Heaven and Hell, Part Two.
Local legends are often colorful, shocking, and sometimes completely ludicrous. Recently, during my honeymoon stay on Florida’s forgotten coast I have stumbled upon an interesting collection of State Parks and Nature Preserves steeped in folklore and legend. Heaven and hell, not only exist, they do so within miles of one another.
Presenting Elvy E. Callaway’s Garden of Eden:
43 miles outside of Florida’s state capitol lies the Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines Preserve. This preserve is home to some of the world’s rarest plant species. Trees such as the Torreya taxifolia exist nowhere else on the planet. This “stinking cedar,” nicknamed for the strange odor emitted when it is cut, has long been called the gopher wood. Could this be the same gopher wood that is mentioned in Genesis?
According to secular lawyer turned 1936 Gubernatorial candidate turned Baptist Preacher, E. E. Callaway, it is. Callaway maintained that not only is this area the Garden of Eden in which God created man, it is the site of Noah’s famous foray into ship building. Local author, Malcolm R. Campbell, who apparently during his high school years exchanged dueling letters to the editor in the Tallahassee Democrat with Mr. Callaway about the legitimacy of the Eden claim, is not so sure. However, he admits to having difficulty arguing with a man who had spent 75 years researching the location of the Garden and who’s logic was surprisingly sound. In Callaway’s 1971 book, In the Beginning he presents his case. The book which is out of print and increasingly difficult to find maintains (thanks to Mr. Campbell’s blog):
- The Biblical garden contained a four-headed river system; the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee River system is the only four-headed system in the world. (Chattahoochee, Hiddekel, Spring Creek, and Flint.)
- The site features gopher wood, officially known as the rare Florida Torreya (torreya taxifolia) that grows only within a 25-mile radius of the area near Bristol, FL.
- Twenty-eight of the thirty varieties of trees mentioned in the Bible can be found at the location promoted by Callaway.
- Onyx and bdellium (pitch) as mentioned in the Bible can also be found along the river.
The theory, though controversial, caught on in and around the small town of Bristol, FL. Locals begin promoting the preserve as the surefire Garden of Eden. They erected signs directing visitors to holy sites and an information kiosk. The signs no longer exist, but photographs in the Florida Memory Photographic Collection document the strange attraction well.
In a charming bit of travel writing I found by author Rory MacLean, on the website travelintelligence.com, he relates the story of a Bristol resident taking him on a tour of the holy garden. The author admits to an emotional feeling upon visiting the site and admits that the area is special whether or not it is the actual garden. That what is important is “that locals believed in its existence. Or wanted to believe in it.” MacLean’s guide even offers the hearsay, “if you check the tides and currents of the oceans that was probable at that time, you’ll find that they’d carry a vessel without a rudder straight from Bristol to Mount Ararat”
In an article for the Orlando Sentinel, Kate Santich reveals that, “This habitat was created at least 14,000 years ago, during the Ice Age, when flora and fauna from northern climes moved south. As temperatures warmed up again, though, those species mostly disappeared except in these ravines, where it stays moist and cool. As a result, the Garden of Eden looks and feels like no other part of Florida.”
Though no one has any hope of proving the Garden of Eden is in Florida, Mesopotamia, or non-existent, everyone seems to agree that this patch of paradise is exceptional. It’s uniqueness may not be proof positive that Adam’s nostrils were breathed to life on the banks of the Apalachicola River or that the rare gopher wood was carved into the great Ark of Noah, but it most certainly inspires it’s visitors.
