Felder Lang

The following is an account of the life of Felder Lang, Nellie Lang's father, as told by Nellie's sister Kate Lang Dane in 1963. It is from the publication Miami of the Pioneers: A Picture History by Marjorie Meggs Gowin and Peter Thomas Skaggs Gowin, copyright 1976.


This is the story of Felder Lang written by his youngest daughter, Kate Lang Dane (Mrs. Seymour Dane) in 1963, just prior to her death.

Felder Lang was the son of Isaac Lang, Jr. and Caroline Atkinson. Caroline Atkinson was the daughter of Burwell Atkinson and Anne Felder. Burwell Atkinson was the son of John Atkinson, Revolutionary soldier, and Elizabeth Gardner. Anne Felder was the granddaughter of Henry Felder, of Orangeburg, SC. Henry Felder was a member of the Continental Congress from St. Matthews Parrish, Orangeburg Township, for effectually carrying into execution the Continental Association during the revolution. He was a Captain in the Revolution and his seven sons were in his company. Henry Felder cast arms for the Americans during the war, had two dwellings burned by Tories, and was killed in the burning of the last one. One of his cannons is on the square at Orangeburg on display. His oldest son, John Felder, took over the company, and was killed trying to escape from capture by the British. (Salley’s History of Orangeburg County, SC)

Felder Lang was born August 13, 1842, near Brunswick, and the Old Town of Jefferson at Langsbury, GA. This was the home of Isaac Lang, Jr. and Caroline Atkinson.
He was married to Martha Mizell of Charlton County, Georgia, on the 6th day of February, 1867, at the home of her father, Joshua Everett Mizell, six miles from Old Center Village, later Folkston, Georgia. Officiating was Rev. Mallette, who had been his teacher in boyhood, and who also married Felder’s sister, Susan Lang to Gideon Mallette.

At the age of about eighteen, he and his brothers Nat, Neuton, and Richard joined the volunteers to fight for State’s Rights in the Confederate Army. He rode horseback (his own horse, Prince) to Jonesburry, Georgia, where he was enlisted as a member of the Fourth Georgia Cavalry under command of Captain Clinch. He became a scout and was in Atlanta when the city was burned by Sherman’s Army. He related that the Confederate soldiers were almost without food or clothing when he saw a warehouse as large as a two story store go up in smoke. This was the supply of the Confederate Army. He saw destruction of farms, homes, cities and villages within a radius of one mile wide from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. Sherman ordered his men to destroy the food supply. He did, only sweet potatoes and black-eyed peas were left, with some corn and cattle. He was somewhere along the St. Mary’s River when the Confederate Soldiers fired upon the Union gun boats that sailed up the river to Traders Hill (truly a trading post for cotton, corn and cane grown even as far South as Kissimmee, Florida). The gun boats did little damage, returning to St. Mary’s without knowing that the defense was made by a small number of men.

Felder Lang was at the battle of Olustee, Florida, where he did his part in defense there. At the close of the war he was a 2nd Lieutenant in command of a Company of Cavalry known as Company D of the 4th Regiment, Georgia Cavalry, elected May 4th, 1863. In late years he moved to Florida and the State of Florida gave him a pension for having done his duty in what he believed was right for the South.
The Lang home was near Folkston. Reconstruction days found him a surveyor of land and timber. He surveyed the little town of Folkston for Dr. Folks who established the town about 1873. At Burnfort on the Satilla River he became the favorite surveyor of lumber men who brought rafts from Darien, Georgia, to be sold to the mills at Bailey’s Mills near Brunswick. Here his children were born, Letticia Caroline Lang (6/27/1868), Louis Everett Lang (8/24/1870), Julia Eleanor Lang (Nellie – 6/14/1876), Lucia Bernice Lang (11/27/1873), Guy Carlton Lang (1/11/1879), Kate May Lang (5/12/1881). All are now deceased except Nellie Lang Meggs (Mrs. W.G. Meggs) of Miami, Florida.

During the presidency of Grover Cleveland, Felder Lang served two terms in the Georgia State Legislature as representative from Charlton County, Georgia. At this time, the first Railroad in the County was from Savannah to Jacksonville. This was about 1873. The road is now a part of the Atlantic Coastline.

In 1894 he sold the farm and cattle and became a turpentine operator at Uptonville, Georgia. In 1898 he sold the place and moved to a place near Citra, Florida, where he and his son Louis operated another turpentine farm. At this time he accumulated 17,000 acres of pine land on which were many cool sandy bottomed lakes. The Post Office was Ft. McCoy, but he soon established a village post office named Dexter, Florida, with himself as postmaster.

In 1904 he bought the home of Mr. C.M. Brown in Ocala. This place of twenty acres had been up to 1896 a fine orange grove. The great freeze of 1896 had killed all the fruit trees, so it was only a farm. In December of that year Mr. Brown invited him to see Miami before he went to Ft. Myers or Inverness, either of which might have pleased him as a place of retirement. After seeing Miami in December of 1904 he said he had never seen a place so beautiful and full of promise. So he bought from H. Price Williams, overseer of the Lawrence Place next door, a citrus grove on the Miami River, consisting of a bungalow, a boathouse and a barn. He named it Incachee, like the Atkinson home in Georgia, which was the home where he lived when he was first married.

The Williams family had a flower business and sold roses to the Royal Palm Hotel at the mouth of the Miami River. Fruit which had been selling at $7.00 per box dropped so low that the grove was no longer profitable. Also, Felder’s sight was failing and he anticipated the blindness he suffered the last years of his life. He sold the grove in 1913 and moved to 675 W. Flagler Street, Miami, where he died of a hernia at the age of 76 (March 8th, 1919). He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Miami, Florida.

Felder Lang was a man with a great sense of humor, integrity and honor. He loved people and loved to have them around him. He was an Elk, both in Ocala and Miami. Some of his Miami friends were R.E. Hall, W.W. Farris, Edward Lummus, E.B. Romph, J.H. Tatam, C.T. McCrimmon, J.W. Girtman, Dr. James M. Jackson, Captain Marsh, Captain J.C. Kuney, Captain Ross, W.A. Marsh, H.G. Copinger, Mr. John Ellis and H.H. Kilpatrick.