I am nearing completion of the research and draft stages of a book that has consumed my life since the mid-1980s. That is when a simple foray into my genealogy resulted in the surprising discovery that I was a descendant of slaves.

Charlie Tiger Tile, Walter Hamilton, King Gene (Eugene Hamilton)

Lostmans Heritage follows my journey as I search for my ancestors from the slave country of Savannah to the wilds of the Florida Everglades.

The Everglades is shrouded in mysteries, a tangle of mangroves, waterways, and sawgrass that meanders every which way and is as mutable as the wind. Nothing is ever where you left it. This is where one came to get lost, to hide amongst the wild things and the Seminoles. The story begins with my ancestor, Richard Hamilton, an extraordinary and dangerous man, a man who, against all odds, untangled himself from the bonds of slavery and began a family and a life in the Florida Everglades. Author Peter Matthiessen found the Hamilton clan so fascinating that he included a (mostly) fictional account of their lives in his novel, Killing Mr. Watson.

I follow Richard and his sons to the ending of an era when the National Park Service evicted the residents, the pioneers, of the Everglades. Along the way I uncover secrets and stories, polygamy, bootlegging, fist fights, murders, gangsters, killers, and tales of tomahawks and missing school teachers.

Noted Florida historian, Charlton Tebeau, once said, “The Hamiltons, to the disappointment of the romanticists, were neither pirates nor smugglers nor fugitives, but simple fishermen.” While Tebeau was fascinated by the Hamiltons, and often referred to them as one of the ‘lost tribes’ of the islands, my research proves that he was wrong about them. They were fugitives, and they were smugglers. The Everglades was not a place for the average man at that time. You did what you had to do to feed your family. 

 
The terrain is silent, the characters are silent, 
the past a quiet echo forever being erased by secrets. 
We have no answers, yet seek the answers, 
and we encounter only what remains. There is nothing left
but the ghosts who refuse to speak.

Peter Matthiessen said in an interview once regarding his books about the Everglades, “There is nothing here that couldn’t have happened.” His research was impeccable, and he did stick to the truth as closely as possible, but Killing Mr. Watson and the books that followed it (Lostman’s River and Bone by Bone) are fiction. He took the facts and wove a story.

Lostmans Heritage tries to not cross the line into fiction. Everything within its pages come from many years of research and countless debates with others following the story of the Hamilton ‘clan’. It is based on facts, historical documents, and a smattering of family lore. My promise to readers is that I will keep as close to the edge of truth as I possibly can. And when I tip over the edge a tiny bit, I’ll let you know I’m doing so.

Lostman’s Heritage is not just a historical account. It is also a journal chronicling my journey through research, interviews, field trips, and all the frustrations and triumphs that go with historical and genealogical research.