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Highlands Today

A resting place for Billy Bowlegs III

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By Norm Cukras | Highlands Today

Published: July 25, 2009

Billy Bowlegs was the brilliant leader of the Seminoles during the Second and Third Seminole Wars here in Florida. He was one of the last Seminole leaders to resist, but he eventually was moved to what was to become Oklahoma, where he died in 1849. Billy Bowlegs III, a Seminole Indian elder and historian, adopted the name. He was born Billy Fewell in 1862. In 1965 he was laid to rest in the Ortona Cemetery located along Rt. 78 in Glades County about 60 miles south of Sebring.

In 192, 32 acres of land had been set aside for the cemetery. It is believed to have been named for a city in Italy. Its first caretaker was Jessie Cleveland (Cleve) Hicks who held the position for 40 years.

Recently, I met with Phil Eldon of Venus who gave me a tour of the site. The Bowlegs' marker with its brass plate is rather unpretentious and it would have taken me a while to find it had Phil not led the way.

Phil knows his way around the cemetery. He is the "grandson" of Cleve and spent many hours working with him during his formative years. Actually, Cleve was a great-uncle of my guide but to the young boy he was his grandfather. "He was my personal hero," Phil said proudly as he pointed out his grandpa's gravestone. Under the shadow of stately trees standing like guardians and along side of the elder's grave are the graves of Phil's parents and near them is where Phil and his wife will someday be laid to rest.

Oral history
"Grandpa was quite a story teller," Phil said of his mentor. "I wish I had a video camera back then so I could have a record of the stories he told;" stories about the mass grave at the cemetery that stands as a silent testimony to the remains of countless unidentified victims of the hurricane that ravaged the area in 1926. Stories about how area cattlemen offered a bounty on deer they suspected of spreading a disease throughout their herds. "Grandpa was paid 50 cents for every left ear of a deer he brought in." Stories about the naming of the Orange River. "A barge carrying oranges on a then unnamed river had a hole torn in its bottom and the river became covered with oranges."

Yet ghost stories were not included, because no spirits were ever encountered by either man. "I don't believe in ghosts. When you're dead you're dead." Phil said philosophically.

Times change
"Things are far different here from when I grew up," Phil, a born and raised native Floridian recalls. "It was tough living in Florida back then." A lot of his heritage was lost even before the self-proclaimed Cracker was born. Family history records the loss of a lot of relatives to a hurricane that hit the Keys in 1935.

While born in Clewiston, Phil, 62, was raised in Moore Haven. It was a time "when Rt. 27 was a two lane road." The rugged retiree graduated from that city's high school in June 1966. In September he married classmate Iva Lou Sheppard, in October he was in the Army and by March of the following year he was serving in Vietnam as an MP.

When he was discharged from the service he continued in law enforcement as a deputy sheriff. But after a dozen years or so he changed careers. "Being a policeman destroys your spirit," he said. So he worked at construction and as a truck driver for a local sand mine company. Then two heart bypass operations forced him into an early retirement.

The Eldons settled in Venus which was once on the "road to the coast." Today, because of U.S. 27, the unincorporated community is all but forgotten.

Lately Phil is content donating time at his church or watching over his granddaughter who will soon be absorbed by his tales of old Florida, but unlike her grandpa she will be able to record them on one of the many available digital recording devices.

Iva Lou, who is a retired Lake Placid elementary school teacher, currently sells real estate. The couple has two daughters: Amy and Jennefer.

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