Palmetto-Leaves
by Harriet Beecher Stowe
In 1867, Stowe settled in a small cabin overlooking the St. John's River in Mandarin, Florida. Boston promised his publisher another novel, but he was so impressed by northeast Florida that he instead produced a series of sketches of land and people called Palmetto Leaves in 1872. Stowe describes life in Florida in the second half of the 19th century as "turbulent, wild, panic-filled life------ the universal happy happiness that Florida instills." Idyllic sketches of picnic, sailing and river tour expeditions, as well as simple stories of events and people in this tropical winter-summer country, were the first unsolicited publicity piece to attract northern tourists in Florida.
