GRAPHIC BY ERIC ZELINSKI
77
the Chupcos in the 1883 at the south end of Lake Pierce
known as Catfish Creek Settlement for a study on tribal people
he was conducting for the Smithsonian Institution.
Chief Chupco died in Lake Pierce 1884 but his nephew,
Tallahassee, had already assumed leadership of the band by
1877, according to Covington.
Tallahassee’s wife, Polly Parker, was a towering Seminole
figure in her own right. “She was the single most significant
woman in the history of the tribe other than 1960s tribal
chair Betty Mae Jumper,’’ Steele said.
Parker, who was born in the 1820s and lived to be more
than 100 at the time of her death in the 1920s, lived a life of
intrigue during the Seminole wars. Her husband at the time,
a Seminole named Chai, was hired as a guide to the soldiers.
But Steele said there is ample evidence that Parker
was working at cross-purposes. “He acted as a guide while
she was guiding them away from the Indians. There is a
strong series of records of her foiling the Army’s efforts to
catch Seminoles and she herself escaped at least two times.’’
In one of the escapes, she was being sent out west and
was traveling aboard a boat near the Panhandle, Steele said.
“But she escaped, collected some medicines and managed to
make it back to South Florida.’’
Steele believes chief Tallahassee would have moved his
band in the 1890s to the Blue Fields near the present-day St.
Lucie-Okeechobee line on the south State Road 70. Perhaps
from there some members of the band began making their
home at nearby Cow Creek, between State Road 70 and
Orange Avenue Extension near the St. Lucie-Okeechobee
line.
COW CREEK DAYS
Shamy Tommie said his mother, Minnie Tommie Howard,
was born on Cow Creek in 1932, which would have also put
her mother, Sallie Tommie, and father, Jack Tommie, at the
ranch as well. JoAnn R. Sloan, former owner of Cow Creek,
recalled a Seminole family living on the ranch and said the
Tommie name was familiar.
“There were about three chickees,’’ said Sloan, 76, who
now lives in Franklin, N.C. “I remember them giving me
necklaces to wear.’’
CRESY HE RHA AILY
A ! " #$ %&'% ( B# !!# )*+,-
B# . # ' '$ ( !'&/ $. & R $ C !" ( %%01
## 2#(# #& .## 3#$ # # '& )*45- $ &6 # ( !'& '7#
C"%/ L $86 " '#(6 8 #$ %!!& ( %% !# 2#$
2& $#%#$ ( %0 $ S ''# !!#- # ! " 27# . 7
"' %# # C"%9!!# ( !'# 7# '7#$ # # # C :
B'# #'$6 C. C##0 R %6 $. & R $ $ . C"%/
;; L $8-