails?

I hunt in an area with old trams over spring creeks. Wish I could have seen it when they logged the cypress.

Skunk Ape

There's a cool old rail bed out in Lower Suwannee, gotta do some hiking to find it.

swampwalker

That's the best example of a catface I've ever seen. When I was a pre-teen we'd drag them back to camp with an old jeep to use as fire wood. I know where a couple are still today in Richloam. Never thought about trying to salvage them. There are still a lot of Herty pots scattered about - unfortunately most are broken. I have an old cross cut saw I found leaning up against a tree deep in the forest years ago. I'll take a pic and post it in the next week if I can get it out of the shed....Good stuff!!

swampwalker

My grandfather drove the steam engine in the 50's for the **** Son's Cypress Company and hauled a lot of logs out of the woods now know as Green Swamp and Green Swamp West WMAs. We actually got to ride the engine a few times growing up. There are still some old trams in those woods they used to haul the logs out on. A long time ago...

FloridaOD

Magnificent find!

I still come across them within the Osceola to Blanding/Ocala Conservation Corridor-about half that size,drip plates rare still come across the Total package at times. And about a dozen clay pots within the past twelve years.

Which suggests I am ramblin' and tree huggin' spots most do not even traverse today,or simply don't see,and all that ramblin' a hint to reduced hunt 'success'. Should be sittin'....:)



Here is remnant pine tree catface core I 'harvested' one early November morning- while messing around with this, a big gun went off nearby......10 point. :banghead



Time now of the essence- note growth at the top of the cat face core......few more years and Gone

ANUMBER1

Years back I found the remains of an old truck in the salt marsh west of Ozello.
Nothing recognizable was left but the frame, engine block, and a couple of solid cord tires with a few wooden spokes attached to pieces of the rims.
I found out that the truck was a model T and had belonged to one of the Cedar harvester's for the pencil mills.
They got stuck and blew the engine up trying to get free, then just left it.

bswiv

Did you know that the Herti ( sp? ) pot was debuted in Jacksonville around 1900 and that it was based on a design already in use in France?

Revolutionized the harvest of resin and hasted the demist of the 80 MILLION acres of longleaf that used to be the South.

David B

I have a collection of several dozen pots. I also have several cat faces. Just recently we returned to the middle of the state for a weekend getaway. While there we went in search of lighter wood to bring back home. I found a good size log partially buried in the sand. I pried it up and cut it into pieces for splitting later on. It wasn't until that I was loading it that I realized that the back side had a cat-face on it. I was so disappointed that I didn't think to check it first.
There is a state park in central florida that has hundreds of pots lying on the ground. They were stacked inside of each other. At some point the stacks fell over and most of them are broken into pieces. They were discovered after a hurricane or two had passed over the area some years ago. There must be 3-5 hundred pots lying there.
I have family that owns a very large cauldron that was used to boil the resin during separation. It is used on occasion to melt rosin and cook potatoes.

Turner River Terror

Yup The cup is a Ribbed Herty..They also made a smooth Herty.
Before they started using pots they did a Box Cut and slid a square pan in it.
I've got a small pond with several Catface and one Box Cut. It's the only Box cut I've ever seen.
They quit using that method because it killed the Longleaf too quick.
One day I'll post a picture of it. ain't but 2 ft. tall but you can see the Cut real good.

Nice collection there OD. My Ribbed Hertys are only Ribbed on the top band, not all the way down like yours. Never seen one Ribbed that way. Must have been a Local thing.

Walker Dog

Found a pot like that in Calhoun not long ago. Ribbed top to bottom

a little knots

Turner river terror ... that is really freakin cool !!
That pine sap was used to mainly to waterproof boats
an to be made into turpentine !!! Its been a lost art since
just around the 1950 s !! So to find these any more today
has becomeing more an more rare !! WOW .... cool find for sure !!

AllenR

I would like to find one and take it to the kids event next year

capt louie

I've seen some of those outside of Folkston,ga. and around here.

Really cool. There are trees on Rousseau that are cat face sticking up.

Florida Bullfrog

Skunk Ape wrote: »

Have you ever found an old survey marker deep in the woods, or rails?

I've found rails both on the surface and buried in Gulf Hammock (the region, not the specific WMA or club). I found survey markers in both Ocala NF and Grove Park.

Neatest find I've ever made was an old segregated cemetery on an out parcel in Grove Park. Its locally well known and easy to find but I did't know about it until I stumbled on it. All I knew was that I had come up on an out parcel. I actually found it on a full moon evening right before dark. An old cemetery in the woods at dark kind of has a "Night of the Living Dead" vibe to it.